115 days, 8200km and 11 countries later - Part 1 - Why?

Hello boy and girls!

I promised you some post trip analysis and now that I found some time to breath I grab the chance to write a few lines cause I am not sure when it's gonna be the next one and I have lots to talk about. So, grab your coffee, whiskey or any of your favourite drinks and join me!

My trips have gather diverse reactions from other people over the years and though most as you may expect varied from excitement to envy, the cases of "why on a motorcycle?" were not that rare. My last trip which happened to be my longest one (stats on the title) caused even more whys.

Focusing on the "why?" of the whole thing reminds me of the time I interviewed Sherri Jo Wilkins who back then was in the middle of a 3 year round the world trip, solo on her motorcycle. Obviously, I never did anything close to that magnitude but I do recall the "just because I can" moto of hers as you can read in that tiny "interview" I managed some good 12 years ago (time flies!).

So I'm into extensive motorcycle travelling "just because I can"?

Not quite. I mean, obviously, I can, otherwise I wouldn't, but there's so many other things I also can and not do. What personally puts me into this is the combination of my love for two wheels and my favourite hobby which is observing the planet (at least the parts of our globe that I'm interested in).

I don't hunt any records, even personal ones, though on this one I did 3 countries in 1 day 4 times. I'm not into the "been there done that" Insta hysteria (no better proof of that than my own Insta). I don't collect credits for the global motorcycle travelling community (I don't even belong to any club). I don't feel obliged to do it in order to comply with the kind of person I am or feel that I have to prove/show off some short of image (well, OK, who admits that anyway 😂).

Frankly, the core of my motivation is the thrill of riding a loaded motorcycle while filling my eyes with (preferably) new views and smelling the villages and towns I pass by till I reach my next destination. There, my favourite hobby of observing goes on full scale focusing on the daily/casual side of things and not the fancy/touristic stuff. I'm more curious about what kind of people are the locals and how they normally behave rather than queuing for an attraction. Not that the latter are necessarily bad, usually it's quite the opposite, but even of I go for example at the leaning tower of Pisa you won't find any images of me "pushing" the tower cause I won't take any.

Due to this "perverted" curiosity of mine, during my trips over all these years I have been in some sort of parallel mission on collecting the best bits from all these places that combined would make an ideal living. Fascinating? Totally and this trip was diverse if nothing else experiencing the poor Serbian South all the way up to the expensive ultra developed Dutch South. But at the same time depressing considering that this habit has the side effect of highlighting all these things we do wrong just because we don't copy the right ones. Yep, in 2023 we still struggle to do that even though there's no secrets anymore.

"Can't you do that in a car?"

Sure, especially since I have one collecting dust while I travel abroad and requires a good amount of money for its annual registration + insurance. However, you can't smell the places when you're in a car, you get less chances to stop than on a bike, you queue more etc. Long story short:

In a car you watch the movie. On a bike you play in the movie.

And yes, of course it's also cheaper on a bike, especially with the current fuel prices. But that's not the most important for me and it's not always the case for everyone. There's bikes consuming the same amount of fuel as an average car (if not more but not mine) and bikers can spent a ridiculous amount of money on their gear (I'll cover that on another post).

Please feel free to add your whys, comments, or questions, I'll gladly answer on first chance. Cheers!