You might have a Nissan, a Toyota, Mitsubishi or a Land Rover, expedition training, however, fits in two basic categories and they both revolve around keeping the vehicle moving in every sense of the word.

Driver Training

Driving a vehicle off road takes practice, especially if you want to drive the vehicle to the  limits of it’s abilities, thus maximising what you can achieve by having it on the expedition in the first place.  Yes you can jump into a Land Rover, expedition training non existent, and plough your way through a desert or jungle track and have a great time doing so.  You might even be lucky and arrive at your chosen destination, feeling smug that you never wasted time or money learning about the vehicle. Now then, there is a term to describe the way you treat a vehicle … do you think as you leaped over sand dunes, slipped the clutch repeatedly, crunched gears and over revved the engine you drove with ‘Mechanical Sympathy‘?  I doubt it!

Driver training can be done by yourself on a dirt track near home by reading up on techniques and taking it easy to begin with or on a special off road course with instructors.  Just, please, do some!

If the expedition is a long one and you are using vehicles as a means of support, on emergency stand-by or even they are the expedition, by driving with ‘mechanical sympathy’ you will prolong the life of the vehicle and the chances of them breaking down, just when you need them, become slimmer.  Also, the on going maintenance will be easier and cheaper.  Which now leads us onto the next topic……

The driver above, in Botswana, was going a little too fast for this body of water (sorry guys, it was me! Showing off for the camera)

Mechanical Training

If members of your expedition don’t pay any attention to the advice above, then who ever is in charge of the vehicle maintenance better pay attention to this category.

If you have been designated the trip mechanic then there are somethings you can do to help the expedition do a lot smoother. You don’t need a degree in mechanical engineering just a will to learn, some common sense and the ability to ‘have a go’.

Get yourself a manual (a Haynes manual is a good one) and go round the entire vehicle and anything you don’t know what it is look it up.  Go on the internet and join discussion groups, see if anyone knows a friendly mechanic to spend any time possible going over the vehicle with you.

An hour studying your vehicle before the trip saves five hours on the trip messing around whilst you have to actually find the broken piece, never mind fix it (well, I made that up, but you get the message!).

My clutch slave cylinder went in Sudan the day we went to catch a ferry to Saudi Arabia. Learning how to drive without a clutch is a useful skill!

Even being a mechanic already I underwent Land Rover expedition training for our Africa expedition.  I went off road driving in the Lakes District, serviced the vehicle and prepared it myself before the trip, bought all the tools and spares and contacted some friends who had a Land Rover garage where I worked for some time to refresh my skills.

This article is the tip of the iceberg.  In future articles  we will be looking at tools, spares and some useful hints and tips for when you get really stuck.  If in the mean time you want to get yourself some Land Rover expedition training contact us and we will get you ready for your adventure.

My drive from Cape Town, South Africa, back to UK was one of my dreams and it came true… let us help you with yours.

Some people are lucky and have a natural built-in compass and a good ‘eye’ for direction, however most need some practice and often get a little lazy thus falling victim to less traditional methods.

The Sat Nav and the GPS are, together, killing the art of navigation. In the right place and the right time a GPS can be an absolute god-send but 99% of the time it is a fancy gadget like this that is dulling our abilities to navigate by using more traditional methods.

A map doesn’t have batteries that will run out, the north star is always there and will never break (like wise the southern cross), the sun always rises and sets in the same place irrelevant of whether the US military plays with it.

If you have your eyes glued to the instructions on that LCD screen mounted on your dashboard your common-sense is also dulled and in one case in England it was dulled to the point of shear stupidity. A woman was told by the robotic voice on her sat nav to take the next road on the right, she then proceeded to turn onto a set of train tracks as she crossed them, telling police after that she thought that the opening was the road! On a more realistic note…. picture yourself driving across some barren wilderness or through a big city. The GPS packs in on you. You have been following that box of navigational wizardry ever since the day began….. do you now have any idea where you are? Were you keeping record of progress?

