Where Should We Go? - Driving Around The World

Hey Combi Crew, how's it going? We are inviting you today to sit down with us as we discuss the route plan for our Around the World expedition. Yeah, this is really exciting because this is where it starts to feel real. It's nice to be thinking about actually traveling rather than just building the van to travel, which has been the focus and is still the focus at the moment, but this is a process that we would like to involve you guys in in the Combi Crew because you are helping us make this production. As we always say, we would definitely not be able to do it without your support and we are forever grateful. So we want to invite you to help us with the route planning and that is if you have any suggestions on where to go in a particular country, let us know. Of course we can't go to all of the suggestions that you guys make. Before you get excited and start commenting frantically below, we're going to do this in a organised way. I'm going to make another post separately which will provide a link for you guys to enter in the details of the locations that you want us to visit and film, or if there's somewhere in your town that you would like us to visit, or if you want us to come and meet you. If you guys want to do a convoy with us and do a little road trip. As Leah said, it's not going to be possible to do all of it, but we would love to have your suggestions and we would love to involve you in this as much as possible. We'd like to meet some of you all too and show us around your town, wherever you live. Yeah, that'd be really fun. So you can be like our local guides and we can go on little adventures together. And that will form a big part of the series, hopefully. So watch out for details specifically just for the Combi Crew, shared on Patreon and to the YouTube travel channel members. We will share a link and you can just enter in all the details of the places there and we can start plotting out a course. Okay, with that out of the way, today we'd like to talk about generally the route that we're taking. Not specifically what we're seeing in every country, but the route that we're taking and focusing on the visa limitations and how we're working around that. Yeah, kind of a logistics video, but still fun nonetheless. Yeah, this took days, maybe weeks to figure out the route plan, just for Europe. This is just for Europe. We're going to start off in Jersey, obviously, because the bus is there. And when Ben finishes the bus, we'll start from Jersey. Yes, that's the launch point for, I guess, season two and onward, our travels onward outside of the US. Yes, so the UK. The UK, I get six months to explore the UK. Lucky you, I can stay for as long as I like. Which is nice, because it's the only place I can say that. Yeah, Boomerang, on the other hand, has six months for the whole of the UK and also the whole of Europe. So he needs to get out, we need to get him out and export him before the six months is up. Yes, so what we are doing, we're going to spend about three months in the UK, exploring the UK, aren't we? Yeah, that's England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and the Channel Islands. We'd like to do a bit of a focus around that area, because I haven't explored a lot of my home country and I'd like to see that. I'd like to include that in as much detail as we possibly can. Just want to say is that before we get into this, you might think that three months in the UK, that's loads of time. It is, but as we found out when we spent three months in Alaska, it's not a lot of time when you're trying to film something in great detail, when you're doing drone shots and you're trying to hook up with people and do like little mini documentary stuff of their lives. It's not a lot of time and time is a big pressure on this kind of expedition. Yeah, and also we want to try to not rush things as well and actually enjoy ourselves. Yeah, we should do that. Yeah, we should try. So basically the travel for the series starts properly in the in spring 2019. Yeah. And so we have three months in the UK, that takes us to summer. Yes, so we're going to be spending summer in Western Europe. France, Spain and Portugal mainly and that's going to be for the other three months. So that will make six months for Boomerang to get out of the EU. It's quite a long time in those countries. I don't know, like Spain and France are pretty big countries. So three months to do all of probably the coasts. We'll see if we have extra time. Yeah, so France, Spain and Portugal in summer. Then we'll be heading south to Morocco and we'll be spending three to six months there because we need to be out of the EU for six months before I could go back into the EU. These are reasons. So throughout this series we are factoring in periods of what we're calling downtime but it's actually more like uptime. It's the time that we frantically start editing all of the footage that we have been working on and filming because we have come to the realisation through this experience that for us to drive like long distances and for us to film the majority of the day it takes a lot of energy and if we then try to edit in the evening the production quality is reduced and so we just and it burns us out. So whilst we're doing this travelling