Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Eva zu Beck on Overlanding Mauritania

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Eva zu Beck on Overlanding Mauritania · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:10
Speaker 1: Asha Jardano, and I'm joined today by Ava Zoobek to
0:13
Speaker 1: chat all about her recent travels in Morocco and Mauritania,
0:16
Speaker 1: in her Land River Defender, her new book The Wilder Way,
0:19
Speaker 1: and about her national geographic series Super Skilled. Now this
0:23
Speaker 1: is podcast number three hundred for us. It's incredible to
0:27
Speaker 1: believe we've done three hundred episodes. The podcast began in
0:31
Speaker 1: fall of twenty nineteen and it has been an absolute
0:34
Speaker 1: joy to connect with so many folks about all things overlanding. Scott,
0:38
Speaker 1: Matt and I enjoy the interviews that we do, and
0:40
Speaker 1: we most enjoy sharing all of this knowledge and these
0:43
Speaker 1: experiences with you. So thank you for being a listener.
0:46
Speaker 1: And of course we're especially thankful for Paula burr Our producer,
0:49
Speaker 1: for all of her tireless work in helping to bring
0:51
Speaker 1: these things to production. Thanks for coming along for the ride,
0:56
Speaker 1: and we'll see you after another hundred and today we
0:59
Speaker 1: have Adventures, her YouTube storyteller, speaker and writer and national
1:03
Speaker 1: geographic host and director, gave a zoo back with us. Welcome,
1:07
Speaker 1: I'm so stoked to have you back.
1:09
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm so happy to be here.
1:12
Speaker 3: I was just thinking how amazing it is that I
1:14
Speaker 3: can be in my shepherd's hut in the Carpathians in Poland,
1:17
Speaker 3: you can be in Kyrgistan and we have the ability
1:21
Speaker 3: to talk over the internet over the star, Like, isn't
1:24
Speaker 3: that just amazing?
1:26
Speaker 1: It still blows my mind. Even though it's been a
1:29
Speaker 1: few years now, I'm still like, Wow, it's incredible, incredible stuff.
1:34
Speaker 1: You look very cozy. I'm loving the cabin and the
1:38
Speaker 1: lights and everything. So yeah, thanks for taking the time
1:41
Speaker 1: out of your schedule to chat with me. And I'm
1:44
Speaker 1: excited because this is your second time on the podcast
1:47
Speaker 1: and so we have some different things to chat about
1:49
Speaker 1: this time.
1:50
Speaker 2: Pleasure.
1:52
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about your Nott Geo series.
1:55
Speaker 1: It's called Super Skilled, your new book. But first let's
1:59
Speaker 1: die into your recent overland trip through Morocco and Mauritania
2:04
Speaker 1: with your Defender one ten. What was the vision for
2:08
Speaker 1: the trip when you were thinking about it ahead of time?
2:12
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I've been living in Europe these last
2:14
Speaker 3: couple of years, and you know, there's a lot of
2:17
Speaker 3: great options for some amazing trips out of Europe, like
2:20
Speaker 3: long distance trips, and for a while now I had
2:24
Speaker 3: this like image in my head of being alone with
2:27
Speaker 3: my truck and my dog in the desert. I don't know,
2:30
Speaker 3: it just haunted me, that image, you know, in like
2:33
Speaker 3: a good way. Like I just imagined the solitude and
2:37
Speaker 3: the silence and the kind of like mental reset that
2:41
Speaker 3: I could get from a trip like that. After a
2:43
Speaker 3: very busy couple of years, so I was like, okay,
2:47
Speaker 3: where do I go? And there was a couple of options.
2:49
Speaker 2: You know.
2:49
Speaker 3: I could have headed east towards Saudi Arabia and the
2:54
Speaker 3: Middle East. Thank god I didn't go, I mean, for
2:58
Speaker 3: it was a pretty bad time in the end, at
2:59
Speaker 3: the end of this winter to go there. But the
3:02
Speaker 3: other option was to head south to the Sahara. And
3:05
Speaker 3: as soon as I thought, okay the Sahara, that name
3:09
Speaker 3: just started like ringing in my head. So I started
3:12
Speaker 3: doing a little bit of research around where I could go,
3:15
Speaker 3: where my difficult to go, And yeah, I decided to
3:19
Speaker 3: just scout it out this year, do an easier kind
3:22
Speaker 3: of trip, see what it's like out there for a
3:26
Speaker 3: soul female traveler with a dog. And that's why I
3:29
Speaker 3: decided to go to Morocco and Oritania and really kind
3:33
Speaker 3: of get off the beaten path in those countries. You
3:37
Speaker 3: know a lot of people go to Morocco from Europe.
3:39
Speaker 3: There's a lot of camper vans. It's kind of like
3:41
Speaker 3: our version of Baja California in a way. So if
3:44
Speaker 3: you stick to the tarmac roads, it's pretty boring, it's
3:46
Speaker 3: pretty uneventful. But I was like, Okay, I'm gonna avoid
3:51
Speaker 3: tarmac as much as possible and stick to the dirt.
3:54
Speaker 3: So my goal was to do as much dirt as possible,
3:58
Speaker 3: as much driving through the desert as possible, and wild
4:02
Speaker 3: camping and just being out there in places where no where,
4:05
Speaker 3: nobody else was.
4:07
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what happened.
4:08
Speaker 3: Ended up going deep into Mauritania, where it was just
4:12
Speaker 3: it felt like it was just me out there in
4:14
Speaker 3: some places, you know, without seeing anyone for a couple
4:17
Speaker 3: of days. What an amazing feeling that is. So that
4:20
Speaker 3: was kind of the thinking to be alone in silence.
4:23
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, and you had been to Mauritania
4:27
Speaker 1: before on the Orange Train. How different was this trip
4:32
Speaker 1: from that experience. I'm sure it's quite different.
4:35
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think when we travel overland, it is
4:38
Speaker 3: always a very different kind of experience.
4:40
Speaker 2: You know.
4:42
Speaker 3: A few years back, I went to Mortania for the
4:44
Speaker 3: first time, and yeah, I got to ride the iron
4:47
Speaker 3: ore train through the desert, which was so fun and
4:50
Speaker 3: so messy, and we've got to hang out with some
4:52
Speaker 3: of the nomads living in the desert.
4:54
Speaker 2: There as well.
4:55
Speaker 3: But I felt like going there with the car this
4:59
Speaker 3: time was I saw a completely different country in so
5:04
Speaker 3: many ways because I had access to places that I
5:07
Speaker 3: didn't have access to before, you know, with a guide
5:10
Speaker 3: or via like in a minibus I was. This time,
5:13
Speaker 3: I was there with my pretty capable truck, and so
5:17
Speaker 3: it felt like it had just opened up all of
5:20
Speaker 3: these opportunities. I was able to reach desert oasis that
5:24
Speaker 3: I didn't even know existed, that weren't even marked on
5:26
Speaker 3: Google Maps, you know, that I had just simply spotted
5:30
Speaker 3: by scrolling through Google Maps.
5:32
Speaker 2: On you know, the satellite maps.
5:34
Speaker 3: I got to drive across landscapes that I didn't even
5:38
Speaker 3: know that there were roads there, because again there were
5:40
Speaker 3: no roads that you could there were no roads marked
5:43
Speaker 3: for those places on Google Maps. So it's amazing the
5:46
Speaker 3: kind of freedom that you have when you have your
5:49
Speaker 3: own vehicle that can go anywhere. Maybe not very fast,
5:53
Speaker 3: but it can go anywhere, and you're able to create
5:55
Speaker 3: that route that completely independently and make it your own.
5:59
Speaker 3: So I just completely fell in love with more Tea
6:03
Speaker 3: this time around. It's just one of the most amazing places,
6:07
Speaker 3: and I really want to go back so good.
6:09
Speaker 1: It's fascinating when you go to a country you've been
6:12
Speaker 1: to before in a different way like that, and you
6:15
Speaker 1: learn so much more and can go deeper and find
6:18
Speaker 1: different things like that. Was this trip for you more
6:21
Speaker 1: of a reset or was this work related? Did you
6:25
Speaker 1: go there to get some space. You're talking about being
6:27
Speaker 1: away from people and being in the silence and being solitary.
6:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's always a bit of a work
6:35
Speaker 3: trip for me because I'm always filming. It's never like
6:40
Speaker 3: just for pleasure. I'm not sure if I could even
6:43
Speaker 3: do that at this point. I would just feel like,
6:45
Speaker 3: oh my god, I where's my camera? I need to record?
6:49
Speaker 1: Can relate? Can't relate?
6:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was definitely. I think it was a
6:56
Speaker 3: bit more challenging actually than I had expected it to be. Again,
7:00
Speaker 3: I just came with this image in my head of
7:03
Speaker 3: you know, of the silence and the solitude and things
7:07
Speaker 3: going well. I always try to picture things going well,
7:10
Speaker 3: because what's the point of picturing things going badly? You
7:13
Speaker 3: know that they probably will at some point, and obviously
7:16
Speaker 3: you want to come ready, But I don't want to
7:18
Speaker 3: preoccupy my mind with things going badly in advance.
7:21
Speaker 2: Why worry in advance.
7:23
Speaker 3: But I guess that also led to me underestimating some
7:27
Speaker 3: of the challenges that I would encounter, you know, so
7:30
Speaker 3: it didn't fully allow me to reset, like, for example,
7:33
Speaker 3: the fact that my truck did break down several times
7:36
Speaker 3: in the desert, and these were not like there was
7:39
Speaker 3: only one breakdown that was quite major. Most of them
7:42
Speaker 3: were minor things, but things that nevertheless required the.
7:47
Speaker 2: Presence of a mechanic to get them fixed.
7:50
Speaker 3: You know, I'm one of those overlanders that do not
7:53
Speaker 3: have a great deal of mechanical skills.
7:55
Speaker 2: I can do the basics.
7:57
Speaker 3: I can change a tire, I can change the oil
8:01
Speaker 3: like things like that, I can do. But there's but
8:03
Speaker 3: the more kind of advanced stuff I'm honestly just not
8:07
Speaker 3: very good at. And and I figured that generally speaking,
8:11
Speaker 3: there's always gonna be someone within a day's travel radius
8:16
Speaker 3: that could probably help out, and maybe perhaps that's naive,
8:19
Speaker 3: but I feel like, in a way it's almost it's
8:23
Speaker 3: actually very realistic, because even if you do have mechanical skills,
8:26
Speaker 3: you're not always gonna have all the parts to fix
8:29
Speaker 3: your car. So you're you're still probably gonna need some
8:32
Speaker 3: help at some point. So I guess there was I mean,
8:36
Speaker 3: there was one part of the of the route that
8:39
Speaker 3: I took that was I would say, probably like the
8:41
Speaker 3: most challenging out of the entire trip, and that was
8:45
Speaker 3: So you've got the iron Ore train tracks in Mauritania.
8:48
Speaker 3: They kind of take you from yeah, like deep in
8:51
Speaker 3: the Sahara all the way to the coast of Mauritania,
8:55
Speaker 3: and that's where this really long train, one of the
8:57
Speaker 3: longest trains in the world that transports iron Or that's
9:00
Speaker 3: where it crosses. And these train tracks are almost like
9:04
Speaker 3: a straight line basically just kind of a straight line
9:08
Speaker 3: on a map. It looks quite funny when you look
9:09
Speaker 3: at it on maps. And you can take the train.
9:12
Speaker 3: Some people take hop on the train, which is a
9:14
Speaker 3: pretty hardcore experience, which I did a few years back.
9:18
Speaker 3: This time, I was like, can I wonder if I
9:20
Speaker 3: can drive this track? And as it turns out, you can,
9:23
Speaker 3: you can actually drive alongside the train tracks, so you're
9:26
Speaker 3: basically just keeping a little bit south of them, but
9:29
Speaker 3: you're following the tracks all the way from the Sahara
9:32
Speaker 3: to the coast, and it's so navigationally, it's a pretty
9:37
Speaker 3: straightforward challenge.
9:39
Speaker 2: You just have to go west.
9:41
Speaker 3: But for many other reasons, it's actually quite a difficult
9:43
Speaker 3: route because there's sand dunes along the way, there's.
9:48
Speaker 2: No actual track.
9:49
Speaker 3: A lot of the time it kind of splits off
9:50
Speaker 3: into various different directions, so you always have to make
9:53
Speaker 3: sure that you're going the right the correct way west.
9:59
Speaker 3: There is I think I believe it's about three hundred
10:02
Speaker 3: miles of no tarmac, just sand, and there's only a
10:08
Speaker 3: couple of very very very small settlements en route, settlements
10:11
Speaker 3: that actually serve as the train. So I decided to
10:15
Speaker 3: do this route after my truck had already broken down
10:18
Speaker 3: a couple of times, and I was kind of ready
10:20
Speaker 3: to go home, and I was like, I just I
10:22
Speaker 3: could just go home on the tarmac road, or I
10:24
Speaker 3: could take this route as.
10:26
Speaker 2: One final challenge, like one last hurrah.
10:29
Speaker 3: And so I did, and I was met by a
10:33
Speaker 3: pretty big sandstorm that lasted the entire three days that
10:36
Speaker 3: I was doing this track, and there were points where
10:39
Speaker 3: I could not see anything ten meters ahead of me,
10:42
Speaker 3: where everything the world just disappeared and.
10:44
Speaker 2: Got engulfed by all this sand. And that's also.
10:48
Speaker 3: When I had another breakdown, pretty much very much in
10:54
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere. But I was extremely, extremely lucky
10:58
Speaker 3: that there was a settlement that I had just passed
11:01
Speaker 3: a few minutes before. So I kind of left this
11:05
Speaker 3: tiny little settlement, kept driving, and then I felt my
11:09
Speaker 3: truck lose power. You know, I pressed the gas ped
11:12
Speaker 3: ll nothing happened, It just lost power and then switched
11:15
Speaker 3: itself off. I'd never experienced that. My truck had never
11:19
Speaker 3: done that before. It literally just switched itself off. That
11:21
Speaker 3: was it, and stopped. And yeah, I ended up kind
11:25
Speaker 3: of running back to that settlement with my dog and
11:28
Speaker 3: you know, asking around for help. I found someone who
11:30
Speaker 3: had a truck, and then they knew a mechanic, and then,
11:34
Speaker 3: you know, fifteen minutes later, this local village mechanic comes
11:39
Speaker 3: in a very old series and drives up to me
11:44
Speaker 3: and then for the next hour proceeds to check all
11:47
Speaker 3: the little wires you know, under the bonnet and eventually
11:50
Speaker 3: gets the truck started. It's been and it's you know,
11:53
Speaker 3: it's just moments like this where you're like, you're in
11:54
Speaker 3: the middle of the Sahara and there's someone there who
11:58
Speaker 3: could help you.
11:59
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
12:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably wouldn't wouldn't recommend this kind of approach,
12:05
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's been. It was an amazing trip and definitely, yeah,
12:09
Speaker 3: a bit of a reset, but also a little bit
12:12
Speaker 3: of a travel anxiety. I suppose that's probably quite normal
12:16
Speaker 3: for overlanding, isn't it.
12:18
Speaker 1: For sure? And good timing on your part that you
12:21
Speaker 1: were close to a village.
12:24
Speaker 3: Many serendipitous moments like this, I call them travel magic,
12:29
Speaker 3: where you really have to believe that things will work
12:32
Speaker 3: out somehow, And I think this kind of having this
12:35
Speaker 3: attitude also helps you find solutions to problems quickly because
12:41
Speaker 3: you truly believe that, yeah, I am going to get
12:43
Speaker 3: assorted sooner or later.
12:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, travel magic in the Sahara.
12:49
Speaker 1: Speaking of travel magic in the Sahara, what were some
12:52
Speaker 1: of the best moments of that trip?
12:56
Speaker 2: The best moments?
