Early this year I was suffering from a serious depression and was feeling incredibly low. I got talking to an old friend who now lives in Dubai; Emma suggested that I pay her a visit, and that the break would do me good. In August of this year I travelled to Dubai to visit her for three weeks. Emma being the adventurous type suggested we embark on a 10 day camping/road trip down through the United Arab Emirates and on to Salalah in Oman. I’m never one to turn down an opportunity to go adventuring and so we made some plans and headed out into the desert in her fully loaded Nissan Xterra.

The trip was great for many reasons; firstly Emma is a biologist and has lived in the Middle East for the last 9 years. She has a wealth of knowledge regarding the area and during my three weeks I learned an incredible amount. Secondly, the trip really opened my eyes to what was really important to me and helped put some perspective on what was causing my depression. Thirdly, I simply love adventuring, I love getting in a car and discovering new people and new places.

The trip also helped reinforce the friendship I already had with Emma and it became apparent quite quickly that we were good travelling partners.

I returned to Guernsey in the Channel Islands, where I live and went back to my usual daily routine. Last month in the middle of a Skype conversation with Emma we somehow got round to talking about where we should go on our next trip and thus was born ‘Around the World in 800 Days’. Rather than rush it like Phileas Fogg, we’ve decided to take a much more laid back approach.

Hopefully over the next 424 days our planned trip will turn from a pipe-dream to a reality. However we have many obstacles to overcome; lack of money, being in two separate countries, sleepiness (on my behalf), a lack of money (oh, did I mention that one?) and a whole bunch of very daunting research. To me, half the adventure is going to take place in the next 424 days and so it seemed fitting to start this blog now.

Firstly so it can be used by other adventurers as a resource to all the links we discover during the research period. Secondly as a way to document the highs and lows of the whole trip, right from the inception. So here it is.

Andy