We are big fans and followers of Luke Gelmi (Overland Bound Member #3482) and his overlanding adventures throughout Africa on his Royal Enfield. We asked him what inspired him to take this trip, and how he planned for it, and his answer caught us by surprise.
\nHe didn’t ‘plan’ it. At least, not the way we expect someone to ‘plan’ an overland adventure. In Luke’s own words,\u00a0“The obliviousness of my trip has been my greatest strength.”
\nHere’s how he fundamentally shook up his life to explore an entirely new continent on the back of a motorcycle… without over thinking it.<\/p>\n
Overland without the Rule Book So, how do I start? What now? The most beautiful machine I\u2019ve ever seen with my own two eyes and heard with mine two ears. It\u2019s just flat-out gorgeous and sounds even better. It was wonderful. Level up\u2026 Congratulations, you\u2019re Overlanding. We are big fans and followers of Luke Gelmi (Overland Bound Member #3482) and his overlanding adventures throughout Africa on his Royal Enfield. We asked him what inspired him to take this trip, and how he planned for it, and his answer caught us by surprise. He didn’t ‘plan’ it. At least, not the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,28,47,73,60,49,38,70],"class_list":["post-21739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adventure","tag-expedition-2","tag-overland","tag-overland-vehicle","tag-overlanding","tag-survival","tag-tips","tag-trip-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.overlandbound.com\/marketing-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo, you want to overland in a foreign country\/continent, but that seems like a scary proposition.
\n(If you\u2019re a stickler for the rules, and do things \u201cby the book\u201d you might want to stop reading now. You\u2019ll only get angry. )
\nFirst of all, think of all the things that need organizing:
\nChoosing the perfect vehicle
\nPlanning the itinerary
\nVisas, Jesus! Visas alone are enough to kill it.
\nChecking the local \u201ctravel advice\u201d. Cue meltdown.
\nDocuments for the vehicle
\nInsurance that covers the whole journey
\nThe dreaded carnet de passage
\n<\/a>An international driver\u2019s license
\nMaking sure your vaccination papers are up to date
\nTravel Insurance
\nShipping the beast
\nQuitting your job(!)
\nBuying malaria tablets
\nLast will and testament\u2026
\nOne glimpse at the internet is enough to make you wet your pants and go sit in the corner in the fetal position before you\u2019ve even started. But fear not. Adventure is the achievable dream. You can go anywhere, and do anything. You just need to start.
\nA wise, made-up General once said \u201cA poor battle plan, carried out with vigor and gusto, will often carry the day against a perfect battle plan that\u2019s executed in a wobbly way\u2026 You must never wobble.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nJust book the ticket (if you need one) and quit the job, because you\u2019ll have to. And don\u2019t worry, they won\u2019t be pissed off at you for leaving the job, they\u2019ll be a curious mixture of proud and jealous, nothing surer. That\u2019s about all the organizing that you\u2019ll have to do; the rest will fall into place, as it has to, in its own time.
\nBooking the one-way flight was the \u201cJenga piece\u201d I tugged that (naturally) brought the whole tower of my life crashing down. Inexorable. All in a pile on the floor. So I could start a new game.
\nThe obliviousness of my trip has been my greatest strength. I\u2019ve never known what\u2019s coming next, so I\u2019ve never had the chance to get scared about it.
\nNot long after I booked the flight, my girlfriend got broken up with, the job got quit, the rental got moved out of, and my arse was in some comfortable seat, 30,000ft in the sky. I still don\u2019t know how it all happened, but it felt as easy and obvious as tetris pieces falling into place.<\/p>\n
\nFor me, I landed in London. I got a haircut. I bought an Enfield.
\nA Royal Enfield.<\/p>\n
\nPractical? F*ck no! Bikes don\u2019t come less practical.
\nDid I care? Nope. You couldn\u2019t slap the grin off my face. I was happier than a pig in a pen.
\nThis was what it was all about.
\nI didn\u2019t have the right insurance \u2013 It was impossible to find someone who would cover me, so I just bent the truth a little so that I could get the insurance necessary to register the bike. Insurance is a cluster-f. A bitch of a thing.
\nBut, if I had known that it was impossible to get, I would have never gotten on the plane in the first place.
\nI didn\u2019t have an international license. I was just using my license from home. Probably wildly illegal. But I was riding through the glorious Cotswolds on the bike of my dreams, and I didn\u2019t care. I could die it was that good.\u00a0I had no plan. I had no phone and literally navigated my way around by a pocket compass that I would pull out of my jacket pocket when I had a choice of directions.
\n\u201cToday, I shall ride mainly north, with a bit of west.\u201d
\nAnd so, I rode north, with a bit of west.<\/p>\n
\nAnd then it got cold, and wet, so I turned the compass 180 degrees, and went south.
\nCrossing the English Channel was terrifying. I was out of my depth big-time. The language barrier, the cultural barrier, it was all too much. I wanted to go straight back to England, where things made sense, and they drove on the right (correct) side of the road.
\nIf not for the weather, I would have spun on my heels and got back on the boat\u2026
\nI managed with a curious mix of charades and solitude, and steadily rode south to Barcelona in Spain, where I met The Enabler.<\/p>\n
\nThe pusher.
\nHe\u2019d been all over Africa, hitchhiking. A wild Australian.
\nAfrica was an outrageous proposition. Wantonly dangerous. And this nut hitchhiked it\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t hitchhike at home. I\u2019d be murdered.
\nBut, \u201cwinter is coming\u2026\u201d
\nI\u2019d run out of Europe to escape to. And so, inspired by the \u201cI\u2019ve-had-typhoid-and-malaria\u201d Australian, I invited him to come with me, on the Enfield, to Africa. West Africa. The wild Africa.
\nA total stranger.
\nStill no plan, still no papers.
\nI\u2019d learnt about the Carnet de Passage over the internet, a travel document that overlanders have to have to cross borders for most of the countries in Africa.
\nGetting one was going to be a royal pain in the arse. And expensive.
\nThere was a flame war on the internet over the carnet, with a debate raging over whether or not you need one to overland. I decided to blindly follow those who said it can be done without one. It was the path of least resistance, and that\u2019s my favourite path to take.
\nSo, with no clue, we ride two-up with all our sh*t on the Enfield. We ride seven hundred miles and stump up at a port in Gibraltar.
\nWe find a massive ship that\u2019s going to Morocco, pay them money and ride into the hull.
\nIt was that easy.
\nAnd then. Africa.
\nNo visas, no papers. Nothing but my rego and a passport. I\u2019d never done a border crossing in my life, let alone with a vehicle\u2026
\nFrench and Arabic, in Morocco. And there\u2019s me, with NFI.
\nThe wild Aussie, the seasoned pro, was happy to take a seat and do f*ck all, intent to let me learn my own lessons. Like a mother bird pushing the chick out of the nest, plummeting to the ground. \u201cGood luck!\u201d
\nIt takes longer than it should have, but with lots of charades I seem to scrub together what I need from the border post: a stamp in my passport with the date on it and a piece of paper that is utterly unintelligible to me \u2013 and no one\u2019s stopping me from leaving.
\nAnd….<\/p>\n
\nCheck out Luke’s online book\u00a0Oblivious – Book One: Boundaries\u00a0available online at\u00a0http:\/\/www.obliviousthebook.com\/<\/a>\u00a0and be sure to follow him on Instagram!
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"