OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Just a two hour drive from the South Bay there is an incredibly fertile valley that produces some of the finest wines imaginable. Breathtaking views abound at every turn from tall mountains to rolling hills covered with vineyards year round. Wineries of every price point dot the landscape as far as you can see. In this valley you can go…
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson Road trips are the best. #obvious Road trips to pick up gear to take on our next road trip are even better. We took last Friday off and made the trip down from…
Late on the evening of the 10th of June, exactly nine months after the team set off from Perranporth, the Cornwall to Cape Town expedition arrived in Cape Town. The punters of Long St, central Cape Town, found their evenings interrupted by the arrival of a large red Land Rover, complete with three foot Kudu horns on the front, firewood…
Today marks nine months on the road, and we have been observing this milestone by holing up in an air-conditioned hotel in Granada. The current mood has a bit to do with travel fatigue, a bit to do with heat exhaustion, and a whole lot to do with a whole lot of bites. Collapse in Granada Something I didn’t do…
For the first time since Baja (or backtracking our few times through San Cristóbal), we have arrived in a place that I’ve visited before–Nicaragua. Back in 2008, in the summer between my first and second years of grad school, I came to Nicaragua for two weeks with two friends from San Francisco. We met in the south, in Granada (an…
This is the fourth article in a series titled Selecting the Perfect Overland Travel Vehicle. There is nothing quite like the simplicity of a traditional drivetrain and suspension. Solid axles, natural aspiration, and good ole’ leaf springs are time-tested and a breeze to fix and maintain. But, we also acknowledge that the times they are a’ changing, and there is…
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien Well, this will obviously not our first time travelling. You’re going to see where we go next, but where have we been? Cuba This is the first time either of us stepped foot outside Canada or the US. We flew to Cuba and went to a resort in Varadero. We…
Just because it’s the road less traveled doesn’t mean you’re the only one on it. Traveling overland can be very rewarding, but it can also mean a lot of long, lonely miles far from home. This is true whether you’re solo or riding with a co-pilot or two. Inevitably, every traveler is going to want to make a few new…
“Jungle trekking, yeah!” Sheena was visibly excited on the morning that we awoke for our ill-fated day of jungle trekking. She’d picked up a new pair of trekking boots after we left Argentina, and now walked in circles in the parking lot of Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park while stealing glances at her fancy footwear as I finished loading up…
Like a worried war-time family gathered around the wireless, we crowded around a small window in a Greek hotel room to see a torrent of protesters surge around the Landie, hurling rocks and abuse at the riot police. In Tahrir Square we ate roasted sweet potatoes bearing inverted impressions of the anti-government pamphlets in which they were wrapped. In Sudan…
If I’ve been doing a good job at promoting it, you know that we’ve been trying to raise money through Kickstarter to write a book about traversing China and the Silk Road in Nacho. We were attempting to raise $25,602 to cover the cost of permission to enter China twice with a government-approved guide. After thirty days of fundraising, you…
“It’s all about trust. And when it comes to monkeys, I have none.“ — Anthony Bourdain This is a good quote to live by. I should have learned my lesson a few weeks ago. Brad and I had just awoken and were strolling down a sleepy street in Cherating when we saw kitten sized baby monkeys swinging in the trees…
With every wave that crashed over the bow, our small boat took on more water. The panic on our young captain’s face shattered any hope that we would make it out of this tropical depression without a miracle, and my brain wouldn’t stop humming the theme from Gilligan’s Island. I wonder how the brain can have a sense of humor…
This is our new ride. Why did I end up choosing a Toyota Pickup for our journey? Reliability was the key factor. I’ve owned Toyotas in the past, seen them with 500,000+ km beat relentlessly in the Wadi Run desert, and knew that we’d be able to find parts anywhere if/when something does break. Originally, I was cruising Craigslist constantly…
Since last year I’ve been researching the visa requirements. I thought I’d describe the requirements for the outward leg of my journey. Ground work The research pointed to doing it a number of ways. Get the visas before I left or on the road. As I have an ambitious plan to see as many countries as possible allied to a…