12:57
Speaker 3: Gosh, I would have to say I'm probably not going
12:59
Speaker 3: to rank that, so this is in any random order,
13:03
Speaker 3: but I think my top three would be finding this
13:06
Speaker 3: like hidden oasis in the middle of the desert. There
13:09
Speaker 3: was nobody there, It wasn't on Google Maps. It genuinely
13:13
Speaker 3: felt like I was the only person in the world
13:16
Speaker 3: in this oasis. And I sat there for two days
13:19
Speaker 3: and I couldn't get away.
13:21
Speaker 2: I was like, this is I think this is what
13:22
Speaker 2: paradise would look like.
13:24
Speaker 3: Waterfalls, greenery, palm trees, a massive blue green pool, just astonishing.
13:32
Speaker 2: That was probably one of the best.
13:34
Speaker 3: Another one was when I was hanging out with so
13:37
Speaker 3: I was actually driving through again a pretty rough kind
13:41
Speaker 3: of off road track, and then these two ladies stopped
13:44
Speaker 3: me along the way and I was like, where the
13:46
Speaker 3: where'd you come from? They were just hanging out there,
13:49
Speaker 3: and I got the chatting with them in like a
13:51
Speaker 3: mix of broken French and an Arabic, and they were
13:54
Speaker 3: just two ladies who were literally sitting there by the
13:57
Speaker 3: side of the road waiting for like the one or
14:00
Speaker 3: two cars that would pass by that route every day,
14:04
Speaker 3: and they were just selling things, all kinds of things, food, fruit,
14:09
Speaker 3: like local dresses. We had a bit of a chat,
14:11
Speaker 3: a bit of a laugh. Again, just the complete mix
14:14
Speaker 3: of languages really more like gestures than words. And yeah,
14:19
Speaker 3: just hanging out with them for fifteen twenty minutes was
14:22
Speaker 3: definitely one.
14:23
Speaker 2: Of the highlights.
14:24
Speaker 3: And then, gosh, I think the thread would be every
14:28
Speaker 3: single night out there in the desert. Every single night
14:31
Speaker 3: was so incredibly peaceful. You would look out your rooft
14:35
Speaker 3: up tent and there's, you know, this amazing blanket of
14:38
Speaker 3: stars up in the sky and I had some of
14:41
Speaker 3: the best sleep of my life out there in the Sahara.
14:43
Speaker 2: So yeah, that was so peaceful.
14:48
Speaker 1: I love it. I want to go. I love the
14:51
Speaker 1: desert too, the desert, the desert sleeps there.
14:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'd really love to do though
15:00
Speaker 3: having been there now, but I feel like I would
15:02
Speaker 3: need to level up my mechanical skills in order to
15:05
Speaker 3: do this. Other leg would be to complete this Sahara
15:10
Speaker 3: leg by going like taking the ferry from Europe to
15:13
Speaker 3: Tunisia and then going into like Algeria, Libya, back into
15:17
Speaker 3: Algeria and then into Mauritania and then back up through Morocco.
15:21
Speaker 3: That's what I would love to do. That sounds like
15:23
Speaker 3: there's so much there.
15:27
Speaker 1: Same I am stoked on that route. Like Henriette, who
15:33
Speaker 1: has a motorcycle and she's done parts of that we
15:35
Speaker 1: had around the podcast recently, and wow, it just looks
15:39
Speaker 1: so incredible.
15:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's so badass.
15:42
Speaker 3: Henriette highly recommend checking her out for anyone that doesn't
15:45
Speaker 3: know her. She helped me find a route via Western Sahara,
15:49
Speaker 3: so we were in touch because she had done it already,
15:52
Speaker 3: and you know, in Western Sahara, like most people just
15:55
Speaker 3: go straight line on the Tama Road from kind of
15:58
Speaker 3: Morocco to Mauritania, but there is another route and that
16:02
Speaker 3: fewer people know about. That's sorry, I wore. That's more
16:05
Speaker 3: in the desert that takes you through a literal minefield.
16:09
Speaker 3: Sounds pretty gnarly and it kind of is, but you
16:12
Speaker 3: can quite safely make your way through it because you know,
16:15
Speaker 3: people do.
16:16
Speaker 2: There's a military dirt road that leads through it. And
16:19
Speaker 2: so Henrietta.
16:20
Speaker 3: Shared her GPX tracks with me and I took her
16:24
Speaker 3: root and it was marvelous.
16:25
Speaker 2: So yeah, she's so badass. She is.
16:29
Speaker 1: She's great. I loved following her trip and her all
16:32
Speaker 1: her trips. But yeah, she's very You can see the
16:35
Speaker 1: joy in her face and it's so wonderful. And also
16:37
Speaker 1: that's great, you know, I live also love sharing resources
16:41
Speaker 1: and touching on that point, you have a Polar Steps
16:45
Speaker 1: journey that you kept track of during this trip through
16:49
Speaker 1: Morocco and Mauritania that's available for people if they'd like
16:52
Speaker 1: to follow along in your entire tracks as well.
16:57
Speaker 3: Yes, I didn't publish the entire like every single meter,
17:01
Speaker 3: kilometer and mile of the route, but I did publish
17:04
Speaker 3: all of my campsites, So every single campsite that I
17:07
Speaker 3: spent like a night at, it's all up there, so
17:10
Speaker 3: you can see pictures and you can see the exact
17:12
Speaker 3: GPS coordinates as well, which I think is quite a
17:15
Speaker 3: nice resource, especially for people who maybe are like who
17:18
Speaker 3: want to make the trip but are a little bit
17:20
Speaker 3: worried about it or anxious, or just would rather see
17:23
Speaker 3: what it actually looks like in kind of in real life.
17:25
Speaker 3: Before I've also added some tips like is it four
17:28
Speaker 3: by four accessible?
17:30
Speaker 2: Sorry?
17:30
Speaker 3: Non four by four accessible, but GM most places are
17:33
Speaker 3: only four x four?
17:35
Speaker 2: Is there cell signal? You know? Things like that, So
17:37
Speaker 2: hopefully that'll be of use to people.
17:41
Speaker 1: Travel Inspiration will include the link in the show notes
17:45
Speaker 1: as well, so thank you for sharing that with us.
17:47
Speaker 1: I'm wondering also in terms of planning ahead of time,
17:51
Speaker 1: did you do quite a bit of planning a little bit.
17:54
Speaker 1: Did you reach out to folks? How did you put
17:55
Speaker 1: this trip together?
17:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm you know, I'm one of those people who
17:59
Speaker 3: don't plan very much. I'm not a major planner. I
18:03
Speaker 3: don't like planning. I like to have a general idea
18:06
Speaker 3: of what's coming up. Some like plan bees and contacts.
18:11
Speaker 3: I think, honestly, to me, that's the most important thing
18:14
Speaker 3: is having contact and being able to get in touch
18:17
Speaker 3: with people, either people who have done the trip and
18:19
Speaker 3: can give you some tips or people who are there.
18:21
Speaker 2: On the ground.
18:22
Speaker 3: So I just knew that I wanted to go into
18:25
Speaker 3: the Sahara and do as much of that as possible.
18:27
Speaker 3: And along the way, I just got chatting to people
18:30
Speaker 3: who were able to point me in the right direction,
18:33
Speaker 3: who were able to share some route tracks with me
18:36
Speaker 3: that they had done or that they simply had from
18:39
Speaker 3: someone else. But you know how it is in the
18:41
Speaker 3: overlanding community, right you get the chatting to someone, you
18:44
Speaker 3: get the chatting about destinations and roots, and they're you know,
18:47
Speaker 3: you're always sharing both ways. So there was a lot
18:50
Speaker 3: of that, and yeah, I just kind of went along
18:55
Speaker 3: with what the route threw at me.
18:58
Speaker 2: I had to.
19:00
Speaker 3: Part of the reason why I don't like planning so
19:01
Speaker 3: much is because I know that the plan always changes,
19:05
Speaker 3: and you know, after I had a couple of breakdowns
19:07
Speaker 3: in Mauritania, my time there got shorter and I wasn't
19:11
Speaker 3: able to execute My entire plan was planning to go
19:14
Speaker 3: to the Reshat structure and beyond and kind of around.
