Has Covid disruption made Overlanding exciting again ?

[*Touring Ted*]

Hear me out on this. And it's more of a fleeting thought than a well thought out question.

I was reading a post on the HU Facebook page from a friend. About if RTW or long distance travel will ever be possible again. Or will it ever be so easy again.

Which made me think (quite selfishly), is that a bad thing ??

Overland travel really has become SO VERY EASY. Everyone seems to be doing it. I get the feeling that it has lost it's excitement, kudos and uniqueness. Telling someone that you're going to ride your bike across continents doesn't stir the excitement it used to. Do I dare say it has become almost boring because it's so common ?

Adventure bikes and trucks are EVERYWHERE now. They don't turn heads anymore.

But now that it's more difficult to cross borders, get insurance, plan accommodation and not be forced into quarantine, it seems to make travel a bit more 'edgy' again. And this 'New Normal' could potentially last a few years. Or more ?

I was forced to cancel my plans this year. But there are people out there travelling and I'm actually find it exciting again.

And it's the uncertainly that makes it exciting, right ?

[AnTyx]

What is this cult of struggle?

This is the thing that has made me almost unable to listen to ARR Raw any more. There is this persistent ideology that "it has to be difficult and lonely and undiscovered, otherwise you're not doing it right". Infrastructure - from paved roads to cheap local SIMs and accepting card payments - is seen as some kind of evil, that is ruining the purity of the endeavor.

That's gatekeeping bullshit.

Too many people seem to be in this not for the trip itself - not for the experience and pleasure that they get out of it for themselves - but for the ability to brag in the pub about how many problems they encountered and overcame.

When I think of my trips, be it on a motorcycle or not, the things I remember are not the times when I was miserable. The trips I most enjoyed were not the ones where I got stuck in the mud or had to deal with crooked border officials - it's the ones where everything went well and I really enjoyed myself throughout.

I don't understand this obsession with getting to places where nobody else has been. I understand the pleasure of being in solitude in nature - in a place where nobody else is at the same time as you - but that just means getting up early, or going slightly out of season, dealing with colder or wetter weather. (I really enjoyed renting a scooter in Lisbon and riding out to Cabo de la Roca in February - I'd brought much of my gear from home, and was probably the warmest, best-protected scooter rider in Portugal on that day!) But if there is a place worth seeing, the locals will know about it, and will build a road to it. If some place is properly difficult to reach, it's probably because nobody needs or wants to go there!

Why are we supposed to idolize struggle and misery? It's fun to read about someone else having a bad time while you're warm at home with a cup of tea, but that doesn't mean I want to go and be miserable myself!

So no, I don't think the world shutting down makes ovelanding better or more "genuine". There SHOULD be more people doing it. It SHOULD be more accessible. There SHOULD be options on roads to take, so that you can go around the world on a Gold Wing, and you know what? If it takes you a thousand days, there will be enough great experiences to fill every single one of those days. Even if you aren't riding a KTM with knobbly tires up into the Hindukush.

The golden age of overlanding was when you could take a scheduled car ferry from Korsakov to Wakkanai, or from Panama to Columbia; when any passport besides an American or British one let you get into Iran with only a bit of bureaucracy. The next golden age of overlanding will be when China allows foreign vehicles to transit unaccompanied.

[Erik_G]

My view:
There are so many places to go.
Experiences to get and
People to meet

There is more than enough for all of us.
If you travel for the purpose of the travel. To see things and visit places,
not to tick something in the bucket list. You do not have to go where there are a lot of adventure bikes.
Go off the main trail, and you will experience a lot.
The world is huge and full of remote places.
Where you can meet new cultures, beautiful nature, foreign people and .....


=
You can do Patagonia-Alaska, using the Gringo Trail.
Tick it on your list. And tell about it on the pub.


Or you can travel small roads to special places,
Where you do not see many "tourists"
And collect memories.
For me that is the purpose of travelling alone by bike.
=

I really hope (but doubt) that things will go back to normal.
So I can do long trips.

