Overland with Kids

For us, keeping everything and ourselves in one vehicle is essential. We want to be fairly mobile and compact therefore, no trailers or additional towed equipment will be considered. Essentially, if it won’t fit inside or on top of our vehicle without impacting the vehicle load balance, then it’s not coming with us.

We figure that this is a slightly different trip to an overland trip to Africa for example where, although some of the preparation and considerations will be similar, the environment, safety and survival aspects differ considerably.

Much of trip will focus on Europe in the first instance, beginning in our own back-yard (UK and Ireland) before moving onto Norway through to Russia before making our way down. We plan to reach France and Spain and even Croatia along the way before finally making our way down to Morocco in Africa. We will return to Europe before continuing to travel South. Our targets include China, India, Thailand, eventually hitting Vietnam and Singapore before finally shipping our vehicle to Australia. During this time we hope to spend some time in Indonesia.

The first leg of our expedition will enable us to use much of Europe’s camping facilities where we will be amongst other holidaying/touring groups/families as opposed to being isolated and self reliant on food and fuel supplies etc. (though we plan to be as self sufficient as possible to help us keep costs down) as could be for example in Africa.

Rough itinerary is:

Europe and Africa - April to September 2010 (6 months)

Asia - October 2010 to mid-March 2011 (6 months)

Australasia - mid- March 2011 - September 2011 (pending finance and also decision-making re: Jessica’s secondary school education which is due to begin at this stage)

Diary (Blog)