Long Way Home is a journey of two ordinary boys from Hong Kong, Tim Cho (TJ) and Shawn Kam (KJ). As from July 1, 2014 the journey started from South America, Chile, in order to return home Asia by land and sea, without using an aircraft. They are travelling through four continents and 33 countries. In order – Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, Britain, France, Monaco, Spain, Italy, the Vatican, San Marino, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, China (Tibet), Vietnam, China (Guangxi), and finally back to Hong Kong via Lo Wu. The journey is expected to take about nine months to one year.
During their journey, TJ and KJ are making full use of local transportation, mainly trains, buses and small passenger ships, and when the conditions permit, they are self-driving a motorcycle, a bicycle or a car. As TJ and KJ are travelling on a budget, they are mainly using CouchSurfing. If couch-surf is not possible and the circumstances permits, they are camping. When none is possible, TJ and KJ are staying at budget Hostels, like Trip&Sleep or Hotels as their last option.
Why Chile? Why Long Way Home By Any Means?
KJ went to Santiago del Chile in December 2012 to fulfill his dream to attain proficiency in Spanish. Now for some reason he has forgone his return flight home and thus is stuck in the longest north-south country in the world. Having had enough of the best wine, seafood and fruit on planet earth, he misses home. Sure he has the 2000 bucks to get an ergonomically failing economy seat on a Boeing-777 heading towards Hong Kong and land himself on the Chinese soil in 30 hours, but he reckoned he might just as well spend that lump of money for having more stamps on his passport. Yes, this guy has a predilection for immigration stamps.
It has always been a dream of TJ’s to go on a journey overland since he stumbled across on TV the documentary Long Way Round produced by BBC featuring the Hollywood big name Ewan McGregor and the English TV presenter Charley Boorman. Now that KJ’s return ticket is gone, TJ figured that it would just be a perfect time for him to fulfill his ambition with his best travel companion whose Chilean temporary residency expires in August during the Brazilian World Cup year. He also finds it the most awesome way possible to give his bro a “welcome home”.