It is written on expensively printed headed paper. It is long and detailed, documenting all the amazing features of the coming trip. How they are going to climb such and such a mountain. That it is high and dangerous and they will be the first to achieve it etc etc.

It describes how amazing the trip is going to be. That it is going to test the participants body and mind to their very limits. That they will be away for months, braving life threatening and extreme conditions.

Expedition #2 has sent the same potential sponsor a letter asking for a meeting. They have a similar trip planned. BUT their sponsorship letter is very different.

It’s on plain paper. It’s brief and to the point. It OPENS with a simple statement…

While looking at YOUR web site I saw that you are currently doing (You fill in the blank about their current hot piece of company news) and that your objective for it is (you then repeat something from their web site that was the reason).

Our expedition to ******* can help you achieve your objective BY…. (Now they tell the sponsor How they can help them meet that objective. They tell the sponsor WHAT They CAN DO FOR HIM. They ANSWER THE question whats in it for HIM.)

Which expedition do you think gets the meeting and the chance to close the sponsorship deal?

What is your experience of raising sponsorship? What worked and what didn’t?

This is a new web site and I would really appreciate your help in raising awareness. If you enjoyed this article please take a moment to comment or share it on Facebook or Twitter. I would really appreciate it. Thanks

Luke Bream

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The Adventure of a Lifetime

“Firstly I would like to thank Luke for allowing me to contribute to this fantastic website were we can become inspired and live or our dreams.

So, What am I doing here?

Well, shortly after university, rather than getting caught up trying to find a job a place to live etc etc I have decided to take life by the scruff of the neck and see what it can offer and what I can learn from it.

I will do this by doing 3 expeditions, cycling, walking and climbing… A 4th to be announced.

So, on the 5th January I will leave my house and cycle to 12,000 miles to New Zealand. Once in New Zealand, I plan to walk the entire length of both islands (3000km) then after some time in New Zealand I shall cycle my way up the Americas onward to Alaska. Now, once in Alaska Mount Mckinley is on my hit list…

It’s a long way a way yet but I am looking forward to updating my website and giving advice into how to set up a expedition. I will be documenting my adventure in various styles…. blog posts, photography, audio, film and a web series.

To follow up on this inspirational adventure of a lifetime please visit www.LeeHughes.co.uk

Credits for the images in this article about an adventure of a lifetime belong to Lee Hughes.

Please support CrazyJourneys.com by taking a moment to comment on this adventure story and also tweet or share it. Help Luke to spread the word. The buttons are below:

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Life was suddenly too short to delay this project any longer than necessary.

Since making that decision, she had a bike built for her by Chaz Roberts of Croydon, researched and bought all the kit and devoured as many cycling books as she could – Josie Dew, Dervla Murphy, Alastair Humphreys and dozens of online journals, mainly on Crazy Guy On a Bike.

With little previous cycling experience or training behind her she started slowly, but like the proverbial tortoise and hare has made considerable progress and is currently in Iran having cycled through France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey.

So here I am, just turned 59, retiring early at the end of June, and about to set off on the biggest adventure of my life. I’m a long way off being ‘bikefit’ but I do know that I can cover 30 miles in a day as I am, and expect to raise that to 50+ after a few weeks in France.

“You’re very brave”, so people keep saying – before I set off. I’ll have to earn those words before I agree. But funnily enough, no one has called me mad – I think they already knew that…

CrazyJourney Community comments on inspirational female cyclists

Im not being ageist but this is truly inspirational especially when I consider my mum is 59 and I could never imagine her doing more than drinking wine in front of the TV! mylesaway.wordpress.com

I love this woman’s story. My parents did something similar in 2006. They sold their house in London. Put their possessions into storage and set off by bike to ride through France. They went on a hunt to buy a house over there and after 3 months riding and over 1500 miles covered they had found the place of their dreams. They returned with powerful thighs and bursting with cycling pride. Reminds us that it is never too late to follow our dreams.
Luke Bream

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To read the fantastic online journal of this British female cyclist please visit Ann Wilson

Credits for the images in this article about cycling around the world by an amazing female cyclist belong to Ann Wilson.

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Cycling Across Continents to explore the World

What’s it all about? Simple – travel solo across the principal inhabited continents – Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa – by bicycle.

