The children were fantastic travellers. As we inched our way across the map of Europe, then Central Asia, their capabilities of course increased. Of school there was none but plenty of home education more than filled the gap. Some basics, especially arithmetic and English for Fionn, who had only attended one year of primary, we taught. Most of what they learned was autonomous, though, absorbed almost osmotically. Geography was all around; arithmetic was course and distance calculations and money changing; history was often just chat, if Scottish, or visiting places like Avignon, or Budapest, or Kiev... And as it happens, they did go to school, in Slovenia, by invitation, for two terms, where they were taught in Slovenian! PHOTO Courtesy of DRG

I first came across this extra ordinary fellow called David Renwick Grant back in 1996 when I was planning my Patagonian trip on horseback, he gave me a book about his amazing journey with his family and he taught me a lot. Most of all he inspired me a lot! He still does. We have been in contact on and off throughout the years, lately on Facebook, where he is one of the most dignified of my 2137 friends. Not long ago I read about a Family on Bikes on Facebook and felt a lot of joy! But when reading about them I realized they were very criticized by people who thought it was crazy to bring children travelling. I was stunned! We have only been sedentary, we humans, for no more than maybe a 1000 years of our total of 150 000 as a species. How than can travelling be bad? So I asked David Renwick Grant what he thought.

THREADS FROM THE TAPESTRY

by

David Renwick Grant

I was on board the RSS Discovery last week. She’s berthed permanently in her home port of Dundee, where she was built and it was several years since I had had a look at her. Whatever their preferred means of travel, I would defy anyone who walks aboard and looks up at the crow’s nest not to see in their minds eye a landscape of ice and snow, instead of the solid stone face of Dundee and the gently-flowing river Tay. The old ship has been much modified over the years but you can still stand at the wheel or look into the galley or view the restored cabins of Scott and others. I could feel a tingle start in my feet, as I contemplated faraway places….

Scott’s two expeditions were massive affairs, as was Shackleton’s and to a lesser extent Amundsen’s. At the other end of the world, Nansen’s voyage in the Fram was equally large. Yet, I reflected, it is not essential to be equipped as if for a military operation. Nor is it a prerequisite to have spent years in training and be hugely fit. Had it been, my family and I would probably never have started, let alone completed, the first, and so far as I know, so far the only global circumnavigation by horse-drawn caravan. Yes, I did write ‘my family and I.’ Horse travel is slow, it’s a long way around the world and I wasn’t going to leave them behind for years. Seven years, as it turned out.

The idea of travelling en famille had begun almost as a joke, during a particularly vile day of low, scudding cloud and horizontal rain, sitting by a fire that would not draw and with smoke blowing back down the chimney into the room. The carpet was partially airborne but not from magic, just the draught blasting in under the door. The three children were pretty small then, which ruled out walking and cycling, I never learnt to sail and anyway (ex-)wife Kate got seasick. So that seemed to leave converting a bus, truck, or retired fire-engine perhaps. Anyway, we did nothing about it then, nor in the following year but we talked about it more and more often. Then one day, while I was working away from home, living in ‘digs’ (lodgings) in Lancaster during the week, I was lying in bed reading a magazine. I turned a page and there was this article about horse-drawn caravan holidays in Ireland and a most beguiling picture of a skewbald cob pulling a light bow-top wagon. That was it! That was how we should travel. And, about two years later, we did.

What I think we demonstrated very convincingly is that there are ways to travel as a family, even over an extended period, that neither break the bank nor destroy the life-chances of the children involved. Indeed on the latter point, the reverse is true. I mean, how many kids get the chance to jog along on their own pony across the Mongolian plains while reading a text-book! Financially, I reckon it cost us approximately £10,000 per year, which is pretty modest for five people, a horse and, for part of the time, two dogs. PHOTO Courtesy of DRG

The process of preparation we went through is largely common to any extended journey. In addition we had to find a suitable caravan and suitable horse. It would have been good to have found some suitable sponsors too, but 560-odd letters produced only a limited amount, nearly all donations or discounts, for which we were very grateful but which was never going to be enough. The caravan ended up being purpose-built, to my own design, by Gaulds of Crieff, Perthshire.  I had been advised that the Netherlands was the best place to seek a driving horse. This would also avoid the need for the extensive palaver involved when crossing a frontier with a horse – and risking life, horse and caravan to manic motorists on Britain’s narrow roads. There was a very steep learning curve to follow, though, before we finally set off, nearly five weeks after crossing the North Sea.

You learn a lot about people when you travel during a seemingly continuously wet autumn,  through the monotonously flat beet-growing countryside of northern France. The caravan seemed to get smaller and smaller as it filled with more and more wet gear and we were confined to sitting in it, at day’s end, because there was nowhere to go and more wet walking held no appeal. In fact, the children, who were only ten, nine and six then, stayed aboard most of the time and if it was flat enough, I would ride on occasionally, though it was actually warmer walking. With little to look at, villages few and far between, even I was beginning to wonder whether we were quite daft. The children bore up amazingly. It was as well that we had a good, if limited, supply of books and games with us and many a deadly session of Yahtze, Vulgar Bulgars or Nine Men’s Morris kept everyone amused of an evening when cooped up with rain still hammering on the roof.

The children were fantastic travellers. As we inched our way across the map of Europe, then Central Asia, their capabilities of course increased. Of school there was none but plenty of home education more than filled the gap. Some basics, especially arithmetic and English for Fionn, who had only attended one year of primary, we taught. Most of what they learned was autonomous, though, absorbed almost osmotically. Geography was all around; arithmetic was course and distance calculations and money changing; history was often just chat, if Scottish, or visiting places like Avignon, or Budapest, or Kiev… And as it happens, they did go to school, in Slovenia, by invitation, for two terms, where they were taught in Slovenian!

As John Ridgway wrote to me before we left: “Do it. You'll regret it for the rest of your lives if you don't.” PHOTO Courtesy of DRG

By the time we had reached the Ukraine, crossed Russia and reached Kazakhstan, we were all seasoned horse-drivers, foragers, wood gatherers and, to an extent, quite good linguists. Our first horse had proved too light and been changed back in France for a solid one-tonne model, who had by now become a much-loved member of the family. The further east we went, the more hospitable and friendly people became. The weather, however, did not and we had a fairly hellish couple of months before finally arriving in Almaty, the then-capital of Kazakhstan, in temperatures of -28° with plenty snow on the ground. The wonderful thing we had found was that, moving along at walking pace meant one could meet and talk – or at least communicate – with people along the way.

