Welcome to my travel blog, WithoutHorizons.com and my first post.  Here I’m going to document an epic roadtrip. This summer (July 2010), my friend Allan and I are attempting to drive from Tokyo, Japan to London, England.

The reason for starting in Tokyo is quite simple. It’s where I live. In fact, I’ve been here since 2000. October 24 to be precise. Somewhere along the way I had the idea of taking the Trans-Siberian Express when I finally left Japan for good. Then, one of my old high-school friends entered the Mongol Rally. This got me thinking…surely it would be more epic to drive the whole way. That night I sent this email to three friends to see what they thought.

Subject: Here’s the deal.

Body: 2010 – We buy a cheap 4wd in Japan. 100-200 000 yen. We then drive from Japan to England taking 2 months. Visas will be about $1000 all up. Everything else on the cheap – camping, etc. If we can have four of us, I reckon all up, excluding the airfare back from England, would need a budget of $2500-3000 each. Well worth it. An adventure. My mate just did the Mongol rally. looked awesome. Who’s up for it?!

I got two positive replies and one negative. Since then, only Allan and I are left and we can’t wait to hit the road.

Following the email, I decided to leave Japan this year which would have allowed three months. Considering Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman took the same time to travel from London to New York, this seemed like plenty of time. However, for various reasons, I decided to stay in Japan for another year or two. This means that we will have about seven weeks to do the drive. Assuming we don’t have any major troubles, and that’s a rather ambitious assumption, and we have a  heavy driving schedule, we figure it should be possible. If not, we’ll ditch the vehicle and fly out. Either way, it will be an adventure. An epic adventure.

Allan will also be documenting our trip from his point of view at definingthelimits.com. Check it out.

UPDATE: Summer 2011 blogs added. Read about my trip to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

CIRCLE TO CIRCLE 2015: The next drive is going to be even more epic than the last. In 2015, Al and I are planning to drive from Alaska to Argentina finishing with a cruise to Antarctica. So, we will be travelling circle to circle (Arctic to Antarctic). We are planning on doing side trips to Cuba and the Galapagos Islands along the way. Fingers crossed that we have the funds, the time, and this time hopefully some sponsors.