Quotes from Tim Cope

I think the nomads really give us inspiration about how we can live in harmony with our environment.

In Khazak culture, historically, if any traveller comes riding from a long way, there is an obligation to take him into your home. For the first three days, the host doesn't even have the right to ask his name, his destination or his business.

For the traveller, Kazakhstan offers more than just a staging post for the Silk Road, as is often perceived, and there is more than just steppe.

My three-year ride by horse from Mongolia to Hungary was the most difficult, most revealing, and interesting of any of my travels. Travelling by horse, you're far more engaged and dependent on the land and other people than by any other means.

I think in our society we too often choose the people we associate with based on our own hasty judgments.

Although we had been led to believe our mission was suicidal, Russia's intrigue was irresistible. Almost twice the size of Australia, it spans 11 time zones from the Baltic to the Pacific.

In 1736, Bakhchisaray had been burned to the ground by the Russians, and when Catherine II's army completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1783, the last khan, Sahin Giray, took refuge in Turkey, where he was eventually executed.

Gradually, I came to know my horses intimately. You go through every mood they experience and come to view the world much like a horse.

Ultimately, it's a sense of camaraderie and friendship with local people that is core to my journeys.

What drew me to Kazakhstan was a curiosity to learn about life in this 'middle earth' of steppe between the endless forests of Russia in the north and the world's greatest mountain chains to the south.

Much of my journey in Kazakhstan was about understanding the legacy of the Soviet times and finding out what remained of nomadic.

In Kazakhstan, once you're someone's guest, it's really hard to get away - everyone wants you to stay. They believe that if you invite a guest, luck will fly into your house.

It's hard to find a place where you're out of earshot of some kind of noise.

I wanted to know what it would be like to get on a horse and ride all the way west to Europe and take a look back at my own culture through the eyes of a nomad.

Steve Fossett and I would share a common belief that it is possible and good to challenge yourself to the extreme.

A single camel can carry around 300 kilograms. Using camels for hauling during migration is becoming a rarity in Mongolia, where mechanized transport is gradually replacing traditional means.

The Khoton people are a small minority group of Mongolians renowned for living a traditional nomad life in the remote slopes and valleys of the Kharkhiraa-Turgen mountain range.

We can see every square metre of the planet on Google Earth. But there is no substitute for that sensory experience of going out into the world and discovering things for yourself.

For me, adventures are a vehicle for travelling deep into the fabric of society, coming to know the environmental conditions that shape people's lives and viewing the present in the context of history.