115 days on the road. The black marks are the days that Vard and Myke left. More or less 50 days out, 50 days back, 15 days solo through Europe.
I was both excited and disappointed to be back on English shores. After 115 days, it was all over. I was heading straight back to London to spend time with friends so I was looking forward to seeing them, to being back in a country where I could comfortably speak the language, and to not have to drive hundreds of kilometers daily. It was also an end to one of the biggest and most exciting adventures of my life.
The tag line above says “~20,000 MILES, 26 COUNTRIES, 12 WEEKS, 5 MOUNTAIN RANGES, 3 DESERTS, 1 BEAT-UP OLD BANGER”. Since I wrote that our plans have changed again and again; by the time I got back the true figures were 17,000 miles, 27 countries, 16.5 weeks, 6 mountain ranges, 2 deserts, and 1 beaten and bruised – but still rolling – Harrison.
So we took a little longer to do fewer miles – a decision that I think saved the trip from the brink of being an ordeal, and made it amazing instead. (For those curious, the mountains were the Carpathians, Caucuses, Tian Shan, Urals, Scandinavian Mountains and Alps. And the deserts were the Kyzlkum and Muyunkum. Although the Ustyurt Plateau might also qualify). We didn’t make it to Mongolia for Naadam, which I am still disappointed about, but the things we’ve managed to do instead completely make up for it.
One of the many small aspects that hasn’t been mentioned in the blog – we built up a ‘tat dash’ of awful tourist tat superglued to the dashboard – one from each country (excluding Europe). Maximum of £5, and the most touristic awfulness won. They also all have individual names…
It has been an unbelievable few months. I’ve been across Europe twice, swum in the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and walked on the desertified bed of the Aral Sea, followed the Silk Road across the deserts of Central Asia, hunted with a Golden Eagle in the depths of the Tian Shan mountains, blitzed back across the huge expanse of Russia, and headed north deep into the Arctic Circle. We’ve met locals from across Asia, drank fermented mare’s milk (and the local moonshine from half a dozen countries), been invited to stay with strangers, slept in a yurt heated with a horse dung fire and slept in hammocks in bear country. I really don’t know how to sum it all up.
The other two unwise men have already written about their thoughts on ending their journey on this blog, so I’m not certain what else I can add, except to echo my thanks to them for making this trip so much fun. I genuinely can’t think of any guys I would rather have undertaken a trip like this with. Despite some occasional dodgy situations, and a list of mechanical problems as long as your arm, we have somehow managed to make it home not only in one piece but having had as incredible a time as we have.
The contents of our roofrack – the top tyre is the one that blew on the motorway in Sweden, The shovel was far digging ourselves out of sand, and was fortunately never needed.
In doing something like this the issues with transportation, language, borders, mechanics or new cultures aren’t the problem – all of that is surprisingly easy to deal with. It’s the people you’re travelling with and that you have to spent weeks on end with that can be the biggest issue, and somehow we have managed to not only remain friends, but didn’t have a single major argument the whole time we were away. So guys: thank you. I’d do it again in a heartbeat (although maybe next time lets try not to get stuck on a boat for a week, yeah?).
I’ve spent most of the last three years travelling, and in between having amazing adventures, I have occasionally been asked why; what do I get out of it? Hopefully this blog has offered at least a partial answer. Aside from just having fun, I’ve also learnt useful skills (organising a trip is a surprising amount of work sometimes, as is creating and maintaining a blog, or asking for a thermometer from a market where no one speaks any English), and important lessons – who you’re with matters more than where you are; that I’m seriously lucky in my health, wealth, family and friends; that everywhere in the world people are warm, friendly, generous, interesting and kind – that racism is just the stupidest idea ever.
As Steinbeck once commented on Cannery Row, so is true of the world: “Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen” and he would have meant the same thing.”
Another of the unmentioned small aspects of the adventure that made it so much fun; paintings, speeding tickets, pens, lights, matches, sunglasses; all attached to Harrison’s roof, with mandatory commentary from anyone who got in as a passenger (only from Denmark onwards).
This may be the final blog post uploaded to 3unwisemen. We are now all either home or off having separate adventures (follow Myke’s travels here!), so that’s the end of this story. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our adventures over the last few months. We’ve certainly enjoyed having them! I may use this space to upload some more photos from our travels – despite adding dozens to the blog posts, we still have thousands that are sitting on our computers, looked at by no one. If I do, I’ll update facebook, or you could hit the ‘subscribe’ button over on the right. As far as I know, it won’t send you anything unless I get around to posting more on here.
A selection of the maps we used in planning our route, plus one that my brother bought me as a gift on returning – a wall map where you can scratch the places you’ve visited off of. I think it makes this trip look particularly intrepid.
From all of the unwise men, I’d like to say thanks for reading. Somehow, this humble blog has attracted thousands of views from around the world; the size of the readership over a few short months has blown me away. Who knows, maybe we have inspired some of you to try a road trip of your own. (If you want my advice – do it! It will be more fun and easier than you ever imagined. By far the hardest part is making the decision to go!)
– Jon
Three Unwise Men 