Bio:

Brian is a recovering rock star, procrastinating musician and skater... he is a software monkey by day, planning his next trip around the world by night.

been to: here and there, Italy (born near Venice), US (Seattle, New York, San Francisco, LA, points inbetween), Canada (Whistler, Vancouver, Quebec), France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy (again), Greece, Switzerland, Netherlands, Jamaica, UK (Scotland, England), Mexico, Cuba (vamos bien), South Korea, China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Spain (again), Gibraltar, London (again, and again and again), Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, Iceland, and Canada (Alberta & BC: Calgary, Banff, Jasper, etc)

going to: Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark

traveling through Asia he picked up a little Mandarin, Tibetan, and Hindi... can say Thank You in 9 languages, learned Russian for the Mongol Rally and is currently learning Norwegian for the Baltic Rally.

Jeg kan snakke litt Norsk!

Brian has been married to Kim for 10 years, and they celebrated their 9th anniversary during the first week of the Mongol Rally. They've been everywhere together and can get out of any sticky situation.

Read Brian's Posts:

Rallying Fools Again

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two years since I was boarding a plane to London to purchase two Fiat Puntos that would transport our team of 6 to Mongolia.  The Mongol Rally was such a huge undertaking… fund raisers, international vehicle purchasing, camping gear, planning… oh, yeah, and the massive 6 week, 10,000 mile journey itself!  You might think we’d be crazy to take on another rally. Maybe you’d be right, but crazy or not that is just what we’re doing.  Something about it has infected us, driving us (if you will allow the pun), to tackle another massive road trip.

Kim and I spent our 10 year anniversary on the road again last year, on a 2 week loop through Alberta and British Columbia visiting the gorgeous Canadian Rockies from Banff to Whistler.  Just that little domestic road trip was inspiring.  So when Dan & Sebastian from Mongol Rally team zero2zero invited us to have a rally reunion on their newly formed Baltic Sea Circle we just couldn’t say no!  I’d like to say that we spent the last 6 months meticulously preparing every detail as we did last time, hosting big fund raising parties and studying our route with care.  If I did I would be stretching the truth though.  To be fair, a 4500 mile drive around Northern Europe is not quite as grueling as a Central Asian odyssey, and having done this all once before we have a better idea of what we need to do the second time around.

We have put together a route and spent a few weeks perusing mobile.de for used German cars, but the last two weeks everything sort of fell into place. While considering the various used cars available near our starting point of Hamburg, mostly 20 year old VW Golfs and Audi 80’s, Dan offered to sell us the car he took on this trip last year! Not only does this offer the benefit of purchasing a vehicle whose history and owner we know, but this 1987 Saab 900 comes with a number plate 666… truly a piece of Swedish Metal! I’m certain Meshuggah and Soilwork will make an appearance on the Saab’s aged stereo system.  In addition to sorting out the car details we found ourselves some plane tickets… all that’s left to do is to pack and get on the plane, right?

Well, there is also the bit about raising some funds for charity, so we are excited to announce we’re supporting Mercy Corps yet again on this trip.  We had such a great experience visiting Mercy Corps’ offices and sites in Mongolia.  They are doing amazing work all over the world as well.  We hope our continued support will further their mission to help people in crisis help themselves through economic and social development.  You can help us meet our goal by donating to Mercy Corps here!

I’ve also spent a few months learning Norwegian, which has to be one of the easier languages to pick up for an English speaker.  I suppose I should be practicing German and Russian too… but Norwegian has been so much more fun to practice.

The rally.roamgreen.org site has had a bit of a makeover for updates on this new journey.  All of the Baatar Hero posts are still here if you’re looking for our stories of past adventure.  You can also continue to follow us as we embark on our second rally around Europe this summer.  There are new Facebook and Twitter pages to follow as well.  Friend us, Follow us, or subscribe to our feed and watch us circle the Baltic as we venture off into the Northernmost Rally in the World!

Rick Steves Podcast

On Saturday, August 13th, 2011 – Travel With Rick Steves aired our interview about the Mongol Rally! Christine from Just A Steppe Away and I met Rick at his studio late last year to record the interview and now it’s available for you all to listen to.  You can download the show for yourself from Rick’s podcast page.  Or you can listen to the embedded link below.  Our segment starts at about the 14 and a half minute mark.  I’m streaming directly from his site, so there’s no fast forwarding, but the first interview about the Berlin Wall is well worth listening to anyway.

One Year Rally Anniversary and Rick Steves Radio Interview

Baatar Hero fans and friends!

Yes, it is true, our Mongol Rally adventure is already over 1 year old and we look back nostalgically at the same time as this year’s rally is under way.   We’ve been fielding questions from this year’s teams and relaying our stories of derring-do.  For example, 1 year ago this week we arrived in Baku having braved the Azerbaijersey countryside and its extortionate “law enforcement”: http://rally.roamgreen.org/2010/08/10/

This year’s teams will soon be driving through the Mongolian Gobi desert, visiting Mercy Corps aid sites supported by the amazing fund raising you all helped us achieve last year.  All of you and our sponsors donated almost $15,000 in cash and over $5,000 in vehicle auction and equipment donations… over an amazing $20,000 total for Mercy Corps, 4 times our original goal, and the biggest fund raising team for Mercy Corps in the 2010 Mongol Rally!

We wanted to take this milestone opportunity to thank you again for your amazing support, and remind you that you can relive some of the adventure with us this Saturday, August 13th.  Earlier this year Rick Steves recorded an interview with Brian and another Seattle rallier, Christine from Just A Steppe Away, whom we caravaned with.  That interview is airing on Travel With Rick Steves this weekend!

Travel With Rick Steves airs at 2pm PDT on your local NPR affiliate. There are several ways you can tune in:

- Find your local NPR station and listen live http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/whereitairs.htm

- Listen Live online via KUOW’s website http://www.kuow.org/

- Subscribe to Rick Steves podcast and download the show after Saturday at http://podcasts.ricksteves.com/ricksteves.xml

I will post this to the website as well, so you can always come back to rally.roamgreen.org and listen later.

As Rick would say, Happy Travels!

Team Baatar Hero
Kim | Brian | Jean | Tom | Amy | Yasmin
http://rally.roamgreen.org
http://facebook.com/baatarhero
http://twitter.com/baatarhero