We always stopped for winter and that gave us all sorts of opportunities. I have a tape of Eilidh interviewing her little brother for Slovenian radio in Slovenian. Torcuil and I took to the skies in a microlight in Hungary. In Russia, we went trawling for crayfish. We had seen the empty shops of rural Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan – and learnt the secret of obtaining supplies in many different ways (all honest, I must add – we never stole so much as a cabbage).

There came problems in plenty, of course. We were hit glancing blows by cars in France and Italy. We were held back, sometimes for days, by the paperwork required for taking a horse across an international border. It took a week to wear down the Russians and get through to Mongolia – but in the interim we were taken to a concert by the Direktor of the Rajon where the noted Kazakh singer Roza Rimbayeva gave a stunning performance and somehow I ended up on stage at the end! We were bothered by drunks on several occasions, the worst of these leading to a serious situation in Mongolia where the prospect of gaol for me loomed, for a while. In fact, the only times I felt threatened were caused by drunken behaviour; even wartime in Yugoslavia seemed safer. Traceur, our ‘main engine’ was largely healthy right up until our last winter, in South Dakota, where, tragically, he died of a brain tumour.

Mostly we had great experiences, a lot of fun, much hard work, saw superb swathes of still-unspoilt parts of the planet and encountered some wonderful people. The children survived our return and have all been doing well in their chosen spheres. I was the one who seemed to find it hardest to settle down. So much so, in fact, that I set off on a solo kayak journey across the Baltic from Sweden, then up and down the rivers Dvina, Ulla, Berezina and Dnepr, finishing on the Black Sea at Odessa. It was different, contained a lot fewer pressures because I had no-one else to worry about, but was not, on the whole, as enjoyable.

The Grant Family! PHOTO Courtesy of DRG

What I think we demonstrated very convincingly is that there are ways to travel as a family, even over an extended period, that neither break the bank nor destroy the life-chances of the children involved. Indeed on the latter point, the reverse is true. I mean, how many kids get the chance to jog along on their own pony across the Mongolian plains while reading a text-book! Financially, I reckon it cost us approximately £10,000 per year, which is pretty modest for five people, a horse and, for part of the time, two dogs. £70,000 is still a fair lump of money of course, even today; it came from the proceeds of the sale of our house, plus some fees for writing and even for tuition on a couple of occasions. With hindsight, we should have prepared some sort of act or entertainment we could have offered – a portable means of making money and one that does not require a rigmarole to do.

As John Ridgway wrote to me before we left: “Do it. You’ll regret it for the rest of your lives if you don’t.”

David Renwick Grant

A short biography of David:

At the end of 1997, David Grant – and his family: ex-wife Kate, children Torcuil (1980), Eilidh (1981) and Fionn (1984) – returned from travelling around the world with a horse and caravan, an unique journey which took them seven years; across fifteen countries on three continents and, incidentally, into the Guinness Book of World Records. His story of the family’s epic global journey was published by Simon & Schuster as The Seven Year Hitch, (1999) and in paperback in 2000.

Before this, he had worked as a jackaroo and sheep-shearer in Australia, in ecology and wildlife management for the Nature Conservancy (now Scottish Natural Heritage), as a crofter and prawn creel fisherman on Skye and as part of a film-crew on Orkney.

David was educated in Edinburgh, at George Watson’s College and Merchiston Castle School. After a year in the paper-making industry, he went to Aberdeen University, graduating with an MA degree in 1963. Two years in Australia followed, before a return to university, Edinburgh this time, to take a MSc degree in ecology and wildlife management.

In 2000, David undertook a solo kayak expedition from Sweden to the Black Sea, following an old Viking trade route via the rivers Daugava/Western Dvina, Ulla, Berezina and Dneiper. Along the way, he kept a look out for traces of Vikings, observed the way of life in places he passed and kept a note of the wildlife he saw, and visited local Bahá’í communities. The book about the journey, Spirit of the Vikings, was published in 2007 by The Long Riders’ Guild Press.

David’s other books are: A Submarine at War – the brief life of HMS Trooper (Periscope Publishing, 2006) about the World War II T-class boat in which his half-brother lost his life along with the rest of the crew in 1943 and The Wagon Travel Handbook (The Long Riders’ Guild Press, 2007), a distillation of his and others’ experiences of preparing for life on the, mainly horse-drawn, road in the 21^st century.

Stellans travels on a push bike in Kazakhstan.

I have always had a soft spot for touring- and adventure cyclists. No wonder, since I have spent most of my exploring life on a push-bike. But, I also think, it is by far the most demanding way to travel. Much harder than the over publicised adventures of climbing, skiing to the poles and such Expeditions, mainly due to the fact that you on a bicycle come across other cultures, continuously confront a variety of people and diseases, poverty and social realities and you travel during long times. Years compared to 6-12 weeks skiing or climbing. It is a genre of exploration which receives far too little appreciation in the adventure media of today, who prefers self obesseded adventures to the poles or climbing Everest. Which is fine, but it gets to much attention compared to the more profound way of cycling. I have given you a chance to meet two of great touring cyclists so far, Alistair Humphreys and Helen Lloyd. And they have a lot of very interesting things to say about most things, just because they have spent so much time trying to figure things out, mind wise and with the heart and their eyes. Next one coming up is a fellow Swede, Stellan Johansson, who has written about Kazakhstan, a country most of us know very little about!

My travels on a push bike in Kazakhstan by Stellan Johansson

I still remember the feeling I had when I crossed the border to Kazakhstan for the first time. It was back in the summer of 2002. I was filled with curiosity to see the country many Russians had tried to scare me about. They said, in Kazakhstan, there would be no roads but still there would be bandits along the roads and they would rob me of everything. I was worried and even scared when I saw the border station south of Kurgan, where I would cross from Russia into Kazakhstan. I had not had time to be worried about Kazakhstan, but what I had on my mind was more about how the police at the Russian border would react if they discovered that my Russian visa had expired 32 days earlier.

It went smoothly with customs, but with passport control, there was a problem. The first thing they noticed was that I had no entry stamp for Russia, where it should show the border station and date when I crossed into Russia.

I told them why. I had crossed the border from Belarus and had not received a stamp in the passport. It was true, but they asked about the exit stamp from Belarus, which also was missing. I did not have a chance to explain because the man had already discovered that my Russian visa expired for more than a month! There was not much to do but wait and see what would happen.

Why do I always pick the worst roads? After riding few days of bad gravel roads or bypassing roadwork for days, it felt good every time I came to an asphalt road. There is also something I always ask if someone stops. How far is it to the asphalt? The first kilometer always feels best; it feels as if you are in paradise. Paradise does not attract me, and it doesn’t take long time before I want to get back to gravel.