There are many GPS models available today and they all have such varied features.  The main things to look out for, well I do, are battery life, waterproofing of some level and its toughness.  If you do short missions away, or travel with a laptop,  then being able to hook up to a PC is useful because you can plan out an entire trip and upload it into the unit.

My model of choice at the moment is the Garmin GPS 60. A decent, sturdy little beast that I have installed on my boat and can remove it to hit the road or wherever.

Expedition training can be given especially catered to the use of the GPS and its many functions as is now the recognition of the general reliability of the units but this is no excuse for not learning map and compass work as well.

S2Si can help you with any expedition training needs you might have whether it is survival, navigation, outdoor adventure sport, etc, or we will even pass you on to people we know in the industry just so we have peace of mind knowing you got the best expedition training for your specific needs.

Here is some more expedition training advice.

Expedition training can vary on length and severity of issues covered depending on the areas (geographically) you wish to visit. For example, expedition training for you to be comfortable and safe during time spent in the British lakes district is going to be hugely different in length, topics covered and the depth compared to a team who wants expedition training for a two month study project in the Amazon Basin.

The team here at S2Si have all undergone various forms of expedition training to begin their careers….. but they say the best way to learn is to teach so now many of our staff are qualified and experienced enough to take groups into every environment we have on our planet and provide them with professional expedition training.

However…. expedition training is not just about joining a group of like minded individuals and heading out into the trees with an instructor, you can start the ball rolling yourself! Here are a few examples of how you can help train yourself ready for your adventure:

• The Discovery Channel – the comfiest and easiest way to have Bruce Parry, Tribes, come into your house and provide you with expedition training for travel to areas with an indigenous population. Or the late, great Steve Irwin, on how spot dangerous animals in the wild!
• Do a first aid course – if your adventures take you into areas where you have a fairly good chance of contact with local emergency services then a simple first aid course will help save lives until help arrives. Or, one step better, a more advanced course like the one provided by Wilderness Medical.
• Read, read, read – luckily for us most great explorers love to tell of their tales, also survivors have books written of their escapes from the clutches of doom and I can’t even begin to tell you how much information is available on the internet (from sites like ours) on the various topics needed for your expedition training.
• Try and get yourself into any environment similar to where you are going – if you have never camped out but want to visit the Amazon your own personal expedition training will start by finding some trees and sleeping amongst them, sounds silly but a tree is a tree in UK, USA and the Amazon, get used to seeing them (or snow, rocks, rivers etc, where ever you’re going!).

Here is some more expedition training advice.

To start with every expedition company has a home base somewhere, an office.  If it is a large company then it will also have offices in the countries they have expeditions in. So start at the bottom rung of the ladder by applying for the administration jobs. Every company wants their employees to know what they are about, so you will at least get a free trip out of the position and then possibility to work your way up the ladder.

On an expedition it isn’t just the leader and a medic, if the company has several expeditions going on at once or a large one on the go then resupplies will have to be taken care of.  So whilst they are busy in the mountains or the jungle you can relax in the comfort of their in-country HQ, then drive into an area dropping off supplies.  This is one of the more enjoyable expedition jobs as you get to zoom around the place, normally in a 4 x 4 and meet lots of people.

You could have a part time job at home and still apply for expedition jobs such as the kind that demand your speciality, for example, telecommunications experts, chefs, mechanics, construction skills etc.  Obviously this depends on how your employer would view you jetting off into the wilderness for weeks at a time.

An excellent way to look for expedition jobs is to actually join an expedition itself.  This might sound like a scam but please do read on.  When you do an expedition you might actually find out that it really isn’t as glamorous as you thought it would be and so after you could then have a change of heart and no damage done, no quitting of work or canceling university courses.  But if you find you like it then during your time in the field you will meet a huge amount of people all connected to the expedition, from the office in the home country all the way to the local office and all the necessary local people who all help to make the expedition a success.  In the world of expeditions everyone knows everyone else, so the company you go away with might not have any expedition jobs but someone you meet during your time away will know of an opening somewhere or have valuable advice for you to use.

