Where I've driven
Map shows all of my motorbike trips, by now 12 years and around 500.000km:
(Before anyone mentions it.. around two-thirds of that distance was confined to the Netherlands! Plus at least 20k in Africa and the Middle East, and around 5k in SE Asia)
Scroll for local details!
- Year-round commute and short trips throughout the Netherlands.
- Yearly multi-week trips into the Alps or Pyrenees.
- Dozens of days and weekend in the Ardennes, Eifel, and the Sauerland.
- Fall 2015: Four-month trip to Morocco and down into Africa.
- Summer 2018: 3 weeks' trip through Spain, Portugal, and France.
- Fall 2022: Four-month trip around Italy and the Middle East.
- Summer 2023: 2 weeks across France, Ireland, and Scotland with the gf as +1
- Summer 2024: 2 weeks riding with the gf, across the Alps and Northern Italy (mere days after she got get license!).
- Summer 2025: 5 week trip with the gf through the Balkans down to Crete, then back up through Italy and the Alps.
- Spring 2026: 10-day trip with the gf to Lands' End through southern and southwestern England.
(The single near-vertical line through France was a one-day return trip from the Pyrenees, 1450km in 16 hours and stifling heat. Not doing that again any time soon, I got completely dehydrated and couldn't walk straight for three days.)
Bikes involved:
- Honda CB650 Nighthawk - 15k km (my first bike, sold it after a year).
- Honda Transalp XL600V (black/red), about 25k in six months (sold it in Africa).
- Transalp number 2 (green), about 60k in three years; scrapped it after someone ran into it.
- Transalp number 3 (blue), about 75k in three years; passed it on to my dad who gave it away to a friend a few years later.
- Triumph Tiger 800 XCA - going on six years, 255k so far.
- Triumph Speed Triple RS - four years, 30k so far.
- KTM SMT890, newest addition since spring 2025, 25k so far.
(I currently still own the Tiger, the Speed Triple, and the SMT)
Favourites in no particular order:
- Pyrenees around Laguarta and Castejón de Sos are wild and desolate
- Northern Provence has numerous amazing roads like the D94 from Serres to Nyon, and of course the Mont Ventoux
- Corsica is stunning!
- Central Calabria is eerily quiet but gorgeous and cheap
- I keep coming back to Graubünden and the Swiss mountain passes, including the Stelvio and my favorites, the Splügen and Albula
- The Irish and Scottish coast are an absolute pleasure to ride, same with Devon/Cornwall in the south
- Crete, and the Arcadia in the Central Peloponnese are fabulous
- The Amalfi coast just south of Naples is small, but absolutely spectacular
Places I still need to go to still / need to go again, but longer:
- North Cape and the Baltic states
- Portugal and Spain all-over
- Eastern Sardinia and Sicily
- The Turkish West and Northern coasts
- Current plans for this year is a solo 12-days to the Alps in June, and a 3-week trip with the gf through southern France, Pyrenees, and the western Alps in August
Favorite pictures:
- Edge of the Sahara
- Coffee break
- Off-road
- Speedy boi
- Wadi Rum
- Couple goals on the Stelvio (also on video, hah)
Favorite moments:
- Taking a leak on the side of the road in Southern Bosnia and a clumsy little bear cub casually sauntered by. Very quietly signalled my gf that we had to go, stat, cause I didn't want to meet his mom lmao
- On a Ferry in Cornwall somewhere, very old guy looks over my gf's brand new XSR900 with the luggage etc, nods approvingly and goes: "That's a serious piece of kit!"