I set off on 2 September 2009 from my cottage in Somerset for a journey expected to cover in excess of 45,000 miles over the next 4 years.

Why do this? To raise awareness of, and funds for, The Outward Bound Trust, and to inspire others to explore their potential through discovery and adventure.

The Outward Bound Trust uses outdoor experiences and challenges to help young people unlock their potential. At the heart of The Outward Bound experience is the Journey metaphor – physical journeys alongside those of development and discovery for the individual and the team.

A belief that we all have undiscovered potential that can be brought out through adventure – encouraging people to go out and do things they at first believe to be impossible, encouraging a deep appreciation of the balance between risk, reward and responsibility.

Armed with a netbook and camera, I use my blog to write about the people I meet and the places I visit – with a bit of humour that comes with spending 8 hours a day perched on a leather saddle.

So far I’ve encountered dubious Bavarian gnomes, ice forming on my cycling mitts, packs of dogs roaming free across the Serbian countryside, humbling hospitality, and I’ve not even left Europe!

From Ken’s Intelligent & Informative Travel Blog

If you come to Serbia then one thing’s an absolute must. An open mind. I’d come prepared for some animosity – you’ll still find plenty of references to the NATO air strikes a decade ago in newspapers and in conversation – but found only a warm, friendly people.

If you took time to listen, they took time to explain.

Joined a little later by a journalist friend, we talked at length about what it was like to be Serbian, to live in Serbia…..Communism, it seemed, had provided more than just reassuring certainty, you had somewhere to live, a job, and the streets were clean. And a Yugoslavian passport had afforded considerable freedom to travel. The break-up of Yugoslavia had meant de-facto confinement, for Serbians at least. Visas were difficult to come by.

A slow puncture, the first in close on five thousand kilometres. I made it to a convenient patch of tarmac, one of few at the entrance to a field, off the road and out of sight. Thirty minutes to remove all the panniers, up-end the bike, fix the puncture, refit all the kit and get back on the road. At least it was dry.

To read more about this cycling adventure around the world please visit www.acrosscontinents.org

Credits for the images in this guest post about biking across continents belong to Ken Roberts.

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CrazyJourney Community comments on cycling through Europe

I love the courtesy and space you are given by cars cycling in Europe. So different from London where you are lucky if they give you 30cm. Rough camping is also so easy and non stressful. Luke Bream

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I would like to caveat this list with some points. I’m not an expert web designer, nor am I an expert at search engine optimisation. Nor too am I an expert at marketing on social media.

But for what it’s worth I will share my experiences of setting up the CrazyJourneys site and the methods I have used to market it. This hopefully will provide a basic framework for you to use and develop for your own expedition web site. It’s not numbered in priority order, simply as I thought of the item. This list is Part 1 in the series.

Expedition and adventure travel web site design

1. Use a wordpress blog for the basic site. You can host with them for free, but I recommend you get your own domain for example www.myexpeditionname.com and find a hosting company. I use just host and it cost about $45 for 2 years. This included the domain name and unlimited sub domains
2. choose a theme for your blog design. I use hybrid-news. i strongly recommend using hybrid which is the main architecture and then you have option af various child themes of which hybrid news is one. Hybrid and child themes are free and fully customisable with great search engine optimisation features already built in. Hybrid has an excellent support forum where the designer Justin always responds to questions you post within a few hours. Cost is $25 per year
3. Choose some plugins to make your wordpress blog work better. I use
   • contact form 7 so readers can contact me.
   • hybrid hook extra functionality for hybrid theme
   • my blog recent visitor widget gives live visitor data, where they came from and what outbound links they clicked on when you visit your profile page on myBlogLog
   • subscribe to comments allows users to receive an email of follow up comments
   • wordpress backup and wordpress database backup for that nightmare time when I lose all my data!
   • wp super cache makes site load faster
   • yet another related post plugin which put a list of related posts at end of a post
   • wibiya puts toolbar at bottom of browser with links to facebook page twitter translations etc
4. Customise your theme to make it look as you desire. Full details of this are beyond the scope of this article. However I have included a list below with code snippets where appropriate of things I did on this site that were a hassle to work out
5. Amended the template.php file for yet another realatet post to display a what’s next section and the social media buttons for “become a fan, share on facebook, retweet, digg etc.

