The other day I received an email from a young fella who wanted to ask advice about an Expedition he is planning. Going solo through one of the driest deserts in the world pulling a cart.
“I am going to be the first one to do a solo of this desert” , he claimed.
“Are you bringing a mobile phone or sat phone?” I asked and he answered yes.
I remembered when I was communicating with the legendary Shane Winser at the Royal Geographical Society in London and she asked me exactly that question when I told he about my idea of crossing alone from Oman to Mauretania. I answered yes and she shouted with slight disgust:
“That is neither unsupported or solo!”
This was back in 2009 when I was fumbling around in the dark and since that meeting I decided I had never done a solo and never will. But, the question remains, what is a solo? The other day I saw Explorersweb did a rerun of their adventure stats on solo with a good story of how they came to this result. So read this:
All you need to know.