Interview: Tom Warburton

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” The words famously uttered by American writer Mark Twain. For many those words have been a way of life, none more so than the vivacious 23-year-old explorer Jack Groves. 

Groves, disillusioned by the prospect of a twenties spent in a dreary 9-5 set out to get his name into the motorcycling hall of fame and break a record like no other. What greeted Groves was an adventure like no other and the title of perhaps the loneliest Brit in South America. I caught up with Groves, on a rooftop in Pablo Escobar’s infamous home city Medellin, in Columbia. 

 Hi Jack, tell us a little about yourself?

I am a 23-year-old Brit who decided back in summer 2019 to buy a second hand Royal Enfield Himalayan and disappear on a badly mistimed effort to break the record for the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorbike. I had recently finished university and was fairly disillusioned by the various graduate paths available to me. As such my thinking was simple - in ten years when I look back, what will I regret not doing; selling my twenties to some city corporate or riding around the world on a motorcycle? Unsurprisingly, that thought process brought significant clarity! 

What route are you taking, are there many routes options to choose from?

My route so far has been broadly east/southeast from London towards Sydney, passing through Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia before flying on to South America in January 2021. 

I then went south through Chile to Patagonia for a month before dropping into Argentina and heading north up the legendary Ruta 40 to Bolivia. I arrived in La Paz in mid-March 2020 to rumours of impending border closures for obvious reasons. 

Not wanting to get stuck in Bolivia, I crossed into Peru the day before the border slammed shut indefinitely and made it to the ancient Incan capital of Cusco on the evening of March 16th, just as the police and army were closing the city in preparation for the nationwide lockdown starting at midnight. 

What followed was some 255 days of quarantine in Cusco that has all become a bit of a blur if I am honest.

I contracted COVID-19 in early April which, at 3,400 metres altitude, was pretty punchy, spent a month exploring the remote jungle of Manu National Park and the high sierra of the Asungate Massif, and the rest of my time was split between Cusco City and the nearby Sacred Valley of the Incas. 

After countless extensions to the state of emergency and numerous turned down repatriation flights, I finally left Cusco on November 26th and began heading north towards the border with Ecuador. With the stellar support of the British Embassies in Lima, Quito, and Bogota, I received exceptional authorisation just before Christmas to cross through both countries and ship my bike off the continent from Cartagena, despite the borders remaining firmly shut. 

Thus you currently find me on a rooftop in Medellin, Colombia having blitzed through Ecuador in just 3 days. I am waiting for some work to be done on the bike at the Enfield store here before heading north to Cartagena next week to catch an ex-WWII German trawler to Cancun, Mexico. From there, I will meander northwest to the Baja Peninsula before hopefully crossing into the States and traversing the entire west coast to Vancouver in Canada. One final flight back to Morocco or Portugal and I'll be on the home straight back to London to finish my trip around the world where I started. If I return before late May, I'll break the record for the youngest person to do it. Game on! 

In terms of the different round-the-world routes to choose from, there are many but all are influenced somewhat by the limited entry and exit points to and from continents. For example, certain airports and seaports are well used to the transportation of motorcycles whereas others will require significantly more work and aggro. 

I used Malaysia Airlines from Kuala Lumpur to Perth and then Bikes Abroad from Sydney to Santiago. The route is entirely a personal preference and you can generally make anything work as long as you deploy patience and cold hard cash. As the saying goes here in South America: "dinero fonciona!"

Throughout your trip no doubt, you've met some pretty diverse cultures and weird and wonderful people, are there any experiences that have really impacted you?

I certainly have. 26 countries down and the bike has undoubtedly seen some action! Whilst it is difficult to narrow such a wide variety of experience down to a favourite few, I look back on my relative naivety but gung ho attitude in Europe, the adventure paradise that is Central Asia, the people I met in Thailand, and the crossing of Australia with my old man as standout highlights so far. Cusco will also clearly remain a special place for me purely for the unique and, frankly, mental period of time I spent there!

You've travelled to a lot of politically sensitive areas, notably Xinjiang and Tibet in China, what was that like?

In short, eye-opening. Having studied the rise of China, economically, militarily, and technologically whilst at university, I was keen to avoid the usual tourist areas and venture into regions where the inexorable influence and all-seeing eye of the Communist Party are on full display. 

As such, I crossed into the infamous far-western province of Xinjiang from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan in early September 2019. After an extensive 3-day border process, myself and the few others in my group reached the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. It was like arriving directly into a real-life tribute act to George Orwell's 1984. 

Surveillance cameras were omnipresent on every single street corner and police checkpoints controlled every possible pedestrian access to the city centre. Even as we drove back and forth to various immigration and customs facilities outside the city, overhead camera banks logged our movement every 10 minutes or so, interspersed with numerous security stations where we had to provide fingerprints and full ID. 

Due to the different ethnic, religious and cultural background of the local Uighur population to the dominant eastern Han Chinese, the CCP is effectively using the excuse of counter-terrorism as a cover for essentially wiping out the identity of an entire people. 

