About

My best friend bought a motorcycle, and it was around that time Long Way Round was released. That was it. I saved up, bought a bike too, and we started doing small trips in and around Switzerland. The bikes got bigger over the years. The routes did not get much longer.

At the same time I was reading Ted Simon and Elspeth Beard, and following Two Wheels South and Tolga from RideMust. The idea of seeing Alaska and Patagonia kept getting stronger, and kept staying distant. Wishful thinking, mostly.

Then I got a not-so-gentle nudge and decided to go. Routes, paperwork, budgeting and long packing lists filled my evenings and weekends for months, until everything was as ready as it was going to get.

The bike and I flew to Buenos Aires from Zürich, the bike in a crate. From there the ride ran south to Ushuaia and the end of the road, then turned around and went north for as long as there was north left, finishing on the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk.

Two stretches the bike covered without me. The Darién Gap, because there is no road. And Nicaragua, shipped around by sea from Costa Rica to Puerto Cortés — followed by a couple of weeks in San Pedro Sula waiting on customs clearance. Both show as dashed lines on the map.

The bike

A 2017 Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin, with a handful of changes to get it ready for the trip.