   <h4><strong>Follow CrazyJourneys on Facebook</strong> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/crazyjourneys" title="CrazyJourneys on Facebook"><img src="http://crazyjourneys.com/wp-content/themes/hybrid-news/images/fb-fan.gif" width="113" height="23" style="border:none;" alt="Facebook" /></a></h4>
   <div class="alignleft">
   <h3>Whats Next</h3>
   <ul>
   <li><a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/crazyjourneys">Subscribe to CrazyJourneys</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
   <li><a href="<?php get_permalink(); ?>#respond" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">Please comment..</a></li>
   <li><script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=99e0a522-d065-4875-ab1b-8ca581783317&amp;type=wordpress&amp;buttonText=ShareThis%20Please"></script></li></ul>
   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<script>var fbShare = {google_analytics: 'true'}</script>
   <script src="http://widgets.fbshare.me/files/fbshare.js"></script>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<script src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br/><br/><br/>
   

6. Add share on facebook and reteet buttons to the post title. This was done by adding the following code to the theme functions.php file

   add_action( 'hybrid_before_entry', 'my_tweet_button', 1 );
   function my_tweet_button() {
   	if ( is_single() ) { ?>
   		<div class="tweet-button">
   			<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<script>var fbShare = {google_analytics: 'true'}</script>
   <script src="http://widgets.fbshare.me/files/fbshare.js"></script>
   		</div>
   	<?php }
   }
   

7. Add a video introduction. I have been amazed how often this get viewed. CrazyJourneys has been live for 6 weeks and this vid has been viewed about 500 times. One thing though and I have yet to action this on my site. I would put a screen capture image of the video then open the video when it is clicked. One problem with the way I have done it is that it is in widget sidebar on every post and page which is good BUt because it is embeded and has to call the code from Youtube everytime a it slows down the load speed of the site.

I hope that this list is useful. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I will do my best to help. Also if you can see any ways in which I can improve the crazyJourneys site or if you have had any problems with it then I would really appreciate your feedback as well.

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Starting and finishing at North Cape in Norway, he became the first man to travel the Arctic Circle without motorized transport, completing a 20,000km journey through Greenland, Canada, Alaska, the Bering Strait and Russia’s Siberia, pulling a kevlar sledge piled with 180kg of equipment and food.

Prior to this Mike had an outstanding pedigree in extreme expeditions. Including Amazon Expedition, a solo, un-motorized traverse of the South American continent taking 6 months and Latitude Zero, the circumvolution of the world around the equator. Taking 18 months Mike Horn sailed, paddled, canoed and cycled around the world.

Valuable lessons from one of worlds greatest explorers

Before attempting the solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle expedition in 2004, Mike Horn did 2 things which I think we can learn alot from. Both in the sense that he was humble enough to do them and also how we can apply them to our own expedition projects.

The arctic was a completely foreign landscape to him and he recognized that he didn’t have a hope of being successful there without serving some kind of apprenticeship and learning from the best.

The first thing he did was to get himself invited on an expedition to Greenland with two Swiss explorer JeanTroillet and Erhard Loretan (3rd man to climb all the 8000m peaks without oxygen). This gave Mike the opportunity to be mentored by two of the world’s greatest Himalayan mountaineering experts.

On this Greenland expedition he basically worked as a packhorse but it gave him the opportunity to watch, listen, learn and soak up as much knowledge and information as possible. The most valuable and life saving lesson was the art of PATIENCE.

In conditions of extreme cold knowing when to stay in the tent and not to push on can be the difference between life and death. A naturally impatient and impulsive man it was a difficult lesson to learn. But vital as in arctic whiteout conditions many explorers have become lost and frozen to death just 2m from their tents

Mike Horn posses two of the most important characteristics of an extreme expedition explorer. These being a rock solid, steady temperament and an enormous capacity for physical endurance. But on returning from the Greenland Expedition he wondered if these were enough to fulfil his dreams of a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle.

With this in mind he sought the advice and guidance of Borge Ousland, the first man to reach the North Pole solo as well as the first to cross Antarctica solo. Mike visited Norway to apprentice with him. To learn everything he could about this famous explorer, his way of life, his personality, the way he worked, his attitudes, and daily routines.

Mike didn’t know and had never met Borge however he was welcomed into his home and and over a number of days shared his polar knowledge and experience.

