Travelling for six years: full-time adventurer Tamar

Tamar, you describe yourself as a full-time adventurer. How much adventure is possible during the pandemic?
Plenty, actually. In the first lockdown summer, I cycled along the Atlantic coast from the Netherlands to France, and in winter I travelled through Swedish Lapland on skis with a sled. Always on my own and outdoors, so I self-quarantined outdoors.

You’ve really been travelling now for six years?
Yes, I don’t have a permanent home anymore. When I visit family and friends for one or two weeks a year, I stay with my father. I spend the other 50 weeks travelling.

That sounds very radical. What made you take that decision?
At first, I was doing all the things that society expects: I worked as a chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant, graduated cum laude in psychology and criminology at university, and then did another degree. My life was perfect: I had a dream job with the Dutch National Police, a nice house, a cool motorbike and great hobbies. Then I broke my foot while skydiving, was stuck sitting on the sofa – and I got very pensive.

You didn’t find your perfect life so perfect anymore?
I was always busy making sure I achieved goals. But I asked myself: did I always want to do the same thing until I retired? Or was there more out there? I wanted to take a year off. My boss offered me six months. After a lot of sleepless nights, I resigned. I wanted to be really free.

And what did ‘really free’ mean for you exactly?
Not having a job, no house, just a few possessions. With no alarm clock, calendar or deadlines. I wanted to open myself up to questions. What would I miss? Career, friends, home? Being someone? Having goals? And: what is actually out there? How do people live? First, I biked around the world for two years. Then I kept coming up with new ideas, plans and journeys. Like an experiment that got a bit out of control.

An experiment that took you to some very wild places, like Mongolia...
Yes, a vast, thinly populated country. With nomads whose lives have hardly changed for 1,000 years. When I saw the riders heading off into the mountains with their eagles to hunt foxes, I knew I wanted to experience that too. But first I had to learn how to ride a horse and also some Kazakh.

How do you go from being a tourist to a nomad?
Through an online contact I got in touch with a nomadic family who taught me a lot: how to ride camels and horses, how to handle eagles. After that, I travelled for a few months, alone, with a camel, horse and dog.

On your own in Mongolia – weren’t you worried?
Yes, just a bit! (laughs) In the Altai Mountains, the nearest hospital is 1,800 kilometres away. I was barely able to ride, and was thinking: what if I fall off my horse? Do I have enough food? What if the camel takes off with the supplies? Five months with no supermarket and no shower. I had to cross glaciers and deep rivers – that’s difficult even on horseback. I didn’t know much about the culture there. A man came at night and checked out my tent and animals. Nothing happened, but the unknown is always scary. But at the same time, this trip opened my mind and my horizons more than any other.

What were your feelings at the end of that trip?
I felt peace of mind. I left the animals with the nomads, got on the Transsib and thought: wow, this is perfect. If I die now, that’s okay. Whatever comes next is just an extra dose of happiness. Since then, I’ve spent a few months in Mongolia every year, and I have a strong connection with the nomad family.

Sometimes you travel 650 kilometres through Jordan on a donkey, sometimes through Holland on camels. You pick up survival knowledge from wilderness guides in Canada and from the Massai in Kenya – where do all these ideas come from?
I often get them from reading or conversations. I hear about reindeer herders in Siberia and start researching. Then I get hooked and have to go there – and stay for a time.

Is it just an impression, or have your tours become longer and more extreme over time?
First, I stayed at campsites, then I knocked on farmers’ doors and later camped in the wild. Initially in safe areas, then in wolf and bear territory – because I love observing them. It took years before I stopped being afraid to move around so freely. That said, I do take fewer risks today than I used to because I know the ropes better: how to make fires, navigate, do first aid, eat food from the outdoors. At the moment I’m training to cross Lake Baikal in winter. It takes weeks on ice with skates and a sled. There’s an element of danger involved, but I have six months of Arctic experience and am well prepared.

You do a lot on your own. What would you say is the difference between being alone and being lonely?
When the sun is shining and I’m on a roll, I want for nothing when I’m alone. Well, almost nothing: when I’m somewhere beautiful, I often think of my father, because I would then like to show him that. But basically, I am able to truly enjoy being alone. Loneliness comes from bad experiences: I had an operation in Australia and it was awful in hospital. The uncertainty, nobody around who I knew, I couldn’t even call home. That’s the downside of travelling. But I don’t always travel alone. I planned and did one of my most intensive trips with another adventurer: three months through New Zealand’s mountains, with no provisions. We wanted to see if we could live on what we found in the wild.

