12. May 2020
"The main difficulty was a daily curfew
between 7 pm and 6 am.
We needed to hide very well to avoid
attention from the local police."
Gone for a Drive
Saudi Arabia 5/2020
"The world is there to be explored, we have all the time we want and there is no need to rush, make plans, or give up."
Travelove
Usbekistan 5/2020
"We are stuck in Guatemala. Borders to Honduras and El Salvador are closed."
Whale on Trail
Guatemala 5/2020
What happened?
The worldwide outbreak of COVID–19 has brought the world to a standstill and traveling and tourism have been the worst affected of all major sectors.
From Guatemala to Saudi Arabia, from Usbekistan to Laos and Tasmania –
travelers are facing restrictions, curfews, border closures and shutdowns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of them are currently in self-isolation, but some saw no other option than flying home and ship their vehicle – or even leaving their home-on-wheels in a foreign country.
Read their thrilling stories about how the virus influenced their past and future travels.
The Stories
Whale on Trail
Guatemala
Name: Susanna and Martin
From: Switzerland
Vehicle: Mercedes Sprinter 4x4, 2004
Started: May 2018
Driven: 80.000km
Planned duration of trip: not decided yet
Short description of your trip
Travel from Alaska to Ushuaia, maybe Africa afterwards.How did the virus affect you?
We are stuck in Guatemala. Boarders to Honduras or El Salvador are closed. It's difficult to travel to Mexico right now. We are in a safe spot with water, food, wifi and clean showers. We hope, that the government will open some areas of Guatemala soon, so we can at least travel inside the country.Do you have a new plan now?
We wait until end of May. If nothing changes we will try to go to Mexico, store the sprinter there or ship it back to Switzerland and continue travel later on this or next year.
Gone For A Drive
returned from Saudi-Arabia
Name: Dagmar & Oliver
From: Germany
Vehicle: Ford Ranger Pickup with Ortec Minicamp cabin
Started: September 2018
Mileage: Approximately 39.000 km
Planned duration of trip: Approximately until mid of 2021
| Short description of your trip |
| Our trip can be split into two parts. The first one took us through the Balkan states, Greece, Turkey, Iran and through the ex-soviet "Stan" countries to Mongolia. We then drove back to Germany through Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. After some modifications of the car we left again on the second part of the trip, which was supposed to lead us through the Middle East and Africa. We took a RoRo ship from Italy to Israel and continued to Jordan and Saudi-Arabia. We then intended to take a ferry to Sudan. Once in Africa the plan was to drive down the East Coast to South Africa. We were not sure yet if we would then ship the car back to Germany or drive back northwards on the West coast. |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| When we were in Jordan visiting Petra we heard of the first borders closing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is why we decided to skip one day of sightseeing in Petra and hurried across the border to Saudi-Arabia. Du ring the next two weeks the international measures against the spreading of the virus were increasingly tightening and we were facing more and more restrictions. There was a lot of back and forth, other travelers left Saudi-Arabia to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates but in the end, we decided to stay.
The main difficulty was a daily curfew between 7 pm and 6 am. We needed to hide very well to avoid attention from the local police. In their eyes we were breaking the curfew if we stayed outside in our vehicles. So we searched for a place to stay permanently while we were waiting for things to get better. Luckily enough, a Saudi family that we met during our first days in the country allowed us to stay at their summer house in the cool mountains around Al Bahah. But during the weeks we spent at the house, it became obvious that the borders would remain closed for quite some time. We do not expect that Saudi-Arabia will allow people to move freely before the end of the hajj, which is the beginning of August. And even though we were in the cool mountains, Saudi-Arabia is a very hot place during the summer months. So we decided to leave our car there and fly home. Again, we were very lucky that another Saudi family offered us space in their private, air-conditioned garage. So we could go home, reassured that our car was stored under the best possible conditions. To get everything organized, especially all details around the flight back home and the necessary permissions to drive to the storage place and to the airport, was very complicated and cost us a few of our nerves. It is way too much to go into these details here, but if you are interested in reading more about the daily chaos we had to get this sorted, there are two detailed posts in our blog. |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| Obviously, one day we will have to go back to Saudi-Arabia to get our car. We are hoping that this might be possible until the end of this year. If this is the case, we must then see which options we will have. Basically, there are four alternatives: 1) Continuing to Sudan as originally planned and ship the car back from South Africa. 2) Visit the Arabian peninsula for some time, leave with the ferry from Sharjah to Iran, drive back through Turkey, and take the opportunity to visit Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. 3) Go back the way we came: through Jordan and Israel and from there by ship to Italy or Greece. 4) Put the car on a ship in Jeddah and bring it home to Germany without any more travels.
