Overseas Adventure Travel: Top 10 undiscovered destinations

Alice Cuninghame    ash     adventure holidays, Adventure Travel, australia, Greenland, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Overseas adventure travel, RTW travel, tanzania, Tibet

Adventure travel should be just that, an adventure. Although, when you’re surrounded by busy tour buses and every other person you see is a fellow ‘adventurer’, it can be hard to feel as if you’re experiencing anything special.

Overseas adventure travel opens up a fantasy world of opportunity, yet if you want to really get away from it all, you need to go ‘undiscovered’.

Some more remote than others, each of the destinations here will take you closer to nature and satisfy your insatiable urge to experience life.

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How Howard Marks trekked Pakistan and didn’t get a deal…

Mark Pawlak    trekkingholidays     Adventure Travel, Howard Marks, pakistan, Travel, trekking

There was a time when trekking holidays for Howard Marks were  more about sorting out supply lines and delivery dates than developing a deeper cultural understanding of the countries and peoples he ‘dealt’ with.

Howard Marks

Well, several years on, he travelled to Pakistan with an independent tour operator known for its pioneering adventures and got a new perspective.

If you’ve never read Mr Nice or spotted Howard on the stand-up circuit, you’ve missed out: his face and anecdotes are evidence of several lives lived! And while for many years he was on the wrong side of the tracks, he’s a captivating speaker, with a genuine love for the undiscovered.

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Adventure sports you never heard of: Yak Polo

James    trekkingholidays     Adventure Sports, Adventure Travel, Afghanistan, pakistan, Polo, Yak

In a new, occasional series by James from Untamed Borders Ltd, he explains the basics of less well-known adventure sports. Using the classic journalistic trick of a fake interview, he explains the history of ….Yak Polo

So what is Yak Polo?

It’s polo, but instead of horses, the players ride yaks.

Why yaks?

In the high mountainous areas of the Hindu Kush and Pamir ranges in southern Tajikistan, north east Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, horses struggle to cope with the rarefied air in altitudes over 3500 m. The local people of these regions have taken to using yaks to play polo rather than horses.

Yak Polo - popular in the Hindu Kush

People play polo in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Sure. Polo comes from the mountainous regions of northern Pakistan and was adopted by the British Army to keep the cavalry fit. The matches are a far cry from the Hurlingham Club. There are no champagne tents, high heels or blokes in blazers called Tarquin. Just huge, dusty polo fields with tea tents and samosa stalls.

The rules are different too. Pakistan polo, also known as frontier polo, allows players to check each others sticks and each team has designated chuckers who restart the game if the ball goes out. It is not uncommon to have pitch invasions and general mayhem with players and horses coming off injured.

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‘Creatively Adventurous’ 25 ways to travel 1,000 miles

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, america, australia, expeditions, explorer, Kayaking, skateboard, South America, SUP, World record

Being adventurous is just not enough for some people. Take Dave Cornthwaite: he’s set up Expedition1000, a series of 1,000-mile challenges each using non-motorised transport. With world records falling along the way and the media knocking on the door, we thought we’d grab a word with the man (he just paddled the Mississippi on a SUP!)

Best described as ‘creatively adventurous’, Dave is bringing fresh ideas to the world of expeditions and endurance challenges – and a considerable amount to his growing charity pot. Read on and find out what it’s taken to get this far, and where this remarkeable journey is headed.

Dave on the Mississippi

SUP is fairly new to the UK but increasingly popular, as long distance transport how does it compare to kayaking or canoeing?

In 2009, I kayaked over 1500 miles along the length of Australia’s Murray River, at the time it was easily the most enjoyable journey I’d ever made. Now I can safely say that I will never travel by kayak again. Not only is SUP a much better form of all-round exercise, it’s a more rewarding experience. The vantage point is better, it’s more simple, less impact. People will be travelling long distances by SUP until the end of time, it’s glorious.

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Celebrity news: stars face real survival battle

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, botswana, Discovery Channel, expedition, Freddie Flitoff, I'm a celebrity, survival, travel gadgets, trekking, winter Olympics

I’m A Celebrity Get Me A Wet Wipe! Yes, any TV show that puts celeb contestants in ‘extreme’ environments is usually a farce – punctuated with weeping, flirting and general faffing around with maggots: Until now.

The don't look so good after 6 days in the wild!

That’s because The Discovery Channel is about to air Alone in the Wild a programme that is, as far as I can see, pretty much the real thing.

Eight celebs dumped off for six days and six nights to fend for themselves, with only what they could carry and a digital camera for company.

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The world’s top 10 adventure races No1: Indian Ocean Rowing Race

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, charity, mauritius, Rowing, Sailing

Not all adventures end well. It’s safe to say that Britons James Adair and Ben Stenning were hoping for a better end to their trip to Mauritius. I say trip, as the pair set off 116 days ago to row across the Indian Ocean in the Woodvale Indian Ocean Rowing Race – something only two pairs of rowers had so far managed.

James and Ben before the Bellamy beards

The BBC has reported that right at the end of their 3,200-mile journey, they were overturned by a wave and faced a survival ordeal, not a welcome reception. Chucked into the sea by a 30-foot wall of water, James and Ben found themselves fighting against waves that were set on dashing them onto the rocks.

James was bleeding heavily from lacerations to his legs, and Ben was keeping shark watch until they decided it was time to move from the stricken craft and make a go for shore.

“We had to get away from those rocks or it would be game over,” Ben told the BBC.

But instead of reaching the shore, the pair were washed onto a coral reef, before locals eventually found them and got them back onto dry land.

Oh, and we forgot to mention: these guys are amateurs, and they completed the journey unassisted and for charity rowing in support of the ‘Tumaini- Homes for Hope’ charity, which provides homes and care for children affected or suffering from HIV/AIDS.

It goes to show that there are plenty of adventures out there, more than we ever get to hear about.

So, if you know of an adventure race, no matter what sort, let us know; we’ll happily RT messages of support and maybe even write a piece on it.

Here’s a link to Ben and James’ JustGiving page and more about the race.

The 10 worst things about travelling (we love)

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, airlines, airports, flights, hotels, Travel

If, like us, you love travelling, then you’ve probably grown used to many of its quirks and discomforts. In fact, it’s some of these very same moments that have now come to define our experience – so as much as we might hate everything on the list that follows, in some way they are all moments that signify the very things we love most about travelling.

Rolley cases, love 'em.

Early Starts

Essential if you are to get to the cheaper flight and avoid the rush. No one likes getting up at dawn o’crikey, but there’s something special about being up before the world, as black skies turn inky-blue.

Odd Coffee

We’ve all got used to good coffee. Still, there’s something about the cheap, instant, sachet stuff – especially when it comes topped with UHT milk.

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