But for now, I will enjoy EN2 in Portugal.

https://rotan2.pt

Not by racing it in two days. But to go slowly and take a lot of detours. To find interesting things.

But that is me.
And I respect everyone's choice

[backofbeyond]

Things change. And then the changes change. And then .... well you get the picture. Nothing stays the same. And so it will be with Covid. It's here now and then in a few years (probably not months) it'll be yesterday's news and we'll be adapting to the new normal in the same way we adapt to borders closing or opening or politics or ideologies coming or going. That's the reality of travel - you go when and where you can and you pick your own level of 'adventure' / danger / experience.

What's changed (for the better or worse? - you can make up your own mind) is how easy it is to shove your 'unique' adventure in everyone else's face. I notice you posted something similar on the Horizons Facebook pages, a place that seems to be nothing but tales of the 'look upon my travels ye mighty and despair (and buy the book)' type so it's maybe not surprising that there's an element of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out for anyone who doesn't know it) going on. Maybe more people are travelling these days (and the amount of commercial activity surrounding it suggests there are) so it's inevitable some will be taking the hair shirt route. What's certain though is that the participants are making even more noise about it. In some respects it's a bit like people discovering sex for the first time. It's a whole new world opening up and some people will shout about it (parenthood, on the other hand, is like finding all the borders have just closed )

Far be it for me to suggest what you need to do but ignoring it all and doing what appeals to me is how I've responded. In fact my response over the last week has been to postpone a (short) trip that should have seen me on the way to the ferry right at this moment. I was planning a loop down the west side of France via the HU meeting in Loupiac, the Camargue and the Alps but the upsurge in CV-19 over the last week has done for it. I suppose I could have gone and written about how I faced the plague of the century (complete with drone footage and galaxy strewn nightime pictures) and survived but I'm not sure a real risk is worth a fantasy (facebook) reward (in fact I'm sure it isn't). I'll pick up my travel projects as and when they're possible (+ time and money allow) and I doubt very much I'll bother anyone else with what I got out of them.

[*Touring Ted*]

I love the adrenaline of far away travel. The challenge of a difficult road. The hustle and bustle of a chaotic border crossing.

Holidays are quite boring for me. If it's easy, then I don't really see the point unless I'm specifically trying to relax or take a time out.

[Jay_Benson]

Originally Posted by backofbeyond

I was planning a loop down the west side of France via the HU meeting in Loupiac, the Camargue and the Alps but the upsurge in CV-19 over the last week has done for it. I suppose I could have gone and written about how I faced the plague of the century (complete with drone footage and galaxy strewn nightime pictures) and survived but I'm not sure a real risk is worth a fantasy (facebook) reward (in fact I'm sure it isn't). I'll pick up my travel projects as and when they're possible (+ time and money allow) and I doubt very much I'll bother anyone else with what I got out of them.

I find some people’s writing inspiring and they make me want to undertake a trip - the thing is it isn’t the parts where they go to specific sites that are interesting particularly but the wildlife and scenery they see. Other writings make me want to stay at home so that I can cringe in private. At the end of the day I just want to see more of the world and slower pace than a holiday normally allows - I will probably do some sort of blog - more so that family and friends can see that I am still alive and where I have got to.

[Flipflop]

I believe it’s all perception anyway and has been since before ancient times.

When Ted Simon broke his leg he just waited, he knew someone would be along as people lived in the area. Let’s face it, there’s not many places on earth where humans don’t live and even the inhospitable places are travelled across by some trader or delivery driver.

Histories of pioneer travellers have been written from their own perspective - but humans lived in Africa and the Americas long before the white man got there so food and fresh water was available - actually in abundance.

Of course this doesn’t mean that overlanding is not an achievement, it is certainly a pastime that all of us enjoy and get great satisfaction from or we wouldn’t be on this forum. But I feel that comparisons of any kind are impossible and counter productive in this arena (obviously Philosophising in the pub is fine ).

