In this day and age, the internet is filled with people getting the word out about their fabulous adventures! While we take inspiration from a lot of the obvious ones who are doing similar trips to us (like Delos and Roam), we find travel inspiration in a variety of places. Here are some adventures we found that we think are amazing (and yes, most of them are sailing themed!).
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North Pacific Loop
Yohela (2006-2008), Monkey Fist (2014 – 2017), and Zero (2015-2017) have all done the North Pacific Loop. Let’s say you start in San Francisco – you work your way down the west coast of the Americas to popular Pacific Crossing jump-off point Puerto Vallarta, Mexico or Ecuador. Sailing through the South Pacific, you leave the masses and sail from Tonga up to Tuvala, Marshall Island, Micronesia, and Guam before jumping up to Japan. From Japan, you can head towards Alaska and the remote Aleutians islands before heading back down the west coast.
Yohelah’s path.
Northwest Passage
Are the tropics too warm for you? How about an adventure up and over Canada? Chris and Jess from Yacht Teleport bought their junk-rigged boat in Halifax in 2010 and started out to sail her up and over, and then back down to Australia. They ended up selling the boat in Prince Rupert, Canada in 2017.
Teleport’s path.
Travel by Rail Through Russia (and/or Mongolia and China)
Darrell and Manch from Intrepid Travel have a photographic journey on the Trans-Mongolian Railroad. An 8,000-mile adventure from St Petersburg to Beijing, with stops in major cities and rustic towns, sleeping on the train car and in yurts.
100 Countries by 2019
Vloggers Kara and Nate have set a goal to travel to 100 countries by 2019. They’ve hit 61 countries at the time of writing this, whereas I’ve only hit 35 countries out of the list of 195. Not only that, but they make fantastic videos about their adventures.
Early Retirement
Travel the World, Retire Early. Sounds great, right? That’s what Jeremy and Winnie of Go Curry Cracker are doing after retiring in their 30s. Bonus, they are even raising their kid while traveling, and he hit 16 countries before 16 months old. Their blog is primarily a financial one instead of a travel journal like ours, so it’s chock full of tips for how to achieve financial independence, as well as making the most of travel hacking.
The GCC crew at a hot air balloon festival in Malaysia.
Sail the Polar Regions
In addition to doing the Northwest passage, the Cottier family on S/V Libellule has been sailing their Fountaine Pajot Salina through some of the wildest and remote stretches of the sailable world – the Arctic and Antarctic regions. They’ve sailed as far north as Svalbard (one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas) and as far south as Antarctica. They think they are the first catamaran to have crossed both polar circles. **Note, this blog is in French, I use Google Chrome’s translate feature to read it.**
The Great Loop
Smalltown America, the ICW, some of the biggest cities in the United States make the Great Loop an adventure worth considering. Captain John is a great resource for learning more, as is the Great Loop Cruiser’s Association.
Ridge and Jessie lived about their 1996 Fountaine Pajot Venezia 42 for a few years, and have now moved on to land life – but only temporarily. They are currently building a Schionning Arrow 1280S in Virginia. As you may remember, Schionnings are David’s favorite boats (well, maybe aside from Gunboats). They are at the early start of their boat building process, so David and I look forward to following along from the ground up (literally).
The future build site for Ojigwan
Circumnavigating the World on a Sailboat
Hang on – that sounds familiar…
We’re 3 years, 2 months into our adventure, with 30,000 nautical miles under our belt, and have 2 and a half years left to go!
Which adventure would you choose?
20 Comments
Yeap you have just made my bucketlist even longer now. I have always wanted to do the Russia (and/or Mongolia and China) express train. I hope to do this in the next couple of years. Oh my I really Sail the Polar Regions now after this, it sounds like an dream.
These adventures are indeed the stuff that dreams are made of. They are really inspiring and also speak volumes of the grit and determination of the people who have undertaken them. I would love to travel by train in Mongolia, definitely something in my bucket list.
Sailing in polar regions sounds like a perfect travel goal 🙂 This is great list and will certainly try to tick off few from this. Thanks for the inspiring post.
It’s crazy. I am actually currently in Moscow for New Year. In a couple of weeks I will be heading easy across Siberia towards Vladivostok before heading back to go to Mongolia. I have been looking forward to this trip for a long time!!!
Thank you for sharing some great travel ideas and reading material! I will definitely be checking these out and hope to learn a lot from the early retirement blog! Not only would i love to retire young but i could really use some pointers in travelling on a budget!
Wow, if only we had a boat! How about crisscrossing the North American continent in an RV? We did that for 8 years, living in 10 Canadian provinces and territories, 49 American states, and 7 Mexican states!
the trans-mongolian railroad is definitely on one of my bucketlist. i think it’s gonna be such a good experience to do it, and i can’t wait to be able to accomplish that! 😀
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Yeap you have just made my bucketlist even longer now. I have always wanted to do the Russia (and/or Mongolia and China) express train. I hope to do this in the next couple of years. Oh my I really Sail the Polar Regions now after this, it sounds like an dream.
Sounds like a dream but a little too cold for my taste. I’ll stick to the tropics 🙂
I fancy seeing East Asia and Russia via the Trans-Mongolian Rail! It’s been a dream, but I’ll get back to it in time. 🙂
A someday dream 🙂
These adventures are indeed the stuff that dreams are made of. They are really inspiring and also speak volumes of the grit and determination of the people who have undertaken them. I would love to travel by train in Mongolia, definitely something in my bucket list.
Definitely is impressive. People are amazing!
Definitely travel inspiring! At some point I would like to travel by helping work on boats, it sounds amazing.
Our next trip we are planning a long overland journey with our bikes! A slightly slower option than boats!
That’s an awesome idea! Lots of good places to bike.
Sailing in polar regions sounds like a perfect travel goal 🙂 This is great list and will certainly try to tick off few from this. Thanks for the inspiring post.
It would be totally unique and intense!
It’s crazy. I am actually currently in Moscow for New Year. In a couple of weeks I will be heading easy across Siberia towards Vladivostok before heading back to go to Mongolia. I have been looking forward to this trip for a long time!!!
Awesome! Are you taking the train?
Thank you for sharing some great travel ideas and reading material! I will definitely be checking these out and hope to learn a lot from the early retirement blog! Not only would i love to retire young but i could really use some pointers in travelling on a budget!
For budgeting there are tons of financial resources out there. Also look at my blog post on Personal Capital: https://outchasingstars.com/2017/12/07/use-personal-capital-plan-long-term-travels-financially/
Wow, if only we had a boat! How about crisscrossing the North American continent in an RV? We did that for 8 years, living in 10 Canadian provinces and territories, 49 American states, and 7 Mexican states!
That is an amazing adventure too! Sounds like you really saw a ton! I hope you got to that 50th state somehow! 😉
the trans-mongolian railroad is definitely on one of my bucketlist. i think it’s gonna be such a good experience to do it, and i can’t wait to be able to accomplish that! 😀
That’s great! I think it’s a pretty cool one. Definitely less stressful than sailing your own boat around.
Wow! So amazing! We set out on our round the world adventure next year! We are gonna start in a road trip around the USA. we can’t wait!
A great place to start!