Many people have undertaken one-person world trip missions to head around the globe, but a British woman is taking what could be the first woman doing it completely under her own power.
Sarah Outen is making the trip using only a bicycle, kayak and boat. She has been undergoing her London 2 London trip that was expected to take about four years. The trip has taken longer than expected, but she is now in the final push to return to Tower Bridge in London in the spring of 2015.
Her trip has already had some problems, as Outen was previously shipwrecked due to a bad storm while in the Pacific, had a near miss involving a cargo ship, and had to maneuver around vicious Alaskan grizzly bears and Kazakhstan snakes.
The 29-year old women says that she feels as if the end of her journey is now in sight. Outen is raising funds for breast cancer and has also raised money for water aid, the disabled and motor neuron disease along the way. Plus, she has spoken to school students in Britain about the things she has experienced.
Outen expects to celebrate her 30th birthday while in the middle of the ocean, which was one of the personal landmarks she has counted since beginning her trek. She also proposed to her girlfriend, Lucy Allen, while at sea back in 2013. She says the connection was so bad that her girlfriend couldn’t hear her the first time and she had to try a second time before she got the “yes” answer she desired.
She uses a satellite phone when making calls, and does her best to talk to her mother, who lives in Rutland, as well as talk to a support team, and do things like update her blog, and send tweets and emails by charging the phone with a solar powered charger.
Outen has already travelled more than 21,000 miles and has around 4,000 miles left in the journey. So far, she has kayaked between London and France, rode a bike across both Asia and Europe and then kayaked from Russia to get to Japan.
She then rowed her 21-foot long boat to the Aleutian Islands, used her kayak to go 1,500 miles to get to mainland Alaska, and then travelled 4,500 miles along roads by bicycle in North America to get to New York.
It hasn’t always been pleasant, as she has had mishaps, discomfort and even near death situations, as well as catching pneumonia and having bad allergy attacks along the way. She says her biggest challenge was the crossing of the Pacific, which she undertook in 2012.
During those three weeks she got tossed around in a tropical storm, trapped in her cabin when her boat capsized, and was trapped for three days as the boat rolled around in 80-mile per hour winds. Finally, she was rescued by the Japanese coast guard, but her boat was destroyed.
She has also enjoyed wonders like sea turtles, whales, dolphins and other majestic sea creatures, and says she has met many great people. She says she will write a book to showcase her trip once done and hopes she has inspired others.
