With travel stories, pictures, and experiences just clicks away, a lot of today’s travel plans are inspired online. The tricky part in it is that we often end up with experiences that are either commonplace or those that don’t quite match up to our expectation, thanks to the ubiquity of photo filters!

Finding stories and pictures that tell you the truth about travel and yet, don’t fail to inspire, is hard work. So we took it upon ourselves to launch a series of overlanders and travelers who have inspired us enough over the years for us to come up with Voyages Overland.

Today, we introduce our favourite, Sir Ranulph Finennes OBE, a man whose expeditions are not only about travel at its rawest but also a brave tribute to the idea of mind over matter.

Sir Ranulph Finennes OBE

 

Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet, popularly known as Ranulph "Ran" Fiennes, is an English explorer. He holds a number of endurance records and is a writer, poet, and motivational speaker.

In 1984, the Guiness Book Of World Records described Ran Fiennes as “the world’s greatest living explorer”. Since then he has broken many more world records and led many more expeditions to the remotest parts of the world. Born in the United Kingdom in 1944, Ran Fiennes joined the Special Air Services in 1965. He also went on to become the youngest Captain of the British Army.

His travels took off after he married Ginnie Pepper in 1970 and launched a series of record-breaking expeditions, much before the rest of the world could get a grasp on adventure travel. Some of these expeditions included adventures and achievements like being the first to reach both Poles and to cross Antarctic and Arctic Oceans. He is the first to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis (with Charles Burton). 'This 3 year, 52 000 mile odyssey took intricate planning, 1900 sponsors, a 52 person team to handle complex communications, meticulous planning and iron determination mixed with flexibility. The circumnavigation has never been successfully repeated.”

Ran achieved the world record for unsupported northerly polar travel in 1990 and the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic Continent. He regularly raises money for Marie Curie Cancer Care Delivering Choice through his various expeditions – the North Face of the Eiger and Everest.  Ran is currently on his next record-breaking challenge, the Global Reach Challenge, completing which will make him the first person to have crossed both polar ice caps and have climbed the highest mountain on each continent. This expedition is also in support of Marie Curie Cancer Delivering Choice.

A traveler from before the era of digital natives, Ran Fiennes does not have a regular Facebook, Twitter or Instagram handle. He shares his travel lessons and stories through his books and public speaking opportunities.

Here are some resources you can use to hear lessons from a lifetime of being on the go –

Books

1. Fear: Our Ultimate Challenge (2016)
2. Colder: The Illustrated Story of Britain's Greatest Polar Explorer (2016)
3. Heat: Extreme Adventures at the Highest Temperatures on Earth (2015)

These three are his most recent work. Here is a full list of Ran Fiennes’ books.

 

Videos and interviews

1. Ranulph Fiennes - Leave your comfort zone and think big
2. Scott Of The Antartic- Interview with Sir Ranulph Fiennes
3. Sir Ranulph Fiennes: The Coldest Journey

For more of Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ work, find him on Google and YouTube and be ready to be humbled. There is a reason he is called the greatest explorer of our times.