we will be focusing purely on on the filmmaking stuff like the actual production. So whilst we're in Morocco there's a lot to film in Morocco so we're going to be filming there as well so there'll be a couple videos from there and also we'll be spending time in Western Sahara hopefully as well. What about the rest of Northern Africa? Because Africa I mean come on that's pretty exciting. Yeah there is Algeria which we wanted to go to but it's quite hard to get a visa sorted so we're going to skip that. Also a little dodgy when you start like researching how safe it is to go to some of those places there's a lot of travel warnings in a lot of areas. They do that for a lot. They do do that for a lot but we'll talk more about safety concerns as we get further east and outside of Europe because then I start really like getting worried but we'll talk about that in a little bit. But when it comes to Northern Africa if we're going to be based in Morocco we're going to try and do as much exploring in the area as possible. Two Nordic girls were recently beheaded weren't they by Islamic extremists in Morocco whilst hiking in the Atlas Mountains. I think I've got my facts straight there. That's fun. So we're going to try and avoid that. Back to safety later on. You can't be scared of every country because there's been a terrorist attack in nearly every country. I know everything. So you can't be stressing about that. So after we are allowed back into Europe we are going to go exploring the Western Europe. Yeah well just one more thing about Africa. Okay. There's the Western Sahara, there's Algeria, there's Tunisia and then we thought about jumping back into Europe that way. It's still not totally off the cards of us doing a bit of a Northern Africa tour but we have to wait and see how things go with visas and things. But I would say that we're definitely not going all the way down through Africa in the bus. Not on this trip at least. There's a chance that we may do it in the future on this channel and there's more of a chance that we might do some kind of like long motorbike trip or something in a more suitable vehicle through Africa. That might not happen all of Africa in this trip. So Western Europe we're going to go to Italy and Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. We're going to try and see as much as Eastern Europe as possible in the three months that we have there. So when we re-enter after Africa we then have another three months. Yeah you see your three months is the limiting factor here. Yeah. Boomerang has another six months. Yeah. So and I have who knows because of flipping Brexit. Yeah Brexit has been really hard to plan because of this shenanigans that's going on. So Ben might be in the same boat as me and only have three months 90 days to do the whole of Europe. So not that it affects you because I have to go out anyways. Yeah I know it's still quite depressing. Like the Brexit thing is causing a bit of a problem for us. We can't make plans. We don't know what the lay of the land is going to be. It's a problem. It's definitely a problem. So yes after our three months is up we're going to be going into the non-Schengen countries. What's Schengen? So they're still countries in Europe but they're not part of like the Schengen agreement which most European countries are part of which have this agreement with visa and travel. So basically what I want to say about this is there's some countries that have decided it's a great idea if they band together and make one visa for a region. Central America did it but they did, I'm not going to go into it, but there's three months to go through a bunch of countries in Central America rather than three months in each country. That isn't a problem for 99% of tourists that go and visit them because they're there for a week or two and then they're out and they never think about staying that long. Europe's pretty damn big and it's like three months to see all of the countries in Schengen areas. Like what countries are those? Schengen is like Germany, Italy, Netherlands, all the big players. Yeah there's a lot of countries in the Schengen agreement and it basically means that you have to see all of those countries within three months and they're adding more countries to the Schengen list all the time. What a stupid idea. So the non-Schengen countries that we're going to go to after our EU visa is up is Bosnia, Ukraine, Albania and around there. So basically the really eastern countries all here. So okay so we come back in from Morocco, we go up this way through Spain, France, around to Italy right? Yeah. This is our three month period where we're doing like as much of this as possible. That'll be summer again will it? Yeah it's spring, summer time and then we're off into eastern Europe where there's non-Schengen. So we're in Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and how do you say that? Herzegovia. Sorry I really wish I was better informed. Romania I think and around this region we get to spend another six months of travel. And that's going to be around winter so it's going to be quite cold. So the other thing that we're trying to do is avoid the season. So we're going to be trying to in that time go to Turkey. Hopefully Turkey's a little bit more warmer. Yes if we make it down