After eight hours at the border, the police had decided that I had broke the law and had to be fined. I was fined 100 rubles and they told me that I had to go to Moscow. In Moscow, I should contact the Swedish embassy and get help to get a new Russian visa so that I could leave the country. There was not much more to do at the border than to return to Kurgan, 150 km north. From Kurgan, it’s 2000 km to Moscow  I had some luck at the border and got lift back to Kurgan by a truckdriver.

Twenty-four hours after I left the border post, I was on the outskirts of Petropolsok in northern Kazakhstan. I had been told earlier in the day that there were trains between Kurgan and Omsk in Russia that crossed into Kazakh territory and also that the trains stop in Kazakhstan. One of the places trains would stop at is in a small village on the outskirts of Petropolosk and there would be no border post. It felt like it was made for me and I made it into Kazakhstan.

I didn’t take many steps before I got stopped by police and I was really scared, but luck was on my side. The police were not border police and didn’t know much about passports and visas. He pointed out that I missed an entry stamp in my Kazakh visa. He also told me that I should give him $ 100, as a fine, to be able to continue but I said no. Forty-five  minutes later he agreed with me and left me alone so that I could continue. I was happy.  It felt very good to be inside the border and looking for a pitch to put my tent.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Kazakhstan, very nice people and the police were not as terrible as everyone had said in Russia. Of course, it happened many times that I got stopped, but with a little smile and laughter, it often ended with the police offering me tea or food.

The reason I cycled to Kazakhstan for the first time was mostly a coincidence. Kazakhstan, to me, was mostly an area that lies between Sweden and Hong Kong. An area I just had to pass through on the way to China. I had no or low expectations and knew very little about the country when I cycled south from Petropavlovsk. I knew that there is a large, deserted steppe in front of me and that was what attracted me most, after having cycled through Russian agricultural area. I had biked through the outback of Australia two years earlier and I knew how it would feel to just pedal on through deserted areas. I liked that kind of biking very much and wanted to return to it again after Australia.

Kazakhstan has a lot of steppe, but that’s not all.  There were many things unlike anything else I had seen, even in Australia. There are beautiful wastelands of the Sahara and the Middle East that provides the same kick, but these areas are much drier.
In Kazakhstan, there are still plants which gives life to the area.

Kazakhstan has a lot of steppe, but that’s not all. There were many things unlike anything else I had seen, even in Australia. There are beautiful wastelands of the Sahara and the Middle East that provides the same kick, but these areas are much drier. In Kazakhstan, there are still plants which gives life to the area.

I did my first cycling through Central Asia 2002-2003 and liked most of the days. I just loved to ride on desolate gravel roads between cities. I do not know how many times I have been angry at my own stubbornness, making me take the worst road, just about every time.
Why do I always pick the worst roads? After riding few days of bad gravel roads or bypassing roadwork for days, it felt good every time I came to an asphalt road. There is also something I always ask if someone stops. How far is it to the asphalt? The first kilometer always feels best; it feels as if you are in paradise. Paradise does not attract me, and it doesn’t take long time before I want to get back to gravel.

My second long ride was in 2002-2003. I did it to test the limits of what I can do. How high altitude can I tolerate?  Can I stand high and low temperatures?  Could I ride on? I also tested how far I could go during a day or a night, and so on. I had the opportunity to test it in Kazakhstan, and perhaps because of it I like the country much.

I left Kazakhstan during the summer of 2003, to ride on to the Tian Shan and Tibet. It was not until the spring of 2008 I made it back in the country. I crossed the border from Turkmenistan to Kazakhstan.

The road between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are hardly worthy to be called roads.  Many don’t even appear on maps. I had spent time, some years previously, studying maps of Central Asia and wondered why there was no road between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. I also asked when I was in the area in 2003 about roads linking the different countries and the answer was that there was no road between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Later I found a map which there was a stretch of road. I was stuck and felt that I just have to ride there. The border area is beyond the cities. Guide books mention the borderlands the last outposts of civilization and describes it as the area that is not even worth thinking about to visit. It is perhaps precisely what attracts my mind but I can’t put words to it. Inhospitable, desolate, salty soil? I’m there.

I was around in Central Asia during 2008 -2010 and was looking for new challenges and new untouched roads.
Although I chose the smaller roads, the more inhospitable areas and those areas which seemed to be at least the population it was nothing like the first trip. The feeling of doing something extreme was gone and also the challenge to test the limits.

Making the first winter tour by bicycle was a wonderful challenge I experienced during my first ride in Kazakhstan. Doing the same thing a few years later, doesn’t capture the feeling. It does not matter whether you choose a tougher route or a cold season. The exhilaration of the first ride will never come back. In order to get the kick, it has to be new and and extreme.

I knew that there is a large, deserted steppe in front of me and that was what attracted me most, after having cycled through Russian agricultural area. I had biked through the outback of Australia two years earlier and I knew how it would feel to just pedal on through deserted areas.

I have left Kazakhstan again and it felt sad to do it. But at the same time, it felt like I have seen what I wanted. There are not really any more new places to visit and I have been around most of the country. I have visit the cities I wanted to see and seen the steppe during different times of the year. I have got the feeling of the hard cold winter in Kazakhstan and also the hot dry summers. I think I have to wait to return to the country again, but I know I’ll return.  It’s great country, worth visiting many times.

Stellan Johansson

Born 1977 and lived in Skåne in southern Sweden.
Studied biology with specializing in botany at the universities of Umeå, Lund and Stockholm.
Did his thesis in plant systems on a group of plants from Southern Africa in Stockholm, completing his work in 2002.

Biked about 80,000 km in 39 countries over the past 10 years.

Made his first bike ride, in 2000, from Melbourne – Perth in Australia

2002-2003 Cycled Sweden – Hong Kong and the route went through East Europé, Central Asia, Tibet and China.

2004-2005 planned to do a bike ride from North Cape in Norway to Cape Town in South Africa. He had to stop biking in Ethiopa after being hurt by kids throwing stones. He left the country with fractures in the skull bone.
2005-2006 He did a new route in Africa; this time in West Africa. He cycled around most time in the Sahara. In autumn 2005, he took a break from the cycling and paddled 800 km in a wooden canoe along the river Niger in Mali.

2006 Made a short bike trip in autumn in northern Morocco and Spain

2007-2010 Planned to ride his bike along the silk route from Cairo in Egypt to Beijing in China. He changed the plan at the border to China and decided to ride back to Sweden instead.

Read more about his adventures at here!

