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The big departure

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Here it is…

After speaking about it over a year, every single month, weeks and days, we are today at Brussels airport – ready for boarding!

It’s like a dream becoming true, but it’s still very hard to believe. We have our backpacks with us, waiting with patience in the boarding area, on the screen it’s written “Bogota, Colombia”. So, it’s seems true today!

 

What are we expecting on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean?

No idea! We haven’t done that much of researches about places to visit, landscapes to see… as we prefer to keep the surprise! We heard too many bloggers doing too much researches and pictured the countries they wanted to visit as marvelous places. But sadly, their expectations were too high and they have been disappointed once arrived in the country! We will prefer to listen the advice from local people, from the ones who will cross our road and the wishes we will have.

 

But do not think these last weeks have been boring!

We have left our jobs. We are now without salaries and professional obligations!  

Then, it was the rush for preparing the departure. The last appointments with the doctors for blood analysis and vaccines, the administrative paperwork to update our addresses, the appointments with banks to open a new bank account and/or upgrading our account with an international option, subscribing to an international insurance… Without forgetting our moving and packing all our belongings! We have stored all our boxes in our parents houses for a year. Plus obviously, enjoy our families and friends as we won’t see each other for a year.
Anyway, busy weeks which ended too fast!

 

What about our sidecars?

We have finalised the last preparations of our sidecars: adding net storage pockets, fixing water tank, some frame adjustments and managing our luggages.

We have driven with our sidecars fully loaded and tried some sinuous roads, steep paths on a field and crossing rivers.

We have finalised the sidecars luggages with all the equipment for camping (tents, mats, sleeping bad) plus the cooking equipment (portable stove, small saucepan, plates, cutlery…), the first aid kits, a few hygienic products and a few warm clothing which we won’t need at the beginning.

For the full list of our inventory, it’s

here.

.

Once the side-cars ready, we drove to “Fos sur Mer” – a city in the South of France to deliver our vehicles in the storage place of our sea freight agent. We have organised all the transport with Wave VS who is taking care of everything including loading and unloading the container, freight, customs…
The cargo ship left France on Friday 7 September so we have delivered the sidecars on the previous Monday. A last kiss and we said “Hasta Luego” before to see them again in Cartagena in Colombia at the end of September.
Today, there are on the cargo ship named Cap Jackson, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

 

What’s next?

We will board in a few hours. We should arrive in Bogota in Colombia, late during the night of Wednesday 19 September. Once landed, the first step will be to cross the border and customs to get our Colombian visa for 90 days – tourist visa given to a French nationality person. Then, we will spend a few days to visit the Colombia capital. We will spend the first nights in a hostel, in a dormitory. On Friday, we will meet a Colombian friend that we met in England. We will enjoy her advice for the first weeks! Then, we will go in Cartagena on Monday to sign some paperworks for the sidecars arrival. We will enjoy Cartagena and should be able to collect our sidecars on Wednesday 26 September. Once collected, the first step will be to get some petrol as it’s forbidden to ship them with full tanks and then…. let’s go for the adventure! No plan yet, we wish only to discover the country and follow the advice of local people.

 

Here we go… the plane won’t be long now!!

We will leave our keyboard, get our backpacks with a little heartache as we won’t see our families for a year, a little bit of worries as we do not know what’s waiting for us in Colombia and a lot of excitement and happiness as here it is, the adventure begins now!  

 

 

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100 Days… Really?

There are some important numbers while you’re preparing a travel around the world.

The first important step was our engagement at 100% in this project. Then, it was the first 100 euros spent ; the first time we went over 100km/h with our sidecars. Today, we are 100 days prior our flight for this travel around the world – a symbolic date!

Since over a year, we are organising this project together. We went through moments of doubts. But, step by step we are developing our project, proving our motivation. We want to prove to some people, and above all to ourselves that this dream will become true. Our motivation is also making us impatient… only 100 days before our departure.

At this symbolic date, this article will be the opportunity to show the progress of our project.

 

After the choices and compromises… let’s act!

We are thinking about this project for over a year. From the first pint of beer we had together, our project changed a lot but we made a lot of progress.

Once the side-cars’ keys were in our hands, we needed to prepare the vehicles. Let between the expert hands of Louis-Marie, the vehicles have now a fresher look! Changes of oil, filters, exhaust pipe, plus a new protection for the engine, each part is inspected thoroughly.

