Friday, October 3, 2014

Contributing to the overland community: Jupiter's Travellers

Google Search: Trans-Continental Travel
When last did you share overland travel stories with like minded travelers?  Did you notice how Overlanders love to share the passion for the journey and the destination.  When I started 'The Africa Overland Network', the aim was to share the passion for overland travel and link past, current and future travelers together - I wanted people to take the bold step and to experience independent trans-continental overland travel and continue to hope that the Overland Network inspires others to do the same.
Websites, forums, Facebook plus many 'overland-related' private companies are all positively contributing to the overland community with a few companies taking a global approach.  One such company is 'Jupiter's Travellers' and another 'Overland International'.

Whilst listening to Sam Manicom's 'Under Asian Skies' audio book, I took the opportunity to revisit his website to catch up on the authors current travels.  I spotted that Sam was an advisor for 'Jupiter's Travellers - The Ted Simon Foundation' and took the time to read a little more the organisation.
Jupiter's Travellers Website (2014)
I liked the caption on the home page:
The Ted Simon Foundation encourages those who adventure into the world to go the extra mile and transform their experiences into something of value for the world to share.
The above got me thinking of how many people continue to share their overland travels in either a book or website.  Managing the 'The Africa Overland Network', I get to see many websites archived or simply deleted.  The people, the trip and the historical perspective all get lost to time.  Hence I encourage everyone hosting a website to continue it, now matter how relevant they think the website is today because time brings historical value to these websites.
Jupiter's Travellers Website 2014

Back to Jupiter's Foundation - I like the fact the motorcycle community encourage travelers to write books and share the experience - in recent years we have been lucky to experience good books by Sam ManicomDom Giles, and Graham Field plus many others that I have not mentioned.  Read a few more book reviews...

I remember walking into a bookshop in South Africa in 1997 and seeing Charles Jacoby's 'In Search of Will Carling' prominently displayed in the window.  Overland travel books were in scarce demand as publishes did not feel that the reading community would be interested in overland travel.  My next purchase was 'Malachite' by Paul Marketos (now available on Kindle).  Years seemed to pass between authors writing about their experiences and thanks to Chris Scott, we were kept entertained by his guidebooks which included many short stories inspiring us.
Chris Scott: Amazon UK BIO Page

I am very excited that organisations like 'Jupiter's Travellers' encourage positive contribution from overlanders to the countries and people they travel through.  And a passion for publishing content and sharing travellers tales.

Head over to 'Jupiter's Travellers' website and take a look.  The website offers you the ability to join as a member and get access to various membership privilege including a forum. The website is slightly behind on the various articles so head over to Facebook for updated posts and social interaction.

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