Review:

“Mikael Strandberg spoke at TEDxMälaren that was held in Stockholm. TEDxMälaren is an independently organised event which is a sub-programme of TED in the vision to share ideas worth spreading. Mikael kicked off the event with an inspiring talk on humanity and communication especially in foreign countries through his expedition in Siberia. He delivered messages of how one should never judge people, how one should learn to adjust in foreign environments and the humanity of people through his experiences. He left the audience pondering over these lessons and reflecting on themselves. Mikael proved to be a remarkable explorer, braving through what seemed impossible and an inspiring lecturer, teaching people great values and lessons that one should learn in life in a humourous and relaxed manner. He is definitely one of the best lecturer I have come across and I hope he will continue to inspire people around the world!”

July 5, 2010

Hui Qi Foong, Intern, Biorecro AB

It seems like my Siberian journey has, once again, become interesting globally. So interesting that I met my partner on that trip, Johan Ivarsson, a few days ago, first time in 3 years! It was great seeing him, so he wrote this piece for me. About his time after Siberia, a trip which dramatically changed both of our lives!

During this Expedition, we made these 7 3-minute TV-slots!

WORLD FAMOUS EXPLORER JOINS KENSINGTON TOURS
AS EXPLORER-IN-RESIDENCE

Mikael Strandberg to support launch of Kensington’s new Expedition Series

“Kensington Tours' mission,” says Willner “is to provide private guided experiences to every corner of our world. For every budget, every schedule, every group size, and every interest, we can tailor a perfect tour. Our collaboration with Mikael and our Explorer-in-Residence program is another example of our commitment to truly special travel experiences – whatever your travel style.”

A professional explorer for the past quarter century, Mikael Strandberg is considered one of the 50 most important explorers on earth and The Explorers Club has called him “the best contemporary explorer in the world.” Strandberg will collaborate with Kensington founder and CEO Jeff Willner to design and develop this new product offering for intrepid travelers.  Strandberg will also be available to guide these expeditions as well as tailor-made expeditions, upon request.

“Kensington Tours’ mission,” says Willner “is to provide private guided experiences to every corner of our world. For every budget, every schedule, every group size, and every interest, we can tailor a perfect tour. Our collaboration with Mikael and our Explorer-in-Residence program is another example of our commitment to truly special travel experiences – whatever your travel style.”

Willner and Strandberg recently undertook a scouting mission to The Democratic Republic of the Congo to assess its potential and readiness as a destination for intrepid travelers.  Congo itineraries – featuring endangered Eastern Lowland Gorillas, Pygmy tribes and the Nyiragongo volcano – are the first in the Expedition Series.  Other itineraries under development include Antarctica exploration with polar explorers, motorcycle safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and Russia, deep dive submarine into the Cayman Trench and cultural discoveries in Yemen, Oman and North Korea. These itineraries will appeal to intrepid global explorers and will complement Kensington’s complete collection of affordable private guided tours to the world’s must-see destinations.

“It’s the places that people believe that they cannot go, these are the places where the hidden wonders of the world and breathtaking experiences await,” said Strandberg. “The Expedition Series will highlight many of these destinations.  I am indeed honored to be an Explorer-in-Residence for this brave company. Brave makes a difference, helps a country, builds bridges and creates trips which open people’s minds. With a visionary and a lover of humanity like Jeff Willner at its helm, Kensington Tours is really in the forefront of what good tourism should be today.”

“Some of the Expedition itineraries may require hard work, some may be expensive and some will feature unconventional destinations, but all promise a unique experience,” confirms Willner.  “Whether escorted by an Explorer-in-Residence or not, all of our tours will be carefully managed by our local offices and local expert guides to ensure a safe and supported adventure.”

####

“It’s the places that people believe that they cannot go, these are the places where the hidden wonders of the world and breathtaking experiences await,” said Strandberg. “The Expedition Series will highlight many of these destinations. I am indeed honored to be an Explorer-in-Residence for this brave company. Brave makes a difference, helps a country, builds bridges and creates trips which open people’s minds. With a visionary and a lover of humanity like Jeff Willner at its helm, Kensington Tours is really in the forefront of what good tourism should be today.”

About Kensington Tours
Kensington Tours offers custom private guided tours to over 80 countries around the world. The flexibility of Kensington’s offerings allows for personalization of every tour at a wide range of price points – resulting in a handcrafted vacation experience at an unbeatable value. The company’s private tours are regularly benchmarked at 30% less than identical tours from premium group operators. Kensington Tours was named one of the ‘Best Adventure Travel Companies on Earth’ in 2008 & 2009 by the editors of National Geographic Adventure magazine.

About Mikael Standberg:
He started his professional career as an explorer 23 years ago. Strandberg is currently working as an explorer, a lecturer and a writer. He has also produced three internationally renowned documentaries for television Patagonia – 3,000 Kilometres by Horse and The Masaai People – 1,000 Kilometres by Foot and his much awarded 58 Degrees – Exploring Siberia on Skies.  Frequently appearing in travel and adventure programmes, Swedish Television SVT and National Geographic have both made documentaries about his life. Voted Explorer Hero by the National Geographic 2002, Strandberg is an Honorary Ambassador of his native district Älvdalen and Cappadocia, Turkey. In 2005 he was awarded The Determination in the Face of Adversity Medal by the Explorers Club. The Travellers Club of Sweden awarded him the prestigious Silver Medal in 2006. The Travellers Club of Finland awarded Mikael the prestigious Mannerheim Medal at a ceremony in October, 2006.

About Jeff Willner
Kensington Tours is the inspiration of intrepid explorer and Royal Geographic Society Fellow Jeff Willner begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_highlighting. His thirst for travel stems from growing up in Africa where his parents worked for most of his childhood, and where he discovered the richness of global cultures. A veteran of global expeditions to over 70 countries, he has criss-crossed the continents to experience the extraordinary. During these years, Jeff realized the vast difference between a package tour and personal discovery — where deep knowledge and personal attention of a local guide can turn a trip into an experience. It is from these roots that Jeff began building his vision for Kensington Tours. With a commitment to rethinking the way we travel, and drawing on his years with McKinsey & Company and Wharton, he recruited a strong team of destination experts (with real in-country experience) and top IT professionals to build an award winning travel company that now spans the globe.

For more information please contact:
Jeff Willner
CEO,
Kensington Tours
jeff.willner@kensingtontours.com

“Some of the Expedition itineraries may require hard work, some may be expensive and some will feature unconventional destinations, but all promise a unique experience,” confirms Willner. “Whether escorted by an Explorer-in-Residence or not, all of our tours will be carefully managed by our local offices and local expert guides to ensure a safe and supported adventure.”

Johan Ivarsson freezing his butt off in Siberia......