Satellite images from 2015 to 2020 show the disappearance of hundreds of mosques across the predominantly Muslim region whilst simultaneously documenting the emergence of numerous state 're-education' camps where it is estimated over a million Uighurs are been brainwashed in the doctrine of the Party. 

Recent reports of mass sterilisation of Uighur women are being called genocide in all but name. As a result, it is bloody difficult to get in as a foreigner. I had to make up a completely fake travel itinerary to Beijing and the Great Wall, including booked flights and hotels, in order for my visa to be accepted. As there is no point of entry marked, you then simply cancel all the above and pitch up at the Kyrgyz border and cross your fingers! 

On top of the oppressive security presence in Xinjiang, we required a separate permit to enter the separatist province of Tibet - the highest region on earth - something that only licensed tour guides are able to acquire. China was therefore the only country on this trip that I was required to transit as part of a tour. 

This made things a lot more expensive but also a lot more interesting. Most people go through Iran to Pakistan and India so I was the only westerner around for the month or so it took us to cross from Kyrgyzstan to Laos, along the entire length of the Himalayas. 

Crossing any border can be difficult, let alone with a passport loaded with different countries visas and a foreign motorbike. Did you have any difficult experiences at border crossings?

Aside from the extensive Chinese process and the rather unique situation crossing into Ecuador and Colombia last week as the first gringo since March, I have generally had very few problems when crossing borders, either with myself or the bike. 

Even some of the historically more difficult overlanding countries in Central Asia such as Turkmenistan were long but relatively painless to enter. 

High profile annual events such as the Mongol Rally have undoubtedly helped to normalise the appearance of white faces and foreign paperwork in previously tricky parts of the world. I also thought about this to some extent when planning my route in terms of avoiding countries well known to generate problems in others: Israel/Iran, Turkey/Armenia, etc. 

On the whole, though, a smile and a fair bit of patience are generally sufficient to get on your way without issues. 

Like many travellers you were severely affected by the COVID pandemic, how does it feel to have been the last Brit stuck in Peru, and what happened during your hundred days plus lockdown?

In an effort to keep this PC, let's just say that I spent my time reading and writing. In terms of how it felt to be the last Brit in Peru when even the Ambassador and the Embassy team flew home - slightly surreal to be honest. 

Not that I have had to use Embassy support on a regular basis since leaving London, but it is still quite disconcerting to receive an email from the Foreign Office effectively saying: "you're on your own mate." And whilst I was initially extremely conflicted about the decision to refuse the offers of repatriation flights and stay, especially when family and friends were urging me to call it and head home, I knew instinctively that it would be a decision I would regret. 

Both I and the bike had come too far and seen too much to turn back. Sitting here in Medellin now, 9 months on, I can honestly say that it was the right decision. What are a few months in the context of a (hopefully!) long lifetime? Had I returned to lockdown London, I would almost certainly have moved on with my life and forever regretted packing it in when the going got tough. That's not what I'm about. 

As the master of a lockdown, what kept you sane and helped fill your time?

So Peru officially had the longest and strictest lockdown in the world. No other country even comes close. Despite this, they also have the worst excess death rate in the world. I'll let you come to your own conclusions about what this implies! 

Early on, the measures enforced were akin to martial law. I was even arrested once simply for having a beer with friends in a well known Cusco restaurant. Apparently, our cardinal sin was to drink without eating, despite our plates having been cleared just minutes before the cops arrived. It probably didn't help that I, slightly inebriated, pointed out to this ridiculously macho Peruvian rozzer that he had no magazine loaded into his pistol and asked, therefore, what exactly he thought he was going to do with it. 

Turns out that taking the piss out of Peruvian policemen, especially in front of their subordinates is a big no-no. All four of us subsequently spent the next 6 hours being bounced around a series of different police stations before finally being released at 0200 hours. Lesson learned!

Motorcycling around the world is no mean feat, what type of equipment did you bring with you and what couldn't you live without?

Whilst it is correct to say that a round-the-world effort is no mean feat, it is also nowhere near as difficult as I think many people believe. Clearly, everything is subjective and different people have different tolerances for discomfort, danger, and uncertainty, etc, but on the whole, I would say that it is eminently doable. 

Most of the hardcore adventure and survival equipment that I initially thought would be essential turned out to be hilariously useless in the real world. 

Similar story with clothing and some of the disposable items that I brought spares of at the beginning - believe it or not, other people around the world use gas canisters, charge their phones, eat food and wear clothes too! I know, mental isn't it? 

As such, I have massively slimmed down my gear collection since I began, saving significant space and weight. Almost everything I have with me now is dual-use to some degree and anything I didn't use in the first 6 months has gone. For example, I used to lug around a foldable camping chair until I worked out that I could remove my metal pannier and sit on that instead! 

