Words Tim McGlone
By tuk-tuk and train, by foot or by crook:
mind-melting global jaunts
Words Tim McGlone
By tuk-tuk and train, by foot or by crook: mind-melting global jaunts
Words Tim McGlone
“Life is about the journey, not the destination.”
Lol yeh we know. That lame old Instagram cliché, we get it. Here’s the thing though—tell us it’s not true.
Tell us travel in Southeast Asia isn’t about dodging buses and shitting in grim roadside toilets on your way to a stunning beach. Tell us it isn’t about the curry you crush from a roadside stall as you crawl up a mountain in Northern Pakistan.
Tell us it isn’t about the legends you meet along the way on a road trip through North America. And tell us it isn’t about the sense of accomplishment in getting from A to B, regardless of what or where B is.
These are 11 of the world’s most outrageous odysseys for various reasons—long, winding wanderings Homer would be proud of.
Consider this your moment to stop what you’re doing, and organise not just a trip, but the journey of a lifetime that your grandkids will be telling their grandkids about. Bon voyage.
THE MONGOL RALLY
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Here’s the thing about most car races: they start at point A, and follow a designated route to point B.
The Mongol Rally is kind of like that; it starts in London and finishes in Mongolia, but the journey in between is TOTALLY up to you.
Wander where you like in between, if that means down dusty Iranian alleyways, along the Autobahn in Germany or to the edge of a gas-fuelled fire crater that’s been burning for 50 years in Turkmenistan.
The other main point of the Mongol Rally is this: there are no Troopys, Canyaneros or 4 x 4 beasts here. The aim is to have the shittest box on wheels you can find, and for that box to somehow make it to the end party (which is apparently one party you won’t want to miss).
The Rally describes itself as “motoring stupidity on a global scale”, and that “if you’re here to get slapped about the jowls with the gauntlet of adventuring chaos, you’ve found your calling.”
We can get behind that.
Video: Ale Salvino
WEST AFRICA COAL TRAIN
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NOTE: Not for the feint hearted.
The Sahara Freight crosses 700kms of desert and coast, sending iron ore from the middle of the World’s largest desert and dropping it (via Mauritiana’s capital Nouakchott) in the coastal town of Nouadhibou.
Pulling yourself aboard the carriages filled with iron is considered an acceptable method of transport by the locals here. In some ways, it’s like every other train trip: you’ve got your compartment (a carriage filled with iron ore), other passengers to talk to (shepherds, sheep and goats) and a café aboard (the carriage everyone meets at to share food). It’s raw and unique, with Mad Max landscapes. It’s the kind of journey that would appeal to extreme intrepid types, and if you find yourself in Mauritania in the first place, that’s probably you.
NORTHERN PAKISTAN BY TUK-TUK
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There’s something mystical about Pakistan, a country of no less than 200 million people spread out across a myriad of landscapes and climates.
It is a place where intrigue, culture and adventure meet head on, and one where the other traveller count will be scant. With Large Minority you pick up a Tuk-Tuk at Rawilipindi, and drive it yourself, all the way to the Chinese border at Khunjrab Pass. The breathtaking landscapes in this part of the world are some of the most striking and dramatic you’ll ever come across, and still largely untouched in a touristic sense.
One minute you’re dodging traffic down crumbling city laneways, trying the Jaffer Panahi the guy you met at the traffic lights told you about, and the next you’re edging along jagged cliff faces on some gigantic mountain in the far north.
It’s not that this 768km journey is off the beaten track. It’s absolutely nowhere near the track.
CROSSING CONTINENTAL DIVIDES
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The aim of this journey is to cross from one side of Costa Rica to the other – using nothing but your feet, arms, lungs and considerable willpower.
The majority is done via pedal power, mountain biking through Costa Rica’s villages, along it’s majestic coast and even over a Continental Divide. The journey takes in the 5,480 foot Arenal Volcano, as it does a myriad of cultures and food. The real beauty of this trek though is the variety—this ain’t just a Tour de Costa Rica. At times you’ll swap the cleats for hiking boots, trekking up mountains and through jungles, sometimes you’ll be flying down rapid in a raft, or ziplining on top of jungle canopies.
You’ll be absolutely cooked when you reach the end of the 14 days, but a good cooked—that feeling of accomplishment that comes at the end of any great journey.
THE GREAT WALK OF AFRICA
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There’s no way to get closer to animals than at their level… on foot.
Over 11 days, traverse 160km through the largest national park Africa—a spot known for especially for having loads of red elephants, but TIA—this is Africa (hello, Leonardo Di Caprio) and this region is blessed with an extraordinary array of beasts, birds and beauty to feast your eyes on.
You’ll walk dense undergrowth and hippo trails of the Tsavo River, and then eventually south-east along the Galana River; a natural attraction in it’s own right but also home to crocodiles and hippos.
You’ll walk dense undergrowth and hippo trails of the Tsavo River, and then eventually south-east along the Galana River; a natural attraction in it’s own right but also home to crocodiles and hippos.
There is access to a jeep for game drives to see the Rhino, buffalo, lions and leopards—the sort of animals you don’t want to be on foot near. You’ll also see some World War One forts, and the spot where the infamous 'Maneaters of Tsavo' met the British Empire in the late-19th century.
Like the animals, you’ll begin each day at dawn, and get a peaceful siesta in the shade during the heat of the day.