You are obviously taking the time to read my article so here is a small snippet I would tell someone, it might help you, it might not -

“In Thailand, on the island of Koh Tao, I did my PADI Divemaster. After the course I stayed there for two months under an internship where I took there clients diving.  I dived for free 3 to 5 times a day in paradise notching up 200 dives.  Then my visa ran out so I moved on. I wasn’t paid but I lived for dirt cheap, ate local food and explored the island everyday! The island is famous for this kind of  ’deal’ so when you get there ask around.”

See, this is how it starts.

Obviously the pinnacle of expedition jobs is the expedition leader, which can only be achieved when the company is positive of every single one of your abilities.  Then after being a leader for quite some time you can become an in-country manager, then possibly a director of the company.

So really the amount of expedition jobs available to you are quite numerous, as are the ways of getting them.  This advice goes for any form of travel related work.

Quality Time

Short of lunchtime chitchat and breaks around the water cooler, most corporate employees do not have much of an opportunity to get to know their co-workers as people. By stripping away the regular office duties and placing your staff in a rustic wilderness environment that does not offer many modern distractions (i.e. – internet, ipod, etc.), your employees will have a rare occasion to take their time and talk with one another on a deeper level.

Team Building

An expedition environment offers many challenges that an office environment does not. In rustic settings, meeting even the most basis necessities of life requires full cooperation by all involved. For example, before the sun goes down, shelters must be constructed, a fire must be made and food must be gathered or hunted, then cooked. If the entire team does not contribute to the effort, it will be a very cold and uncomfortable night for all. The understanding your company’s employees will gain about the importance of teamwork in the wilderness will translate into a more comprehensive understanding of the importance of teamwork in the office.

In addition to the learning about how each team member must do their part to ensure the well-being of the team as a whole, your employees will learn to trust one another at a completely new level. Many situations such as rock climbing, river rafting and survival training scenarios require that you quite literally put your life into the hands of your teammates. Once a co-worker has belayed you up the face of a steep mountain, you will never be able to look at them the same. A team that trusts each other is far more productive than a team that always has to watch their backs. Wilderness or expedition environments are one of the best places for corporations to build this kind of trust between employees.

Rest, Relaxation and Play

A company and its employees come together to do one thing, namely, work. While this is obvious and good, it can also lead to an office environment that lacks vigor and the spirit of playful camaraderie that is known to foster creativity and productivity. Taking your employees out of the 9 to 5 grind and letting them loose to play in outdoor environs is a great way to generate the high morale that makes for an enthusiastic work force.

In addition, workers can become overstressed when they are constantly needing to make deadlines and deal with a wide array of customer concerns and complaints. Giving your employees the chance to get out into the outdoors where they can breathe clean air and de-stress for a while, will rejuvenate your work force and enable them to give 100% when they get back to the office.

As you can see character building activities, on expedition or in wilderness environments, doesn’t always have to be the typical ‘made up chain of events’ that most coporate days out offer, by just being in remote and challenging environments can bring out the qualities you want to see in your team.

Corporate time out is not cheap.  The company suffers from missing its staff for the duration of the expedition or training event, the company has to fund the actual event itself and then it could all be a waste of time.

Why would it be a waste of time?  One very important aspect is the leadership of the event itself.  The expedition leader must be the right kind of person to help your guys benefit the most from their character building activities.  On expedition there will be tough times and the wrong kind of leader can make matters worse by dividing the group, by making individuals suffer more than necessary, by not addressing inter-group or personel conflict correctly, etc.

Always check thoroughly the background of not only the company offering you the event but the team they will have there running it.

Here is some more expedition news where we start to look at dietary requirements and health.

• Commando Course Half day (3hrs)
• Commando Course Full day (1 day)
• Commando Survival Course (24 hrs)

How would you survive life without the luxury’s we take for granted? These unique expedition training courses take you back to basics, from 3 – 24 hrs!