The Ural side-cars are known to be easy to drive and will across the most uneven roads and various paths around the world, however we will need some training sessions in the next few days to get use to this new vehicle. These side-cars are eye-catching and great on selfie photos, but they are still a new vehicle that we need to discover. Usually riding motorbikes, riding a side-car is new for us – except for Julien already a connaisseur.

 

Sponsoring research

Travelling towards the unknown – fine; let some improvisation – fine; but only if our decision are taken with the locals’ advice. This project is for us a human adventure. Our leitmoiv is to travel to share this amazing experience with as many people as possible, and specifically to the young ones.

But make this dream becoming true, and sharing it, is also going through financial difficulties.

Indeed, after writing all of our future expenses in our previsional budget, an expensive amount appeared in the bottom right corner of our spreadsheet! You can imagine our scared faces… So we checked again and again to make sure there was no mistake in our spreadsheet, we adjusted slightly our estimations. But here go, this is the reality!

We have two possibilities. Reducing massively our budget and travel with our savings which means a shorter trip ; or looking for sponsorings to reduce our expenses.

As we do not want to miss one of our priorities for this travel – sharing our experience – we have chosen to look for sponsoring.

The first step was to create a sponsoring proposal. Then, we have designed our website www.friends4adventures.org for sharing our project but also our adventures in the future.

To improve our visibility and credibility with our future partners, we have also shared our project on social media.

Then, we started to contact some potential partners. No secret for this, you need to make a lot of efforts! Find the right contact details, bespoke each enquiry, prove your motivation, not being afraid of chasing by emails and phone calls.

Suddenly, during a sunny morning, we received the first reply to one of our many emails. We wanted to jump up to the sky, screaming the news as loud as we can. But none of our colleagues knew about this project. So, we kept it quiet and smiled, happy to receive the first positive reply from a person interested by our project. This is the beginning of a first partnership with a nice feeling that this travel around the world is coming soon!

 

The logistics, a proper job

Phileas Fogg used various means of transports during his travel of 80 days. For our project, we would have prefered to have only one. But a travel around the world starting by Europe and crossing South of America means we need to across twice the ocean. In spite of all the difficulties, we have decided to go for it! By air, by RoRo, by shared cargo, a few solutions are available with rates more or less expensive. After, many researches on various travel blogs and travel guides, we tried the shared cargo option. This transport will insure a good compromise between a reasonable price and less paperwork. Once decided, we have requested quotations. But it’s not easy to find the right supplier!

After many months of thoughts and changes of itineraries, plus the advice from previous travellers in sidecars (Cath & Da!), we finally opted for a shipping from France to Colombia, from Marseille to Carthagena in Septembre 2018.

 

100 days before the departure, we haven’t a clue of how to ship our vehicles from South of America to Russia in March 2019. But, we will do our best to find a solution before the beginning of our adventure in September!

 

Check-up

Organising a travel like this one is about avoiding many difficulties we will have. Regardless the transport issues we will have, paperwork and logistics, it’s also about the health risks we will have. Therefore, we need to have a first aid kit adapted plus the vaccines required.

It’s better to anticipate for this as vaccinations is like a marathon! From the first dosis to the booster, you need at least 6 months for some vaccines. From the pharmacy next door, the specialised travel clinic to the local GP, the advice received are various and numerous. But we can’t risk our health, so we’ll follow the advice wisely to travel safely.  

Mosquitos, we are ready!

 

This adventure is taking more and more time in our daily life, with our colleagues, friends and families. This coming adventure is exciting. In 100 days, let’s hit the road and discover the world!

 

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Two Urals for 2018

And 2018 started with the purchase of two racing cars.

A round-the-world trip… but how? 

This is the first question asked by anyone who wants to travel: travelling, yes but with which means of transport? 4 people working on this project means 4 times more dreams, crazy thoughts and ideas of means of transport. We have imagined this trip with a backpack, van, motorcycle, bicycle, hitchhiking and even an electric car! Each one of us bringing the best arguments to stand up for our own ideas. It was not easy to make a decision which will make everyone happy.

So, how did you make this decision? 

On the corner of a Belgian road after the visit of a hand-crafted brewery, it proudly presented itself to us… Its rustic look, its quirky design, we fell in love with sidecars! Julien reminded us he travelled a lot across Europe when he was a kid with his family in a sidecar. He kept unforgettable memories. 

Therefore, it was an obvious solution for each person of the team, the round-world-trip will be in a sidecar!

