Best of Both Worlds
Choosing a route for your overland adventure... How do you do that? This one trip where you are saving money for, for several years... For which you decided not to buy a house or a car or a lot of other stuff. Do you feel the pressure? We are not that type of people that were always dreaming about that one trip to Africa, or Mongolia, or Australia. For us it is all about the adventure and meeting people. But those two things you can find on any route you choose. So… where are we going?
In the summer of 2015 our dreams to start a new adventure again became clearer and clearer. Several route options passed our minds. Maybe we should ship the truck to the US and drive from the most northern point of Alaska to the most southern tip of the continent: Ushuaia. Or is it Asia that is still in our hearts and are we going through the –Stans towards South East Asia? We are very good in seeing all the pros and cons of both options. This is how a typical discussion between us goes..
Marleen: “Yes, ....the route through America it is! Beautiful nature, it is easy to speak to people because we speak English and Spanish we can learn.” But than Roderick comes up with another perspective: “Want we miss the adventure when we buy our groceries at the Wallmart and are parked next to the white RV’s on the parking of a National Park?” At that moment we change our minds: let’s go to Asia! The history, the melting pot of cultures along the Silk Road, adventure! “But… want we compare our experiences this time to much with the ones at our last overland trip? And… will we like travelling in South East Asia in our own vehicle?”
It felt like we had two candidates for a job interview, and we really wanted to give them both a fair chance, based on rational arguments. You can imagine, it was impossible to find an answer. That was the moment we decided to pack our truck and go to a nice place in the nature to get a new perspective on the situation.
With pencils, paper and a huge book of Lonely Planet with the most amazing pictures of all the countries in the world, we made a list. What do we find most important while traveling? And how do we rate these things for the Asia options, and for the America’s option? We were so curious what the magical outcome of our puzzle would be! Finally we would know where to go. But when we count the numbers… you will not belief the outcome… it was still draw!
Sometimes it takes a moment to think out of the box... Why want we drive eastwards, through Asia and go on to the Far East to eventually ship the truck over the Pacific Ocean and arrive in Canada and the US? We think we have it.. Let’s circle the Northern Hemisphere and pass all those different times and cultures: best of both worlds!