The sound of jungle insects reverberated through the dense, humid night air. A slow loris crept along an overhead electrical wire strung between a tall wooden pole and a cinderblock structure where a woman cooked rice and noodles for the few people who lived around these parts. The loris stopped midway across the wire to give us a wide-eyed stare,…
Nine months ago while Sheena and I were stranded in the Colombian mountains, we made a decision. If Nacho ever made it through South America, we would ship to Europe instead of our original plan of shipping to Asia. Things were getting difficult, and we needed a break. From Europe, if things got hard, we could always turn around and…
Back at home when we were planning this trip, I would occasionally be asked which parts I was most worried about. I would reply Sudan or Northern Kenya, Somaliland having been a late spontaneous diversion. My worries were mainly based on a lack of knowledge about what things were like on the ground in these places, and the true risks…
The depth of my knowledge about Singapore up until about a week ago was gathered from the news in the 1990′s, and from reading Paul Theroux books. I knew that the entire structure and inner workings of the city state were conceived by one person, a sort of Wizard of Oz deciding what would fly and what wouldn’t. I knew…
After driving more than 5000 miles around Argentina we hadn’t been stopped by a single police checkpoint or had any problems with the police but we’d heard rumours that North of Buenos Aires we would likely encounter some problems with the police and unfortunately this was true. At the border of Entre Rios State we were flagged down at a…
The sun was almost extinct as we climbed the steps in front of Berbera police station to find an old man in a wicker chair. Two armed men in dusty berets flanked the Police Chief but he himself displayed no military attire. He wore only a swathe of burgundy fabric, richly embroidered and firmly swept around his bent body.…
“I think team Apec was totally corny. The way that the girl flung her arms around-” “Cut! Can we roll that again? Listen, the team’s name is ‘Apex’, not ‘Apec’,” the director said. “Oh, okay, sorry about that. Apex? Got it.” “Three…two…one…ACTION!” “I think team Apex was totally corny. The way that the girl, like, flung her arms around and…
Ethiopia, the homeland of Haile Selassi, is the heartland of Rastafarianism. As such Addis Ababa it is still firmly in the thrall of the Reggae that Selassi brought back from his exile in Jamaica. Before Reggae however the music heritage lay in Jazz and Swing. In the first decades of the 20th century Addis moved to the sound of Abyssinian…
Like all of the businesses on the block, the lights were out. All of the shop owners had migrated out to the streets, conversing with others, watching the night continue on. We eventually left the moonlight and entered a restaurant that was five shades darker inside than the sky was outside. A wall of heat and humidity built up like…
It’s early afternoon and the sun is high overhead, heating the humid air into a sauna that speckles our shirts with perspiration. Vines climb from the ground into the canopy of a tree, out across the limbs, and then dangle in the air above our heads. We sit on a bench and watch people go by. A Chinese couple passes,…
It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to realize that I was not sitting face to face with a stock broker, as I had been told, but with a boss in a money laundering ring. After five months of selling illegal currency on Argentina’s black market I should have been less naïve, but clearly I was no…
It was after hours and the sun was beginning to set. The park hours on the entrance clearly stated they were closed. However no gate stopped us from continuing forward. We wound down the dirt road through the rolling desert brush. Along the 20 mile stretch, signs were posted at every curve in the road: “Do not stop or get…
The air smelled of salt and the wind whipped my hair into a blazing Jerry curl as I stood at the bow of the ferry. The low moan of the engines rose and fell with each passing wave. It had been 42 months since I stood at my desk at work and sporadically blurted out the question that would change…
“When you get to the top of a wall, there’s nothing up there…the end result is absolutely useless. But every time I travel I learn something new, and hopefully I get to be a better person.” – Yvon Chouinard, 180° South We slept very little on account of the wind, tossing Nacho about like Shackleton’s rowboat. I drank my coffee,…
In Ecuador I bought a painting. It was a messy chaotic scene. In Argentina, a similar style painting would go something like this: a flat sheet of desert surrounded by snowcapped peaks. Grapes droop from a tangle of vines in one corner. Stray dogs happily run in packs down the street. In the hills gauchos ride their horses, checking the…