Re: Hypothetical question

Posted by kit carr on Jan 02, 2012; 7:06pm
URL: http://sundownersadventures.385.s1.nabble.com/Hypothetical-question-tp4726822p5115181.html

Interesting question Johnno.

We lived in a different world then, and one that could not exist today.

There are now lots of other commercial and liability considerations that we did not have to worry about, not that they necessarily make the world a better place.

The vehicles today are more reliable than those we used, and would not breakdown to the same degree. Sat phones are used where local networks don’t allow the internet to function, and communication and tracking would mean that our whereabouts was known at every point.

A bit different from the “send me a telex when you get to Kathmandu” approach we enjoyed.

Training today has to be better than what we had, as does vehicle safety, driver safety, camping equipment, first aid, recovery plans (what???), contingency plans and all the other “compliance stuff” that we never had. Not to mention the Policy and procedure manuals documented in pdf format and carried on the couriers ipad.

People are still running tours similar to ours, and they are run by the people of today and sold to the people of today. We would all adapt and exist within the current rules, just like we do every day.

I am sure that similar journeys today would seem just as great an adventure to today’s people, while we may consider them a bit soft. Each generation of overlander considered that the next one had it easier, and I am sure that what BP did with his first Sundowner trip was a whole lot different to those who followed.

Travelling with all of the resources of today is pretty good, and it makes researching a whole lot easier.

GPS is not that reliable in the lesser developed lands, and getting lost by GPS adds a whole new degree of misery to intrepid travelers. Reading maps is a dying art, but one which is ultimately more reliable than GPS, if only because people tend to interpret maps, while they tend to blindly trust GPS. That interpretation, plus looking out the window for the mountain which appears on the map does tend to help.

There is really no way to compare, because if we had had today’s resources available then, we would have used them. We used the best we had at the time, and got the best out of it. I enjoyed doing what we did then, with what we had, but if I was doing it today I would have a whole lot more electronic stuff at my fingertips, to do just as good (or otherwise) job, and today’s people will have just as much of an adventure as ours did then.

We did what we did when we did it, and had a ball, just like today’s intrepid overlanders (via Russia and the ‘stans)