This is the long version of the journey: how in January 2011 I quit everything and ended up cycling around the world. You can follow the whole route on the round-the-world map.
We never raced around the world, looked for the shortest route or took shortcuts. We zig-zagged, stopped wherever a place had something to give, and worked along the way. That's why the trip took years: we lived on the road, much of it on a bicycle, for half a decade.
We didn't just want to pedal from one place to the next, but to explore, discover and really get to know the countries and people we crossed.
A new birth
In January 2011 I started to travel. The idea was a few short trips that year; the plan failed. I started in Athens, walking into a hostel on my own for the first time. There I ran into a handful of seasoned travellers: Olga, a Russian beauty, showed me photos from her trips across more than 50 countries while Michael told me how he'd reached Athens by train and bus through the Balkans.
The travel bug caught me and I couldn't stop. What began as a getaway turned into one continuous journey, backpacking across Europe.
In Prague I crossed paths with Iker, a Basque hitchhiking from Barcelona to Moscow. He opened my eyes and pushed me to take another step, leaving my fears behind. In under two months I'd gone from catching Ryanair flights to moving with my thumb, hitchhiking.
"I hitchhiked more than 20,000 km and set foot in 25 countries with my thumb up."
Thousands of kilometres with no real plans, no maps and no bookings. Loving the uncertainty, the "what happens next"; that thrill of the unknown still moves me. Reaching a new country, with a new currency and a new language, made me feel alive.
Ilze
The road led me to Riga, where I met Ilze, who would become my companion for much of the journey.
My selfless suggestion that she join me on her holidays —visiting Ukraine together, her translating from Russian— paid off a month later. As soon as her holidays ended she handed in her resignation, and we carried on together through Europe and Morocco, until at the end of 2011 we flew to Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia
We travelled across Southeast Asia for six months. We tried to live like the locals: eating where they ate, getting around on local transport. We took songthaews and tuk-tuks, rode motorbikes, cycled, walked.
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam changed the way we saw life. The way we travelled kept evolving and, at a certain point, cycling felt like the natural next step.
England
From June 2012 we stopped in England. Since Ilze didn't speak Spanish and I didn't speak Latvian, we needed neutral ground to work, save and prepare the bike expedition. Before setting off east we put ourselves to the test with a loop around the centre of the country: 13 days winter cycling around central England, good training against the cold, the rain, the snow and the hail.
Around the world by bicycle
On 8 January 2014 we left London pedalling east, with no return ticket. Almost five years, 47,000 km and 30 countries by bicycle later, I finished the trip on 21 December 2018.
That bet to drop everything turned out to be the best decision of my life. I never went back to the old one: I built a life my own way, free, and I'm still living it on my own terms. Because fear does not prevent death — it prevents life.
It's all told in the blog, and a lot more. If you'd like to reach me, the easiest way is the contact form.