I have recently obtained some decent quality sound recording of the presentation (the second one) in September 2010. So I decided to publish it online. Enjoy!
"Every year, hundreds of travelers are trotting the globe with their cars, motorcycles, bicycles and on feet. Overlanding has become an increasingly popular way of traveling and connecting with the world. Erdem Yücel presents his solo motorcycle circumnavigation and also explains what's significant about overlanding, how and why these people travel the way they do. It's a 45 minute trip around the world, full of interesting photographs, videos and surprising facts that can possibly change the way you look at traveling. " Read More
It's been 6 months, and I'm now back home. I missed you a lot. Simla and Emrah are inviting us all to celebrate my return this Saturday (tomorrow). I know it's a little late for this invitation but I'd be really happy if you can make it.
A sacrificial Mongolian goat will be served around a huge campfire, so dress accordingly.
Saturday 3rd at 3 PM.
10556 Clarkson Road 90064
Hope to see you there! Read More
Pacific Coast Highway... Simple as it is, this route was given the number "1" in the California highway numbering system. I suppose they had the map open on the table and started numbering the roads from left to right. It is one of the most spectacular roads in California. The heavy commercial traffic between San Francisco and Los Angeles is directed to Interstate 5, a more inland and flat road, so most of the people you see on California 1, are either locals, or there to enjoy the road. Tourists from all over the world come to California to do a coastal trip here. In a way, so did I...
We decided to do it in 3 days. It was already late in the afternoon when we left Humboldt County. The curvy mountain roads with hairpin turns made me realize how wary I had become after all. Many riders, including Bintuğ, ...Read More
I was very excited when Grant had asked me to make a presentation of my journey at the HU California meeting. I started working on it as soon as I arrived in San Francisco. I only had a few days.
Horizons Unlimited began as a small travel website Grant and Susan Johnson used on their travels around the world back when the Internet was a new thing. Soon they started getting so many e-mails with questions and comments, that they decided to make it into a database to share all the information they had related to motorcycle traveling. Currently, it is the ultimate resource for all the overland travelers with over 35.000 pages contributed by users all around the world. This valuable collection of information is shared not only through the website, but also with a series of DVD's and annual meetings in various locations.
On the second night, I had a ...Read More
I met a nice girl here in San Francisco. We checked into a hotel and I think we'll be staying for a few days. Read More
Sokcho surprised me. I was expecting a small fishing town dominated by a large port. What I saw was a clean-cut, modern city with banks, shopping malls, parking lots etc... I needed to pay a rather large amount of cash to the shipping company. One of the agents drove me to the nearby bank in his brand-new super-silent Hyundai. The large GPS screen displayed something that looked like a "Hello Kitty meets Sim City" version of a navigation software. There was an animated character who was constantly happy that we were driving to the bank. This was my introduction to the ridiculously happy anthropomorphic grotesque creatures dominating the S. Korean urban cultural landscape. Elevators, advertisements, warning and traffic signs, newspapers, t-shirts and everything else you can imagine features some species of these creatures. Even big and serious companies had to give up and create their own versions to survive in ...Read More
The Dong Chun itself is like a piece of the far eastern land. The ship and the crew is very Chinese. It operates between Zarubino, Russia and Sokco, South Korea. For me, it was a way of skipping North Korea as there is no way of riding a motorcycle as a foreigner in this weird country. The lights of the seaside towns was all I could see of it.
The voyage takes about 16 hours excluding the amazingly long waiting time as they load and unload cargo. It took about 7 hours to leave the port of Zarubino.
It's not cheap. Customs fees on both ends, freight, passenger ticket, insurance, document preparation, import tax and even something called stamp fee, totals up to nearly 700 dollars. That is with the economy class, where you sleep on the floor...
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I met three young Russian guys who seemed to think that vodka ...Read More