On The Edge Of Britain: Plan S-Shetlands
Plan S · Shetland · Fair Isle
The World Stopped. We Went North.
During a pandemic, you cannot settle for Plan B. You may need the rest of the alphabet. Sarah and I chose Plan S: Shetland—and Britain’s most remote inhabited island, Fair Isle.
From A to Z
Plan B Was Never Going to Be Enough
Global travel had stopped. Spontaneity had become risk. What once looked like an activity now felt like an accomplishment—and the right response was not certainty. It was flexibility.
The Operating Belief
“Planning is everything, but the plan means nothing.”
The plan is situational. Our flight to the United States was cancelled that week and rebooked with British Airways. Your best ability these days is flexibility.
Field Film · Plan S
Show Rather Than Tell
Pandemic Field Note
Shetland and Fair Isle: The Northern Alternative
Literature in a Hurry
Expedition History Also Belongs to Regular People
It is important that expedition history not be distilled only into the stories of great men and women—Magellan, Edmund Hillary, Lewis and Clark, and the rest.
It also belongs to regular people like Sarah and Ed—people who go out, do their own exploring, circumnavigate the Earth, and then blog about it. Literature in a hurry.
I love writing but hate the paperwork, so I take a lot of photographs and videos. Show rather than tell.
The Trial · Three Capabilities
When Movement Became Difficult
01 · Flexibility
Rebook the Route
A cancelled flight is not the end of movement. It is new information. Adapt the route.
02 · Evidence
Document the Journey
Photographs and videos tolerate contradiction. They force different perspectives because the journey actually happened.
03 · Direction
One Port at a Time
Enormous outcomes are usually the visible result of incremental steps nobody noticed while they were happening.
Evidence of a Life in Motion
Seven Times Around the World
We really did travel around the world seven times, and we have the evidence—all archived on Facebook, Instagram, Blogger, and YouTube.
No matter where I go, there I am. I can still look up at the same moon and stars, albeit from a different hemisphere. They belong to all of us: children of this planet.
“The ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.”Diane Ackerman · Cosmic Pastoral
Direction Over Speed
State It. Create It. Move One Port at a Time.
When your future self becomes involved with your present self, better decisions become possible. You release the emergency brake. When you land, things start to take off. Feel the emotions of the future, add gratitude, and it is as if you have already signed for it.
“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.”Edmund Hillary
We rarely see the incremental baby steps behind enormous outcomes. But enormous outcomes are mostly the consequence of small decisions—the art and science of turning something invisible into something visible.
“I want to travel around the world” was the mantra I told myself every day, as far back as I can remember. How did I do it? One port at a time, mostly by sea.
Time Millionaires · Decision Doctrine
The Quality of a Life Is Shaped by Decisions and Luck
You cannot make progress without making decisions. You make those decisions over time and under uncertainty. I call them bets.
Shetland reminds me of all three: Alaska’s frontier feeling, Hawaii’s island community, and Norway’s Viking presence. Different climates, certainly—but each is a collection of rocks in the middle of an ocean, carrying a savage beauty that resists superlatives.
Three Northern Bearings
Shetland Through Alaska and Norway
For context: Ketchikan, Alaska—the rainiest place in North America—and midsummer in Norway at the top of the world in the Arctic Circle.
Northern Comparison 01
Ketchikan · Alaska
Northern Comparison 02
Arctic Circle · Norway
The Elixir · The Quest Is in the Question
How Soon Can We Cruise Again?
Just now, as they say in South Africa.
The pandemic changed the route, raised the risk, and cancelled the easy plan. It did not cancel curiosity. The lesson of Plan S is simple: direction matters more than speed, evidence turns travel into memory, and flexibility keeps the future moving.