Just an example of perception:
A friend of mine used to do 4x4, extreme Off road racing in Russia. It was so extreme that all the cars were hand built, from scratch and there’s at least 1 death every race - and it’s a small field. Nobody asked him about it or seamed remotely interested, even though it was a major achievement every year made more amazing by the fact that he was a privateer with no money and did everything himself and was on the podium occasionally.
A few years ago my wife and I rode round the Balkans and into Greece for our summer holiday. Loads of people wanted to know all about it, “could you get petrol? Were the roads tarmac? Was it dangerous?

[*Touring Ted*]

Originally Posted by AnTyx

What is this cult of struggle?

This is the thing that has made me almost unable to listen to ARR Raw any more. There is this persistent ideology that "it has to be difficult and lonely and undiscovered, otherwise you're not doing it right". Infrastructure - from paved roads to cheap local SIMs and accepting card payments - is seen as some kind of evil, that is ruining the purity of the endeavor.

That's gatekeeping bullshit.

Too many people seem to be in this not for the trip itself - not for the experience and pleasure that they get out of it for themselves - but for the ability to brag in the pub about how many problems they encountered and overcame.

When I think of my trips, be it on a motorcycle or not, the things I remember are not the times when I was miserable. The trips I most enjoyed were not the ones where I got stuck in the mud or had to deal with crooked border officials - it's the ones where everything went well and I really enjoyed myself throughout.

I don't understand this obsession with getting to places where nobody else has been. I understand the pleasure of being in solitude in nature - in a place where nobody else is at the same time as you - but that just means getting up early, or going slightly out of season, dealing with colder or wetter weather. (I really enjoyed renting a scooter in Lisbon and riding out to Cabo de la Roca in February - I'd brought much of my gear from home, and was probably the warmest, best-protected scooter rider in Portugal on that day!) But if there is a place worth seeing, the locals will know about it, and will build a road to it. If some place is properly difficult to reach, it's probably because nobody needs or wants to go there!

Why are we supposed to idolize struggle and misery? It's fun to read about someone else having a bad time while you're warm at home with a cup of tea, but that doesn't mean I want to go and be miserable myself!

So no, I don't think the world shutting down makes ovelanding better or more "genuine". There SHOULD be more people doing it. It SHOULD be more accessible. There SHOULD be options on roads to take, so that you can go around the world on a Gold Wing, and you know what? If it takes you a thousand days, there will be enough great experiences to fill every single one of those days. Even if you aren't riding a KTM with knobbly tires up into the Hindukush.

The golden age of overlanding was when you could take a scheduled car ferry from Korsakov to Wakkanai, or from Panama to Columbia; when any passport besides an American or British one let you get into Iran with only a bit of bureaucracy. The next golden age of overlanding will be when China allows foreign vehicles to transit unaccompanied.

I quite agree. There is no right or wrong way to do anything. Each to their own.

It's not gate keeping bullshit whatsoever though. A lot of people like to get away from the normal ease of everyday life. To challenge themselves mentally and physically.

A dirt track to nowhere is an absolute paradise to many who Overland. I would have thought the majority.

If a motorway and a service station with your favourite flavour of coffee is your thing then that's fine too. But it really isn't mine.

We obviously have very different personalities.

[AnTyx]

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

If a motorway and a service station with your favourite flavour of coffee is your thing then that's fine too.

See, you can't escape the dismissive attitude even when you try.

[shu...]

Actually, though I generally agree with many of your points AnTyx, I think Ted has expressed his opinion without being dismissive. He clearly states that he's just speaking for himself.

I (perhaps most of us) like it somewhere in the middle.

I do thoroughly enjoy riding into a strange town, and finding a good place to sip a latte and doing some people watching.

Mexico........


Perhaps that part is even more enjoyable because I froze my butt off riding for a few hours that morning.



I like a ride where some days are calm and straightforward and other days where there is some uncertainty about whether I can actually get through on the route I chose....

Northern Peru.....