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
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The posthumously released Motorcycle Diaries (1995) is a travel diary written by a 23-year-old medical student named Che Guevara. Heard of him?
It turns out that as well as being a great leader, orator and physician, as well as roguishely handsome and charismatic, Che was a pretty good travel writer too. This is the trip that influenced the famous Marxist Revolutionary and guerilla leader’s later missions, one where he witnessed the poverty, hunger, and disease of wider South America.
The Motorcycle Diaries trip offered by the appropriately named Bolivia Motorcycle Adventures traces his trail through Bolivia, known as ‘La Ruta del Che’. Travelling as he did – on the back of a motorbike – you’ll have the fresh, mountainous air whipping you in the face as you follow the route Che took 15 years later in 1967, trying to kick-off a revolution in Bolivia. Reaching an altitude of 2,000 metres, it follows both wide-open highways and narrow, hidden passageways through villages he used to try and escape.
It takes in Vado del Yeso, where Che’s guerilla group were ambushed, and La Higuera, where he was ultimately executed.
A (SILK) ROAD TRIP
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Before Silk Road was a place to buy drugs online, it was the most important trade route in the world, stretching over 6,000 kilometres and a myriad of cultures and ethnicities.
Retracing these steps, along the same unpaved roads through mountains and steppe that merchants carried their spices, silks and art, is one of this planet’s great journeys.
You could go a lot of ways with this, but we like G-Adventures’ trip that incorporates all five of the Stans, taking in the sunken forest of Kaindy Lake, the eternal fire in Turkmenistan and nomadic life around Song Köl in Kyrgyzstan.
DESERT WAVE CHASING
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We love the way surfers get after it.
If there’s a wave on offer, it’s like dangling a carrot in front of a horse, or putting a line of coke in front of Maradona in the 1980s—they just go for it.
Western Sahara is a disputed territory west of Morocco. It’s one of the world's most sparsely populated country on the planet, with a geography as arid and inhospitable as any. But it’s got waves, and good ones too.
From big name spots like Taghazout and Essaouira in Morocco, head west to the Rio de Oro Peninsula and you’ll find that the waves don’t get any worse, but the lineup thins out. Just getting to surf breaks in Western Sahara is tough, thanks to difficult elements, the absence of roads and the presence of political turmoil. Make it to the end of a surf trip here and you’ll have plenty of stories to tell, and not just about the one that got away.
FOLLOWING JACK LONDON UP THE YUKON
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Picture this. It’s the nineties (1890s*) and North America is in the grips of recession. Perfect time for a gold rush.
So when Indigenous man Skookum Jim discovered a big ol’ hunk of gold along the Klondike River in Yukon, Canada in 1896, it triggered one of history’s all-time gold stampedes. Around 100,000 people marched north in the hectic elements over the next three to four years to try their luck, although very few became rich and even fewer managed to maintain that wealth. One of these was the writer Jack London; famous for his Klondike-inspired novel The Call of the Wild (1903).
The Yukon at the end of the 19th century was an extraordinary moment in time; London and his mates were required to trek large distances on foot, as well as bring with them a year’s worth of food, often travelling with as much as a tonne of gear through harsh, freezing conditions. In 2024 you can follow the miners’ footsteps through mountains, amongst wildlife beneath the northern lights or the midnight sun, depending on the season. Places like Dawson City—a fixture on the Klondike Trail both then and now—still emit a feeling of ‘Wild West’.
Yukon Wild’s five-day trek follows in the footsteps of the stampeders, and then takes a float plane back to where you started. The trail is just as romantic, but you don’t have to bring a year’s worth of food with you (just snacks). Plus, your life doesn’t depend on it.
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
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This isn’t a super-chill Sunday ride.
On day one of this all-time motorbike adventure, from the relative safety of Armritsar’s foothills, tour company Freedom Riders will give you a classic 350cc Royal Enfield. From here you’re required to steer it through an extremely challenging route into the heart of the mighty Himalayas finishing in the old town of Leh, the capital of the Indian state Ladakh. To get from A to B you’ll need to cruise the highest motorable road in the world, take in the almost mystical Nubra Valley and probably eat a lot of delicious curries. These become only MORE delicious after a few hundred kilometres of bumpy, winding, high altitude riding.
get lost have breathed in the fresh air of Ladakh before, and we can tell you: there isn’t a place we know that is similar. Ladakh is monks, monasteries and mad skylines; plus a healthy dose of magic. Motor through that magic.
THE TECHNO TRAIN
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Toot toot (unce unce?)—all aboard the techno train!
Departing and arriving at Nuremberg, this is a pretty lit eight-hour journey through Bavarian countryside marked by boogs, free expression and dilated pupils.
The Techno Train is essentially a hectic German nightclub within the confines of a seven-hour train trip. There’s 12 carriages: two dedicated to smoking one for chilling out, and nine for DJs and dancing. What an incredible great ratio.
This is our shortest journey both in terms of distance travelled, and time taken, but in many ways this is the ultimate Insane Journey—one where the destination is the same as the embarkment point, but where what happens on the journey is everything. On paper you could forgive people for being surprised it works; it has no marketing other than word of mouth and organic social media. It costs 100 euro for a trip where you finish in the same place you started. And therein lies the point – it’s what happens on the trip that matters.
get in the know Covering over 16,000km enduring gunpoint robberies, food poisoning and men with machetes, Russ Cook, aka Hardest Geezer, became the first person in history to run the length of Africa in 2023.
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