For several reasons I haven´t met my old pal Johan Ivarsson from the Siberian Expedition for a long time. We communicate often though. But I probably get 2-3 questions or emails a week regarding Johan and what he is doing nowadays. So, I asked Johan to fill all of us in about his life, which he has done below. In an expert way as always. He is the best of the best when it comes to partners. At 19 he performed like an aged professional in every way. He is a unique human being and, if he had those ambitions, could easily become a legend in exploration. Here´s his thoughts about life after Siberia:

The aftermath of the Siberian Expedition

‘It couldn’t be more different’, I’m thinking to myself while sitting here at my apartment in the city of Enköping. The temperature outside is at +29 degrees Celsius and the inside temperature somewhere around +26. I’m thinking back to the adventures in Siberia where I together with Mikael spent ten months in a land which in many ways was so different to what I was used to, but in many others very similar. The climate was of course the biggest difference and adding to that we were risking our lives several times during the expedition. But the people, the mentality and to some extent, also the culture were at least similar to what I was used to. It’s been just over five years now since we arrived back in Sweden.

How did the expedition affect me, and what has happened during these five years? Well, that’s a very good question that I will try and answer here below. The truth is, though, that I’m not quite sure. It’s very hard to know in what ways certain experiences changes or affects you. You’re right in the middle of it and before you know it your thoughts have changed and your life has simply just taken a slightly different path.

Anyway, the first change that hit me when coming home was the fact that everyone seemed to recognize me. That was a new experience for me. It was certainly not throughout the entire of Sweden but in my home village, the surrounding areas and amongst the people I would soon be in contact with. You see, even before we had finished the expedition I was offered a job at one of the companies that we had cooperation with, over satellite phone. It was from one of the, at that time, leading distributors in Sweden for outdoor equipment. After having explained that I at that moment had no thoughts at all about what to do when I got home and that I would have to take their suggestion into consideration, I went on with the current task of surviving until the end of the expedition. After we had finished and gotten home I contacted the company and said that I would gladly accept their offer. Two months later I moved to the small town of Alfta in the beautiful parts of Hälsingland. Almost all the people that I got in contact with during my time at that company knew something about the expedition, which of course was of great help in building relations.

Johan Ivarsson showing the locals how bad our skins were in the cold.....

Another major thing that I noticed pretty soon, and this has more to do with how the expedition affected me personally, was when meeting some of my old friends. These were good friends that I had spent endless hours with during the years before the expedition, but now I couldn’t believe how childish they were acting and the way they were thinking about everyday life and their situations. At least it seemed like this to me and it was absurd. It took a while before I realized that I was actually the only one thinking this, though. They were still, just like me, only 21 years old and there was nothing strange with their ways. I had been exactly like them before the expedition but something had changed during it. I had matured a lot, or at least I’d like to think that this was the reason. Whatever the reason, it affected me a lot since because of that I lost contact with many of my old friends. We had simply grown apart and things had to change. With this came of course also new friends and new perspectives which has lead to a lot of fun and many experiences.

I spent four and a half years working for the same company in Alfta before moving on. Currently I’m living in the city of Enköping, just west of Stockholm. I moved here in December after finding a new job in Uppsala, still working with outdoor equipment, but in a better position than before. This was not the main reason for moving though, because when moving here I also moved in with my Dutch girlfriend. We met over the internet a year or so before the expedition. She was one of the few people that I kept in contact with throughout the expedition, even though we were not a couple at that time. It took almost 3,5 years after coming home before we finally met for the first time, though, and since that first time we have both been looking forward to her moving to Sweden.

Marieke and Johan Ivarsson figuring out life together!

My plans for the future are not that clear at the moment. I would love to go for another expedition somewhere. However, it would have to be something that I really feel for and would love to do. I have some ideas, of course, but at the moment I’m not pursuing any of them. My short term goal is to settle down in my new situation with Marieke (my girlfriend) and get into the rhythm of things. Everything is still new and exciting and there’s no reason not to enjoy it! You never know what might happen, though.

Read more about Johan at his homepage www.johanivarsson.com or go here!

Johan together with Dima who was quite drunk during our visit, but extremely generous!

Normal-na!

Two words of great wisdom! Words that, by the day, is turning me way to be into the Siberian way of Normal-na! It defines pretty much how one has to look at life to be able to survive the harsh Siberian circumstances. It is definitely a way to live, and be relatively happy, no matter what happens!

Just to give you readers an idea what I mean, please read this report below, sent during very harsh circumstances from Siberia!

29 Nov, 04 – 14:54

GPS-pos: N66°18´ | E151°46´ | Alt: 24 M
-43°F, it is cold into the bones today. We´re at an abandoned logcabin at N 66°18´52,0 and E 151°46´34,7 after 3 freezing nights in the tent. We´ve got the rusty stove going slowly. It is just below zero after 3 hours hard work on getting the fire working.

Even though we´ve had -43°F the last three days, we´re freezing pretty much all the time and it is no doubt very cold, I think we finally are getting used to how to handle this extreme cold. We needed to, since it will only get colder from now on and we´ve done only 35% of the distance to Srednekolymsk.

I promised myself before leaving Zyryanka, no matter how much the cold would dominated our lives or would damaged us, the dispatches would have to be more than words of suffering. Even though there´s very little positive aspects with freezing in itself, there´s plenty of positive things out here in this freezing cold. I am thinking about the extremely hardy, but enormously kind and generous, people living out here along the Kolyma. Let me tell you about three of them.

Ivan Fralov - a true Siberian and one of the most extra ordinary people I have ever come across! Mr Normal-na personified!

Ivan Fralov is a living legend in this neighborhood. This is due to the fact the he in the late spring 1979 skied from Zyryanka to Cherskii. It was, and still is, considered heroic. Today he´s in his early sixties and he´s still a small packet of power. And when he during his yearly holiday in Moscow heard about us, he cut his holiday short and returned to Zyryanka to be able to help and give us good advice. He turned up at our flat the same day we left and wanted to show us the best way out of Zyryanka and to a place we´re we could spend the night indoors. He set of running, in -35°F, making a track for us to follow, for 20 km;s! On and off he stopped, waited for us, gave us cookies and sweets and than sat off running again. Once he reached the old hermit Alexej he turned around in the darkness of dusk and ran back to Zyryanka! Almost a marathon in -35°F.
´´Are you really going to make it?´´ I asked him.
´´Normal-na!´´ ,he laughed and set off.

The old man Alexej had lived by himself for 20 years. He had a rough, but big and majestic beard, and like everyone else we´ve visited north of Zyryanka, his logcabin was pedantically clean and tidy. Alexej offered us hare stew, lot´s of sweet tea and had lots of intelligent questions that we were unable to answer. We slept on a couch near the fire, which Alexej kept alive all night. He had a severe tooth-ache, but didn´t complain.
´´Normal-na!´´ , he said.

