Allen’s first forays were during his childhood, when he would embark on fossil-hunting expeditions in Lyme Regis. His main inspiration has been his father, a test pilot who brought back exotic presents and so passing onto his son the sense that there was still an exciting world out there waiting to be explored. Amongst explorers, his heroes are Laurens van der Post and naturalist Peter Matthiessen. To him, "the greatest explorers are people like this who just listen and learn, and don't impose."
To me exploration isn't about conquering natural obstacles, planting flags...It's not about going where no one's gone before in order to leave your mark, but about the opposite of that...about making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself up to whatever's there and letting the place leave its mark on you.
Allen was educated at Bradfield College, and read Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia. He joined three scientific expeditions during his last year and gained full marks for his thesis. The first of these expeditions (to a volcano in Costa Rica) was to be the catalyst for his wanderlust; by the end of the third, he recognised the local people to be "the real experts". It was at this point that he decided not to participate in any further scientific expeditions and to travel alone, learning from the locals. He went onto the University of Aberdeen to read Ecology, but was distracted and flunked the final exam, instead concentrating his efforts on planning his first independent expedition. To realise these plans, he worked in a book warehouse to fund his journey from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Amazon. He exploited his perceived harmlessness, immersing himself amongst the local "tribal" people, to whom these so-called hostile environs provided both a home and food source. They lived with, not pitted against, their jungle habitat.
This paved the way for further "immersion" into remote communities and natural environments for prolonged periods, forging and consolidating his career as an explorer of both the known and mostly-unknown world.
We are all explorers...it's part of what makes us human. You don't need to be a professional, like me, hacking through a jungle or listening to the tales of a remote tribe. We all explore, whether working as dealers in the Stock Exchange, or hunting as nomads in the heart of Borneo. And whether we gather what we discover into books, computer files or just memories, these are perhaps our most precious resource. These are our archives; our past and our future. As valuable as any fossil fuel or mineral, they help us mark where we are in space and time.