A MAN spent two weeks off grid travelling with no phone and £600 – and made every decision using dice.
Travel expert Sebastian Hervas-Jones and his friend Luke Gbedemah ditched technology and the internet for paper maps and the advice of strangers to guide them on their fortnight adventure.
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Having made a pact to travel the UK without their luxuries, the pair headed for northern Scotland with just a few pairs of socks, a change of clothes, and some books and notebooks as their resources.
Taking the advice of a taxi driver to head as far north as possible, they hopped on a sleeper train from London King’s Cross station up to Glasgow.
Every decision from there on was based off the result of rolling their 20-sided dice from the cult game Dungeons & Dragons, Sebastian told The Times.
This led to them boarding another train bound for Mallaig, a west-coast village 150 miles north.
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Another roll of the dice then landed them in Fort William, a town in the western Scottish Highlands known as a gateway to Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest peak.
“In town, we went straight to the tourist information centre, a crucial resource for the tech-free adventurer,” Sebastian said.
“They suggested the four-hour hike to the rentable Charles Inglis Clark hut near the top of Ben Nevis and gave us a map to find it.”
Battling strong winds and deep snow, and with no phone to direct them or call for help, the men found themselves in the heart of isolation.
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The warm cabin was occupied upon their arrival, so they headed back down to town to find a bunkhouse for the night.
The following day, they bumped into author Neil Ansell, who invited them along on his quest to find a lost cave where a Bronze Age axe had once been found.
I live in a remote tiny village in the Scottish highlands and it’s a great place to live if you want impromptu days off work
Sebastian said: “Given that one of the primary aims of our trip was wizard discovery, it seemed obvious we should join him.
“He pulled out a map with an X marking the spot and off we went, trekking, scrambling, hopping fences — until we eventually discovered the long-hidden cave in an enormous rhododendron bush.”
Describing it as a “serendipitous encounter”, the traveller said it set the tone for the rest of the trip.
They never waited more than five minutes for a ride and further conversations with strangers soon led them to the remote white-sand beaches of Arisaig, the shores of Loch Morar and Loch Moidart.
Sebastian and Luke’s quest ended with them staying on the coast across from the UK’s most remote mainland community – Skye, in Inverie.
Located on the north side of Loch Nevis, the village is so isolated that the surrounding network of single-track roads is not connected to the rest of the British road network.
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Nonetheless, the men spent their remaining time at the village’s pristine camping beach, where they took in the sights, sounds and smells.
Ditching the tech for dice and advice had “served me well”, Sebastian concluded.