If we will not be able to travel by the end of this year, we will probably need to cancel any further plans for the time being and get back to earning money. |
To The World's End
Koh Lanta, Thailand
Name: Alicia & Tim
Vehicle: 22-year-old Fiat Scudo with a pop-up roof
Started: 08.05.2018
Mileage: 75.575 km
Planned duration of trip: Open end
| Short description of your trip |
| We travel as far as our old Scudo is taking us - but hopefully to the world's end and back home. We started from Scandinavia through Russia and the Caucasus to Iran and continued to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. It's an open-end trip with the main goal to reach Australia. The itinerary back home is not planned yet. |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| After 2 years of continuous travelling in our campervan, we are stuck on Koh Lanta in Thailand at a nice empty beach. So the virus affected us in a (for us) positive way of taking a forced but relaxed break in a paradise. 🙂 |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We will just wait until the borders will open again and then try to continue our travel slowly in direction to Australia. So, for now we are sticking to our original plan. |
MAN_o_Mann
Tulum-Mexico
From: Germany
Started: 3/2015
Driven: 80.000 km
Vehicle: MAN TGM 13.290 4x4
Planned duration of trip: unlimited
| Short description of your trip |
| We are since last year June in south America and the plan was, to go to south America, Asia, Australia, new Zealand, Japan, Russia, China, India, Nepal, India, Iran and back to Europe |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| The shutdown make us stuck in Mexico since couple of weeks |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We going to wait until we can travel again and then we see. But we think we reached the most southern point in America because it might be to dangerous to cross the countries in Central America after the shutdown |
Rockin´ Rosie
Laos
Name: Marco & Anja
From: Switzerland
Vehicle: Self converted 4x4 camper, Landrover Defender 110
Started: March 2019
Driven: 35.000km
Planned duration of trip: open-end, but at least 1 more year
| Short description of your trip |
| We drove from Switzerland via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Myanmar to Thailand. From there we wanted to drive to Laos and then through China, Russia, Mongolia and Stans back to Switzerland. We are stuck in Laos now. |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| We where stuck for 2 month around Vientiane and could only leave the place for buying food. Things are getting normal here. Laos did not have new infections for over two weeks. Since 4th May we are allowed to travel freely in our province. We took the advantage and drove into the capital. Temperatures are too high to sleep in the car these days so we took a hotel with ac. We are able to walk around the city, enjoy the promenade at the mekong river and go to restaurants. |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We wait and see what will happen. We hope to get into China before August. Otherwise it will be too cold in Russia and Mongolia |
Starry Nights and Insect Bites
Tasmania, Australia
Name: Chris and Charlie
From: UK
Vehicle: 2002 Land Rover Discovery Td5 with roof tent
Started: March 2019
Driven: 32,000 km
The planned duration of trip: Between 18 months and 2 years
| Short description of your trip |
| When Chris was 13, his Dad bought him a book called First Overland. The book is written by one of six young men from Oxford and Cambridge Universities who in 1956 were the first people to successfully drive from London to Singapore. They completed this mammoth journey in two Series 1 Land Rovers. Chris inherited a love of Land Rovers from his Granddad, and upon reading this story, decided that he wanted to follow in First Overland’s footsteps and complete the journey in his own Land Rover. Fast forward several years, Chris set about finding a travel buddy for his adventure via Tinder - enter Charlie. Two years later, we set off on our own UK-Singapore journey. Our route has so far taken us through the south of Europe, then up through Romania and Ukraine into Russia, Kazakhstan and towards China. Driving for five days through China into Pakistan, we then drove through India into South East Asia, ending the first leg of our trip in Singapore in January 2019. Before we left we had already planned to carry on from Singapore to Australia followed by New Zealand. |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| After leaving Singapore