to Turkey. Turkey's a little volatile as well particularly with its proximity to Syria right now and someone's got to pay attention to this stuff babes. And you know all the refugee migration from Syria so there's parts of Turkey that aren't really ideal to visit. However we may try to avoid the freezing freezing locations in Europe which we would otherwise be restricted to over winter because we are going to have a heater in Birang but living in a van whilst it's snowing outside is kind of miserable especially when you only have a solar heated shower. We're going to have a heater in our bus now aren't we? Yes? Yes. So after we are spending time in Turkey for the winter we will be heading east after that and we'll be going to Georgia and all the stands. So this is where it gets complicated because Ben. He's a nice guy. Ben's visa is obviously different to my visa. Australian, British. My Australian visa can get me into Iran no problem. Ben's visa the UK visa has they have to be invited to go to Iran and we really want to spend some time in Iran because it is amazing. We want to spend at least three months there filming because there's so much to do there and see and it just looks incredible. So we have to somehow try to get Ben invited to go to Iran so he can get a visa so we can be there. If he doesn't get invited he needs to be on a tour for the whole time which we don't want to hire a guy to be there for three months with us. That's totally not combi life. It's expensive and it's not combi life. We do not want to be taken on a on a tour itinerary. If any of you guys happen to be from Iran please send us a message. We'd be very very happy to hear from you and if any of you know anybody from Iran that's not a terrorist we'd love to hear from you as well because it would be nice to be able to connect with some locals and potentially get ourselves invited so we could go and explore the country. Yes there is another way to get around Iran. I know what that is. I give you the keys you drive across and I fly across and meet you the other side. You're gonna miss out on one of the best countries in that area. I'm not leaving you on your own in a bright blue van in Iran. In a bright blue van in Iran. Sounds like a song. Yeah there is a way to get a ferry across from Azerbaijan across to Kazakhstan but that is a possibility. For some reason you can't get a visa but I would really like to go to Iran so hopefully we don't have to do that but that would be fun too. So there is a plan A and plan B to get across to the stands. Okay so some period of time in Iran so I'd like to say there's probably some people that are going like what about Poland and what else are we missing Lithuania and Belarus. There are going to be a lot of countries in Europe especially northern Europe that we're not going to be able to see because three months is just not enough time. Not enough. I think it's better for us to travel slowly and meaningfully and actually connect with some of these countries and as much as possible rather than skip through them and tick boxes because that's not what we're about. We want to really see what people are like and if it means that we have to miss Lithuania that just leaves it for next time you know. So that's not a problem for us. It is a bit of a shame though. We'll wait and see because we'll see how we go with three months and and what happens with the itinerary. If there's enough time it's not massive distances. If you compare Europe to the US like we're used to driving long distances so we could always just you know nip off to the arctic circle in Sweden. Maybe. So we've kind of gotten like quite a detailed route up until this point Iran. After that getting to India is quite difficult to get through China. The two routes are either through China or through Pakistan. Pakistan is quite difficult visas and a few other reasons. What are the other reasons? Safety. Because people say Pakistan is an absolutely beautiful country but what we've read about it is there's a lot of dangerous areas. If anyone watching is from Pakistan please do get in touch because we would love to come to see your country. But the most likely route we're going to take to get to India is through China which is very very expensive because you need a guide to take you all the way to the border across the border and through China and it's thousands of euros. It is thousands of euros. That's problem number one. Problem number two is often they do tour groups like other overlanders are going through and the tour guide will take multiple people and we drive a really slow bus number one and number two we film the whole thing so China could be a real problem for us. It's going to be really expensive. One of the other options could be to ship it around to India. It's not going to be as expensive but we can always if we can't get the bus or get over there in our bus overland we will just do a tuk-tuk tour across through India. Leah and I have been talking about this since we first met. Actually some of you might remember Tara from Mexico. The three of us were talking about doing a tuk-tuk tour back in the day of India. It would have been fun. We may still travel parts of India in a tuk-tuk or on a motorbike or something like that. The reason I said to you are you sure you want to