Has Covid disruption made Overlanding exciting again ?
 

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 ? :innocent:

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 ?

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.

Enough room fro all of us
 

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

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 :rofl:)

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.

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.

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.

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

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........
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...66232387_3.jpg

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

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...370&fit=bounds

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.....
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...s/DSCN1042.jpg

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

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.
:rofl:

I am very much speaking for myself. It's just a throw-away thought I had.

When I started over-landing about twenty years ago, there were not many others around. Sure, people have been doing this for a millennia, but It felt a lot more unique, and I liked that. I loved that if I chose to ride the road less travelled, it would be a challenge because there wasn't another traveller ten minutes behind me that could help me out.

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 liked it when I wasn't just one of million doing the same journey. On the same kind of bike etc.

I want to feel like I'm exploring new places or being, dare I say it, "Adventurous" It doesn't feel much of an adventure to me if it's too easy. Or I'm surrounded by a safety net of people.

I suppose you can compare it to Climbing to Everest base camp. I bet it felt like much more of a special achievement when there wasn't 10,000 people in-front and behind you doing exactly the same thing.

With all this Covid disruption, It has kept people home. Too worried to travel. It's harder. Maybe I'm just saying I like less people :)

When there wasn't a million other overlanders on the same road, when you happened to see another one, you would both stop and say hello. "Where've you been and where are you going?" Make a new friend. It's a great feeling. Now there are so many of us around that you're lucky to get a nod.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the other side of it too. Sometimes I just like to book a hotel, turn on the sat nav and ride somewhere for a relaxing break.

I think the key is then finding those locations that meet those "excitement" criteria.

I think the fact there are many more doing shouldn't come into it, other than the fact their numbers then "sanitise" and tame areas which would have otherwise been adventurous.

An analogous example would be the Turkish coast. I went when I was a kid: empty. Just traditional Turkish fishing villages with a couple of simple hotels. Look at Kusadasi now....

The fact is that development comes and consumes.

We might lose an exciting "genuine" destination, but then the locals get progress and investment, so then the next step is finding that excitement elsewhere.

I imagine there is a degree of trying to recapture times gone by: try as I might, I cannot now recreate the carefree me of my youth.

Back then if someone had said "fancy living in [enter random place somewhere remote] for a year?" and I'd jump on it.

Now, it's impossible, unless I want to abandon my partner, kids, home and burgeoning business...

Well I don't know about making it more exciting but it is making it a real pain in the arse.

I am currently in Bulgaria, having just arrived from Romania.

I am from the UK and I am trying to get in to Greece however the bureaucracy involved is positively off-putting.

I have had to pre-book accommodation for 14 nights just to fill in the form saying that I want to enter the country as I am unable to do so without it. I then need to get a negative test within 72 hours before I enter.

I will apparently get my QR code from the Greek Government 1 day before my date on entry.

I can not enter Greece without it. If for any reason they decide not to issue me with a QR code or refuse me entry, then it is too late to cancel my accommodation and I lose the money for that.

Also, I want to tour about, not sit in one place for 14 days.

In addition, at the moment, Ukraine and Hungary are closed. If you want to go in to Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Northern Macedonia, Albania, or Montenegro, you can do but go then need to get quarantined for 14 days when you come back out.

Exciting? Not in my opinion.

I personaly like the fact that more people are doing it. After all I am part of the "more people" so I cannot sneeze at that.

More ressources for information from previous travelers allowed me to reach very beautiful remote areas of some countries where I would not have gone in say 1990 because of the lack of information.

The popularity seems to be a hinderance only in very touristy areas, the rest all I see are positives.

I truly hope that in the long run Covid does not make traveling harder or more expensive. It would be a shame to see it becoming less acheivable for others.

When I decided to ride to Tierra del Fuego in 1974, the only map I could find for Central and South America came from National Geographic. The only source of motorcycle travel information was Road Rider, that had a circulation of 10,000. Just getting out of the US was an adventure. To make a phone call from Peru required a trip to the phone company head quarters in Lima and making an appointment. If there was no answer, make another. Every thing was an adventure, frankly I would not want to be going blind again. But, to each his/hers own. I like to ride, not try to guess which dirt path at the fork in in the road(main highway) would get me to the next town.

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.beer

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.

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.

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

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.

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 http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/ca...y-emoticon.gif
:rofl: