Who is Pablo?

I'm a maño — from Zaragoza, in northeast Spain — born in 1987.

In January 2011, everything changed. I quit my job, emptied my flat, and left to travel. It wasn't a gap year or a breakdown; it was a decision. I looked at the path I was supposed to follow — career, mortgage, retirement in forty years — and decided to build my own instead.

I started with a backpack, hitchhiking and sleeping in strangers' homes through Couchsurfing. Six months in, I met Ilze, a Latvian who became my companion for much of the journey.

On 8 January 2014 we set off to cycle around the world, with no return ticket. Five years, 47,000 km, and 30 countries by bicycle later, I finished the trip in December 2019.

Everyone wondered what I'd do "afterwards" — no career, no pension, no safety net. But I was never chasing security; I was chasing freedom. So I bet on it and built my whole life around it, on my own terms. It's the best decision I've ever made.

Today I live exactly how I want. I spend my time on what matters to me — sport, cooking well, learning whatever sparks my curiosity — and I choose what to do with every day, asking no one's permission. That crazy bet to drop everything and ride turned out to be the best pension plan in the world: a free life, now and for good.

Because fear does not prevent death — it prevents life.

You can read the full travel biography here, reach me through the contact form, or see my photos.