Thought I’d give my life story a rest for one minute to bring you some wonderful linkage to other sites around the blogosphere that may be of interest to you.

First off is “The Journey Continues“.

I found this blog whilst on Blog Search for anything tagged with Overland. Silama, the author is constructing his very own wagon for travelling across, well, anywhere I suppose. I have to say that this is one of my own dreams, construct (or buy) my own campervan / expedition vehicle.

Unfortunately my off-centre mind has now conjured up the image of me perched atop a truck pointing to the distance and declaring in a distinctly pirate fashion “We be a goin yonder thata way! yarrr”

I’m not sure why the pirates came about, perhaps thats another crazy plan that I’ve secretly got lodged in my mind.

Prepare ye’selves for “Pirate Wannabe” blog… coming soon, or perhaps not, still if enough of you ask then i’m sure I could photoshop something, you weirdos! hehe!

… And then this caught my eye….

Perhaps the mightiest beast of all beasts. Based on the Unimog, but almost completely rebuilt is this monolith.

The description of the MaxiMog sums it up really

“The base vehicle is a highly modified Mercedes Benz Unimog chassis with a custom body, completely new power plant, computer controlled suspension, and integrated electrical, hydraulics and electronics systems.
Many of the onboard navigation, power, lighting, communications, computation and electro-optics systems were developed specifically for this vehicle.”

Recently came across a company called Overland Club – which looked quite good at first. They even had a “Dear Wannabe Crew” welcome on their jobs page.

Excellent I thought!

As with all the companies I am applying to I had a good old google of them, then checked out the Thorn Tree and a few other blogs and forums.

Then I found this http://www.overlandwarning.com/ A whole site dedicated to warning people to not travel with Overland Club, or work with them.

Now I have never had any contact with said Overland Club – Especially as they have not returned my email that was asking them a few questions about their routes and job applications etc – So I cannot add my own opinion, nor verify the opinions of others.

However, consider this a warning. You can choose to believe the opinions or not. However, this does throw up something else – ALWAYS GOOGLE YOUR TRAVEL COMPANIES.

You will be surprised at just how many people have added information to the worldwide webnet thingy.

Full Update on my other happenings later on this evening, must get back to work.

Happy Travellin‘
OverlandWannabe.co.uk

Technorati Profile

Somebody asked me this earlier today.

“So what the hell will you actually be doing?”

Well, after stumbling about for a bit, the best thing I could come up with was: “Well…. er… a lot!” and laughed it off.

But that got me tihnking – of course, I knew what I thought was expected of Overland Crew, this came from reading blog posts, experiences from ex-crew and a few other collections of stories.

What I had not fully loooked at was what was expected of the Overland Crew from the employees. The little snippet below comes from Overlanding Africa:

“Overland crew are not personal servants. They are there to show you the ropes of overlanding, travelling off-the-beaten track and camping out in the wilderness. Crew will ensure that your overland tour turns into an experience never to be forgotten, whilst working very long days, seven days a week.

The crew have the added responsibility of looking after the vehicle. In-between repairing that flat tyre, getting your lunch organized, navigating through a treacherous bog hole and identifying that bird making that particular noise, they are also your companions on your overland tour.”

That kind of makes my inital answer correct – Crew and Drivers are expected to do a lot!

Also – link whore that I am – new post added to the Thorn Tree Forum over here – Link!

Cheers, Overland Wannabe.

overlandwannabe.blogspot.com

Pic of the today comes from ThisFabTrek and the best description of what he is doing comes from the guy himself:

“I am Manfred. On 22nd of July 2004 I set out for a journey. A voyage that may last a long time, maybe my entire life, a trek to discover planet Earth.”

I think I may have to upscale my own plans

Ok so today hasn’t exactly been the most amazing.

Odyssey Overland have no opportunities for me at the moment but will take file my details – They were courteous enough though so can’t complain. Would have been nearly perfect though as they are based not too far from where I am currently living.

So today, rather than wallow in misery (it was tempting trust me), I thought that I would finally get round to creating the new header that you can see above. I was rather impressed with myself hehe.

I have been using the GIMP – Graphic Image Manipulation Program, not the guy locked up in my wardrobe.

This is basically a free version of the infamous Photoshop. Yes I am aware it probably doesn’t have this feature and that feature, but hey it works for me.

The main thing I have been doing today is creating the “Stamp Effect” in Gimp. There is a tutorial of it over at this link here for any of you who are interested.

So this has now officially beome the OWB – Overland Wannabe Blog. Break out the champagne!!!! I’ll have the baby sham of course – I’m driving.

Also today I have been checking out me stats – and apparently I have some readers! Well I suppose I shall have to write something worthwhile soon. And get onto the mountain of application forms sat next to me.

Oh and while I think of it – this blog’s official soundtrack can be found here.

Cheers, Overland Wannabe
http://overlandwannabe.blogspot.com

Doubts

Big word, an arse of a word, a word that kill off dreams

Well this week i have been collecting job application forms from just about any company to do with Overlanding.

Job hunting hint #1. Always phone, whether they have the job application on the website or not. Pick up the dog and bone and holla.

Makes a better impression and when your name is headed up on that job application form you have an extra way to be noticed… “oh I remember talking to him etc”

Anyways – I have my eye on one application in particular – for Dragoman.

They appear to be a good company and have a good reputation amongst travellers. A scour of the Thorn Tree from Lonely Planet comes up with only praise for this company and a quick Google also shows people enjoying the trips.

They also provide a lot of the training and so are a natural choice for a novice like moi.

So what’s all this about doubts then?

Well – so many of the forms are asking about what trips/leadership experience I have had. The answer is quite a bit BUT, and here comes the but, it was a few years ago.

Also I have not actually been “outside of Europe” too much, short trips to America and also Sweden etc don’t really count.

- Interesting point here – many of us whinge at the yanks for not going out of America, but how many of us have never really been out of Europe? – Point over!

So with that nagging doubt in my mind I am trying to do everything possible to get me foot in the door, learn languages, find out geography information etc, in the vain hope that it will help me along the way.

Well anyways I’m off back to the normal office grind now, before the doubts become too much.

Cheers, Overland Wannabe
http://overlandwannabe.blogspot.com

Another link to a rather valuable resource for today’s near midday post – Overlanding Community

http://www.overlandingcommunity.com/

A reasonable site with news articles, vacancy opportunities and other such info. They are also trying to gain information on all the companies that are out there providing overland trips.

If you have been on an overland adventure then you can upload your own comments to this site, recommending a company or tour or just sharing your trip with others.

They also list all of the holiday discounts available from certain operators and a calendar for events that be happening in the Overland World.

Cheers, Overland Wannabe
http://overlandwannabe.blogspot.com