These examples of serving apprenticeships with expedition experts and learning everything we can from them are valuable and give us an insight into the character of Mike Horn and demonstrate why he went on to become one of the world’s most famous expedition explorers.

Mike has written an account of his solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle expedition called conquering the impossible

He is currently leading a fantastic ocean expedition for young explorers. For more information please visit Pangaea

Credits for the images in this article about extreme adventure expeditions and the lessons that famous explorers can teach us belong to Mike Horn

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I think perhaps it is his complete credibility. Here is a man who has been there, lived there, seen it, done it and got the T-shirt. He is homeless and has been a perpetual traveller for 10 years and visited more than 80 countries.

HoboTraveler.com is difficult and confusing to navigate around. But I strongly recommend that you take the time to do so. Hidden within it’s 8000+ pages are some really gems. Truisms that will inspire, comments that force you to look closely at ones own belief systems and strong opinions that he is not shy to share.

If you are tempted to venture on your travel adventure and are on a tight budget there is an excellent section on how he has funded his travel over the years. It demonstrates that with a bit of hard graft and an entrepreneurial spirit following your travel dreams is very possible.

It is so tempting to wait to follow out dreams for everything to be perfect. Often we put things off because we don’t have enough money, its not the right time, I cant leave now. Excuses are so easy to find. But please follow Andy’s example and get started. Live life in the here and now. Reach out for you goals and let nothing stand in your way.

The following quotes from his Blog give a flavour of the man and his writing.

Travel Blogs aspire to be somebody, to be a something, to be more than just one person rambling about his or her vacation.

Travel is one of the most selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed things to do on the planet, we do it alone, and all the decisions are made by us.

Make a list of all the things you want to do before you kick the bucket. When someone says, get a life, this is what they mean. We negotiate our life while living on a small precipice; we look over the edge seeing all that is possible. However, still as timid souls we ask too little of ourselves, we believe in tomorrow more than today.

I stole this tip, I am copying this tip, and I am buying into this tip from a movie called, “The Bucket List.” Two men who have terminal cancer make their dream list of what they want to do before the kick the bucket. The difference between these two men and the rest of the world is they decide to be the heroes of their life.

Make a list of all the things you want to do before you kick the bucket, then start to today to find the hero of the story. Please go watch the movie “The Bucket List,” and make all the tomorrows become today, then one day at a time you can become the hero of the story.

Once you have “The Bucket List,” you will learn there are people who love you and will help you achieve your dreams, and there will be many who say this is just a movie… it is not a movie, it is the story of your life, do not lose the negotiations, your life is at stake.

To read Andy’s blog about experience travel and the adventures it brings please visit www.hobotraveler.com

Credits for the images in this article about adventure travel and following our dreams belong to Andy.

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Overland Adventure Expedition – Getting started..

Spare key for the day I lose the original. Baseball bat for when I need to open a can of beans in a hurry. My kettle for when I want to spill boiling water over my hand. Three man tent for the nights I meet a hot Swedish chick and her equally hot friend.

Compass….for finding the car in the dark after a skip of pints. Medical kit filled with hangover cures, baby prevention plastic and 1 plaster, incase of an accident. The thickest sleeping bag I could find..suitable for the arctic because I hear Iran has really being effected by global warming.

No real destination, map or plan to take me there, sure ill figure it out along the way.

Overland adventure tour – Iran, Iraq and Pakistan

These lads certainly don’t lack spirit, determination and a sense of adventure..

We were all very brave men when we were telling everyone that we were going to Iraq but as we came closer and closer to the border a little bit of worry/panic started to set into us all. Nervous laughs and jokes was the order of the day.

Seje was the worst by far and to be fair he had good reason being an American and standing out of a crowd like he did didn’t help the situation. I have to admit I was worried he might attract some unwanted attention to us which could escalate into something more serious.

Due to the unstable situation in Pakistan at this time the Pakistan government required us to have an armed guard or armed police escort with us at all times and we felt it was obviously safer to have someone with us then going it alone.

What normally happened with the guards was that every 20 or 30 kilometres there would be a police check point where we would fill in our details and pick up a new guard. A truck driver didn’t get out of the way fast enough so our escort smashed his wing mirror…that some rights the gardai don’t have

The main round-about into Tehran…it was like demolition derby trying to get on and off the bloody thing. After driving in and out of Istanbul I thought I had experienced the worst driving im likely to see along my trip…..what a fool I was.

