Two adventurers trekking across Asia

Johan and Charline, you are leaving in mid-February for a 10-month adventure that will take you to Central Asia, China, India, and Nepal.

Who are you and tell us about your project?

We are a couple from Angers, passionate about sports and travel. Charline is a dietician and Johan works in sales.

Is this your first project of this type?

No, this will be our second long-term trip. A little over 3 years ago, we set off on an 8-month Tour of the Americas, going from Canada to Brazil, crossing 17 countries (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Costa Rica, Peru, Nicaragua, etc.).

Why are you embarking on this new adventure? What are your motivations? Your goals?

When we returned in May 2019, we had professional projects that led us to take a break. Then the Covid pandemic arrived and the fact of no longer being able to travel pushed us to set up this new trip.

We have plenty of motivations and goals: enjoy the landscapes, meet new cultures and people, visit little-known countries and the final goal: trekking for 5-6 weeks in Nepal. We know that trekking in the mountains will push us to our limits and that is also what we want to achieve with this project, surpassing ourselves.

Why this part of the world in particular?

We were looking for mountainous, little-known countries in order to meet authentic populations and Central Asia seemed obvious to us. With Nepal remaining our final objective, we decided to focus on these different countries.

This adventure will be done on foot; it's a self-sufficient trek, so you'll have to carry everything with you in your backpack.
What equipment will you bring? How do you choose your equipment?

During our first trip, we hadn't planned all the necessary equipment to be completely self-sufficient, and that frustrated us a little. So we decided to plan to bring all the necessary equipment, i.e., a tent, sleeping bag, mattress, stove... to be free to move around. Obviously, the bags will get heavier and to relieve our joints, the hiking poles will be very precious to us so we needed something very high quality and that's what pushed us to contact the Guidetti brand.

We opted for Guidetti Flashlock Amber trekking poles: a 3-section foldable model equipped with the Flashlock folding system which allows ultra-fast folding and deployment! Thanks to this system, they are also very compact, an undeniable advantage for hanging them on our bag when we are not using them. In terms of materials, we chose a carbon/aluminum mix: the 2 upper strands in carbon for lightness and the lower strand in aluminum for more rigidity on the technical Nepalese terrain!

Do you do any particular physical preparation?

We do not plan any particular physical preparation because we both practice sport very regularly (football 4-5 times a week for Charline and running 4-5 times a week for Johan to prepare for marathons, trails, etc.). Even if the altitude of Nantes is not identical to that of the countries we will be passing through!

You will be able to follow Johan & Charline's adventures from mid-February on their Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/world_voyageurs/ but also via the accounts Guidetti Facebook and Guidetti Instagram.