CB: In Britain, people usually go south to Spain, France, or Italy for their holidays because it’s warmer. They don’t really go north. Plus, when people talk about adventure, they’re usually talking about South America, South Africa, or Asia. We thought it would be lovely to just take a ferry and experience Europe. All the countries are connected, but they’re still very different.
What location surprised you the most?
EM: There was an area in Finland a day’s ride from Helsinki. There were these huge fresh water wetlands with hundreds of little rocky islands. We went there on this little, beautiful, old boat. Me, Charley, our cameramen, were dropped off on the island for the night. We put up our tents.
CB: Ewan cooked that night. We used the shovel to make this local gooey dessert, with lots of sugar and jam.
EM: Then in the morning, we open up our tents and it just looks like heaven. We went for a swim because nobody else was there.
CB: We were also in this loft in Norway. We were all jammed in there. But we were able to look up and see the sky. We found it an hour before we arrived. You can’t really do that when you’re with your family, because you’re worried about finding somewhere. It doesn’t really matter when it’s just us.
How do you make sure you get a real taste of each location?
CB: When we first plan the route we look for events that stand out and that we’d really like to do. So we plotted out to do the snowmobile race and other things that would be on certain days. But lots of stuff is random. When we got to Germany, there was this marching band and they were shooting rifles. That only happened because we literally stopped to get a coffee. These people had been on a two day binge. They were so excited to show us their passion. You just have to make yourself open.
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/on-location-long-way-round