Anatolij wasn´t that happy with us. He thought our Russian was poor and said, why do you travel all this way, with all this gear, and can´t even communicate about the great Russian authors? What a waste of energy!

Dima, the yakut, offered us, a couple of days later, frozen raw fish liver when we arrived frozen to the bone, straganina (cold raw fish), hare stew and downed a liter of vodka whilst watching us eating. The liquor made us unable to sleep since it gave Dima lots of energy to entertain us throughout the night with playing the harmonica, discussing cold war politics, crying at length over his dead mother, loathing our choice of equipment or showing us the compulsory family album. The following morning he cooked us fresh pelmeni (Russian variety of ravioli) and gave us a pair of beautiful wolfskinn gloves and a furhat from fox when we left as a parting present.

´´Normal-na!´´ , was his answer when we thanked him profoundly for his kindness and generosity.

For more reports from Siberia, click here!

Our home in Srednekolymsk, Siberia....one little flat......but a very good place to stock frozen fish which later can be used as a weapon!

If it is one truth I have realized throughout all years of travelling, it is the need to speak the language of the place one visits. But, no matter how much you study and learn, some important issues does get lost in the translation. In every way! As this dispatch from Johan Ivarsson and my Siberian Expedition shows!

It is the first of February today, -22°F, a strong southerly have hit us, but we understand that this heat wave is just visiting us briefly and that the extreme cold will soon return. But winds will stay. We´re still in Srednekolymsk. We don´t want to leave until we´ve shown our appreciation to everybody who has helped us during our visit, so we´ve spent the day walking around town, thanking people. At least that was our intention?.

I should have known the minute I heard it knocking on the door early this morning. That a terrible day of misunderstandings was on its way in. It was our neighbor from the flat below us. The same alcoholic neighbor, who together with his alcoholic wife, has kept us awake a third of all nights we´ve lived in the apartment with constant quarrels, fights and with the TV continually turned up on maximum volume. Since we´re happy just to be indoors, we´ve ignored it.

´´It´s my birthday today!´´ , he hollered drunkenly at the same time as he burst into the apartment swinging a frozen white salmon, the schirr and yelled; ´´I´m 59!´´

At the same time as I stuck my hand out to greet him, he thrust the frozen fish in my gut. Now, I am the first to admit that a frozen schirr is one of the best gifts, since it makes the best straganina, but I am utterly against the use of it as a weapon. Fortunately, Johan in his short underwear, quickly grabbed the fish, to avoid further aggression. The neighbor immediately brought out both his passports, the one during the Soviet Era and the new Russian one. As proof of his age. With bodily movements he also showed us that he was still sexually active. Than he started a 20 minute drunken political monologue where we understood that he considered us as spies, that he thought that it was shameful the way Sweden assisted the Nazis during the Second World War and how brave he was himself during this nasty war. Even though it ended a year before he was

Johan and me together with one of our neighbors......we were trying to film him...but batteries ran dead in seconds.....

born. After a while I got fed up with his abuse, since I have a cold and therefore have no patience at all, and shouted euphorically in Russian:

´´Really fantastic to hear!´´

These words made him explode with anger and abuse! Johan, who actively listened until the end, thinks that my remarks came at the wrong time, when the drunken neighbor ranted on about all the Russians that got killed during the war. Terrible mistake again due to the language barrier! No wonder we greeted Julia with joy, our excellent Ukrainian translator, when she arrived at our apartment a couple of hours later to help us with other translations that needed to be done. At least until she uttered the following truth:

´´You are sinners and will burn in hell!´´

I just want to say that she meant no harm. But since she´s a Baptist and since they consider everybody a sinner until they´ve acknowledged the right way to Salvation, she just wanted to make us aware that we, together with 99.99 % of the world population, are going to burn in hell. And during the upcoming hour she lectured us in a way so that my cold changed to a flue and Johans normally pale face turned to the color of rage. After that, utterly exhausted, we all three headed down to the White House, as the local government building is called in Srednekolymsk, to thank the mayor for the great assistance he has given us during our visit. Or at least we tried. Unfortunately we got on to the subject of how we tried to document the extreme cold through our camera lenses. And since I have a habit of trying to pass the odd funny joke, but truthful, in all serious conversations, I explained how we had noticed that when you have a dump outdoors in this extreme cold, the crap almost freezes before it hits the ground. And that we therefore had noticed that many outdoor toilets in Srednekolymsk had mounds of shit the size of an Eiffel Tower. Either it was a bad joke or it, once again, got lost in the translation, because it didn´t go down well with the Mayor.

´´Well, I know we´re still not fully modernized yet´´ , he hissed with anger and continued: ´´I had no idea that you two, who I trusted, would disgrace Srednekolymsk with filming crap like this!´´

Johan and me together with the mayor, Grigorjev and our great friend Anatolij Tarasov....Tarasov did understand me jokes, Grigorjev not....

I spent half an hour, through Julia, asking him to forgive me and to try to get him to understand that it was a misunderstanding.

´´It´s a joke´´ , I said, ´´nothing else. Just a joke about the problems involved in trying to describe the extreme cold through a camera lens.´´

Something got lost in the translation again.

´´I thought you had come here to promote this region to attract tourist´´ he continued very angered: ´´Not to show any proof that we´re still in the Ice Age! Your film will scare away tourists, not attract them!´´

It took an hour to calm things down. We left the Mayor, me feeling utterly misunderstood and sad. We wanted to go back to the flat and hide, but instead we ended up at the local newspaper. The chief-editor wanted to make an interview before we left. But when we sat down to be interviewed, he was still stunned by the news that had traveled there before us, namely that we didn´t use fur clothes whilst skiing and that we lived in a tent with no heating!

´´You´ve gotta be out of your mind!´´ he exclaimed and spent an hour trying to get us to understand our mistakes in choosing modern polar equipment and therefore completely forgot the interview.

Another day of giant misunderstandings bites the dust.

A broken down car in Siberia during winter is life threatening....our guide Julia had to go through a lot!

I added on plenty of fat before setting out to walk against Maasailand....fat is good!..

My friend Nick Gallop, who has written one of my guest writer columns, sent me an interesting query about nutrition on Expeditions. It is a very interesting question, what to eat on an Expedition! So I decided to use his great questions for another blog report!

1. On long, man-powered expeditions like yours what problems do you have getting enough calories and nutrition?

Well, most of the time, there´s just not enough food around! And one can´t haul enough……Therefore, one just have to eat a lot of fat, loads of caloeries and hope that one comes a cross some kind of civilisation every month to be able to fill up with the best possible foods! There´s no doubt about it, that you do take a good beating on long, man hauled Expeditions!

