Friends from the Road
Across continents, cultures and languages, we kept discovering the same thing: people are generous.
People often ask us about the landscapes, the wildlife, the roads and the challenges of riding across continents. What they ask less often is about the people.
Yet when I think back on our journey, it is the faces that come to mind first.
Along the way, complete strangers offered directions, shared meals, invited us into their homes, introduced us to their families, and transformed brief encounters into lasting friendships. Some we met by chance at fuel stations or campsites. Others we had first connected with years earlier through social media and finally met in person on the other side of the world.
On a motorbike, there's no sealed cabin. No buffer. Your body becomes a barometer and you become part of the environment whether you like it or not.
And you are visible to others in a way people in cars rarely are.
People would watch us arrive. They'd watch us pull off our helmets. Before they 'read' us, they read the bikes; our panniers scuffed from distance, stickers depicting flags of countries they may only know from maps or dreams.
Almost everywhere we went, that visibility invited conversation.
People stopped to talk. They asked where we were from, where we were heading, how long we'd been on the road. At fuel stations, on ferry decks, in roadside cafés and village squares, conversations started easily.
Excerpt from : The Accidental Motorcyclist, 2026
