Ash Dykes is back in London in one piece, after a tumultuous 18-day expedition in the Congo River Basin. He still needs a shower and a shave, though that didn't stop him from doing interviews almost straight off the plane.
"There's a world in which we didn't all make it back," Dykes tells USA TODAY. "We're not on this safari with a cage around us. It was very real. We were in the true wild, and if anything went wrong, evacuation could be anywhere from 24 to 48 hours away if we're lucky."
The extreme adventurer, 35, just finished his 400-plus-mile journey through what he describes as one of the "deadliest jungles on Earth," where he encountered elephants, silverback gorillas, the Democratic Republic of Congo's military and native villagers who
helped him along the way.
This is the first part of his "Project 6" mission, in which he plans to undertake six back-to-back extreme expeditions around the world, and he hinted that the next odyssey will be much colder. His travels have helped him gain a sizeable online audience, but his voyage on the Congo River Basin took his reach to new heights.
Just last month, he says, he had under a million followers, and now he's got over eight million followers across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. The teaser videos in the week leading up to his expedition accumulated over 100 million views. He's proving there's a fandom online for these kinds of exploration videos.
The British explorer is no stranger to these strenuous voyages across different countries. Over the last few years, he's broken multiple world records on channels like the BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic, but many of his British fans couldn't view the documentaries on these channels. "It just made sense to take a step away from TV and get everything out on socials for short form and the long form on YouTube," he explains.
Dykes goes on to say, "It was a bit of a gamble; I chose to bet on myself, and it's really paid off."
As social media users followed along on TikTok and Instagram, many wondered whether he was scared for his life while floating down the river, especially given the threat of hippos and crocodiles. "I think if there was a 5% chance that I wouldn't make it, I just wouldn't do it," he says. "I needed to make sure that I 100% knew everything that could happen, and make sure that I am able to mitigate all of those risks. And the one main way of doing that was through the locals who live there."
He knows his fans wanted him to see hippos, but he's glad he didn't. "The locals made me scared because you go out there with the mentality of 'If we see hippos we'll just like get out the boats and hike around them, and same with the crocs,' but they tell you differently," Dykes explains. "[The locals] say 'If you see hippos, it's already too late.' If they go after you, they've got you. You can't outrun them in an inflatable kayak."
There's a lot that he's learned from this expedition that he plans to take with him on the next journey, which he says will be announced within the week. He'll be bringing more power so that he doesn't lose connection for 16 hours again; working out a system for his videographer and editor, Will, to be pulled out from the expedition and taken to the nearest town and then dropped off with them, because filming and editing is a demanding job; and finding new ways to make the journey engaging and interactive.
He's tight-lipped about where the next adventure will take place, but he said that his mode of transportation will be different. "It's not by foot, and it's not by kayak," he says. The method is new to him – he will be learning as he goes.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Extreme explorer Ash Dykes explains how he completed his recent dangerous journey
