Hi, I’m Paul. I finished school at seventeen with no clear plan, a desire to see the world and just enough money for a round-the-world ticket. I packed a bag, left home, and I’ve been finding excuses to travel ever since.
By the time I came home, the question had stopped being whether to travel and started being where to next. More than seventy countries later, I still ask that question often. Most of my spare time, is spent staring at a map working out which corner of it I haven’t seen, or finding flights to get there.
A few of those trips have been bigger than the others, and two are worth mentioning.
In 2016 I spent a year working my way alphabetically across Europe. A new city every fortnight, in order: Amsterdam, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Edinburgh, and on through the alphabet until the year ran out. Fifty-two weeks, twenty-six letters, one continent rearranged into a list. It was a daft idea that turned out to be a brilliant one, because the constraint made me visit places I’d never have picked on merit or showed me popular cities during the off season.
In 2018 I tried something more difficult; a converted school bus through the USA and Mexico with a goal of reaching Argentina. The plan was ambitious, and I ran out of money before I ran out of map. I went home to regroup, intending to return and finish the route. Then a global pandemic took that decision off the table, and the trip stayed unfinished. I learnt a great deal on that drive — about overlanding, about budgeting for the unexpected, about the gap between a plan on paper and a plan in motion. I’ve thought about all of it constantly while putting this next one together.
Which brings us here. This trip is the biggest I’ve attempted: an overland drive from Southeast Asia to Europe, in a ute I’ll buy along the way, with a pop-top camper bolted on somewhere in the middle. It runs through more than two dozen countries and crosses some of the highest, remotest roads in the world. It is, by some distance, the silliest idea I’ve ever had. But it may be the most exciting.
Where I’ve Been