19:19
Speaker 3: I would have needed ten days for that, but because
19:21
Speaker 3: of my breakdown, I ended up having five. So you know,
19:23
Speaker 3: you're kind of adjusting your plans as you go along.
19:26
Speaker 3: But I think for me, the most helpful resource and
19:30
Speaker 3: the thing that always kept me sane despite some of
19:32
Speaker 3: the challenges and the remoteness, was being in touch with locals.
19:37
Speaker 3: So I always seek out local Often it's guides, people
19:41
Speaker 3: who work in tourism who you just get chatting to
19:44
Speaker 3: and you have them in your WhatsApp. You're not traveling
19:47
Speaker 3: with them necessarily, because that's not you know, when you're overlanding.
19:50
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us like to be alone
19:52
Speaker 3: and independent, but you do have them in your WhatsApp,
19:55
Speaker 3: and if you have a starlink then that's almost enough
19:57
Speaker 3: and you know that you can always reach out to
19:58
Speaker 3: them if something happens, ask for help, you know, and
20:03
Speaker 3: there is that relationship, I think, and it's important to
20:07
Speaker 3: have locals that will look out for you. So that's
20:10
Speaker 3: kind of that's my One of my strategies for traveling
20:13
Speaker 3: alone is you're not really alone, like in spirit so
20:18
Speaker 3: to speak.
20:20
Speaker 1: Yes, that's great advice. I like that a lot. And
20:23
Speaker 1: people know where you are, but not totally all the time,
20:27
Speaker 1: so it's a really nice Yeah.
20:29
Speaker 3: And I do actually share my life location with some
20:32
Speaker 3: trusted people who then I know if something led to happen,
20:36
Speaker 3: I know that they would, you know, act so and
20:39
Speaker 3: that's my mom and one of my friends. So yeah,
20:41
Speaker 3: I think that that's always a good trick to have
20:44
Speaker 3: up your sleeve.
20:45
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm always sending my mom our camp every night
20:49
Speaker 1: usually if I can't try every night just to be like, hey,
20:53
Speaker 1: we're here. And then I think also it's fun for
20:55
Speaker 1: them because they can see where you are in real
20:57
Speaker 1: time and they're like, oh, that's what that place looks like?
21:00
Speaker 1: Really yeah, really cool? Yeah yeah great.
21:04
Speaker 3: My mom looking at my like Life three sixty location
21:09
Speaker 3: on her app and she was like, where the hell
21:12
Speaker 3: are you? Like, there's no road there, there's no towns, there, like,
21:16
Speaker 3: what is this place? I'm like, yeah, that's kind of
21:19
Speaker 3: the point.
21:19
Speaker 1: So fun. Thank you for sharing all those fun facts
21:23
Speaker 1: and your experiences in those areas. Yeah, it's been so
21:28
Speaker 1: fun to watch that trip and gain some insight as
21:32
Speaker 1: to what was going on behind the scenes with you there. Yeah,
21:36
Speaker 1: great stuff. We'll have to go back, we both have.
21:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you ever feel like doing that other side
21:43
Speaker 3: of the Sahara.
21:44
Speaker 2: Let me know. Maybe there's a trip in death for us.
21:48
Speaker 1: I love it, definitely, definitely. So let's switch gears. Let's
21:54
Speaker 1: talk about super Skilled. So it's your national geographic two
21:58
Speaker 1: seasons now. I believe, hopefully I'm right on that front. Yes,
22:02
Speaker 1: And maybe I just explained to the listeners who don't
22:07
Speaker 1: know what Super Skilled is, what it's about, and what
22:09
Speaker 1: the vision was behind the series.
22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:13
Speaker 3: Super Skilled is a show where, you know, we travel
22:16
Speaker 3: to some of the world's most remote locations to meet
22:19
Speaker 3: people who have extraordinary skill sets. And these are perhaps
22:23
Speaker 3: not the kinds of skill sets that a lot of us,
22:25
Speaker 3: you know, would.
22:26
Speaker 2: Learn in school or in the university.
22:28
Speaker 3: These are, you know, skills that are often tied to
22:31
Speaker 3: their cultures. For example, barefoot running with the Tarahomara tribe
22:36
Speaker 3: in Mexico. You know, these are this this culture, this community.
22:39
Speaker 3: These are people who are shepherds and run run very
22:43
Speaker 3: long distances across the mountains. So they've developed this incredible
22:46
Speaker 3: skill of you're running around in like these sandals and
22:50
Speaker 3: have become exceptionally good all trendurance runners. So we kind
22:55
Speaker 3: of go out there to really explore the hidden power
22:58
Speaker 3: of the human potential and see if we can learn
23:01
Speaker 3: some of these skills and what it would take to
23:03
Speaker 3: learn some of those skills. So it's a really beautiful
23:06
Speaker 3: show in the sense that it has really allowed us
23:09
Speaker 3: to explore places that few adventure shows have ventured into,
23:14
Speaker 3: and also explore a very different kind of format for
23:18
Speaker 3: a travel show. I've been doing this kind of travel
23:22
Speaker 3: film thing for gosh nine years now, and I've always
23:27
Speaker 3: looked at travel shows that we've traditionally watched on television,
23:31
Speaker 3: and I've always felt a little bit disappointed by them.
23:34
Speaker 3: Maybe you know, some of them are really amazing, and
23:37
Speaker 3: there's many that are great, but most I felt lacked something.
23:42
Speaker 3: They lacked this certain perspective and that I thought was
23:46
Speaker 3: something that perhaps we could change with super skilled So
23:51
Speaker 3: I wanted to create a show where it wasn't just
23:54
Speaker 3: you know, the host goes to a destination and then
23:57
Speaker 3: talks about the place and it's just their perspect I
24:00
Speaker 3: wanted to create a show where we go and spend
24:04
Speaker 3: time with the people who live in that place, you know,
24:07
Speaker 3: the actual native inhabitants of that place where we go in,
24:12
Speaker 3: and really we show that place and that culture through
24:16
Speaker 3: the perspective and the lens of the people who live there.
24:19
Speaker 3: Like I wanted that, I wanted from my presence to
24:23
Speaker 3: just be like a vehicle to communicating the you know,
24:28
Speaker 3: that culture and that community through the perspective.
24:31
Speaker 2: Of the locals.
24:31
Speaker 3: And I think we I think we did that quite well,
24:34
Speaker 3: you know, through you know, we just hang out with them,
24:37
Speaker 3: We learned from them, We showcased the their excellent skills,
24:42
Speaker 3: their amazing abilities, and I think through interviews and through
24:48
Speaker 3: just spending so much time together, I really feel like
24:51
Speaker 3: Super Skilled does communicate the amazing power of human potential
24:56
Speaker 3: and the human spirit all across the world.
24:58
Speaker 2: And I think it's it's got an inspiring show. You know.
25:00
Speaker 3: I've had so many messages from people saying that, you know,
25:02
Speaker 3: they took up various kinds of amazing hobbies because of
25:05
Speaker 3: the show, whether.
25:06
Speaker 2: It's running or archery, because.
25:10
Speaker 3: We did an episode on horseback archery and mongolia, and
25:13
Speaker 3: so that's been quite inspiring, quite fun to see.
25:15
Speaker 4: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
25:18
Speaker 4: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
25:22
Speaker 4: are supported entirely by Overland Journal, the magazine. So when
25:28
Speaker 4: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
25:31
Speaker 4: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
25:34
Speaker 4: a year. It also gives you access to our digital
25:37
Speaker 4: archive and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous
25:41
Speaker 4: images and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe.
25:45
Speaker 4: So if you go to Overland Journal dot com and
25:48
Speaker 4: you subscribe to the magazine, use the code Overland Podcast
25:53
Speaker 4: and that'll get you twenty percent off. It's only available
25:55
Speaker 4: to our podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else,
25:59
Speaker 4: and then you help us to maintain that independent, employee
26:03
Speaker 4: owned journalism that we have been famous for, so it
26:07
Speaker 4: allows us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another
26:11
Speaker 4: way you can help out too. I produced a book
26:14
Speaker 4: last year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one oh one.
