Adventure Trend is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s geared towards adventurous travel that Joe Public can appreciate and, being sufficiently motivated, can accomplish.
You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.
— Sir Edmund Hillary
Adventuring and travelling is about seeking experiences, growing, learning, unlocking emotions. It allows us to live fuller lives, to expand our horizons, to conquer our fears, to establish our independence, and so much more.
With Adventure Trend and Your Mileage May Vary (my personal adventure travel blog), I hope to inspire ordinary people, like me, to live life to the fullest, whatever their adventures may be, and wherever those adventures take them.
Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures.
— Lovelle Drachman
Hello
I’m Robert. I’m an ordinary person, a Joe Public.
In 2008 I took early retirement after being with the same employer for 28 years. I was only 48 years old. I was motivated to retire when a colleague become ill with terminal brain cancer. When he received his diagnosis, he was literally 2 months away from setting off on his own world adventures with his wife. I too had dreams I wanted to chase. And I was witnessing how fragile life can be. Some of my dreams involved adventure travel. One involved ridding my motorcycle from the east coast of Canada to Ushuaia, Argentina. So I did that. A few short months after Paul was diagnosed, he passed away. I had reached central America by then.
That nine-month overland experience opened a new world to me and informed a lot of my currently held philosophies.
As I plan my future adventures, I thought others might benefit from my research, and this is the basis for Adventure Trend. As I gather information, I publish it here as perhaps others might find it a bit useful as well.
With this site I also hope to inspire at least some of you to have fun, affordable adventures that are culturally broadening. To live your own individual adventures, passions, lives, to try your best, to live by your principals, to reach for higher ideals, to be good and kind to others.
We are all different. One man’s adventure is another man’s walk in the park. So it’s important to choose adventurous journeys that lead you towards your personal growth.
My adventures include overland travel. Your mileage may vary. And that’s okay.
Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.
— Irving Waller
Overland Travel
At it’s best, travel is fun, culturally broadening, educational, challenges our preconceptions, causes us to reconsider our assumptions, shakes us up a bit, makes us broader minded and more understanding, makes us wiser, and reminds us of our shared humanity.
Overland Travel is a form of self-reliant adventure, often taking the road less travelled to remote destinations, sometimes venturing off the crowded tourist trail, creating unique journeys through remote regions of the world, at your own pace. But t’s not just about driving. It’s also about all the things you do on the way.
One of the best and most efficient ways of exploring expansive lands is by independent overland vehicle. Its accomplished with mechanised, off-highway capable transport – from bicycles, to motorcycles, to cars, 4WD’s, and trucks. An independent, self-supported, long wandering, and eventful journey, over vastly changing terrain, at times in some of the world’s most inhospitable and extreme environments, usually over an extended period of time lasting weeks, months, or years, often spanning international boundaries.
Think along the lines of a jaunt from London to Singapore, or driving from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories to Ushuaia, Argentina exploring the Pan-American Highway for a couple or ten years. Or perhaps a journey around the world over for 36 years. The ultimate road trip. #YMMV
I enjoy interacting with locals, shopping in their markets, learning about their cultures, experiencing their foods, unique history, spectacular landscapes. These, for me, are the real treasures of travel. Overland Travel allows me this. Both the journey and the destinations.
Perhaps the most important function of travel is the exchange of philosophies, science, technologies, cultures. It expands the mind. Human understanding. Acceptance. We live in a big, wonderful world that is not nearly as scary as many would have you believe. It’s a big world, but it’s much smaller than you think. We have more in common than we are different.
If you’d like to contribute, I am always happy to receive information from locals, regular travellers, and travel professional. Thank you in advance. You may contact me here.
This site is geared towards the overland traveller, as that’s what I do. However I hope other explorers, adventures, backpackers, RVers, and independent travellers might also find it useful. The information on Adventure Trend is available for free.
Stay curious,
Robert