we planned to ship the car via container from SE Asia to Australia and go backpacking around Vietnam whilst the car was in transit. About a week before we were due to leave Thailand for Vietnam, the impact the virus was having on the world started to really escalate. We decided to forgo Vietnam as we were worried about getting stuck there. Instead we booked flights to go straight to Australia. Charlie thought we were being over cautious and unnecessarily cancelling our time in Vietnam. The next day, Vietnam announced that they were no longer providing tourist visas. At this point, the only restrictions in place for Australia were around people coming from China and Italy. An hour before we were due to leave for the airport to fly to Australia, they announced that all arrivals would have to self-isolate for 14 days. So we spent the next few hours, and times in between our flights, manically arranging accommodation to isolate in. Luckily we found an Airbnb host willing to let us isolate in their rental property. The day after we arrived into Australia, Malaysia (where our connecting flight had been) cancelled all international flights. On day six of our self-isolation Australia stopped allowing foreigners into the country completely. We were so lucky that we made the right decisions at the right times, had we been flying to Australia 24 hours later, our whole trip wold have probably been over, and six days later it definitely would have been. |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| Once our self-isolation period was over, we moved in with some friends in Tasmania and have now been here for six weeks. Our car passed customs clearance in Australia one month after we arrived. The current level of restrictions mean that we can't travel or camp, however these restrictions are due to be lifted mid-June. Our delay has meant that we've had to change our route in Australia because of the weather. We are also not going to ship the car to New Zealand any more as we are running out of time and money. But overall we know that things could have gone a lot worse and are so glad that the virus has not yet put an early end to our trip. |
Circumbendibus
returned from Thailand
Name: Marleen & Roderick About our trip: |
| That is a challenge. The name of our trip is Circumbendibus, the meaning from old english/latin is: a roundabout way of reaching a destination or telling a story. Something like a detour/ It truly was! We started in 2016, made it all the way to Central Asia (highlight!) and could not enter China because the next border between China and Nepal was closed. We took some side routes in Asia with our backpack. Still the border was not open. We drove back to NL, explored Europe and decided we were not done with Asia yet. Shipped to Japan, shipped to Malaysia and when we were ready to drive home from Thailand, China was again closed. This time because of Corona. We waited. And waited. had hope. But then it spreaded over the whole world and all the doors (options) closed one by one. Stuck in Thailand! |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We shipped back to NL... Waiting for our van now! Strange times to get back. We are now exploring the new routes in our lives. For now we hope to find a nice base in The NL. Let's see what is next! |
Travelove
Usbekistan
Name: Jan & Silke Neumann
From: Germany
Vehicle: Volkswagen T4 Transporter
Started: 2/2018
Driven: 47.000km
Planned duration of trip: open-end 🙂
| Short description of your trip |
| We left everything behind us in February 2018 and started our open-end around the world travels with 2 motorbikes. After 18 months, one of the bikes was killed by a mechanic, but as we had already payed for a 7 weeks travel (guide, permits, papers etc.) through China (Tibet!), we had to find a very quick solution. The solution was: Silke flew back to Germany, opened the garage, climbed on the driver's seat of the VW van and drove all the way to Armenia in 4 days to meet Jan, who had put the bikes in storage. We then continued our trip eastwards with the van and arrived in time at the Chinese border. Since then we experienced China, crossed Gobi desert from east to west without 4WD, spent the whole winter in Siberia and Mongolia (our van is not insulated and it was always warm & cozy inside) and vistited the reindeer nomads in Mongolia. We drove all around Mongolia through the snow and ended in Kazakhstan, where we planned to pause a bit. We had promised to ourselves (and to our van, Kittymobil), that if we make it to the mystical town of Lhasa, the van would