The Long Riders' Guild

Non-Equestrian Expeditions

Long Riders are an adventurous breed!  If for any reason they can't use horses, then they set off using another form of transport - their feet, a boat, skis, reindeer ... !

Listed below are brief details of several intrepid Long Riders who are making amazing journeys.  

 

Mikael Strandberg started his professional career as an explorer two decades ago by bicycling 27,500 kilometres from Patagonia to Alaska, via the infamous Darien Gap jungle. Then he pedaled another 90,000 kilometres from New Zealand to Cairo.

After that he parked the bike and explored Latin America on horseback, which won him admittance into the Long Riders’ Guild, the world’s first international association of equestrian explorers. When he hung up his saddle, he spent a year living among the Masai in Kenya.

Then in 2004 Strandberg made an astonishing winter crossing through Siberia. During this five month sledge journey, mainly done in utter darkness, he experienced a terrifying cold with average temperatures around -50°F, day and night. This trip through the coldest inhabited place on earth caused the King of Sweden to award his intrepid subject a silver medal for courage.

Mikael has produced three internationally renowned television documentaries, written six books, lectured around the world and been deemed “the best contemporary explorer in the world” by the Explorers Club in London.

Now he’s preparing to begin the Great Desert Expedition – a camel journey that will take him from Oman to Morocco.  Visit Mikael's Exploration Blog or his website.

Rosie Swayle Pope, who made a Long Ride in Chile, including riding alone through the infamous Atacama Desert, is now running alone around the world!  Click on picture to go to her website.

Here is a good BBC article about Rosie

New!  Rosie has completed her amazing solo journey!  Please click here to go to an article about Rosie written by Camilla Long and published in Britain's Sunday Times.

Landerer.JPG (83897 bytes)

Evelyn Landerer started off making a Long Ride in the Russian Altai. Unfortunately her companions let her down, and then winter set in.  As she said in an email to The Guild in late November, "In certain areas there is already so much snow that the animals could hardly find anything to eat and had to rely on hay drops.  So now I will switch to skis, or maybe reindeer if I can find the reindeer nomads." Click on photograph for more information.

Back to Current Expeditions            Home

Visit The Long Riders' Guild Academic Foundation - "Science, not Superstition."