Photography by Coen Wubbels Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world as well as the largest Stan country of Central Asia, sharing borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Vast and empty, it’s possible to traverse more than 1,200 miles of continuous steppes, home to the traditional nomads who, until the Soviet…
Man and Machine in Nature’s Remotest Landscapes :: Rock Crawling Georgia
“Arie, Arie!” the man called out to Coen, and “Harie, Harie!” to Nico, motioning both to join his party. However, Coen remained in the front seat of the Land Cruiser, engrossed in a phone call, while Nico was wrapping up tasks in his vehicle. The fact that Joska and I were sitting next to the…
Overland Routes :: Chile’s Atacama Desert
Photography by Coen Wubbels Unless you fly in, you will have seen a fair share of the Atacama Desert by the time you reach Iquique, whether your Pan-American overland journey takes you southbound or northbound through Chile. No matter how smooth the asphalt that cuts straight through the driest non-polar desert in the world, 995…
Spotting the One-Horned Rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park :: Destinations
There are only two places in the world where the one-horned rhinoceros still lives in the wild: Nepal and India. With 2600 of these incredible beasts in Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, you can’t visit the park without spotting at least one of them. The 166-square-mile park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one…
Destinations :: Khiva (Uzbekistan)
Khiva, also known as Itchan Kala, is a world of caravanserais, palaces, turquoise-tiled mosques, madrasas, and minarets that takes you into the heart of the ancient Silk Road. What you’ll find is a romanticized version: well-restored and maintained adobe buildings, clean alleys without open sewers, and only shadows of the slave market and public executions,…
In Search of Solitude :: Heading into the Mountains of Uzbekistan
Photography by Coen Wubbels One Lada Niva or UAZ Hunter after another came bumping down the trail, the vehicles packed with people. What was going on? Weren’t we going to a super remote place deep in the Uzbek mountains, a place that “everybody” told us to visit? “You have to go to Urungach; it’s the…
Across the Deserts in Kazakhstan
The world was gray without any visible contours of clouds, making it impossible to see where the horizon separated the earth and the sky. It was a depressing start to our off-road journey across the Aralkum Desert and the Mangystau Plateau to the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan. Driving Around and Across the Aral Sea Our…
Why Add the Pamir Highway to your Overland Adventures?
Crossing high-altitude deserts with snow-capped mountains rising on the horizon, meandering through gorges along vertical rock walls. And that for 766 miles! How can that not be attractive to any overland traveler? The largely unpaved road alternates with smooth asphalt and paved stretches that have turned into washboards and potholes, so you never know what…
Crossing the Gobi Desert to Camp at the Flaming Cliffs of Mongolia
We have seen our share of empty landscapes in South America: Patagonia, the Atacama Desert, Bolivia’s Altiplano—but all of them pale when compared with the Gobi Desert in Southern Mongolia (and stretching into northern China). The Gobi is intimidating—so immense and seemingly boundless, driving here was claustrophobic at times, making me wonder, worry even, if…
Five Reasons To Make Siberia Your Next Overland Destination
Geographically speaking, Siberia comprises some 77 percent of Russian territory stretching from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. Vast and wild, largely consisting of taiga and tundra, it is sparsely populated. Looking at a map, you will see that no roads traverse northern Siberia; road trips are limited…
A Search for Petroglyphs in the Gobi Desert
“Okay, the big question is how to approach this point. From the north? The south?” Coen was zooming in on his iPhone, enlarging the area mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook. It’s the first guidebook we’ve ever had that includes a list of GPS Waypoints for certain sites. For overlanders, who typically travel without a…
How to Prepare for an Overland Journey in the Depth of Winter
A sound made us look up from our screens. “What’s happening? Did you turn the heater off?” Coen asked me, since I was sitting next to the control panel. “No, I didn’t, but it is shutting down, isn’t it?” It was 11:00 p.m and we were quietly camped in a parking lot. To maximize the…
Five Reasons to Visit Brazil
Brazil has much to offer and those who have followed our adventures know we spent more than two years driving to the country’s remotest corners, getting to know the very best of it all: The Amazon Rainforest, the largest tropical wetlands of the Pantanal, endless beaches, fabulous food, and the kindest of people (among many…
What’s the charm of traveling with a battered Land Cruiser?
On a chilly morning in January, Coen and I drove 430 miles to Germany. There in a driveway stood a dirty, dilapidated truck. It radiated pride as well as loneliness and coldness, like a house that has stood empty for too long. The Land Cruiser was covered in rust and the interior was damp, caused by…
Tips on Keeping your Overland Vehicle safe, low-budget style
What if you want to keep your vehicle burglarproof for an overland journey without spending a fortune on car alarms, GPS tracking devices, and other expensive temptations? After 15 years on the road without a break-in, we’d like to share our tricks with you. Disclaimer: No setup is foolproof, no matter how much money you…
15 Years of Overlanding the World without Killing Each Other – How Do We Do It?
“Sorry to interrupt. Coen, on the bed are clean socks, underwear, and a shirt. The shower is all yours,” I said as I walked into the living room of our friend’s home in Bolivia. Coen and our host Willy were having a discussion while I had been doing chores and had just finished taking a…
The Mosquito Battle Plan When Overlanding
Summer has started: great weather, blue skies, sunshine, long evenings before it gets dark. Life is wonderful. If only those clouds of mosquitoes would stay away. Over the years we’ve searched for solutions to sleep without our bodies being drained of blood. If you have a car with properly closing doors and windows and have…
Overlanding as a Digital Nomad: Combining Travel with Online Work
How can you combine your travels with online work? What kinds of jobs work, how do you organize it, what equipment do you need, and what challenges do you face? Ten overlanders share their experiences.
The Beauty of the Rupununi Savannah
We undressed for a swim. That is, Coen changed into swimming trunks but I, conforming to the Amerindian female swimming suit, donned shorts and a T-shirt. Wading into the clear water, our feet didn’t sink into a sandy bottom but felt laterite. According to our GPS, the Rupununi River ran more than a mile from here…
Ghost Towns of Chile
The thermal water mainly felt warm because my head sticking out above the bath was almost freezing. With the wind howling among the hills, not much was needed to get an ear infection or pneumonia I figured while getting out of the concrete tank filled with water flowing down from a natural spring higher up…