26:17
Speaker 4: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
26:20
Speaker 4: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
26:24
Speaker 4: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures
26:27
Speaker 4: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
26:31
Speaker 4: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
26:34
Speaker 4: been distilled down into print form with great lists and
26:37
Speaker 4: beautiful imagery, so you can find that at your local
26:40
Speaker 4: bookstore overlanding one on one and thank you all for
26:43
Speaker 4: listening and for supporting us so much throughout these years.
26:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you what the experience
26:50
Speaker 1: taught you about learning new skills, because you're going into
26:54
Speaker 1: these situations, some of them you do have a bit
26:56
Speaker 1: of experience with, some of them not at all. As
27:00
Speaker 1: an adult, learning new things can be uncomfortable. Sometimes what
27:04
Speaker 1: did you learn and how did it humble you or not?
27:07
Speaker 1: Who knows?
27:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, many many of the skills that we learned humbled
27:12
Speaker 3: me a lot. And I just remember, you know, we
27:14
Speaker 3: traveled to Kenya, to the so called home of the Champions.
27:18
Speaker 3: It's a small town Kenya, well not maybe not so
27:20
Speaker 3: small anymore, but it's a town called Eton that not
27:23
Speaker 3: many people know about, which is kind of like the
27:27
Speaker 3: capital of marathon running in the world. This is where
27:30
Speaker 3: most of the really famous marathon runners are living and training.
27:36
Speaker 3: So you've got just this like incredible like excellence picapita,
27:40
Speaker 3: like it's just out of this world. You know, these
27:42
Speaker 3: are people who are running marathons and like within the
27:45
Speaker 3: two hour two hour ten range. Incredible, so fast. So
27:50
Speaker 3: there we tried to learn how to do a fast marathon, which,
27:54
Speaker 3: as it turns out, is not a skill that you
27:55
Speaker 3: can learn in seven days price. But it was extremely
28:00
Speaker 3: humbling because I just remember setting off on my first
28:03
Speaker 3: training run with our with our host Rosemary, who's a
28:08
Speaker 3: very skilled, very accomplished marathon runner, and you know, we're
28:12
Speaker 3: kind of running along the track with her and her team,
28:15
Speaker 3: and they are just jogging along. Literally, they're just doing
28:18
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's a jog for them. It's one
28:21
Speaker 3: step above a walk, and it's just a very easy
28:24
Speaker 3: training run. Meanwhile, I'm trying to I'm really doing my
28:27
Speaker 3: best to keep up with them, but I'm finding it
28:30
Speaker 3: really difficult because for me, this is not just a jog.
28:32
Speaker 3: For me, this is like this is like just something
28:35
Speaker 3: just under a sprint. So this is like a proper
28:38
Speaker 3: fast run for me. So I'm kind of there, like
28:41
Speaker 3: in the back of the group, just really struggling to
28:43
Speaker 3: keep up.
28:43
Speaker 2: Meanwhile they're just breathing through it. So yeah, I have.
28:47
Speaker 3: Kind of watching people who have these incredible skills do
28:50
Speaker 3: their thing is so very inspiring. It can definitely feel
28:56
Speaker 3: a little bit intimidating. You're like, oh my god, I'll
28:59
Speaker 3: never get to that level. But I think part of
29:01
Speaker 3: kind of my learning process for super skilled has been
29:05
Speaker 3: this is not about me becoming excellent at these skills,
29:08
Speaker 3: and we don't have to become excellent at everything that
29:11
Speaker 3: we do, but what an amazing joy it is to
29:14
Speaker 3: just dip your feet in these worlds, in these skills
29:18
Speaker 3: and experience what it's like, experience the people who truly
29:23
Speaker 3: are excellent, and get inspired by them across other areas,
29:27
Speaker 3: other parts of your life. So yeah, very very humbling,
29:31
Speaker 3: but also incredibly inspiring. So yeah, my kind of challenge
29:35
Speaker 3: was to do I'm not very I mean, I love
29:37
Speaker 3: running and I run long distances, but I'm quite slow.
29:40
Speaker 3: I'm not very fast runners. So my kind of challenge
29:43
Speaker 3: for that was to run within a set like run
29:47
Speaker 3: a marathon within a set time. And I actually failed
29:50
Speaker 3: that challenge. That was the one challenge across the show
29:53
Speaker 3: that I failed and I just didn't manage to do
29:56
Speaker 3: it on time.
29:56
Speaker 2: But that's kind of part of it.
29:58
Speaker 3: It's kind of part of the experience is learning things,
30:01
Speaker 3: being able to fail and picking yourself up and just
30:07
Speaker 3: keep going, right.
30:08
Speaker 2: Isn't that what life is all about?
30:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, you learn more from failing than succeeding, so I've heard.
30:16
Speaker 1: But I'm also like, but I don't want to.
30:19
Speaker 3: But it's always, of course, always nice to do to
30:22
Speaker 3: get things done and succeed at them once in a
30:24
Speaker 3: while if you.
30:25
Speaker 1: Get absolutely And also, what an incredible privilege to be
30:31
Speaker 1: in a situation with somebody from another place with this
30:36
Speaker 1: super skill and they're teaching you about what they know,
30:41
Speaker 1: and yeah, like the whole culture component, and if you're
30:44
Speaker 1: driven by curiosity at all, what an incredible situation to
30:49
Speaker 1: be in.
30:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:51
Speaker 3: The most technical I think of all the skills that
30:53
Speaker 3: we've attempted to learn on the show was holds back
30:57
Speaker 3: archery and mongolia and nowt that is something that really
31:01
Speaker 3: requires so much focus and so much technical prowess. So
31:06
Speaker 3: you know, kind of being there and learning something that
31:10
Speaker 3: is very technical was like a whole other kind of
31:12
Speaker 3: experience we learned from this amazing female horseback archer. And
31:18
Speaker 3: in cases like that, you've got people who can really
31:20
Speaker 3: teach you skills that nobody else can in the world.
31:23
Speaker 2: She's one of the very few, you know, female.
31:25
Speaker 3: Horseback archers at her level in the world, and one
31:30
Speaker 3: of the few in Mongolia. So you know, also meeting
31:33
Speaker 3: people who just have these really rare, niche skills, who
31:37
Speaker 3: are making it and creating an entire lifestyle, an entire
31:41
Speaker 3: career off of those that's also very inspiring because it
31:43
Speaker 3: really teaches you that, oh my god, there's like all
31:47
Speaker 3: these worlds out there that you know, you could become
31:50
Speaker 3: part of.
31:50
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's it's been a very inspiring journey.
31:55
Speaker 1: It was incredible watching you. I saw that episode and
31:59
Speaker 1: the whole process behind it, and then watching her and
32:04
Speaker 1: watching you and all that it required to ride on
32:07
Speaker 1: a horse with it and obviously you weren't holding onto
32:09
Speaker 1: anything but you're bow and then trying to hit a target.
32:13
Speaker 1: It's incredibly difficult, but also it's so cool.
32:18
Speaker 3: It's so cool you're literally on a galloping horse, rainless
32:23
Speaker 3: because you can't hold onto the reins because as you say,
32:26
Speaker 3: you've got to be able to hold your boat in
32:28
Speaker 3: both of your hands. So yeah, you're not just not
32:32
Speaker 3: holding onto anything, galloping along at you know, thirty kilometers
32:35
Speaker 3: an hour and trying to shoot at a very small
32:38
Speaker 3: target at the same time. So it's a pretty wild skill.
32:40
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean I just I did it
32:42
Speaker 3: for a few days. But the people who you know,
32:45
Speaker 3: if you look at the people that we were learning from,
32:47
Speaker 3: this Mongogan crew that.
32:48
Speaker 2: We had there, they've been doing it for years.
32:50
Speaker 3: And when they're out there shooting, they're just so incredibly graceful.
