About me

Welcome to my Whirled…

Hey:)

I’m Sarah. I’m a long-time traveler and part-time wanderer, with a love of remote places and empty spaces. I’ve got a borderline obsession with borders and will go to great lengths and a lot of personal discomfort to travel overland as much as possible. By myself or with my husband Oyv, I go for off-the-beaten path destinations every chance I get.

Like everything else in life as we grow and evolve, my travel style has grown and evolved with me. I love a long weekend in a European city (who doesn’t), or relaxing at a beautiful beach. But even more than that, I want the challenge of a truly off-beat, unusual destination. I like to travel by road from one country to the next and if you stick around, you’ll quickly notice that traveling overland (…and sea) is the main focus of this blog.

This love of overlanding has led to me spending an abnormal amount of time on buses, bush taxis, motorbikes, rickshaws, donkey carts, night trains, cargo ships…you name it. Pretty much any conveyance there is, I’ve probably been crammed aboard, sweating in a seat that isn’t meant for someone my height, likely sharing it with a family, or a chicken at least.

As the saying goes, ‘Suffering is half the fun’…no wait, that’s not it.

The river ferry on the way to Kamakwie, Sierra Leone
A river ferry, Sierra Leone
Cargo ferry on the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan
Professor Gul, a cargo ship on the Caspian Sea
Everything but the kitchen sink
Loading our bus in Burkina Faso

Many people have asked me how and why I travel the way I do. For me the actual journey is really a huge part of it. The challenge and logistics and planning (and eventual scrapping of every plan and just winging it) is what it’s all about. The actual physical traveling part of travel. And the freedom to work things out on the way, without reservations (of any kind, actual ones or the ones brought on by nerves).

That’s why. As for how I do it, well, that’s a whole other thing isn’t it. So I started this blog.

Crossing the Egypt-Sudan border by foot
Crossing the Egypt-Sudan border by foot
Wagah border crossing. Crossing the Wagah border on foot. From India to Pakistan.
India to Pakistan. Crossing the Wagah border
Road to the border, from Ganta. Liberia to Ivory Coast (northern crossing) by pen-pen (moto-taxi).
Somewhere in between Liberia and Ivory Coast

After enough weird faces when I announced that I planned to bus it around Bangladesh by myself, or spend Christmas somewhere in West Africa, or motorcycle across a couple of remote jungle borders between little villages I’d never heard of before, I thought I’d share some stories about what exactly I’ve been doing out there. And what it’s like. And why I like it so much. 

And while I’m at it, I also put together guides and itineraries based on my own routes, the places I go, things I do, and how I get around. Stories and guides about real travel – not a lot of posing at crowded waterfalls in a flowy dress. I hope it helps, or inspires, or surprises you. Or gives you a laugh, at the very least – I’ve been told these stories are funny.

Gili Meno, the beaches are quiet and beautiful. A more low-key island in Indonesia's Gilis.
Indonesian beaches seem to call for flowy dresses

Ok. Sometimes I do wear the flowy dresses. 

Head over to the Contact page and drop me a line if you have any questions about anything or any place on the blog. And thanks for stopping by!