Travelreports Worldtrip 2000-2003

Trip of Martin

Exploring the world by motorbike

For a very long time I (Martin) already had a wish to make a worldtrip on my motorbike. After much deliberation and reading travelreports I finally decided to start the trip and to quit my job per 01-04-2000 and to leave as quickly as possible heading east.
A year before I had already bought a new BMW R1100GS and modified and prepared this bike for this trip. Furthermore I spend a summer holiday in Scotland to get to know my bike better and to fine-tune the equipment.
On Sunday 14-05-2000 I left Enschede, although it wasn't a joyfull departure as the day before a huge stock of fireworks exploded in the city centre. I didn't have any fixed planning (expect my passage through the Ukraine, Russia and Georgia as I had to arrange these visa) and I would end the trip if I ran out of funds or if I had enough. I enjoyed it very much and as the passing countries were much cheaper as expected I could continu my trip much longer as expected.

The route Martin took on his motorbike solo

Trip of Martin & Jeannette

Exploring the world per motorbike is much nicer together

During my travelling I met Jeannette in The Netherlands and after we travelled together for some weeks twice in India/Sri Lanka and in Nepal we decided to continu together permanent from Thailand (03-10-2001) onwards. First together on one motorbike but after a couple of months Jeannette decided to ship her motorbike to Thailand so we continued on two motorbikes since.
This way we explored the far east further an finally ended up in New Zealand and Autralia as our final destinations.
On 14-10-2003 we finally arrived back in The Netherlands. After more than 3½ travelled over the world we thought it was enough (for the time being).
Although we had our share of difficult moments we had mainly nice moments. We can recommend to make a similar trip to anyone. Your whole life you will cerish the nice experiences you had on this trip!!!

The route we took on our motorbikes together