The Lonely Planet description sum’s it up perfectly: “Almost anything goes on these roads and often does. Its not unusual to see motorbikes weaving between pedestrians on the footpath in an attempt to escape the gridlock or cars reversing down the highway at speed along an expressway to reached that missed exit

The sheer volume of traffic can be overwhelming and makes crossing the street seem like a game of Russian roulette, only in this game there are few empty chambers”.

To read Liam and Luke’s funny blog about their overland adventure travelling in the unlikeliest expedition vehicle please visit rusheeneast.blogspot.com

Credits for the images in this article about an overland adventure tour and their unusual expedition 4 x 4 belong to Liam and Luke.

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Cycle Touring

On a bicycle you are forced into intimate contact with your surroundings, the grass on the side of the road, the vehicles that drive past, the farmer in the field, that damn hill under your wells, the rain on your face, the smell of the wild flowers (or the broken sewerage pipe for that matter).

This interaction gives a real sense of the place, the traffic tells you what kind of things are going on in the area, tourism, logging, farming, industry etc. The constant exposure to the weather gives an astute awareness of the day to day changes, or in the case of a strong head wind, any natural feature which will give some shelter .

Hungry, thirsty and tired, a warm smile and a few words (or more often hand signals) is all it takes to find a place to pitch the tent for the night, on real ground with a newly gained sense of the place after a long day in the saddle.

Every since picking up my first National Geographic when I was maybe 3 years old, I have had a deep fascination with people and places. This has led me to far off places in search of what makes a person who they are and what connects them to that place where they call home.

Since starting cycling I have travelled extensively, always in search of real human interaction, at a level that is not based on money or business, but a more real interaction where I can attempt to gain an understanding of a person through there environment and willingness to interact with me as a westerner who is there without a car.

Certainly living somewhere is probably the best way to really gain this understanding, however takes a long time and thus in a lifetime there are only so many places we can spend an extended period of time. From my experience, cycling is as close as it is possible to come to this in a relatively short time.

To read Ben’s fantastic blog about his cycling tour through Bulgaria, China, Cambodia, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Vietnam and Laos please visit www.bikeben.com

Credits for the images in this article about an intercontinental cycling tour belong to Ben.

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A trekking adventure in Nepal

It would seem that a person who has walked the rocky path from the hills of Nepal up the 5600meter Trekking Peaks on the sides of Mount Everest and the surrounding Himalayas, might become a bit complacent. But each time I take a new client on this journey, it promises to be yet another deep personal confrontation, a journey both within and along the path.

My next trip involves two Canadian Women who, some five years ago committed to celebrate their 50th birthdays high in these mountains. They’ve been training, walking and preparing for over twelve months and for them, this will be a true expedition, mind, body and spirit.

I’ve found that risk is not the core variable in an expedition. It’s the human being that makes a journey. For some I meet in Nepal over these past 25 years, skiing off the top of MT Everest with a snow board and parachute doesn’t even pose a threat, while others, leaving their family out of radio contact for a few days is a huge journey.

I value small increments in time – by learning to celebrate that tiny moment of time called now, you conserve massive amounts of life forces and vitality. This is where the great painting is painted, the great golf shot is struck, the baby knows it’s loved, chronic fatigue cannot exist. Depression has no home in a mind that does not want or desire.

I used to measure my endurance skill by how exhausted I became. If I was really spent I’d be proud to say to friends, “Phew, I had a really hectic week.” And that would, in my opinion, reveal the pride of the tempo of my life. Anything less was lazy and un-Chris-like.

Now, it’s the opposite. If someone asks, “How is your week Chris?” I say, “I’m having a beautiful week,” even on Monday at 10.00am.

I’ll share the ups and downs of this Himalayan trekking adventure on www.walkinspired.com. Chris also writes an inspirational blog about “Mastering the art of living” www.chriswalkeronline.com

Credits for the images used in this article about trekking in the Himalayas around Mount Everest belong to Chris Walker.

Please support CrazyJourneys.com by taking a moment to comment on this Himalayan trekking tour and also tweet or share it. Help Luke to spread the word. The buttons are below:

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Cycling Adventure To Watch the Ashes

Cycling To The Ashes” is my attempt to spread the cricketing gospel, to raise plenty of money for two very worthy charities, to test myself to the limits and to see parts of the planet I have always wanted to see. What better way to see the world and to meet its people, than on a bike, and with a cricket bat?

