MY STORY
ALNSM Overland : The guy behind it
Who is this guy ?
Hi ! Thank you for your interest, here’s my story !
My name is Jordan, I’m 26, former French Marine, I live in France (you heard the accent right ?!) and now I’m a Full Time Overlander and Content Creator for ALNSM Overland.
If we put overlanding aside, what I love in life is everything that have a motor and everything that is outdoor adventure related like mountainbiking (I really love that) hiking, whitewater kayaking and climbing. Oh, and my girlfriend too, of course !
After my 5 years of service I wanted something different.
I wanted to travel, to learn, to explore and discover new things.
What inspired me to do that was Expedition Overland ! So I bought my Subaru Forester and turned it into the perfect Overland – Adventure – Expedition vehicle ! After that, I just had to travel and enjoy !
I will let you enjoy my 3 years old video presentation !
Being a Full Time Overlander
After I outfitted and modified my Subaru Forester into the ultimate Overland vehicle I had to go.
in 2019 my girlfriend Lizanne, and I, with our cute adventure cat Hughie left everything : apartment, job, family and friends to go on the adventure of our life !
The plan was to travel for an entire year ! Maybe even more. We started with the beautiful Scandinavia for a few months, crossed the Arctic Circle and reached the Northernmost point of Europe : the Nordkapp.
Then we started to head back South through the Baltic States, the Nature with the Fall colors was absolutely stunning ! And to end this first part of our Full Time Overland life, we spent an entire months in Spain exploring mountains, desert and sea coast.
For 2020 everything was ready for an even more adventurous overland trip : insurance, paperworks, visa, vehicle and gear. Because this time, our goal was Mongolia ! With Central Asia, Russia, and a lot more of beautiful countries along the road.
But, as you know, something called COVID-19 happend and ruined all of our plans … It was a huge disappointment but at least we were safe and not in quarantine in a foreign country.
Despite that, it’s not over and we hope to be back FULL TIME on the road as soon as possible ! In the mean time, we will go on shorter adventures.
Stay tuned !
But what does "ALNSM" means ?!
ALNSM huum ? … Here’s the story behind this name and trust me, you won’t be disappointed !
It started as the ALNSM MTB Crew : basically my friends and I having fun on our bikes like freeride and downhill mountainbike. And during our mountainbike trips, pushing our limits, sometimes before going on a big, sketchy, jump, drop or trying new tricks we used to say “A La Nike Sa Mère !” . It’s a rude way to say in French something like “F*ck it, let’s SEND IT !” I really liked the idea behind that and decided to keep the name for ALNSM Overland.
Why did I start making videos ?
With this big overland trip in mind I really wanted to share it with everyone ! But I didn’t really know how. Lizanne told me to create a YouTube channel and post ONE VIDEO PER WEEK ! I first thought that it was crazy and way too much work … So she had to propose me a very interseting pinky swear deal ! If I make one video per week, she stop eating candy. Yes ! that’s was the deal! And it was enough to convince me ! ALNSM Overland was born and I now post one video per week, sometimes even more ever since.
Why a Subaru Forester ?
I had so many vehicle ideas for my adventures ! So that was a difficult choice … A bicycle, a motorbike, a standard wagon, a big van, a smaller 4×4 van or a big 4wd rig … After thinking about all the pros and cons, in term of available parts, price (vehicle price, insurance, fuel consumption) my needs and the level of comfort I wanted I decided to go for an AWD SUV. There’s a lot of vehicle like this on the market but nothing as good as the SF SUBARU FORESTER ! After a few months of research, I found the one ! 900€ / 1000$ with a bad clutch … DEAL !
What's up for the future ?
As I said in my “Full Time Overland” story we couldn’t make our 8 months long adventure road trip to Mongolia.
And the fact is, 2020 was the perfect time window. It’s still in my mind but I’m not sure when I will be able to make it. Hopefully soon !
And since ALNSM Overland and YouTube is not (for now !) my full time job, I will have to get back to work. So, for now, I’m gonna focus on shorter trips from a day, to 3 months long. I have a TONS of ideas in mind ! Like middle age or world war historical trips in France, exploring a lot more in the French Alps, a winter trip in Northern Finland and/or Sweden, getting lost is the Polish and Romania wilderness … There is so much to explore and it doesn’t have to be really far away ! Also, I would love to meet more of you guys from the ALNSM Overland community !
Plus, I setup a pretty exciting goal on Patreon ! The thing is, when you will be 23 to support me and my work I will stop everything to GO ON A 3 MONTHS LONG EXPEDITION ! Why 23 ? Because it’s how old the TACTIFOZ, the mighty Subaru Forester who gets me to amazing places all over the world, is. (when I setup the goal)
Plus, we will choose the destination together !
How AWESOME is that ?!
