Kim was no stranger to journey when she booked an Uncharted Expedition via Central Asia again in 2019, however not figuring out the place she’d be going every day gave her the sort of uncooked, genuine journey moments she’d all the time craved.
Kim Murray has walked within the footsteps of Siberian reindeer herders, cycled via Vietnam and searched excessive and low for orangutans within the Sumatran jungle. It’s secure to say she’s no stranger to adventurous journey. However it was an Intrepid journey six years in the past – an unscripted Uncharted Expedition with a thriller itinerary – that proved to be Kim’s most transformative journey expertise to this point.
‘Think about entering into a spot with no expectations, no itinerary and no spoilers,’ Kim says, reflecting on the enchantment of the Uncharted Expedition. ‘Each second is a shock, each flip a discovery. You study to belief your instincts, embrace uncertainty and discover pleasure within the unfamiliar. An actual journey.’
Let’s take it again to 2019. As Kim’s airplane descended into Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, she felt like she was crossing a threshold into the unknown. Snowcapped mountains stretched endlessly throughout the horizon, their peaks ablaze within the afternoon solar. Although she knew she would arrive in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in three weeks’ time, she had no concept what the intervening days may entail.
If you’re undecided what the subsequent hour will convey, not to mention the subsequent day, you don’t have any alternative however to reside within the second.
‘It wasn’t simply the panorama that stirred one thing in me,’ Kim says. ‘It was a sense – the pure pleasure of not figuring out what was to return. Who would I meet? What tales would unfold? What challenges would outline the journey?’ The primary night was electrical. Twelve strangers united by curiosity, braveness and a starvation for one thing actual. They spoke late into the night time about journey and that means and why that they had chosen to be a part of the Uncharted Expedition.
For Kim, Uncharted was an opportunity to lean into the journey as an alternative of the vacation spot. If you’re undecided what the subsequent hour will convey, not to mention the subsequent day, you don’t have any alternative however to reside within the second. She has all the time courted spontaneity and shock in her travels, however she thought the expedition might take issues to a different stage. There was a purity to it, a realness that’s arduous to duplicate within the age of data, and the opposite travellers had been equally motivated. They had been curious in regards to the world; open to new experiences, to challenges and taking possibilities.
‘It’s an evening I’ll always remember,’ Kim says about that first night in Kazakhstan. ‘And to at the present time, it’s arduous to place the [entire] expertise into phrases.’
The 2019 Uncharted Expedition noticed the group journey from Kazakhstan to Mongolia by way of Russia. Deliberate by Intrepid’s vacation spot specialists, the itinerary was stored secret as a solution to recapture the spirit of genuine journey that impressed the creation of Intrepid in 1989 – a spirit of being challenged, shocked and, most significantly, awed.
For Kim, the journey’s spotlight got here deep within the Mongolian wilderness, hours from paved roads and telephone reception. To succeed in the night’s camp, on the fringe of the Potanin Glacier, the group would wish to drive via a deep river fed by glacial run-off. Every little thing went to plan till it didn’t.
‘We had been driving via this river on the best way to the glacier and we seemed behind to see our meals van was caught,’ Kim says. ‘We had been secure, after all, and the best way everybody – the group, Intrepid, the drivers – dealt with it was unbelievable. What might’ve been a setback changed into a defining second. I can nonetheless image the mountains, and the glacier coming down. We had been in the course of nowhere. Simply mountains, blue skies, the river and this stunning silence. I keep in mind considering: oh my goodness, the place are we?’
It’s a good query, given the Uncharted Expedition’s billing as a thriller journey with no fastened itinerary. Not figuring out is sort of the purpose. Nonetheless, every night the group’s chief, Anton, would trace at what the subsequent day may convey. He’d level to a distant area on a map, or inform the group they’d be going for a stroll at a sure elevation, or taking an extended prepare journey. Eighteen hours later, they might be driving the rails throughout the Japanese Kazakh Steppe, breaking a sweat in a Russian banya or taking part in basketball in a distant village with children who had by no means seen a vacationer.
Kim might scarcely consider the place she was. Whose concept was it to drive Soviet vans via the Altai Mountains, she puzzled, or to camp by a glacier and wake on the first light to crackling ice? The journey was so distinctive, so unrepeatable, she nonetheless struggles to convey the depth of expertise.
‘That sort of journey is uncommon,’ Kim says. ‘Not simply new sights, however uncooked, unforgettable moments. The type you don’t plan or pose for. It felt like actual freedom in a world the place all the pieces is scheduled and reviewed. Typically, in quiet moments, or after I cross paths with one of many different travellers, the recollections come speeding again. We snigger and reminisce. And for a second, I’m again there. On that first night time in Astana on the sting of one thing extraordinary. It’s among the best issues I’ve ever executed in my life and I’ll all the time keep in mind it.’
After a six-year hiatus, Intrepid has simply introduced its subsequent Uncharted Expedition, leaving mid-2026. The 14-day journey begins in Harare, Zimbabwe, and ends in Ilha de Mozambique, and the remainder, effectively, a fortunate few travellers will discover out after they get there. Enter now for an opportunity to order a spot.
