Through Sand & Snow by Charlie Walker

Through Sand & Snow by Charlie Walker

A genuinely remarkable adventure. True grit and rabid perseverance. - Sir Ranulph Fiennes

★★★★★ Excellent, gritty travel at its humid best

★★★★★ Fast paced, humble, fascinating, eloquently written. 100% recommend

★★★★★ Gripping from start to finish. I read it in just one sitting

★★★★★ An amazing and wonderfully written adventure.I'm not sure what will ever follow it

★★★★★ Factual, funny, interesting and gripping. A must read

★★★★★ So articulately written with real humility and honesty. I can't wait to read more

★★★★★ A romping true adventure with struggle, strife, love and loss. Topped off with a glorious sense of achievement

★★★★★ A superbly written book

★★★★★ You are a crazy b*****d

★★★★★ Compelling and beautifully written - a cut above the majority of travel writing

BOK DESCRIPTION

Aged twenty-two, Charlie Walker left home in search of adventure. Fleeing the boredom that comes with comfort, he set off on a secondhand bicycle. The aim was simple: to pedal to the furthest point in each of Europe, Asia and Africa. He didn't train or plan. He just packed a tent and set off.

Living wild and sleeping rough in myriad countries, Charlie came to appreciate life's simple pleasures and to glory in the beauty that abounds in both nature and humanity. The journey was an escape from an unremarkable existence, a pursuit of hardship, and a chance to shed the numbing complacency of middle England. From the brutality of winter on the Tibetan plateau, to the claustrophobia of the Southeast Asian jungle, the quest provided Charlie with ample opportunity to test his mettle, often with near-fatal consequences. Ultimately, though, the toughest challenge was entirely unforeseen.

Through Sand & Snow is a searingly honest and eloquently penned coming of age tale that sweeps the reader along on a wild ride across some of the world's most beautiful and least understood lands.

Charlie Walker is a motivational speaker, writer, and adventurer from the United Kingdom. He specializes in long-distance human-powered trips and has cycled, skied, walked, rode a horse, kayaked, and paddled a dugout canoe over 50,000 kilometers. His work has appeared in The Times, the Daily Express, Wanderlust, Travelmag, Travel Africa, and Sidetracked magazine, among others. In 2013, the Association of Independent Tour Operators recognized him Travel Blogger of the Year. Before returning home, Charlie completed a 43,000-mile cycling tour that took him to the farthest cape in each of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

During the four and a half years he was gone, he traveled through 60 nations, facing extremes of weather, isolation, and physical weariness. Charlie trekked 1,000 km alone from China to Mongolia through the Gobi desert in 2010. This feat necessitated walking six marathons every week for six weeks while carrying enough food and drink to last. He also walked 600 miles across Central and Northern Mongolia in 2012, with just a semi-feral pony and a stray dog he found in the forest as company.

In a leaky dugout canoe, Charlie descended the Lulua, a little-known branch of the Congo River, in 2014. Rapids, waterfalls, hippos, crocodiles, and, shortly after leaving the river, terrible attacks of malaria and typhoid fever marred this expedition into distant and completely undiscovered DRC terrain. Charlie completed a 5,200-mile triathlon in 2017 along the apparent European-Asian border. This eight-month journey took him from the Russian Arctic's midwinter snowfields to Istanbul's Bosporus via a tortuous river in Kazakhstan.

Charlie resides in London while he is not on an adventure.