But I would say that very few of us would really like the kind of adventure that history records for it's explorers. (Remember: for every Marco Polo who returned from his trip to China, thousands more died of disease, murder, imprisonment, broken bones, etc. Most of us would have been just one of the thousands. )

Myself, I don't care to risk it all.....I just want to get out and see the world, and meet some different folks. Moto travel, in and of itself, requires the willingness to endure a certain amount of suffering and that does make the coffee taste just a little richer.

...............shu

[brclarke]

I disagree: even though things are a lot easier now than say 20-30-40 years ago, this kind of travel is still hard.
Or maybe I'm just not as tough as some other folks - and I'm just fine with that.

Sure, I'd much rather search for info on the Internet than thumbing through an out-of-date Lonely Planet, but that for me makes it no less of an adventure.

[tremens]

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

If a motorway and a service station with your favourite flavour of coffee is your thing then that's fine too. But it really isn't mine.

bingo, there are definitely better ways for spending your life then on highways and service stations, being lonely, dirty and wet

[sushi2831]

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

I am very much speaking for myself

Hello

So do I, just my 2 cents.
I can't really follow your path of thoughts, it sounds a bit cynical,
so just some responses since we're at the pub.

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

if RTW or long distance travel ever be possible again. Or will it ever be so easy again.

I fear it will take more than next year to return to normal, once the vaccine is here and 8 billion people got it, I hope after the comming economical crisis I still have the possibility to travel.

Nobody needed that shit virus.

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

Overland travel really has become SO VERY EASY. Everyone seems to be doing it. I get the feeling that it has lost it's excitement, kudos and uniqueness. Telling someone that you're going to ride your bike across continents doesn't stir the excitement it used to.

Travel was always easy depending on your passport and destination, the hardest part was always getting the arse off the couch.
Internet, GPS etc. made information and contact easier, but some borders and areas are now closed, or you need guides etc, Thailand, China.
I read and heard stories about Algeria, just hop on the ferry and play in the sand, just closed when I made my bikelicence.

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

And it's the uncertainly that makes it exciting, right ?

There are still some deserts that you can go into, just dont check your fuel and the excitement will come...

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

I loved it when I rolled into a fuel station and I would have people asking me questions and offering to buy me a drink etc. Egocentric ?? Probably... That rarely happens now.
…
I want to feel like I'm exploring new places or being, dare I say it, "Adventurous"

If there are to many bikes at the northcape in Norway in July, just go in January, folks back home will once again say you're crazy and locals offer you a cup of warm coffee.
(But even that has been done by many others before you...)


Just remember, overlanding has never been (for us here in the pub) exploration of uncharted land, even the worst sandtrack was build by someone, then after a couple of hundred miles you need gas, how did that get into the plastic bottle there?
When we thick we're at the arse of the world, it's the center of the world for the person filling gas out of the plastic bottle into your gastank.

Originally Posted by *Touring Ted*

It has kept people home. Too worried to travel.

Is the one that travels today a hero or just someone who is recklessly and selfish spreading the virus?
Just think about that.


cheers sushi


P.S.
If overlanding by motorbike is to easy for you, switch to bycicle, they make every motorbiker (who thinks he's the biggest badass) look like a

[Tomkat]

Horses for courses. Not everybody wants to nurse a dying bike to a desert island and live on raw meat and dug-up roots along the way. Then again not everybody wants a Goldwing, 4* hotels and 4-lane freeways all the way. An element of challenge makes a trip all the more memorable, but step over that line and a challenge becomes a PITA, turns a trip into all the wrong sort of memories - and that's where I see this virus right now. When it's gone (or at least controlled/abated) there will still be plenty of adventures out there. It's not a pissing contest, if you want to travel easily or in hardship it's your journey and your experience. Never mind everyone else's. You're not unique, you're part of a community not a Victorian explorer in search of the source of the Nile. And leave the bloody drone at home.

Just get out and ride. The adventures will find you.

[PrinceHarley]

The toughest part of any journey is the 10 paces between the sofa and the front door.
Covid hasn't changed this.