Experience our Back to Basics Survival and Expedition Training courses in woodland within Northamptonshire. Test your employee’s leadership skills in a unique environment, hone their ability to think clearly in difficult situations, unfamiliar environments and with team members they may not know, but will have to trust.

These unique expedition training courses can be run throughout the UK although we have a training base in Northampton. Subjects experienced and taught range from basic survival kit and knowledge, through to important navigation and survival techniques, including building natural shelters, fire lighting and water purification.

Whether you just want to experience the UK outdoors in a different way and have some fun with your colleagues or are an individual or company about to embark on an extreme expedition overseas, S2Si’s flexible approach to course content means you can pick and chose the subjects taught. This also means we have something for everyone.

You will receive ‘Back to Basics’ knowledge and training from a certified professional. Former Royal Marine John Sullivan has trained in the Jungle, Desert and Arctic and has also worked with the BBC on programmes such as ‘Last Man Standing’ and ‘Extreme Dreams’.

The courses and training packages are perfect for:

• Corporate Companies and the Business Community
• Media and Production companies
• Tour Operators
• Individuals

Discounts are available for groups.

W are confident, that between the members of permenant staff here at S2Si and our in-country friends around the world, we can train any size of group, for any period of time in any environment!  The training team can then also stay in-country for a short period after to assist in your acclimatization or for up to any period of time you wish.

Here is just a small sample of some of the typical expedition training courses we can help you with:

• An expedition leader, ex-forces, PADI Divemaster, RYA Yachtmaster – ideal for coastal/island based projects.
• Ex-British Army mechanic, tens of thousands of miles traveling in Land Rovers – good for vehicle based expeditions.
• A specialist in the neo-tropics, Spanish speaking – for all Latin American destinations

If you have any questions regarding our unique expedition training courses then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The human race of today is more sedentary than it has ever been since the history of it’s evolution. The corporate lifestyle that so many of us have adopted, in which we sit for upwards to ten hours a day in front of a computer, has literally changed the physiology of us as a race of human beings. With the rising cost of living in some many parts of the world, some of us don’t even have the option to take a weekend off, as second jobs are becoming more and more normal as times go on. For these reasons, it is important that we engage in character building exercises that allow us to experience personal growth and productivity. One of the best ways to go about this is to participate in an expedition.

Many of us have dreamed of venturing to parts of the world that we have never seen before, yet don’t feel that we have the money or the time to do so. Fortunately, there are plenty of organizations and companies that specialize in putting together expeditions, which makes it easier than ever for the average person to finally experience what they have only imagined to be impossible. This is a wonderful resource, as these types of expeditions tend to be exactly what people need in order to refresh themselves and get a new lease on life.

Expeditions are good for character building for many reasons. For one, it throws the individual into a place he or she is likely unfamiliar with, causing them to become a bit disorientated. While this may not sound like a positive thing, it truly is, as it forces the individual to use their own logic to figure out how to adapt to their surroundings. When we live a humdrum lifestyle in which every day is the same this trait is all but lost for most of us. Naturally, it can be very refreshing to regain this sense of responsibility.

Responsibility is the other key factor here. On an expedition, many times the individual’s actions directly determine the outcomes that may or may not affect other members of the group. There are plenty of applications in the real world that are related to this, however these extreme situations force you to really think things through so that the perfect decision can be made.

The best thing about taking an expedition is possibly the end result. After everything is all said and done, you are able to walk away with the empowering knowledge that you were able to survive something that beforehand you thought was most likely impossible. This sense of empowerment can be carried with you far beyond the expedition, along with everything else you learned, and will truly change you as a person. Many people come back from environmental expeditions feeling like a new person and are able to go back to their jobs with optimistic viewpoints on life – there’s no better way to recharge!

For a good list of expedition employment opportunities read through the image below….

This is from the Royal Geographical Society website and especially their Fieldwork and Expeditions section.