I plan to play, promote and teach cricket in schools, youth projects and clubs in up to 28 countries that I cycle through on my route. and most importantly to raise £100,000 for my two chosen charities – the British Neurological Research Trust and The Lord’s Taverners. For more information please click here.

I am relaxed but pretty ambitious and driven. Sport has dominated my life, and from my experience captaining Berkshire County Cricket sides in my youth, to being a member of successful university sports teams and running the London Marathon (in an embarrassingly poor time), I appreciate the drive and effort that will be needed during this very tough journey.

When I’m not in the saddle, I am looking forward to meeting the people (and cricketers) of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia, and teaching school children of all ages about a sport which they may not have heard a great deal about. I have chosen to tackle the expedition alone as I want to meet as many local people as I can on my route – an important and fascinating aspect of any long distance journey.

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of international sport’s most fierce and celebrated rivalries, dating back to 1882. It is currently played every two years, alternately in Australia and England. A series of The Ashes usually comprises five Test matches.

I’m hoping to raise £100,000 for The Lord’s Taverners and the British Neurological Research Trust. The former are a charity founded in cricket who do all sorts of charity work, largely helping disabled kids play sport. The BNRT leads pioneering research into spinal injuries. An old friend of mine had a freak diving accident about 5 years ago and is now completely paralysed from the chest down.

I’d be lying if I said I was a seasoned cyclist, but I’ve always liked mountain biking, and I cycled to Paris recently. My sports have always been cricket, golf and racket sports so I’ve never found the time to do as much cycling as I would have liked.

I’m apprehensive about the whole thing, but excited and determined in the same breath. It’s going to be a great adventure and a huge opportunity to meet the world’s people. Being realistic, I suppose I’ll be scared on the journey at certain points, maybe when Ethiopian kids are chucking rocks at me as I cycle through their villages – but I’m not scared yet. Ask me in a few months!

Simple right? I need all the help I can get, so if you know anyone on my route who might be able to give me a free drink, a cheap meal, or even a sofa for a night then please do get in touch.

For more information on this adventure bike tour riding to Australia to watch the cricket Ashes please visit www.cyclingtotheashes.co.uk.

Credits for the images used in this article about an adventure bike tour from London to Australia belong to Oli Broom.

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Rowing Solo and unsupported across Atlantic Ocean

I am getting ready to row solo unsupported across the Atlantic on 6 December this year. My journey which is also part of a race (Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race) starts in the Canary Islands and finishes 5500Km later in Antigua, Caribbean.

In 2008, myself and good friend Bill Godfrey rowed the same race winning it in 50 days. We rowed in 90min shifts, 24/7 except for Christmas where we took 30 mins off to have our Christmas “lunch”.

My solo trip is about setting a few records, but those in time fade and it’s just the memories of the pain, deprivation and the amazing ocean that stay with you. The longer any expedition takes the more you have to endure the stronger your mind must be.

Physical pain is a given and must be embraced. It’s really what drives me. Self-Discipline is the key to success in any hostile environment. There is no such thing as the absence of fear so fear must be subdued – I usually find the best of me in big adrenalin moments. Taking on the small things and getting them right and focusing on them allows the big things to happen.

I’m just an ordinary person, who is 100% committed to owning my life. I was a school teacher before I decided to follow my dream of becoming an adventurer, explorer and motivational speaker. I now try and inspire people to own their lives. Subsequently I’ve led many expeditions to remote regions around the world. I’m a family man, married to Kim and we have a beautiful daughter called Hannah.

Everyone has dreams. Everyone has goals and ambitions that they hope to one day turn into reality. The main reason why I’m doing this, is because I see how I’m able to motivate people and change their lives for the good. I’d like to use it as a platform to get people to start owning their lives so that they can get out there and achieve their dreams as I have.

For more information on this Atlantic Ocean rowing race winner, Peter van Kets and his 2009 challenge please visit www.rowpeterow.co.za. He also writes an inspirational blog about reaching out and achieving your goals and ambitions. So be inspired and visit www.own-your-life.co.za

Credits for the images used in this article about rowing the Atlantic ocean belong to Peter van Kets.

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