Road trips are one of travel’s great forms of adventures. From the Griswald’s cross-country family vacation to Wally World to my own explorations of Eastern Cambodia to design tours for international visitors, the road trip is a time-honored tradition. Nowadays, one might imagine traveling by camper-van to Mexico or Central America, or even renting a car in the north of Japan and driving it south from island to island, but who would ever imagine taking a road trip by car from Myanmar to Holland? Well, our guest Edwin Briels did just that, and today he’s going to share how it all went down. Buckle up!
Scott shares a few of his most memorable road trips:
- When I was about 10; my dad drove the two of us on his Kawasaki 1200 motorcycle from Prince Edward Island to Toronto, Canada and back. Not sure how long we took but that was pretty cool.
- Drove in a motorhome with my parents from Cairns, Australia to Canberra and then up to Sydney.
- I once drove a car from Bangkok east to Ubon Ratchathani, then north along the Mekong to Vientiane and then to Khon Kaen which was also neat.
- Otherwise a few multi-day trips driving between Calgary and Vancouver through the Canadian Rockies have been pretty awesome, but I’ve never done something as epic as Edwin is going to share with us.
Trevor shares a few of his most memorable road trips:
I did the cross-country trip with my parents as a kid but don’t remember that one too well. We drove from Vermont to New Jersey every summer as a child, and I remember those rides very well. More in the “Road Trip” spirit, I drove from California to New York with an Australian friend, and that was a cool experience, especially after I hitch-hiked around Australia on my own a few years later to experience the other side of that proverbial coin. The last road trip I think I did was with my ex, Pook, when we drove from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to research the Nat Geo Thailand book.
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Today’s Guest: Edwin Briels
According to his LinkedIn bio, Edwin Briels is an entrepreneur based in Myanmar who focuses on how to use tourism for the sustainable development of the country and creating top products, whether they are a balloon ride, a luxury hotel, or a travel experience or event. He is the owner of Lalay Lodge, Exploration Travel Myanmar & Thailand and co-owner of Counselling Corner Myanmar. Welcome to the show Edwin.
To hear Edwin share his answers to the following questions, listen to Myanmar to Holland by Land with Edwin Briels.
- Where are you originally from and what did you do before living and working in Asia?
- What first brought you to Asia and when did you turn ‘pro’ fulltime?
- Tell us a bit about what you do in Myanmar and Asia now?
- What inspired you to do this epic road trip?
- Tell us about your preparations:
- Where’d you get the car?
- How confident were you that the car (and the plan in general) would make it the distance?
- What was your experience in India like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- What was your experience in Nepal like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- What was your experience in Tibet like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- What was your experience in China like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- What was your experience in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- What was your experience in the Caucasus and Turkey like?
- What were some of the highlights?
- How did the home stretch feel? Greece, Albania, and Croatia.
- What surprised you most?
- What did you learn along the way?
- Tips for those who would like to try this sort of adventure?