get a new colour. We made it to Lhasa and back without problems (besides a broken horn in Beijing) and now it was time to keep the promise: we left "Kittymobil" in the hands of a paint shop and left to Uzbekitan, because our Kazakh visa was running out. That was on 22.2., and borders closed before we had the chance to return back to Kazakhstan... |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| We are separated from our van, but it's ok as it's imposible to travel in Kazakhstan and life is easier in Uzbekistan in times of COVID-19. We rented a nice apartment in Tashkent and are now living the experience of being a local in a typical soviet style residential area. We are enjoying buying fresh products on the Bazaar. Rules in Uzbekistan are very strict (compared to Germany and it makes us laugh about those always complaining Germans), but relaxed compared to Kazakhstan, where or van is dismantled and waiting to be painted as soon as the paint shop is allowed to work again. In the meanwhile, Kazakhstan implemented a quite strict visa regime for Germans and we still don't know if we get the visa here as officially we need to apply in our homecountry. But there will be a solution, as always! |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We never had a real plan. The world is there to be explored, we have all the time we want and there is no need to rush, make plans or give up. Let's wait and see how things evolve! |
melea.on.tour
Laos
Name: Mel & Léa
Started: 6 months ago
Driven: 20 000km
Vehicle: self converted Fire truck Iveco 35-10 turbo Daily 1991
Planned duration of trip: At least 2 years
About our Trip:
We started our trip with 3 months late because of a broken gearbox. As we still had our Russian visa we decided to take the North route and crossed Russia in 21 days during the beginning of winter ! Indeed we had to take the very last ferry from Vladivostok to South Korea. Then we shipped from South Korea to Malaysia. There we quickly head North, spent 2 months in Thailand, 1 month in the North of Laos and then the virus came.. We are in Laos for more than 2 months now
How did the virus affect you?
We were supposed to visit the south of Laos, then Cambodia, then going back to Malaysia, leave the van there and fly to Australia for a WHV to make some money. So obviously we forgot about visiting Cambodia (my father was supposed to travel with us for a month there).
Do you have a new plan now?
Now we are waiting for Thailand to open its borders so we can come back to a permaculture farm we've already been to and then wait for Australia to deliver WHV again... It might take a while !
Auf dem Landweg nach China
returned from Thailand
Name: Verena, Clemens, Lisa, Dominik, Marlene, Thomas and 4 kids
From: Austria
Vehicle: 3 Steyr Busses
Started: September 2019
Mileage: 25.000km
Planned duration of trip: 11 months
| Short description of your trip |
| From Austria to China with 3 busses, 6 adults and 4 kids. We traveled through Czech, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Vietnam (one family of our group), Cambodia and Thailand where we had to stop our journey. |
| How did the virus affect you? |
| In March we decided to fly back home and our vehicles will be shipped to Europe. It was a very hard decision but we are pleased that we were able to get back home. |
| Do you have a new plan now? |
| We continue our lives at home |
The Why Not Family
Malaysia
Name: Loïc & Family
From: Paris, France
Vehicle: MAN 12-192 FA 4x4 13tons
Started: March 2019
Driven: 35.000km
About the Trip:
France to China south road (Iran-Pak-India...) and back north way (Mongolia-Russia-Kaz...)
How did the virus affect you?
It took us 4 bloody months to get the Chinese visas and 1 week after we eventually got them, the agency organizing our China crossing had to stop bringing foreigners to China. So we drove south to Malaysia and stayed confined on a beach. No time to complete the loop on the road anymore so we have to ship the truck back to France. Guttered!
Do you have a new plan now?
No. End of the trip... for now.
http://www.thewhynotfamily.com
vanlifeflocki
Georgia
Name: Elke und Jürgen Knittel
From: Germany
Started: 12/2019
Driven: 8.000 km
Vehicle: Renault Trafic
Planned duration of trip: 15 months
Short description of your trip |
We got stuck on the way to Mongolia and the stans via Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey in Georgia because of Corona. |
How did the virus affect you? |
our planned trip will not come about |
Do you have a new plan now? |
no idea, we'll see which border opens first |