32:54
Speaker 2: It looks like they're flying so very very just like epic.
32:58
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, they looked like they were out of
33:01
Speaker 3: they just came straight out of some kind.
33:02
Speaker 2: Of fairy tale.
33:05
Speaker 1: Incredible, incredible to watch. I love that part of traveling
33:11
Speaker 1: about those things or trying or Yeah, it's great. So
33:16
Speaker 1: be fun and exciting and informative. So I would like
33:21
Speaker 1: to take you through some rapid fire questions and these
33:25
Speaker 1: apply to your traveling history. So anytime could be last year,
33:30
Speaker 1: could be years ago, doesn't matter. Most ingenious repair.
33:37
Speaker 3: Who okay, yeah, Mauritania Sahara twenty twenty six. So X,
33:44
Speaker 3: I'm out there in the desert all the kind of
33:47
Speaker 3: a lot of the wires under my bonnet get a
33:49
Speaker 3: little bit clogged up because driving through a very big
33:53
Speaker 3: sandstorm in the sand for many many days and there's
33:57
Speaker 3: dust covering everything. The car stops, doesn't want to start again,
34:01
Speaker 3: and mechanic comes eventually asks me if I have perfume,
34:05
Speaker 3: and I say I do not have perfume, and he
34:09
Speaker 3: somehow manages to find perfume from someone else and suddenly
34:12
Speaker 3: sprays dulchin gabana perfume some on the wires under my bonnet,
34:17
Speaker 3: and the car magically starts again. So I think, I
34:20
Speaker 3: think this was some kind of clean up job. But
34:22
Speaker 3: I never never expected dolabana perfume to come to my
34:25
Speaker 3: rescue in the middle of the Sahara, but it did.
34:28
Speaker 1: What are you going to carry perfume now on your journey?
34:31
Speaker 2: Apparently I should. Yeah.
34:34
Speaker 1: That's a great one. Okay. Next one is best food.
34:38
Speaker 1: That's going to be maybe difficult.
34:39
Speaker 2: But best food.
34:42
Speaker 3: I think Lebanon, Lebanese cuisine halloo mih. He doesn't love
34:46
Speaker 3: a bit of halumi cheese, great hamas taboole. I think
34:51
Speaker 3: Lebanon would have to be it. Though I'm sure if
34:55
Speaker 3: I traveled to Japan, I would probably change my mind.
35:00
Speaker 1: We'll see, maybe on the next podcast episode we will
35:03
Speaker 1: know if Japan has the best food. Worst illness is
35:09
Speaker 1: the next one.
35:11
Speaker 2: Worst illness.
35:12
Speaker 3: Thank god, I have not really been that ill on
35:16
Speaker 3: my travel While filming Super Skilled, we were in Bolivia,
35:21
Speaker 3: high up in the Andes, and you know, when you're
35:23
Speaker 3: up there at high altitude, I think you're maybe your
35:25
Speaker 3: immune system weekends a little bit. And on my way
35:28
Speaker 3: back from Bolivia after the shoot, I developed a really
35:32
Speaker 3: horrific infection on my thumb, and it was so bad
35:37
Speaker 3: that it ended up being this like big ball of
35:40
Speaker 3: blood that covered my entire thumb. One of the most
35:43
Speaker 3: painful experiences of my entire life. I couldn't sleep because
35:48
Speaker 3: the pain was so intense. I couldn't sit down because
35:51
Speaker 3: the pain was so intense. I just had to stand
35:53
Speaker 3: up and keep walking around just to distract myself. And
35:57
Speaker 3: that was a Yeah, ended up being a staph infection
36:00
Speaker 3: thumb and my nail ended up coming off and it's
36:03
Speaker 3: only now growing back kind of after eight months.
36:06
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
36:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty horrific, pretty gnarly, pretty disgusting.
36:11
Speaker 2: To look at.
36:11
Speaker 1: Okay, next this highest high.
36:15
Speaker 3: I think my very first proper solo venture into the
36:20
Speaker 3: wilderness about seven years ago now, I bought two horses
36:25
Speaker 3: in Mongolia and went off alone into the wild for
36:29
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, and I think it was the
36:32
Speaker 3: highest tie I've ever had because it was the very
36:34
Speaker 3: first time that I experienced what it really meant to
36:38
Speaker 3: be alive. I remember being out there, just me and
36:41
Speaker 3: my two horses, nobody else all around, camping completely wild place,
36:46
Speaker 3: wild nature, and I'm looking out onto this vast, enormous
36:50
Speaker 3: landscape and I for the first time in my.
36:53
Speaker 2: Life, I felt truly free, Like I didn't have to
36:57
Speaker 2: answer to anyone.
36:58
Speaker 3: I didn't have to speak to you, won't think about anything,
37:01
Speaker 3: do anything. I was just there, so incredibly present in,
37:05
Speaker 3: you know, within the majesty of the natural world. And
37:08
Speaker 3: I think I just felt so alive, so free, And
37:11
Speaker 3: it was the first time that I'd ever felt that
37:13
Speaker 3: in my life. And you know, I was in my
37:15
Speaker 3: late twenties by then, so it's amazing that I had
37:17
Speaker 3: to wait for so long to experience that moment.
37:21
Speaker 1: Beautiful. The opposite end, lowest low.
37:26
Speaker 3: Lowest low ever was probably a couple of years preceding
37:31
Speaker 3: that highest high, and that was when I was living
37:35
Speaker 3: in London, a very different life, corporate job, stable relationship,
37:40
Speaker 3: I was married back then, climbing the corporate ladder, but
37:43
Speaker 3: also feeling the most miserable ever of my entire life.
37:47
Speaker 3: I you know, I was just so deeply unhappy living
37:50
Speaker 3: that life, and I think that was probably the darkest
37:53
Speaker 3: time in my life, which eventually led to me leaving
37:56
Speaker 3: everything behind and going traveling. So it had a very
38:01
Speaker 3: positive end effect, but that's probably what it was. And
38:05
Speaker 3: I talk about this a lot more in my book,
38:08
Speaker 3: you know, I kind of describe what it was like
38:10
Speaker 3: and exactly what happened and just how dark it was.
38:12
Speaker 2: But again, it's it's.
38:14
Speaker 3: Amazing where these really really deeply dark moments can take
38:18
Speaker 3: you and how they can bring you back into the light.
38:21
Speaker 1: I want to touch on that in a bit, about
38:23
Speaker 1: how travel can lift you out of those things, but
38:26
Speaker 1: it's not a cure all necessarily, and how some things
38:31
Speaker 1: are deeper or deeply rooted and travel isn't necessarily going
38:35
Speaker 1: to be the cure all for that. But I want
38:37
Speaker 1: to talk about that in a second. Sure, yeah we're
38:41
Speaker 1: almost there, but yeah, best budget tip is the next
38:46
Speaker 1: rapid fire question.
38:48
Speaker 2: Best budget tip wild camping.
38:52
Speaker 3: I feel like that's probably a good tip is camping
38:55
Speaker 3: as much as possible if you've got a vehicle. Wild
38:58
Speaker 3: camping and the amazing places that we have in the world.
39:01
Speaker 3: Make your own food, cook your own meals on the road,
39:05
Speaker 3: really immerse yourself in the kind of the spirit of
39:09
Speaker 3: like roughing it.
39:09
Speaker 2: It's so much fun. You do not need a shower
39:12
Speaker 2: every two days. You really don't. So I would say
39:16
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, just go.
39:17
Speaker 3: Deep into the raw and rugged kind of spirit of
39:23
Speaker 3: over lad and travel.
39:25
Speaker 1: Whenever I come back home, like say we're flying back
39:27
Speaker 1: for some reason, of which we try to do keep
39:30
Speaker 1: it to a minimum. I'm always shocked at hotel prices
39:34
Speaker 1: because I guess we're coming in once a year or something,
39:36
Speaker 1: and I'm honestly like, I don't know how people do this. No,
39:41
Speaker 1: they can book a trip staying in hotels and airbnbs
39:44
Speaker 1: because we're traveling on a budget as well. And so yeah,
39:48
Speaker 1: wild camping is a great tip.
