The films of
Alby Mangels

What it means to be Adventure Bound

In 1980, and actually much earlier, an Australian bricklayer named Alby Mangels walked away from his job and into a life of adventure. Every weeknight the Travel Channel brings you the true story of one man's quest to see the world. Break away with wild man Alby Mangels from deep inside the Amazon jungle to the Ivory Coast to the Gobi desert, and find out what it means to be Adventure Bound.The Travel Channel

Without exaggeration, Adventure Bound is one of the best travel documentary series ever made, and I must admit that while surfing channels I am glued to my television every time I stumble upon Alby Mangels' adventures. If you have not yet discovered this interesting and educational series, I will do my best to make you want to turn on your set and find out what it really means to be Adventure Bound.

When I first started watching Adventure Bound I thought to myself, what I would give to have the money to travel around the world for a living. The episodes feature Alby driving different trucks on different continents, sailing different boats across different oceans, and flying choppers and light planes into remote corners of the world. This guy, I assumed, must have had either major money or powerful connections to pull it off. I was wrong, and I came to admire this extraordinary man, whose eternal energy and determination is a guiding light to us all.

Alby Mangels was born in Holland in 1948. When he was eight his family moved to Australia, and a short time later his parents split up, so Alby was brought up by his mother in a shack on the banks of the Murray River in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Murray Bridge, though, was not enough to satisfy Alby. Neither was Australia. For Alby Mangels, the whole world was not enough.

On the tenth of March 1971, Alby and his friend John Fields left Adelaide and travelled north to their first job, building homes for local Aboriginal communities. That was the beginning of World Safari I, an adventure that would carry Alby through 56 countries and 6 continents over 6 years, on a starting capital of just $400 and a single camera. He worked, saved his money, and then spent everything on travel. In Tokyo he stayed with Zen Buddhist monks and rose at four every morning to wash and scrub the floors. From Tokyo the journey took him to Thailand by hitched boat ride, across to India, and then on to Africa. In Kenya he and John bought a two-cylinder Daf for $200 that would cover 30,000 miles of African terrain over three years. To earn enough to keep going, the pair sold life insurance on the side of the road in South Africa, and in his first eleven weeks Alby wrote more business than anyone in the entire 140 year history of the company.

Travel hasn't satisfied an appetite. It has created one.Alby Mangels

World Safari II and World Safari III followed, taking Alby all over the world once again, and the world is not a perfect place. Alby and his companion Judy are caught in a car accident in South Africa. He crashes his helicopter on his Yorke Peninsula farm. His boat, the Gretta Marie, burns and sinks, critically injuring a young crewman who dies a short time later. His loyal dog Sam is shot dead by strangers. Adventure Bound is full of human drama as well as wonder.

Travelling along the Suriname river, Alby searches for a lost tribe still untouched by modern civilization. In Papua New Guinea he visits the smoked people, the preserved remains of tribesmen hung high on the side of a mountain. On a South American leg he and Judy meet schools of piranhas, electric eels and crocodile-infested waters. In Namibia he and his companion Michelle make their way into a civil war zone. Four-wheeling across Australia, sailing to South Africa, searching for bushmen in the Kalahari, facing gorillas in the forests of Rwanda, and so many other stories are all part of Adventure Bound.

Have you ever had a dream to just pack up and go, to see the world? Well, I did it. For 25 years I travelled from my home in Australia to Africa and to the Amazon rainforest. I dodged terrorists in Peru and tagged rhinos in South Africa. This is the story of that amazing journey, a quarter of a century in the making, of the places I went and the people I met. Join me now for Adventure Bound.Alby Mangels

As I write these words I am genuinely excited to recommend this program to anyone with a passion for travel. Alby Mangels has seen this world like almost no one else. What a life.

Watch it, experience it, live it.