100,000 miles of solitude
In 2002 Maarten set off on his motorbike around the world. For more than three years he traveled from Europe through Asia to Australia, and from South America to Alaska. 100,000 miles of culture, adventure and most of all butt-pain.
Remember, this was 2002. A GPS only showed your coordinates, not a route map. Maps were pieces of paper of one square meter. Mobile phones were for businessmen, not for travelers. And the internet needed a 14.4K dial-up modem.
Well aware of his own ‘unsophisticated’ view on the world, Maarten tells his tales the way he experienced them himself. He is no hero, not even a real adventurer. As he says himself: “he is just stupid and naive”, and that combination leads him into, through and out of many unusual situations.
Tales from the road
Sometimes dramatic, sometimes hilarious, but always different
338 photos
The world, one stop at a time
Pam, the Honda Africa Twin
Shaped after my ass instead of the other way round
The largest distance in one day, in Alaska, where the days last for ever.
The shortest, when I changed hotels in Quetta, Pakistan.
The cheapest liter of gasoline, in euro-cents, in Venezuela. The most expensive was 1.10 euro in the Netherlands.
The book
285 pages of adventure, culture and most of all, butt-pain
It took 3 years to ride around the world. That was the easy part. Then it took 2 years to write, rewrite, delete, recover, select and shape-up a collection of stories about it.