39:50
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
39:52
Speaker 1: Last question, current favorite piece of gear.
39:57
Speaker 3: See, I'm not very good on gear stuff because I
40:01
Speaker 3: try and really keep gear to a minimum to really
40:06
Speaker 3: kind of keep the traveling pure and focused on the
40:09
Speaker 3: travel and not the gear. But if I had to
40:13
Speaker 3: pick something, it would probably be I'm I'm just gonna
40:17
Speaker 3: put something completely random out there. A silk pillowcase. There
40:21
Speaker 3: we go, a silk pillowcase. That's an essential piece.
40:24
Speaker 2: Of gear for me.
40:25
Speaker 3: Now, it's really good for your skin, it's great for
40:28
Speaker 3: your hair, and it's very comfortable.
40:30
Speaker 2: Why not, that's great?
40:32
Speaker 1: I always think of my favorite pieces of gear are
40:35
Speaker 1: always we like, I think, kind of weird, like maybe
40:38
Speaker 1: my little vacuum. I love my vacuum, I really love
40:43
Speaker 1: it a lot. And just things like that, but.
40:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, m M, good stuff, or like a nice lotion
40:52
Speaker 3: that makes you feel a little bit like, oh, this
40:54
Speaker 3: is just feels lovely. You know, you're out in desert,
40:56
Speaker 3: everything is really dry, and you're like, oh, but my
40:58
Speaker 3: skin is so soft.
41:01
Speaker 1: It's like the little luxuries, right, Yeah, I'm so powerful. Yeah,
41:07
Speaker 1: let's get back into your new book called The Wilder
41:10
Speaker 1: Way I just released. You're on a book tour. What
41:14
Speaker 1: inspired you to write this book?
41:18
Speaker 3: You know, I've always wanted to be a writer ever
41:20
Speaker 3: since I can remember, and since I started traveling and
41:24
Speaker 3: storytelling around my travels. I've kind of come to realize
41:28
Speaker 3: that a lot of the books that I've read, a
41:32
Speaker 3: lot of the narratives that I'm sure we all know,
41:34
Speaker 3: like you know, eat, Pray, Love and wild, like all
41:37
Speaker 3: the classic travel books that are directed at women and
41:41
Speaker 3: written by women, I've noticed that a lot of them,
41:44
Speaker 3: you know, there are great adventures, they're so fun to read,
41:47
Speaker 3: they're really, you know, really beautiful books, but they seem
41:50
Speaker 3: to end with, Okay, well, I'm done with my travels
41:53
Speaker 3: now and now I've found a husband, a partner, and
41:58
Speaker 3: this is it, and this is it for me.
41:59
Speaker 2: I've achieved nirvana. Basically, this is my life complete.
42:03
Speaker 3: And I guess I didn't fully agree with that narrative,
42:05
Speaker 3: and I just wanted to provide a slightly different perspective
42:08
Speaker 3: for someone who, like, personally, I like, I don't want
42:12
Speaker 3: to have kids, I don't think about having a family.
42:15
Speaker 2: I'm single, I really don't mind.
42:17
Speaker 3: And I kind of live this very wild life, you know,
42:21
Speaker 3: up on the top of a mountain with no running
42:23
Speaker 3: power and of grid.
42:25
Speaker 2: So I thought I would really like to show.
42:29
Speaker 3: That perspective of, you know, kind of a more independent
42:33
Speaker 3: person doing their thing, someone who doesn't really stop seeking,
42:36
Speaker 3: you know, always who just wants to make adventure and
42:40
Speaker 3: nature part of their life going forward, beyond the kind
42:43
Speaker 3: of travels that are in the book. And I just
42:45
Speaker 3: really wanted to give that perspective because I felt like
42:48
Speaker 3: I was liking it. When I was younger, I didn't
42:50
Speaker 3: even know that this kind of life was possible, that
42:53
Speaker 3: this kind of life was sustainable, and I kind of
42:55
Speaker 3: wish I had role models like that to show me
42:58
Speaker 3: that there is a different way to live life, that
43:00
Speaker 3: there is a different way to achieve success and happiness.
43:04
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to end with a white, big offense.
43:07
Speaker 3: So that's kind of why I wrote the book. That
43:10
Speaker 3: was a huge motivation for it was to be like, Okay,
43:13
Speaker 3: well this is also possible, you know, and it may
43:15
Speaker 3: not be conventional because it's a tiny little hut in
43:18
Speaker 3: the woods, but so yeah, but happiness could take on
43:20
Speaker 3: so many forms and there's not one way to live.
43:22
Speaker 1: Life, absolutely, and a lot of people probably look at
43:27
Speaker 1: that little cabin and they're like, that's my dream too,
43:30
Speaker 1: but I'm not necessarily living that dream right now. So yeah,
43:34
Speaker 1: I think the role model piece is super important, and
43:38
Speaker 1: I think also with your book, we were just alluding
43:42
Speaker 1: to it, but this concept of travel as a cure
43:46
Speaker 1: all because it can be in some ways for sure,
43:50
Speaker 1: but then in other ways there is deeper work to
43:53
Speaker 1: be done. Do you have thoughts on that?
43:56
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, I think it's such an important point and
43:59
Speaker 3: we do, I think, assume that travel will heal us
44:03
Speaker 3: and that will solve all of our problems. And I
44:06
Speaker 3: think that's also been propagated by this narrative that like
44:08
Speaker 3: travel is a great education.
44:10
Speaker 2: I don't know.
44:10
Speaker 3: I think it was Anthony Burday that said this, that
44:12
Speaker 3: you know, travel teaches you, it's the great the greatest teacher,
44:16
Speaker 3: which I don't fully agree with because I do feel
44:19
Speaker 3: like you could spend a lifetime traveling and not learn
44:22
Speaker 3: a thing and come back to the person with the
44:25
Speaker 3: exact same limited beliefs. I think the trick and the
44:29
Speaker 3: magic is when you allow yourself to open your heart,
44:34
Speaker 3: open your mind to other ways of living, to other people,
44:38
Speaker 3: to other perspectives, people that you may not agree with,
44:40
Speaker 3: people whose lifestyles you may think are completely alien, or
44:44
Speaker 3: things that you could never ever pursue yourself.
44:46
Speaker 2: But that's the whole point.
44:48
Speaker 3: That you're exposing yourself and you're opening your heart and
44:50
Speaker 3: your mind to things that you never thought were possible.
44:53
Speaker 2: And so I do feel like.
44:55
Speaker 3: I went in there originally nine years ago, started traveling
45:00
Speaker 3: with this idea, with this hope that I would find
45:03
Speaker 3: enlightenment on the top of a mountain at some point
45:06
Speaker 3: very soon, and that travel would help me find myself.
45:09
Speaker 3: And it's quite funny because nine years in, I'm like,
45:12
Speaker 3: I can see very clearly now that I never.
45:14
Speaker 2: Did find myself.
45:15
Speaker 3: And I've really searched far and wide, been to all
45:18
Speaker 3: the continents, over ninety countries, did all the modes of travel,
45:22
Speaker 3: climbed all kinds of mountains, ran all kinds of ultra marathons.
45:26
Speaker 3: I really searched, but I never did find myself. And
45:29
Speaker 3: I realized, I think writing this book, that's the whole point.
45:33
Speaker 3: That's actually the whole point, that I never do want
45:35
Speaker 3: to find myself. I've been finding little pieces of myself
45:38
Speaker 3: along the way, little bits of myself that kind of
45:42
Speaker 3: shape who I am right now. But how boring would
45:46
Speaker 3: it be to completely stop searching?
45:48
Speaker 2: How boring would it be to actually find yourself and
45:50
Speaker 2: be that for the rest of your life?
45:52
Speaker 3: You know? So I love that travel takes us on
45:55
Speaker 3: this journey, but I think it's very, very important that
45:58
Speaker 3: we open ourselves up to it, and that's probably the
46:02
Speaker 3: piece that a lot of people don't really think about
46:04
Speaker 3: or GISs out on.