Of course, as with all elements of the trip, we did our research on the pros and cons. By opting for this vehicle with 3 wheels, we accepted the possibility that we would have to use this vehicle in bad weather and we will have to learn how to deal with any mechanical issues. Plus, we will need to go through all the paperwork and conform with the legislation of each country we cross. However, we are already very excited to ride on the roads with this quirky but convenient vehicle. This mean of transport is rarely used by travellers. Therefore this is the perfect choice to bring attention and enables an ice-breaker for conversation with the people we will meet. 

A sidecar… but which one?

More specifically for the model, we will choose the brand Ural. Their vehicles are known for their reliability and their quality as they are still assembled by hand. Thanks to his personal and familial experience with this kind of vehicle, Julien, the Mac Gyver of the team,  helped by the knowledge of his Dad – who is an expert of 2 and 3 wheel vehicles – confirmed our choice. Indeed, Ural and specifically its Sportsman model with its design and its two drive wheels will allow us to go through all the roads including the steepest.

Thinking about buying? 

After getting in touch with a few people and visiting garages plus Ural brand dealers, we noticed two Ural Sportsman on our favourite website: Leboncoin (similar to Gumtree/Craiglist). One of them in the West of France and the other one in the North. Without a second thought, we jumped in our cars on Christmas’ Eve! Emilie and I went towards the West, in the meantime Julien and Marie went towards the North on the 24th December morning. After ten or so hours plus a few hours of discussion about the vehicles, we are officially new owners of 2 Ural sidecars! We can’t believe it, we are in the possession of our mean of transport to travel around the world! The dream starts to become true… Is it the magic of Christmas? 

One of the sidecar freshly arrived under our Christmas tree… 

And now? 

As we now have these 2 sidecars, we need to be familiar with them. Each member of the team needs to ride and train on them before we go travelling around the world. But we shouldn’t go too fast… do not forget Marie and I do not have our motorbike licence yet. This is a great motivation to have them as quick as we can! Theory test, practice… let’s go!

To travel serenely, we need in the following weeks to prepare the sidecars to ensure they will be able to go through all kinds of roads. Julien’s Dad, who has the experience of this kind of vehicle, is happy to help us for any improvements and reinforcements required. Paper, pencil… and welding machine! 

 

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What’s this idea? A travel around the world, really??

Here it is, we are taking part in a trend:
‘Travelling around the world’!
Following like sheep? Certainly not!

For this kind of adventure, we need to be prepared! Prepared to have tough days, to spend hours without knowing where we are and where to go, not being able to communicate with people we meet, not knowing where we will sleep, missing the comfort of a warm shower to wake you up… Of course, we will also have amazing days, we will meet great people and enjoy breathtaking views. This is what we hope to experience by travelling!

How did you make the decision to travel around the world?

We didn’t wake up one day and said ‘we will travel around the world’. The idea caught on over many years. Between the 4 of us, we love travelling but the holidays are always too short and we do not have enough time to discover the country as we would like. 

Like you, we look at many travel photos published online from many people currently traveling around the world. These photos make us want to travel. At some point, we were thinking ‘And why not us?’. Finally, if many people travel at the moment why couldn’t we take the plunge? 

By curiosity about this world that we don’t have the time to explore with our dailylife, let’s take the plunge… let’s travel around the world!

But if you regret your decision? 

After all everyone has a job, a good situation, loving relatives… why leave to go blind at the other side of the world? We don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone! Finally what if this adventure is not what we are expecting? What if when we will return, we will have nothing? No job, no money. Obviously, we are worried and have a thousand of questions in our mind, but the most terrifying is having regrets for not travelling. Maybe, we will be disappointed by our adventure but above all, in a few years, we don’t want to regret not having travelled when we could have done it. We don’t want to live with an endless ‘I should have done…’. Positive adventure or negative, we would have definitely a life experience which will enrich us. 

 

So… you are rich? 

Not at all. After 4 years of work experiences, we have a little bit of savings but not enough to go travelling around the world from tomorrow. This is why we have decided to go from September 2018. We will have more than a year to prepare and find the required funds. We count as well on the support of our partners who will trust our project, ideas and convictions.

And what do your relatives think about all of that? 

As with any major decisions, we have started to speak about it with the people closest to us: family and friends. We have experienced all kind of responses. Some of them gave us big encouragements with a touch of pride. Some have even already promised to meet us in a country to explore together. And other ones just stayed more platonic with the well-known ‘Yes sure‘, probably thinking ‘Well… you also said you wanted to subscribe to this gym 6 months ago…’. But we can assure you, this project we will do it! Trust us!