Adventure Travel - BobCarriesOn

May 29, 2017October 25, 2018

World’s 6 Greatest Rowed Trips

Since before the Phoenicians, rowed trips have been one of the world’s great travel adventures. Rowed trips promise sea air and vigorous exercise, either while journeying solo or in the company of up to 50 or so like-minded individuals, all often moving to the beat of a locally-renowned drummer. What more could you ask for? Except maybe the occasional breather, and sip of water. Here are six rowed trip favorites.

Jason and the Argonauts’ Golden Fleece Rowed Trip

One of history’s first rowed trips, the 1300 B.C. voyage of the Argo was in pursuit of a ram’s fleece Jason had to capture in order to reclaim a usurped kingdom. It forms the basis for what may be Western literature’s oldest retelling of a hero’s quest.

Route: 1800 miles from Iolcos, in ancient Greece, to Colchis, a no longer existent kingdom on the Black Sea.

Vessel: 50-oared galley named the Argo.

Highlight: As often happens in this kind of tale, things didn’t work out all that well in the end, with a timber from the Argo falling on Jason and crushing him to death. On the other hand, he did get to marry a king’s daughter, and journey beyond the edge of the known world.

viking-ship-rowing — *Eaton Creative Photo*

Leif Ericson’s American Rowed Trip

True, he sailed part of the way from Greenland. And the Indians lining the shore were in agreement that he did not actually discover the North American continent. But it is certain that Leif Ericson explored at least some of America hundreds of years before the first camper van was even dreamed of.

Route: About 2,000 miles round-trip from Greenland to “Vinland,” probably on what is now the Northern tip of Newfoundland.

The vessel: There’s no reliable record, but it was probably a dragon-headed Norse long ship that could maneuver under sail or with up to 50 oars, making it ideal for the New York Yacht Club’s annual cruise to Maine.

Highlight: Knowing that because he’d arrived 400 years ahead of Columbus he could almost certainly count on having a place to park anywhere along North America’s East Coast, even in summer.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Rowed Trip

A two-week rowed trip (elapsed time discrepancy noted) in 1839 that resulted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, a collection of writings by Henry David Thoreau that generations of American readers have found even more difficult to get through than Walden.

Route: 126 miles from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord New Hampshire, and back.

Vessel: Fifteen-foot fisherman’s dory Thoreau and his brother built themselves, in a week. It was a remarkable achievement, considering that the book took ten years to complete.

Highlight: In the short term at least, the rowed trip, along a tranquil, slow-moving river, was a far greater success than the book — 706 of the first 1,000 copies published going unsold.

Samuelsen Harbo ocean rowing boat — *Public Domain Photo*

First Modern Transatlantic Rowed Trip

In 1896, clam diggers Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo were the first since Leif Ericson to undertake a rowed trip across the Atlantic. Without even the assistance of a drummer, they made it in 55 days.

Route: 3,740 miles from New York City to the Isles of Scilly, off the coast of England.

Vessel: 18-foot double-ended Sea Bright skiff

Highlight: They survived.

A Woman’s Three-Oceans Solo Rowed Trip

As time passes and more and more has been done before, it becomes harder, even in the annals of rowed trips, to make one’s mark with a singular achievement. That said, in 2011, Roz Savage became the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

Route: Canary Islands-West Indies-California-Papua New Guinea-Australia-Mauritus.

Vessel: 23-foot unsinkable rowboat with sleeping cabin.

Highlight: Savage was able to listen to 62 audio books.

Erde Eric ocean rowing — *Erdeneruc.com Photo*

A Man’s Three-Oceans Solo Rowed Trip

In 2012, a Turkish-born American named Erden Eruc went Roz Savage one better by combining a rowed trip with a hiking and cycling journey to circle the world under his own power.

Route: 41,196 miles starting and finishing at Bodega Bay, California. Not a person to rush things, Eruc took just over five years.

Vessel: As are the craft of most modern ocean-going rowed trippers, his was lightweight, self-righting, and unsinkable. Getting perhaps less credit than it deserved, the 24-foot vessel had twice crossed an ocean even before he owned it.

Highlight: Not having to repair bicycle tires.

Plan Your Own Rowed Trip

No affiliation at all with them, but the adventure travel company Oars offers rowed trips on rivers and seas around the world. If anyone should ask, we find the Wine Tasting on the River Adventures especially suited to our skill and interest levels.

