On a flight to Ho Chi Minh City in the summer of 2010, Abel Pearson was struck by how many interesting people and places he was passing by, travelling above the clouds in a pressurised symbol of our age of travel. He decided to turn his idea into a challenge: to travel by land and sea to New Zealand, with the defining condition being no planes. Departing on September 7th 2011, Abel will travel solo on a journey of 20,000 miles that will take him to the Alps, along the vast rails of Siberia, over the expansive grasslands of Mongolia, from the Great Wall of China to the river deltas of South East Asia, and hopping through the maze of Indonesian islands to reach the Tasman Sea. Camping for the most part, Abel will exist on a minimal budget. The trip appeals to Abel’s sense of adventure and his concern for the environment and the implications of air travel on our global climate.

Abel has chosen to use his expedition to raise awareness of The Converging World and to generate support for our renewable energy projects in India and the UK. The ethos of the trip is focused on efforts to reverse climate change and increase the use of renewable energy, and The Converging World are delighted to be part of this vision.

Abel’s trip will provide valuable support for our Buzzbank project, which uses loans rather than donations to invest in wind turbines in Tamil Nadu over a five-year period: find out more at http://www.buzzbnk.org/tcw The timing of Abel’s expedition coincides well with the project and Abel hopes that the trip can raise awareness and generate as much support as possible in the form of loans to contribute towards our £500,000 target by the end of 2011. This money will fund our next wind turbine which provides long-term funding support for our work in India and the UK.

Good luck and many thanks to Abel for his support, we look forward to hearing all about your adventures! You can follow Abel’s trip on his blog: http://aweathereyeonthehorizon.wordpress.com/