There is a version of logistics that is planned from a desk, months in advance, with full visibility of the route and the risks. Then there is the version a lot of our work actually resembles: the call that comes in when the expedition is already moving, the clock is running, and the next border crossing is days rather than months away.
When I was first asked to support Mitch Hutchcraft's Project Limitless, he had already swum the English Channel and covered most of Europe running a marathon every single day. Mitch is a former Royal Marine Commando, and his expedition was raising funds for SAVSIM — a remarkable organisation that uses wildlife conservation and animal-assisted therapy to support veteran mental health.
His book, Limitless, published this week by HarperCollins, tells the full story. What I can tell you is the part that doesn't always make it into books: the logistics that kept the expedition moving when the route ahead wasn't yet defined.
Project Limitless was nearly in Turkey - a moving target, a rapidly narrowing window, and a set of route decisions that needed to be made correctly the first time.
That is, in my experience, entirely normal. The organisations and individuals who do this kind of thing — real endurance expeditions in complex environments — do not always have the luxury of linear planning. They adapt. They make decisions at pace. They are usually small teams or solo individuals and by the very nature of what they do are not the type of folks that love to sit and plan for years — they are the doers.
And that's why Forte Travel Management exists — to provide some of the operational infrastructure that allows them to do what they do without the wheels coming off.
The Route Decisions That Mattered
Now running east with Turkey on the very close horizon, the focus shifted quickly to what came after. His original plan of traversing the 'northern route' — basically the original '60s Hippie Trail or The Overland — including Iran and Afghanistan was starting to look impassable. I made the case against Afghanistan. I want to be straightforward about that, because there is sometimes a tendency in this industry to present every destination as manageable with the right preparation. Not every destination is. The risk calculus for Afghanistan, given the specific nature of Mitch, his history and his expedition with the support infrastructure available, did not stack up. The route had to go elsewhere.
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and a boat crossing to Turkmenistan had looked like a strong contender — until the permanently closed land borders from Georgia ruled it out, and the very long land route through Russia and around the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan added thousands of kilometres and a different, yet equal set of security issues.
Not only were the route explorations centred around safety — but Mitch only had a small window in which to climb the pinnacle of his challenge. The Everest climbing window is strict and unforgiving. Every day lost to a longer route was a day less on the mountain.
Hours of zoom calls, days of scrutinising maps and borders researched by colleagues on the ground culminated in the only viable option for the team — Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and start looking at passage options across the shipping routes of the Gulf of Oman.
It was at the Zakho border crossing from Turkey into Iraq that my involvement became something more than route planning.
Kurdistan: The Gap Between the News and the Reality
Also travelling with Mitch on some of his legs was Blue Door director Molly, who alongside Cameraman Stan was capturing every single stroke, footstep and wheel revolution Mitch made. She is, by any measure, an excellent expedition companion: open-minded, genuinely warm, savvy in the way that matters — streetwise and situationally aware with a quiet inner confidence. She is exactly the kind of traveller you want alongside you.
She had, however, deep reservations about Kurdistan before she arrived. Not because of anything she had experienced, but because of everything she had seen. Kurdistan, like so many places in that part of the world, suffers enormously from the impact of the news filter. What reaches most people in the West is conflict, displacement, and instability. The context — the culture, the hospitality, the extraordinary warmth of the people — rarely makes the evening news.
We flew to Erbil together, ready to drive up to Dohuk to meet Mitch and Stan once they were through the border. A day after landing, she told me it was the friendliest, most welcoming place she had ever been to. That is not a polished quote from a brochure. That is what she said. By the end of the trip, she was, in her own words, an absolute fan. She fell in love with the people and the place in the way that only happens when reality bears no resemblance whatsoever to expectation.
I mention this not as a travel recommendation, although it truly functions as one, but because it speaks to something that sits at the heart of what good logistics and risk assessment should do. It should be honest. It should distinguish between genuine risk and reputation. Kurdistan carries risk, as do many places worth visiting.
Erbil, Kurdistan — beneath the citadel, daily life.
© Forte Travel Management
What Happens at the Border
No expedition in this part of the world moves without border complications of some type. Detention at a crossing is not a failure of planning; it is a predictable feature of the environment that good planning accounts for in advance. Who holds the documentation, what the escalation chain looks like, which contacts can apply pressure from which direction, how long to wait before activating the next layer of response — these are the questions that need answers before the crossing, not during it. And one practical rule that never changes: only be near a border crossing if you absolutely have to be. Some of the onward borders for Mitch and Stan were jovial and quick — others much less so, but with some personal in-country relationships in play they were certainly quicker than they would have been.
A Word About Cameraman Stan
Something should be said here about someone who rarely receives a formal acknowledgement.
Stan was Mitch's videographer on the expedition. That is his job title. In practice, it describes perhaps a quarter of what he actually does. Every day, Stan was the one making the bookings, sourcing accommodation, tracking down a fixer, solving the food and water problem, managing the kit, and ensuring that Mitch focussed on the physical task in front of him rather than the hundred operational details running in parallel behind him. He is the person who holds everything together when the plan changes — which in environments like this, it invariably does on a very regular basis.
He has also, on a previous expedition across Africa, been held at gunpoint. He handled it. That tells you what you need to know about his composure under pressure.
I mention Stan not as a footnote to the expedition but because this kind of work — the unseen, unglamorous, relentless on-the-ground operational management — is what actually keeps an expedition moving and its lead person safe. It is also, as it happens, precisely what Forte Travel Management exists to provide at the broader logistics level. Stan does it instinctively, across every domain, and does it at an age when most people are still working out what they want to do next weekend. He describes himself as a nerd who somehow ended up filming some of the most extreme adventures on the planet. The world is considerably better for the mislabelling.
What This Work Is - Really
Working on an expedition like Mitch's is why Forte Travel Management exists in the form that it does. We are not a booking service. We are not a travel agency with a tolerance for difficult destinations. We are a field logistics function built for environments where things do not go to plan, where the margin for error is real, and where the people on the ground need to know that the infrastructure behind them has been thought through by someone who has actually been in comparable situations.
Being called in mid-expedition, with a runner already covering ground and a route still being defined ahead of him, is a situation that requires a particular kind of operational confidence. Not bravado. Confidence: the kind that comes from having researched the Caspian cargo shipping options at pace, made a clear route recommendation, planned a border crossing in a region with an active detention risk, and done all of it against a moving deadline.
The expedition kept moving. Mitch summited Everest. That is what good logistics is supposed to achieve.
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