2. What food tips do you have for anyone planning such an expedition?

One just have to add on a few extra kilos before leaving, maybe not 26, like I did before the Siberian Expedition! But quite a few, yes! Because you will loose lots of kilos!

Most of the time, one is really, really tired, so there´s little energy to either fish or hunt or do any complicated meals, so bring lots of freeze dried food, but with some tasty food 1-2 a week. Like dried moose fillet…..I recommend REAL when it comes to freeze dried food. Tasty and filling!

3. It seems to me that people eat some real crap because it’s light to carry and find it too easy to skimp on nutritional content. How can we find the right balance?

Well, REAL is quite good, actually, but on top of that, eat everything you can get your hands on!

Nalim is probably the best fish to make stroganina out of!

4. What’s your favorite expedition food?

Dried moose heart. Dried fish. Like straganina! Yummy!

5. The kit list for your 2004-2005 expedition along the Kolyma river in Siberia included the following items:

Fishing and hunting equipment

• 1 Rifle, Blaser R90 Off-Road with .3006-pipe [barrel]

• Telescopic sight

• Extra ammunition holders

• 1 Cleaning kit

• 2 Fishing rods

• 60 bullets, lead .3006

• A Couple of baits and wobblers

• Extra line, flys, casting balls

• Float, hooks

• Landing net

• Fishing net

Being Swedish, I’d guess that hunting and fishing is very natural to you but many people in the UK probably wouldn’t consider taking this kind of hardware – especially a firearm. How did carrying it change the expedition?

Lot´s of fresh, nutritious food!

The Siberian hares were not only big, but really tasty and nutritious!

6. What problems did carrying a firearm cause you?

In Siberia, on and off, they, the authorities, thought we were hired guns, mercenaries or/and snipers!

7. When planning the expedition did you have a rough idea how much food you could get by hunting and fishing? Were your ideas right?

No, much more difficult than I thought! A typhoon moved in the second day, we didn´t get anything for the first month!

8. Was the time for food gathering included in your plans? – how did the sometimes time-consuming task of finding food fit in with the objectives of the expedition?

We only fished and hunted before the arrival of winter. Hunting and fishing is also part of who we are, so it is a fulfilling work!

9. It’s very easy to pack some simple, lightweight fishing kit and simple hunting kit such as a slingshot. Do you think the time invested in learning to use these effectively will be worth it?

No, hunting should be efficient and the game shouldn´t be suffering unnecessarily. Always shoot to kill the easiest way, e.g the heart. Fishing, sure, but it is harder. Better to bring a net…..

You need a good knife to be able to eat stroganina!

10. If you could carry one packable hunting or fishing item on expedition what would it be and why?

Knife! Well, it is the most vital item. You can do pretty much everything with it!

11. You’ve done some very long cycle expeditions – how different was the food situation on these?

Well, you can carry more food and roads are most of the time close to settlements where u can fill up!

12. As you know I’m very interested in the connections we can make with indigenous people through the use of primitive skills. If we learned about wild food and hunted, fished and foraged on our expedition how would it change our relationship to the people we meet along the way?

Good question! It would make a dramatic difference, since getting to know local people, indigenous or not, you need to have some very close things to associate with to open the door to their hearts, hunting and fishing is part of their lives!

13. How do you think our expedition food choices affect the environment?

Depends where…….In Siberia, hunting and fishing in a proper way, doesn´t harm, but otherwise, if you by local food, this is of course, helping the local economy. So buy locally! If possible….

The food amongst the maasai wasn´t always easy to digest.....

14. What’s the worst thing you’re ever had to eat on an expedition?

Well, drinking raw blood with the maasai wasn´t a hit, I can tell you that! Basically due to the heat and other surrounding smells…..like urin…..and also, am now fan of tree slugs in Congo! And my friend Dogan Tlilic´s iskembe soup, am not big on tripe in soups!

15. Have your food experiences while on expedition changed your thinking on how we treat food back in Europe?

Well, being brought up in the countryside and forest, hunting and fishing has been a big part of my life. So Siberia taught me to take care of every single part of the animal, including the muzzle of a moose and their brains…..yummy!

"I tell them the truth. We are the camera team. We do every aspect when it comes to producing the documentary. Except the final touch of editing the right colors, the subtitling and graphics. We don´t have the machinery to do that. People seldom believe me. "

On and off I get an email from somebody who is on his way to do an Expedition and wants to document the adventure by doing a documentary at the same time. Yesterday I had another request to describe how to do it. Well, there´s many ways. I have throughout the years done 3 of them. The last one from Siberia. And during that Expedition I wrote this specific report, which still stands today:

Making a documentary

Making a documentary and TV-program´s in -58°F

25 Jan, 05 – 22:09
GPS-pos: N67°28´ | E153°42´ | Alt: 11 M

It is the 25th of January today and the temperature is -55°F. Unfortunately the temperature seems to be heading downwards again. We´ve both caught a cold and this is due to two types of stress we´re experiencing at the moment. Firstly, the positive stress, because we´re working day and night with a new TV-program to be sent off. And secondly, the negative type of stress, since we know that we´ll soon be outdoors, day and night, for a month to come. We´re really worried this time. Unfortunately, we know what to expect out there.

Johan Ivarsson sending one of many reports over satellite. A very cold job in Siberia!

One of the most frequent comments I get from people back home, generally whilst lecturing, and through many emails on this trip, is how in earth did we persuade a camera team to join us on the Expedition and film us at all times. I tell them the truth. We are the camera team. We do every aspect when it comes to producing the documentary. Except the final touch of editing the right colors, the subtitling and graphics. We don´t have the machinery to do that. People seldom believe me. Which I can well understand, since they´re used to adventurers who primarily do sporting Expeditions and lack the knowledge how to film, edit, think dramaturgically and don´t understand the full value of proper sound editing. They´re used to adventurers who have a professional camera man which shows up on and off during the Expedition, or as the general rule seems to be, they do a lot of professional filming during the preparations and afterwards and then use static cut-ins from the Expedition taken by the adventurer himself. All generally shoot from a tripod. There´s absolutely nothing wrong with this. At times it is very exciting, interesting and ground breaking. But when you´ve seen a bunch of the same types of production, it turns out utterly boring. My opinion. I am of the belief that every new documentary should add something new to the general knowledge of daily life and its own genre. The worst, though, I think, is when this type of adventurer considers a production made this way as his own. Unfortunately, this genre of ours, is full of too many self-centered individuals. An adventurer once called me on the mobile a few years ago and asked me if I could assist him with the right contacts at SVT, Sweden´s biggest, most serious and best TV-company.