BobCarriesOn.com editor in chief Bob Payne has himself been in many rows

November 5, 2012November 20, 2012

Best adventure travel books for encouraging readers to stay home?

A recent survey by the travel writing website BobCarrieson.com has found there is currently far too much coddling of readers by publishers of travel books.

“Just look at what’s out there,” said Bob Payne, who is the Non-E-Book Editor for BobCarriesOn.com. “Happy Herbivore Abroad, Birnbaum’s Walt Disney World 2013, Glamping with MaryJane. If travel publishing is to survive, what you want are adventure titles that inspire people to stay home, and read,” Payne said.

“For proof of how egregious the situation is, consider that a book about a mountaineer’s adventures in Kashmir, which included death threats and a kidnapping by people who may have been Taliban, is titled Three Cups of Tea, which sounds like it ought to be shelved with Happy Herbivore,” Payne said.

Among Payne’s recommendations for classic titles that encourage readers to remain in the easy chair are:

In Trouble Again, by Redmond O’Hanlon

During a four-month journey among primitive people in farthest reaches of the South American rainforest, the author of In Trouble Again finds himself in the dire situation of having ingested an hallucinatory drug that is making the women of the most violent men on earth start to look good to him.

The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

No doubt to overcome the burden of having such a wussy name, this young English gentleman joined Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition to the South Pole. It was an expedition that Scott, despite his far more heroic-sounding moniker, did not survive. What Cherry-Garrard discovered during the expedition was that Polar exploration is “the most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”

The Valley of the Assassins by Freya Stark

Freya Stark was a fearless Englishwoman who usually traveled solo though many of the most dangerous parts of the Arab world, including the journey chronicled in The Valley of the Assassins, to Syria in 1927, to a “part of the country where one is less frequently murdered.”

No Picnic on Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi

The story of adventure in its purest form, No Picnic on Mount Kenya involves three Italians who broke out of a British prisoner of war camp in Africa in 1943, climbed Mount Kenya with home-made gear, then, not sure what to do with themselves next, broke back into the camp, where for their efforts they each received a week in solitary confinement.

Jaguars Ripped My Flesh by Tim Cahill

As this is a collection of short pieces written mostly on assignment for Outside magazine, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh doesn’t have the narrative power of most of the other titles on Bob Payne’s list of recommendations, but as Payne himself has spent nights alone in the South American rainforest, listening to the distinctive cough-like sound a Jaguar makes, the title has for him a certain “What am I doing here?” resonance.

The Fearful Void by Geoffrey Moorhouse

With the exception of occasionally coming close to dying of thirst, lice were the biggest threat on this six-month camel journey across the Sahara. Still, lice can easily convince you that you should have stayed home.

BigStock photo.

October 12, 2012October 12, 2012

Afghanistan Adventure Tours? You bet!

On my twitter account @BobCarriesOn I recently wrote:

Travel company to offer epic Afghanistan adventure tour in footsteps of guy who sweeps area for landmines

I assumed that anyone who read it would know I was kidding, in part because I am kidding just about every time I Tweet something, or post on Facebook or Google+ or write for this blog, which is titled, helpfully, I would like to think: Bob Carries On – Bob Payne’s Travel Humor.

At least one reader, however, took me seriously enough, it seems, to ask for a link to the travel company.

Perhaps the reader was a regular follower, and was paying me back in kind. Or perhaps he is a more mild-mannered iteration of those readers who have demanded, with a sense of outrage and challenge, that I produce my sources. Tweets/Posts they have railed against include:

Fashion Week Cruise ends in disaster when ship sinks but passengers refuse to wear off-the-rack life jackets

Claim of discovering previously un-contacted Amazon tribe dismissed after some tribe members found to have Wi-Fi.

To enhance on-board experience, first North Korean cruise ship considers installing working toilets.

In victory for environmentalists, Serengeti highway plans scrapped; subway line to be built instead.

In effort to get passengers to pay more attention to lifeboat drill, cruise line dresses crew as Somali pirates.

It’s only coincidence, I am sure, that the majority of these have come from people one might likely encounter on a cruise ship. I do, however, like to think of Bob Carries On as a full-service site, so in that spirit I have included a link for readers interested in Afghan Adventure Travel.