Here is the link to that page RGS.

Here is another page you might find useful ‘Expedition Jobs‘

We, on the other hand, currently do not have any expedition employment opportunities, but keep coming back to the site and you never know…. you might get lucky!

Best of luck with your search… hope you found our site useful.

In preparation for the 2009 expedition season, S2Si’s Dave Hills sea kayaks the River Thames.  Dave is well know in ‘our ranks’ for his rigid expedition training regimes – we hope he is ready for the season ahead.

In a fleet of 20 kayaks including his father Steve, Dave paddled the 80 km round trip from Putney Bridge to Greenwich and back. The team passed all of the major landmarks such as Westminster and played in the waves below the bridges.

Sea kayaking is one of many adventurous activities that S2Si offers on its expeditions and what a better way to combine city and expedition life than a mini-expedition through London!

Even for very experienced staff expedition traing is vital.  It keeps the body in peak physical condition, allowing the leader to be one step ahead of his group.  Also, the mind is prepared as well, as Dave was kayaking he was constantly thinking of the ‘expedition what-ifs’.  These are scenarios where you have to imagine the worst has happened, at the worst possible time and in the worst possible place – then make plans as to what you would do.

The kayak is an excellent means of expedition transport.

• It is 100% environmentally friendly with absolutley no emissions (apart from heavy breathing!).
• There is enough room onboard to be self sufficient for a short period of time.
• You can access areas unreachable by normal boats due to the depth of the water.
• When the expedition has finished your body will be in better physical condition.
• Due to the ‘green’ factor of the kayak you are more likely to be granted access to sensitive areas like national parks.
• Expedition training can be done in any body of water.

The only bad side to a kayak expedition is the fact you will have so much fun that you will want to come back for more and this could be an issue with your employer!

The Mountain Leader (summer) Training takes a leader to-be through top-level navigation in all weather conditions and at night, group management and what to do if it all starts going a bit wrong on the hill, crossing rivers, belaying and abseiling with just a rope, and route planning among other things. Now a consolidation period starts before assessment where over 40 quality mountain days must be collected.

‘This was a tough but amazing course, I have so much knowledge and just need to get out on the hills as much as is humanly possible to practice and get ready for assessment – I’m now on my way to fulfilling my dream of becoming a full-blown Expedition Leader’ Izzy says.

The list is actually a very very long one but we will start with four very important ones.

1. Logistics. When and expedition leaves civilization there are many things that have to be taken with the group, then there is the transport to be arranged to move the group and the supplies and then it is obviously important that all that gets to the right place at the right time.  If the expedition finishes in a different area to where it started then that makes the logistics of being returned to civilization a little more difficult. So before the main expedition starts the leadership team already have their hands full.
2. Health and Safety. An expedition leader must also oversee the well being of the group from the angles of health and safety.  If they are in the jungle, are the volunteers playing Pirates of the Caribbean with their machetes, is fresh water available from a suitable source (or purification means available), is the food being stored and prepared in a hygienic manner?  What happens if someone is sick or injured?  The expedition leader has to make the final call on the casualty evacuation procedure after receiving the best medical advice available.
3. A shoulder to cry on!!! The success of an expedition is the completion of its goals and the safe return of all involved… however, I like to make sure everyone also had a good time! An expedition leader might be well trained and used to the environment they are in but a volunteer might be having trouble dealing with blisters, bug bites or even being so far away from home.  A sympathetic ear and a sense of humour helps in these instances, as does being aware of the moral of the group…..  because the individual doesn’t always come to you!
4. Expedition Training. As a leader of a team or group Izzy will have to ensure everyone has had adequate expedition training.  If not, preferably at the beginning of the adventure/project, expedition training will have to be carried out to a level where individuals can remain safe and well even if split up from the main group for a while.  Expedition training also means giving proper safety briefs at the beginning of new phases or at random moments during the trip where dangers occur.

There you have it Izzy….. but we are actually quite sure you’ll make a good expedition leader.