´´I know how to film!´´ he exclaimed when I told him it was no easy thing for your work or your idea to get accepted, but he continued self-assured: ´´It is dead easy!´´

The temperature was so low that we couldn´t persuade people to stay outdoors more than quarter of an hour, they simply froze too much, so we didn´t get one single decent scene from this visit. And when we do have interesting people in front of the camera, and who on top of that doesn´t get bothered by continues re-takes, the camera fails us. In general, the camera doesn´t cope with the cold more than 10 minutes per day before the tapes freezes solid. And it takes at least two hours every time for the camera to thaw out. It doesn´t seem to help at all that we´ve made a cover from and old blanket to keep it warm! And it is only during the first 30 seconds that you actually can see what you´re filming. After that, all you have in your eye piece is a lot of lines.

It isn´t. This adventurer hasn´t, of course, done one single production by himself. And nothing he´s done so far produced by others have appeared on SVT. To be your own camera team is very difficult and I think it is impossible if you don´t make it a life style as I´ve done. And as Johan is doing as well on this Expedition. Every single moment we´re spending in the canoe or skiing, when not thinking about our beloved ones or when one is too tired to think, one has to plan for the next scene. Where to find the right atmosphere, the right light and a scene which can develop and move your documentary ahead. And trying to plan your filming when you get attacked by a 800 lbs heavy bear isn´t easy. And it is even harder to get it on film! Fortunately, we´ve understood a long time ago, how utterly dull we are ourselves in comparison with the people we meet during our Expeditions. But filming other people can even be more difficult. Especially in this extreme cold, which is putting a severe strain on the success of our upcoming documentary and our monthly TV-program´s.

As an example if this, let me tell you about last week when we spent 12 tedious and bumpy hours in a jeep to reach a very interesting village. The temperature was so low that we couldn´t persuade people to stay outdoors more than quarter of an hour, they simply froze too much, so we didn´t get one single decent scene from this visit. And when we do have interesting people in front of the camera, and who on top of that doesn´t get bothered by continues re-takes, the camera fails us. In general, the camera doesn´t cope with the cold more than 10 minutes per day before the tapes freezes solid. And it takes at least two hours every time for the camera to thaw out. It doesn´t seem to help at all that we´ve made a cover from and old blanket to keep it warm! And it is only during the first 30 seconds that you actually can see what you´re filming. After that, all you have in your eye piece is a lot of lines. Once back indoors we leave the camera untouched for four nervous hours until we check what has stuck or not. Unfortunately we´ve lost a great deal of good material due to the cold. But it is not only cameras which freeze. Almost all frostbites that we picked up during our last ski trip from Zyryanka was due to the fact that we were handling the camera too long.

However, even if we get everything we want together and filmed, we still have the worst to come. Namely to safely transport all the material to Sweden and hoping it will be ok once at home in the studio. This fact causes a terrific amount of worry during every Expedition. Much more than attacking bears!

One little snippet from the film can be seen here! 33 763 viewers so far!

So why is it male explorers need to declare themselves the best, the fittest and the strongest adventurers on earth? And why, oh why do they only talk about themselves?

The other night I went to the monthly lecture at Travellers Club and again the talk was by a young male explorer. Sad to say I’ve heard his story before, and each time it was the same: The hero conquering the earth. The male hero conquering the earth, to be more precise.

So why is it male explorers need to declare themselves the best, the fittest and the strongest adventurers on earth? And why, oh why do they only talk about themselves?

We definitely need more female explorers, because without them we could become extinct.

Let me explain: Recently, I was sat next to a publisher of a famous US outdoor magazine. He sighed and said:

“Every day, as I receive letters and articles from people making expeditions and wanting to sell their material, I ask myself: “Hasn’t adventure come further than this? Is it still just white men with icicles in their beards dishing out the same old silly story?”

I couldn’t agree more. As no doubt do many people in the extreme sports and exploring fraternity. I am so fed up with this macho nonsense! It’s time for a change. We need more female narrators. We need a female perspective and men have to start thinking more like women. I think this is crucial to whether the public remain interested in adventure and exploration in the future, or switch off forever.

What men often fail to note is that there are still considerable differences in how a story can be told. For example, this morning I was searching the internet for stories about Himalayan expeditions. I found this report by a pair of male climbers:

“It’s been a tough and troublesome today. Our backpacks weigh about 60 pounds. Today we struggled for six hours. Tomorrow we will continue and pitch our final camp at 7,500 meters. We won’t sleep much tonight, but we are feeling all right.”

Yes there are many women explorers. Many find it difficult to get their voices heard but they are there. Wings WorldQuest is dedicated to women explorers. We now have 60 Fellows who are making important discoveries throughout the world. We have sponsored more than 40 flag expeditions. We have an education program that has reached 40,000 young people to inspire them to get engaged with learning. Exploration is not about the person as much as it is about the quest for knowledge. Check out the website www.wingsworldquest.org. Also my book Women of Discovery about 85 women from a dozen cultures who over the last 2000 years made important discoveries through exploration...Milbry Polk

Other than their closest relatives, I find it hard to believe anyone is really interested in this stuff. Personally, I find it mind-numbingly boring. Endless even.

So, let’s compare this with a separate account. This time from an expedition on the same mountain, at the same time, but written by a woman:

“Why am I never satisfied? I’m thinking I should have exercised more. I also think I should have been more mentally prepared. Actually, I’ve been preparing for five years. And trained five times a week. But I don’t think I’m a good enough climber. But that’s the way I am in everyday life as well. I could be better at cooking, decorating, fashion, my job. I could be a better wife, friend, and so on. Still, I am not giving up my dream of climbing an 8,000-meter peak. But will I make it?”

Wonderfully thrilling! The fact that, in this case, the men reached the top and not the woman is unimportant. What is interesting, however, is her story. This is how tomorrow’s adventurers, when they are documenting expeditions need to be writing. This is how people lecturing should be talking. It’s the drama, the personal commitment we want, not another hero story.

An even better way is to recount the story of someone else; men should take inspiration from the achievement of others and not just try to impress with tales of hardship: We’re bored of it!

I worry that if we don’t change this male-dominated culture, we will see fewer professional adventurers and explorers, because less people will want to read about them. Women, save us from extinction!

Female explorers remember: Anything and everything is possible! We’ve known this for the last 150,000 years, maybe even for the last 3.2 million years, ever since the bipedal Lucy began her well-documented excursion…

Ladies, let us know your thoughts, and guys get tapping too. We are all in this together.