Travel Safety Information News

Courses are also available for Journalists, Media Professionals, NGO's, Businesses, SME's and Large Corporations, Leisure and Adventure Expeditions and also Gap Year Travellers.

Objective Travel Safety trained Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman before both the 'Long Way Round' and 'Long Way Down' motorbike expeditions.

Paul Parsons and I turn off the main road and are faced with what seems to be a no entry or restricted access road sign.  Do we proceed or not? We are leading eight other vehicles and ahead is five km of snowy tracks through the snow deadened Polish forests. We are close to the Ukraine border, having passed a heavily camouflaged military field radar site.  ‘Engage four wheel drive’; the Hilux grins, this is more like it after too long on the German & Polish motorways! We gently trundle through the birch forest, ever fearful of finding a locked barrier. All is well and we emerge out of the forest and past small farms with tin roofs and fences demarking their boundaries. Thirty minutes later, we are trying to find the Hilux’s chassis number (for those interested, on back seat door frame) at the border crossing point into Ukraine without which the Poles would not allow us to cross the border.  

It’s been a slow return and business travel is now certainly picking up.  Whilst growth of virtual communications has been terrific news for stretched travel budgets and it will help reduce global emissions, there is also a read need for physical travel too. Factories need to be visited, crops inspected, and key conferences attended.  So here are a few tips and tricks from the Objective Travel Safety team which may help anyone planning an upcoming business trip. 

As Nick Milne and I approach the Budomeriz crossing point from Poland to Ukraine, luck seems to be on our side - there is only one vehicle ahead of us and very soon the traffic light goes green beckoning us to the Polish checkpoint. However, there is an air of nervousness, will we have the right paperwork for the mountain of cargo we have in our ancient Mercedes Sprinter freezer van?

It’s been over 2000km and 3 days since we left Oxfordshire, and the van is filled to the gunnels. When I say filled, I mean completely crammed with boxes of medical coveralls, mattresses, 40 sets of crutches, 10 wheelchairs, 200kg of dog and cat food, boxes of old laptops & phones and a warehouse trolley. A twenty-something Customs Officer approaches the van, and we learn quickly that her looks conceal a steely interior as she explores the inside of the van & gasps: “ah too much stuff”.  She pauses and points to boxes almost completely hidden under a mountain of crutches and barks: “boxes – open.” She then turns to Nick - “unload those” - and points to a forest of wheelchairs with three bags of Skinners’ dog food piled on top.  I make of point of blocking the road as I unload some boxes and crutches. It does the trick, as Lt ‘Poe Face’ decides she has made her point and now the Brits are just being annoying, so she orders us to pack up and move 20m forward to the Ukraine border & customs post.