I fell in love with Oman on my first visit. Who knew such a wonderful place existed! So, together with Discover Oman, Tethys Oil and Eihab Travels and toured this lovely place with Kamil AL Raisi, a charismatic Omani of Baluchi background to fall in love with the country. In the meantime my ideas about travelling from Oman to Mauretania by camel grew. This is 2009 so people understand I am not leaving my kids by themselves! But I want to share how big ideas get born. And die. Read more about my love for Oman at http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/02/19/why-i-love-oman/

The idea of travelling by camel from Oman to Mauretania took speed like wildfire and suddenly i was back in Oman, together with Eihab Travel and Discover Oman, having a press conference about the trip. I hadn´t made it very far in planning, but media coverged was great, but enormous money would be needed to get it onboard, I realized. But this press conference set it off! This is back in 2009 and it will show the complications of realizing your dreams no matter how much help you get. The rise of a great idea. And the fall. I did everything right. And everything wrong. Follow this story. Read http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/02/07/looking-for-the-next-ibn-battuta/

After having received so much help and inspiration from Oman, my idea to walk or ride a camel (I didn´t know anything about camels yet…) from the tip of eastern oman all the way through the Middle East and the Sahara to the Western tip of Mauretania, I knew I had to do two important things to get the Expedition on board. First I needed to get a documentary onboard and secure economy to do this at least 2-3 year journey and secondly, learn Arabic. Somewhere. So when I got back to Sweden I asked one of the most distingished filmmakers and a great friend Anders Åberg if he would be interested. He was! So he, a photographer Daniel and me went back for a week and did a trailer to starting working with. Most of the time was spent in the Wahiba Sands.And met two young bedus, Nasr and Abdullah who were ready to join me on the journey to become new Ibn Battutas. Here´s a blog report on the worries involved back in 2009. http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/09/14/the-arabian-vision-amazing-meetings/