46:06
Speaker 1: If you let it. I love what you said there
46:08
Speaker 1: because it's almost like it's like overlanding too. It's not
46:12
Speaker 1: the destination, it's the journey. I don't want to be cliche,
46:15
Speaker 1: but that's what it sounded like.
46:18
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, if there's any cliche that is one
46:21
Speaker 3: hundred percent right, it is it. It's all about the
46:24
Speaker 3: journey and not the destination. Like, yeah, cliche, but it's
46:27
Speaker 3: so true.
46:28
Speaker 2: It is so true.
46:29
Speaker 3: And I it was reading recently somewhere that if you
46:34
Speaker 3: see the journey as the if you see the experience
46:40
Speaker 3: as the whole point, the journey is the whole point,
46:44
Speaker 3: then you can never fail, right because you're Even if
46:47
Speaker 3: you don't reach your final destination, that doesn't matter because
46:51
Speaker 3: the whole point is the experience that takes you towards it.
46:55
Speaker 2: So I love that.
46:57
Speaker 1: I love that too, And I feel like sometimes that
47:00
Speaker 1: really applies when people are like, are you driving around
47:03
Speaker 1: the world, and I'm like, I guess my accident kind
47:06
Speaker 1: of but maybe not. If we decide to backtrack at
47:08
Speaker 1: some point and don't get around the world completely, you know,
47:11
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's okay because it doesn't matter.
47:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. True, it's so true. And you are driving around
47:21
Speaker 2: the world.
47:21
Speaker 3: You're driving across so many worlds and so many places
47:25
Speaker 3: in so many landscapes, and you're doing it in your
47:27
Speaker 3: own way, and that's beautiful because I think you know
47:30
Speaker 3: a lot of us we have this pressure that like, okay,
47:32
Speaker 3: you're going to go overlanding, so you have to do
47:34
Speaker 3: this massive trip all in one go, and you have
47:37
Speaker 3: to complete the Pan American you know, highway in the
47:40
Speaker 3: scope of one year, and that's that's an overlanding trip,
47:43
Speaker 3: whereas that's not really the case at all. The whole
47:45
Speaker 3: point of this is not to reach some arbitrary goal
47:49
Speaker 3: that is set by a map. The whole point of
47:52
Speaker 3: this is to have that experience, right, to let that
47:55
Speaker 3: experience transform you, to see places that people don't get
48:00
Speaker 3: to see, to meet people, have conversations and let them
48:04
Speaker 3: change the way that you see the world and the
48:06
Speaker 3: reality around you.
48:08
Speaker 2: The whole point is learning.
48:10
Speaker 1: Right on that note, you have been on a book
48:17
Speaker 1: tour and lots of people have been coming to see you.
48:23
Speaker 1: What is it like being engaged with that many people
48:28
Speaker 1: in real life after you know, you've had a lot
48:33
Speaker 1: of online interaction. I'm sure, but it must be so
48:37
Speaker 1: incredible to have a lot of people face to face
48:41
Speaker 1: and having that interaction in person.
48:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very surreal, I think for both.
48:48
Speaker 3: I mean, from what I've gathered, it's surreal for me,
48:51
Speaker 3: but it's also surreal for the people who come to
48:53
Speaker 3: these events, because you know, they've been following me on
48:56
Speaker 3: social media, they just see like a face on a screen, right,
49:00
Speaker 3: they don't, like, they.
49:02
Speaker 2: Don't see you in three D.
49:04
Speaker 3: So a lot of people came up to me during
49:05
Speaker 3: the book tour and they're like, oh my god, you're
49:08
Speaker 3: an actual, real human being.
49:09
Speaker 2: And I'm like you.
49:10
Speaker 3: Too, You're also an actual real human being and not
49:14
Speaker 3: just a DM. So it's been crazy but very It
49:19
Speaker 3: just makes you feel like, oh my god, what I'm
49:21
Speaker 3: doing actually riches people, and people actually like actual people,
49:25
Speaker 3: real human beings, you know, who also have their own
49:29
Speaker 3: lives and their own realities. And so it's been very
49:32
Speaker 3: empowering in some ways, like just to know that, oh
49:36
Speaker 3: my god, like we are an actual community of humans.
49:39
Speaker 2: How cool is that? So yeah, truly wonderful.
49:42
Speaker 3: And writing the book was a pretty solitary experience in
49:47
Speaker 3: many ways, because you know, you have to be there
49:49
Speaker 3: in your head, very focused for a long period of time.
49:52
Speaker 3: But sharing the book with the world has been extremely
49:56
Speaker 3: uplifting and very social. Yeah, one of probably the absolute
50:00
Speaker 3: highlights of my life.
50:03
Speaker 2: I would probably say, Actually.
50:06
Speaker 1: That's so wonderful because I were you nervous because it's
50:09
Speaker 1: like a vulnerable place to be and to share these
50:12
Speaker 1: personal details of your life with everybody, or were you
50:15
Speaker 1: like I'm ready.
50:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it took me a while to figure out like
50:21
Speaker 3: how much I wanted to share in the book, like
50:22
Speaker 3: how much of my personal life.
50:25
Speaker 2: I wanted to dive deeper.
50:26
Speaker 3: Than I do on YouTube and on social media, of course,
50:29
Speaker 3: and I wanted to make that book quite vulnerable because
50:32
Speaker 3: I just knew that I needed to say certain things
50:34
Speaker 3: that I had never shared on socials. So yeah, it
50:38
Speaker 3: felt a little bit scary, and it still does a
50:40
Speaker 3: little bit, because there's things in that book that, you know,
50:43
Speaker 3: I know people might not like or might make.
50:45
Speaker 2: Me unlikable in their eyes. But that's the point. I guess.
50:49
Speaker 3: I've come to realize that you can't please everyone, and
50:53
Speaker 3: you shouldn't even try, and there will be people out
50:56
Speaker 3: there who dislike you for any reason, and that's okay.
51:01
Speaker 3: I think that's totally fine and legit, and that just
51:04
Speaker 3: makes you a real person. So yeah, it's a little scary,
51:07
Speaker 3: but I think, you know, knowing that people are reading
51:10
Speaker 3: the book and that it's already making even like a
51:13
Speaker 3: small difference in their lives, that's that's that just kind
51:16
Speaker 3: of makes it.
51:17
Speaker 2: All worth it.
51:19
Speaker 1: Fantastic congratulations, by the way, that's very exciting the book
51:24
Speaker 1: coming out, and I'm wondering what's next for you and
51:29
Speaker 1: where can we find you online?
51:32
Speaker 3: Well, next up, I've got well, I've got the you
51:35
Speaker 3: to finish up the book tour, so I've got that
51:37
Speaker 3: coming in the US and then Germany and Poland later
51:40
Speaker 3: in the year.
51:41
Speaker 2: But I want to spend the summer at home.
51:44
Speaker 3: I have two horses and I really want to spend
51:46
Speaker 3: time with them, you know. I you know, I've been
51:49
Speaker 3: doing a lot of overland travel, but I think I
51:51
Speaker 3: want to get into horseback travel a little bit now.
51:54
Speaker 3: So I want to be here in the Carpathians, cultivating
51:58
Speaker 3: my land and working with my horses. But yes, if
52:01
Speaker 3: you guys want to follow that, then you can go.
52:04
Speaker 2: To my Instagram or my YouTube.
52:07
Speaker 3: It's Ava Zubek on both of those platforms, or yay,
52:10
Speaker 3: or you can read my book on the Wilder Way.
52:14
Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to
52:16
Speaker 1: chat with me on the podcast. It's so great to
52:20
Speaker 1: check in get updated, and I look forward to hearing
52:24
Speaker 1: more about your future overland via horse plans.
52:29
Speaker 2: This isn't so much fun. Thank you so much. It's
52:31
Speaker 2: always lovely to chat with you.
52:34
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much to the Overland Journal podcast
52:37
Speaker 1: listeners for tuning into today's episode. We hope you enjoyed
52:40
Speaker 1: it and we'll catch you next time.