go to India because I know you're sure. I definitely want to go to India. India is going to be a big part of this series. We love that country, that culture that we think there's so much to see there. Currys, I mean come on. Definitely going to India even if it's a lot of trouble to get there. We'll be filming a bunch of content for the series from India. And for those of you who are wondering why India may be our last destination with the bus. What? Because we can't drive through some of the Asian countries. They don't allow camper vans anymore going through the border so we're kind of stuck there. But that doesn't stop us from enjoying it. We can get to Nepal though right? Yeah, you can get to Nepal. You just can't go east. I'm going to say it now guys. I really want to take Bhima around to Nepal. I've always wanted to go to Nepal. But it's in the Himalayas. It's really high. It's going to be a super challenge for him. At the end of the trip too. At the end of the trip. And this is the thing. If it was the beginning I'd be like yeah let's just go for it. But at the end if he's starting to show signs of wear and tear, which is probably quite likely, it would be quite foolish to do it without thinking we could do it. So I have to make a judgment call at that time. And if we can't go with the bus then we'll go with tuk-tuks. Off the Himalayas. Or donkey. The highest mountain range in the world. That'd be fun wouldn't it? Yeah. We can either, if the laws change, we will take Boomerang all the way down to Singapore. That would be option number one. Option number two would be to ship Boomerang out of somewhere like maybe India to Australia and then go meet him and go on to travel those regions via other means. Which will be fun. Option three. There is a go around option isn't there? Yes. Up around China. So that's a long long way. Where would that take us? How do you feel about doing that? I'd love to do that. I mean yeah I know you'd love to do this. How do you feel about driving through that in a Volkswagen bus that's 45 years old and has just driven across the planet? We'll have to see. I feel a little nervous in case you didn't realise. But that's the last resort because that's that's going to be the hardest journey I think. Okay so that's that's the last big hurdle is like what the heck do we do about getting out of India. It would be really nice to keep driving. It really would. When do we arrive in Australia? I don't know. A long time away. Three years at least. Yeah it's going to be at least three years. Yeah and I'm going to be doing Australia. The Australia stuff will be really cool because hopefully we can slow down a little with the pace. Yeah. Two things will happen at that point we've figured. Either Boomerang is allowed to be imported and there's no major headaches. In which case we will import him. Make him an Australian citizen and continue to do an extended trip of Australia. Like a really good in-depth kind of view of the country and New Zealand as well hopefully. Plan B if Boomerang is not allowed to stay in Australia for more than a year then he will be exported probably to the UK where we will leave him for future Europe and Africa expeditions. Which is also a good option. Yes there's a couple of things that we haven't discussed in this route. One of them is Alaska. People are probably watching us going what about Alaska? You haven't mentioned Alaska. She's coming with us too. We've got all her visa and you know documents as well. She's surprisingly less complicated than Boomerang and you and I. So she just needs to make sure that she has her shots. Mainly her rabies shots in most of the countries that we go to and there's going to be a lot of vet visits in between going to countries. Yeah. She'll be coming with us as far as she can get. We're going to try to make it not too uncomfortable for her. There's some places like Morocco for example because we're going to Africa and then coming back to Europe she'll have to have a blood test coming back into Europe. But that's about it. A lot of the other countries they say that they've got restrictions and that you need certain things and to be perfectly honest it's going to be like Central America and South America when they're like what you've got a dog? I don't care. So hopefully we will just be able to bring her and if not we'll have to ship her home or on a plane and she'll stay with my mum. Which she'll probably love because she loves house life. Yeah she's getting a little old. She'll get to that age where she's like I don't want to travel anymore. If we take her and she doesn't enjoy it if it gets too hot and she's like miserable I can read her body language like you know as well as I can read anybody's so I'll know exactly how she's feeling and if she's not enjoying it I will send her somewhere where she will enjoy life more because I love Alaska. So guys that is pretty much the wrap-up of our European and onwards journey. Lots to be figured out as we move right. Stay tuned on Patreon and the channel members on YouTube for that link to add your suggestions on where we should visit. We'd very much like to have you help us shape what is in this series because you guys are helping us make it happen and we love you. So until next time guys thanks for watching and happy travels.