The Route

 

The expedition will start in Belgium, the country where I was born and raised.  In the middle of Europe this country is by some refered to as one big city, and for the North part (Flanders) I would agree with them. Having said that, I should probably add that this has never been my country of choice to be raised in but that off course wasn’t my choice. Having grown up in this rich western “city” I was amazed by the beauty of Scandinavia’s nature (as my mother is Faroese/Danish we went North every summer). Besides this I also got amazed by the differences in this world, not only in ecology but also in culture and the amount of “stuff” one has. This got me to dream of a simpler life, a less material life, a life in nature. But as I grew up I learned about everything man was doing wrong, global warming, pollution, extensive mining, child soldiers, etc. These where things that struck me even harder and I felt I had to do something about it.

Slowly a plan started forming itself in my head, a journey that would raise awareness on these problems. Cause from my view the green car and solar panels wouldn’t be saving the planet any time soon, they where just ways to prolong the time for us to answer the big question, the question “How to live sustainable?”. I hope through this journey to show a life of simplicity, not only the life of a simple traveler as myself but from the thousands of people I will meet on my way, cause they are the real example of simple life, who else then the poorest can say they don’t have more then they need?

This is why this journey will take me through Eurasia, a landmass of big differences, from Belgium to Portugal to Singapore. From the most Western point of Eurasia to the most Southern.

I will start my journey hitch-hiking and walking through Europe. My first goal is walking the full lenghth of the Pyrenees and reaching the point furthest West you can go in Eurasia in Portugal. Other goals are to walk a substantial part of the Alps and the Dinaric Alps towards Turkey. This is only the first stretch of my journey, once I pass the virtual line of Europe’s border I pause a while (maybe I return to Belgium for some weeks) and reflect on the time I have spend in Europe. I’ve never been outside Europe’s “borders”, I never passed that line drawn by men on a map.

In Asia I want to walk as much as time and climate allows me, several parts will be hitch-hiked (think about deserts and long straight roads). But anyway, I walk, walk to understand and walk to be able to tell the story of the people who live there and the once who live beyond.

Once in Pakistan I start following a trail rather than a wind direction. By some it’s called the harshest path in the world, walking in the shadows of this earths giants, I can imagine you would feel small and harmful. The Great Himalaya Trail runs from the foot hills from the Himalaya in Pakistan all the way through India, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. Being 4,585km  long and reaching heights of more then 6000m I think it can indeed be called “Great”, in every meaning of the word.

Once in the far North-East of India I go South again, starting at the source of the Irrawady River in the high gletjers I will try to paddle the 2170km of its length. The river runs from the high Himalayas down to the Andaman Sea, through Myanmar/Burma. Once arrived at the sea I hope to peddle some while along the coast. Once on land again I will walk to Singapore, the furthest South you can go in Eurasia!

But this isn’t the end of the real trip, I hope to keep inspiring people to live with less or to live different, by telling the story of Eco Expedition Eurasia, through photo and text (hopefully a book will come out afterwards).

In total I will pass 30 countries. Here you can see a map of the countries I will pass:

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 52.990.000 km² or about 36.2% of the Earth’s land area. Eurasia is inhabited by almost 4.8 billion people, more than 71% of the world’s population.