Jollyfollies - A beginners' Guide to Overlanding

We are Jenny and Ollie, two ‘normal’ people who have decided to spend 5 years of our lives planning, preparing and finally doing a life changing overland trip from the UK to Australia, leaving in April 2009. The idea was conceived during one particularly bad hung over Sunday, when we realised we couldn’t go on forever as we were, working, sleeping, eating and drinking aimlessly onwards. Change had to happen.

Our original plan was to catch the Trans-Siberian railway (Trans-Mongolian line) to Beijing where we had a friend. But then a fateful Google search on how to continue onwards to Australia ‘over land’ returned hundreds of links to websites of people who had completed similar trips in 4x4s. We were hooked!

The following few weeks involved many a wine fuelled late night search through one overland website after another – we just knew this was the life for us and were determined to do it . After perhaps a month we had decided on our basic route and launch date, travelling from the UK to Australia, via China, leaving in 3 years time, April 2009. And it was only a matter of another 3 months before we had bought our trusty vehicle, christened Dino, a 1992 200tdi Land Rover Defender. Dino had already travelled extensively and was kitted out for overland adventure. We were now ready for the adventure to begin and had started turning the dream into a reality...

As time moves forward to our departure date we will document the trials and tribulations we have faced in our journey, the hurdles we have overcome, and the thought processes that have brought us to where we are today. We hope that these logs will not only help future overlanders, but also eventually help raise awareness of the charity we are fund raising for, VSO.

Follow along as Jenny and Ollie of JollyFollies.com prepare for and set out on their first around the world (RTW) 4WD travel adventure.