My favourite pieces of equipment that are still with me are a Stanley folding blade for food prep on the go, a Stanley insulated mug for a good hot brew that I pinched from a hostel in Chile (it was left by someone else so finders keepers I say!), and my MSR lightweight tent that has enabled countless awesome wild camp experiences in the various wildernesses of the world! 

Finally, as unadventurous as it is to say, I rely enormously on my phone to plan and prepare for the different legs ahead of me. 

I have used dozens of different SIM cards in dozens of different countries to navigate the back roads, discover wild camp spots, find hostels with secure parking in cities, read up on the latest border requirements, and listen to some good old rock and roll on the road. Quite simply, it is the nature of the world we now live in and I genuinely think that an RTW trip would be considerably harder without it.

Some of the areas you travelled across can be pretty dangerous, have you had any scary experiences?

Aside from the close shaves and near-death experiences that you have on an almost daily basis riding a motorcycle in certain parts of the world, I have yet to be shot at or anything of that nature. 

There was one moment in a remote part of Tajikistan when a group of young lads surrounded me as I was leaving a restaurant after dark and questioned me on my knowledge of the Qoran and Islam more widely. 

Given that a large number of Uzbek and Tajik nationals are known to have crossed the southern border into Afghanistan to fight for first the Mujahedeen, then al-Qaeda, before returning, combined with the running over and killing of four Western cyclists in the nearby area in July 2018 by ISIS militants, suffice to say that my senses were on high alert! 

Fortunately, I know a fair bit about the topic and so was able to answer their questions to a satisfactory degree. When they later asked where I was going to stay that night, however, I made some bollocks up about a friend's house and made a swift exit on the bike. Satisfied that I wasn't being followed after adding a few doglegs turns to my route, I later camped in the mountains a stone's throw from the border with Afghanistan! Exciting times! 

Being well-practised in being stuck in lockdown, if you could recommend one book, one film, and one song, what would it be?

I spent much of lockdown making my way through Andrew Robert's recently released biography of Churchill: Walking with Destiny which I thought was a thoroughly readable and comprehensive overview of the great man's life, including a large number of stellar anecdotes and brilliant quotes. 

Film-wise, the last one that I saw on the big screen was Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen in Sydney a year ago today. It is straight out of the Snatch and Lock Stock playbook with countless quotable one-liners, excellent characters, and raw London locations. Ritchie back doing what he does best!

Song wise, I am going to pick one from the gods of rock - AC/DC's newly released farewell album of sorts: Power Up. Whilst the entire 47-minute album is an absolute energy-filled hell raiser, I am going to go for 'Through the Mists of Time' due to its old school rock melancholic tribute to the late Malcolm Young, the legendary rhythm guitarist and older brother of frontman Angus Young. No one else rocks like them in my opinion. 

What advice would you give to anyone thinking about following in your footsteps?

Do it! Experiences are there to be had, life is there to be lived and records are there to be broken. I am very much of the carpe diem school of thought and the one thing that scares me above all others is a life not lived. 

For me, it's either a daring adventure or nothing at all. As such, if a round-the-world trip is something you dream about then move heaven and earth to make it happen. I spent my years at university working and saving with the singular aim of using my post-graduation freedom to make it happen. 

If I can go from not riding in years to spontaneously buying a motorcycle on eBay and leaving to circumnavigate the world just a month later, I would wager that anyone can! Sometimes, as the saying goes, 'you have to jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down.' It is not as difficult as you think it is, nor as dangerous as you fear it is, but it will ALWAYS be as awesome as you hope it is. Seize it, go for it, and send me a message first so I can follow along! 

You've been on the road for over a year now, how has that changed your perspective on life?

If you're trying to get me to say that I have 'found myself', it's not going to happen. No, I've always been a pretty independent bloke and generally would choose my own company, or that of a few close mates, over a crowd. That's probably just as well given that I have spent a considerable amount of the last year and a half with a machine rather than other humans. 

I used to consider this fierce individuality and general lack of caring in social climbing or whatever the prevailing trends were a personality flaw, however, after having had ample time to reflect on what fires me up and, subsequently, what I value in life, I've realised it is actually a considerable strength. 

Ultimately, life is too short to do all the things that you want to do, let alone wasting time giving a flying crap about what others think. Someone extremely close to me who lived the above ethos to the full tragically passed away, way before her time, a few days before Christmas 2018. 

This earthshaking news changed my outlook on life irreversibly and solidified my decision to seize the opportunity of this trip whilst it was open to me. As such, the thousands of miles that lie behind me represent, in a way, my homage to her and her approach to life. 

For good or for ill, we never know what is around the corner - that is one lesson from this dismal year - so seize the day and don't leave any cards left on the table when it is all over.

I'll wrap this up with a few quotes that inspired me to get after my goals, maybe they will for you too. Cheers for reading.

'20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover.' - Mark Twain

'Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.' - Bruce McLaren.

'I live for myself and I answer to nobody.' - Steve Mcqueen 

'No one gets out alive. Act accordingly.' - Unknown. 

If you want to catch up with Jack’s epic journey check out his Instagram @britonabike