So you were out with your fishing rod and hunting rifle?
I’m normally a vegetarian, but there just aren’t enough berries and plants to survive in these mountains. After a week, we shot a deer but we had no way to preserve the meat. So we were hanging around for days until everything was prepared and eaten. After that, we only hunted small animals like rabbits or gophers. I fried brains and boiled tongue. My companion Miriam’s favourite food was rabbit testicles. But we also had times when we were starving and hardly had the strength to carry our 25-kilo backpacks.

How often do you get told that your trips are far too dangerous?
Mostly I get people warning me about other people. For a long time, I didn’t talk about bad experiences because I didn’t want to hand these people proof that what they said was right. But, naturally, unpleasant things happen over the course of six years: injuries, mental stress, even men assaulting me. Sometimes it has been difficult to get out of these situations.

Is it possible to have strategies for handling those difficult situations?
Sure, yes. For example, I always have my own means of transport – bike, horse or whatever – so that I’m not reliant on anyone else. My own tent, food, water. I am independent and follow my intuition about whether to trust someone or not. In Mongolia, I had a bad gash and found a village with an outpatient clinic. The staff there wanted to stitch me up, but it didn’t seem very hygienic or trustworthy to me. I didn’t want to risk getting an infection. So I just bought bandages and treated myself elsewhere.

Have you had any medical training?
In Tasmania, someone travelling with me suffered an allergic shock, and in Mongolia I was involved in an accident where a family’s car overturned. And I also broke a bone myself. I then took some wilderness first aid courses and upgraded my equipment so that I could help others and myself better. I managed to treat a Massai warrior with burns and helped locals a few times with my satellite phone. I am now also a survival instructor and teach people how to survive in the wild.

Does your background as a police psychologist help you at all when travelling?
My experience of dealing with murderers and sex offenders certainly helps me recognise dangerous situations early on and get out of them. But knowledge from Western research in this area isn’t easily transferable to other cultures. The most important skill, I always say, is knowing how to make friends: make sure the local people like you. If you set up a camp near nomads, then go and meet them. Introduce yourself, take biscuits and balloons for the children. Ask if it’s okay. If the people are on your side, they won’t harm you, they will protect you. That’s my strategy.

What equipment do you take with you?
I prefer just a small backpack. For technical equipment, just a satellite phone. Otherwise, a map and compass, fire starter, sleeping bag and tarp. Sometimes a tent or even a guitar. It’s become less and less over the years. I try to make use of what’s around me: building a shelter, making a fire, finding berries, mushrooms or plants to eat. But it’s all relative: the Massai go into the bush for seven years to learn how to live off the land and defend themselves against animals. When I unpacked my so-called bare minimum equipment there last year, the Massai laughed their heads off and said ‘Why do you have all that stuff?’ All they need is a blanket, spear and machete.

How do you pay for everything?
I have virtually no outgoings, no rent to pay, no mobile phone contract. Just health and travel insurance, that’s about EUR 1,500 a year. I earn some money giving talks and writing articles. Sometimes I take people with me and teach them something while I’m travelling: solo trekking in Mongolia, a desert tour, and I sometimes go take some bankers through the Himalayas. And I hope my book will also generate some income.

Do you talk about your travels in your book?
Yes, but not just that. I also write very openly about myself, and how this city girl suffering from panic attacks who now roams the world overcame her fears. I write about what it’s like to be unemployed and homeless. What it’s like to be a woman travelling alone. To be hungry, to kill an animal. Being a nomad, connecting with animals. I want to share all of this with people.

Does inspiring others make you happy?
Sure. A journalist told me recently that her car gives her so much freedom, enabling her to go anywhere at any time! I asked her how long she had to work to earn the money to use the car. She estimated two hours – just to save herself 20 minutes of using public transport. ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘now I’ve got to sell my car.’ I love turning things on their heads.

You’re 34 now. Where will you be in ten years?
Maybe I’ll be training emergency surgical teams in Tanzania or a camel trainer in Mongolia. But I might even have children and be living in a house in Holland again. I don’t know, and that’s the thing I like about life. I don’t want to know the future.