On expedition, old bean?
The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) publishes the Expedition Handbook. I’ve read excerpts from it and found it to be interesting from an overland driving and offroading perspective. Sample chapters are available as free downloads from the RGS website.
Included among the samples is a chapter on desert expeditions and another on vehicle-dependent expeditions, both by noted expert Tom Shepperd, author of the exhaustive Vehicle-Dependent Expedition Guide, Off-roader Driving, and others. If you have those books (particularly the former) then I doubt there is anything new among these PDFs, but I still found them to be an interesting read.
He has some strong opinions, and a tremendous amount of experience to back them up. I don’t agree with him on everything, but most of that is due to geographic and mission specifics. I offroad in the western United States, while he’s on long, independent drives in the African deserts. For example, he’s pretty much completely opposed to vehicular roof racks. I feel they have their place, particularly where somewhat bulky but light cargo can be stored.
There are other chapters available as well, covering polar and tropical expeditions as well as caving, underwater, mountaineering, and other aspects of expedition planning.
Oasisphoto.com hosts a full copy of the standalone RGS Desert Expeditions document in PDF format, also by Shepperd. This is the third edition which is now some twenty years old, but for the most part still very relevant. I can only assume that it is no longer on the RGS site because of its age.
At 86 pages, Desert Expeditions is a much more thorough treatise on the subject than the Expedition Handbook chapters, and if you’ve read his Vehicle-Dependent Expedition Guide, you know that Shepperd is nothing if not thorough.
These PDFs are well worth the time to download and read if you are undertaking an expedition-like overland trip, or if you’ll be traveling offroad in the desert. And the price is right too.
The Desert Expeditions Manual is indeed still available on the RGS website along with many other logistics manuals. http://www.rgs.org/GOpubs has links to Logistic manuals (Mountain Travellers Handbook, Polar Expeditions, Tropical Forest expeditions, Vehicle Dependent Expeditions, 4×4 driving, – and on the 2nd page – Bicycle, Caving, Desert, Underwater Expeditions and Mountaineering in the Andes) the majority of these are available as free PDF downloads.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:11 amLinks to the RGS Expedition Handbook and Expedition Medicine can also be found via this link.
I’m glad you and hopefully many others have found them useful.
Lucy
Many thanks for recommending the RGS-IBG expeditions and fieldwork publications. We are so pleased you find them helpful. Tom Sheppard has recently reprinted the Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide which buy through us. Just one correction – you can download the Desert Expeditions Manual as a PDF from our website – free-of-charge. Happy Travelling.
Geography Outdoors:
the centre supporting field research, exploration and outdoor learning
(formerly known as the RGS-IBG Expedition Advisory Centre)
Royal Geographical Society with IBG
1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR
tel. +44 (0)20 7591 3030
August 7th, 2008 at 4:56 amfax. +44 (0)20 7591 3031
go@rgs.org
http://www.rgs.org/go
As Lucy and Shane have noted, the Desert Expeditions manual is still available on the RGS site. After receiving their comments, I revisited the site and after an additional 5-10 minute “expedition” I finally found it . 🙂 My thanks to them for taking the time to point it out.
Use this link to download the PDF directly, but don’t hesitate to visit the RGS site for additional reading and information.
Also, Shane notes that the Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide has been reprinted. It can be had via the RGS, presumably amazon.co.uk, maybe amazon.com (I haven’t checked), and Expedition Exchange has it as well.
If you want a lot of very detailed material on the subject, this is the book for you. I’m glad that they reprinted it. Used copies were selling for outrageous prices, and now I no longer have any temptation to sell my old copy to take advantage of that.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:25 am