About Chris Brown
Thank you for visiting this website. It's a personal website about me, Chris Brown, an explorer and businessman from Yorkshire, England, focussing mostly on the trips, adventures and expeditions I've made during my lifetime.
The site has come into existence in reaction to a question I've been asked so many times that I've lost count, "Why don't you write a book" or "Why don't you make a documentary about your travels?".
About this site
Since one of the previous iterations of my business was once book publishing, that would be an easy way to go. But it would restrict the 'reach' of the stories to those who see and can afford to buy the book. So, I feel, a website will be seen by more people.
The reason for wanting a bigger 'reach' is simple: I want to encourage more people to step out of their comfort zones and go exploring.
Anyone can Explore
Exploring doesn't have to be expensive or dangerous. Whenever you go on a trip or a holiday, you are actually exploring, especially if you haven't been there before. What I'd like to do is awaken your sense of curiosity - take a bus to the next village along and see what's there, climb the nearest hill and see what you can see or find something on the map that grabs your interest.
Here's a simple example you can do right now... Find the Zero Kilometre point of the place that you live in.
The Zero Kilometre point (0 km) is the point to which the distance to your city/town/village/hamlet is measured. So, when the road sign says something like "London - 86km" or "New York - 123 miles" those distances are measured to a particular point, and that point is the 0km point. It's probably a place that you know well and have been to or past many times but not realised its significance.
At the other end of the scale, I've taken part in expeditions to the most remote place on the planet in Antarctica. It took four years to plan, involved a high level of danger and cost a small fortune. The first attempt saw us stuck in Antarctica for 28 days, unable to get out, in a series of the biggest storms seen for the last 20 years and still fail to get to our destination. But we survived and returned the next year with renewed determination and a better plan!
Another serious expedition was to the heart of Africa when I became the first person ever to set foot at the Pole of Inaccessibility for the continent. The Central African Republic poses many different risks from Antarctica. There are still environmental risks, but disease and illness are surpassed by the numerous human risks posed from bandits, insurgent, guerillas, ISIS, Wagner group, corrupt soldiers, corrupt police, evil warlords and numerous other ne'er-do-wells.
If you have no interest in undertaking your own expeditions, please feel free to explore vicariously through the pages on this site.
Life
When not out exploring or on an adventure, these are a few of the things I like to get up to...
Cars
I don't know why, but I've always loved cars. Or, perhaps I should clarify - I love driving cars. Doing 'Car Mechanics' at school in a freezing workshop, skinning my knuckles taking an old rusted Ford Cortina apart put me off working on them for life!
In recent years, I've been lucky enough to be able to get into racing. The main race car is a BMW M4 GT4, with which we've had some success and taken home a share of trophies. But also we have a bit of a laugh racing as a team in a FunCup, which is essentially a VW Beetle with a Golf engine.
World Record
Little known fact: I have a World Record for the number of dives into a swimming pool in one hour!
The dives had to be from a standard set of starting blocks and I had to enter the water more than 3 metres from the front of the diving board, so I couldn't just 'flop' into the water
Read MoreI grew up in a small village called Great Ayton, not far from Middlesbrough (#utfb), going to school at Stokesley Comprehensive. Later we moved to Knaresborough where I attended King James’ School before progressing to Durham University to study Physics. Like many students, I spent the summers backpacking, at first in Europe and North Africa but then mostly in South America. This is where I caught the travel bug!
The final step in my formal education was a Masters Degree in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. After that, I worked for British Petroleum (BP) and then as a consultant for Shell and a number of smaller oil companies before leaving to grow my own publishing business.
Amongst other things, I was awarded the status of Chartered Physicist in 1988. I am also a Lifelong Fellow of the Scientific Exploration Society and have given a talk about Poles of Inaccessibility. I am also a member of the Royal Geographical Society.