British born Steve Henley now lives in New Zealand with his wife Alana and their two daughters. He has been a motorbike fan since he got his first Honda XL 100 at the tender age of fifteen.

The passion for long-distance travelling on two wheels has always been there for Steve, but it seemed as though ordinary life kept on diverting his attention. Steve left school at 16 to become an apprentice electrician. As an electrician he worked hard to create his own electrical company. When he had built himself a fully functioning career, complete with financial stability, he became a proud father of two. It was only in 2012, when all aspects of his life seemed to be properly rooted and stable, that he began to plan his solo round-the-world trip on a red Triumph Tiger 800 XC he named Winston. Even though he makes it sound easy, the preparations took him 18 months.
 

“Now that I was approaching my 50’s,” recounts Steve, “with a stable career and two beautiful girls finally grown up, I thought that this was the perfect time to do the trip! If I'd left it until my 60’s, I might have found it harder to head off on a journey like this. I knew the places I wanted to go and the sights I wanted to see, so I put the dots on the map and connected them. I then calculated how many kilometres this equated to. I then calculated the costs and how I would afford the expense, then jumped into the tedious world of visa applications, logistics planning bike maintenance and all the other things I would need to do along the way. On the road you don't always have internet, and bike transportation over water and long distances isn’t that easy. For those reasons I wanted to plan as much as possible in advance.”
 

In September 2014 he finally flew from Auckland to Melbourne, Australia, picked up his motorcycle and rode off into the Aboriginal sunset. He was on the road for a completely self-funded seventeen months. Check out his route below.

He rode through 29 countries, all filled by different cultures and amazing landscapes, and he finished his journey with the certainty that “the people with the least are the ones that have the most”.

“The happiest people I’ve met didn’t have much,” he says. “No material things at all. Their biggest treasure was their community. Maybe living in community is the secret for a better life, better human beings and a better world.”

“A better world!” Steve was definitely surprised by the world he lives in. We know the media are far away from being an honest source of information, but are we aware of the repercussions it might have on our lives? Thanks to his trip, Steve now knows that before he set off his perception of the world was misshapen and distorted.

“Before I left I had this idea of the world being full of bad people doing bad things. This was because of what I was watching on the news every day. Actually, based on my experience now, I would say that 99.99% of the world's populations are good and helpful. I was humbled by the total generosity of strangers on so many occasions.

From the places he has visited, highlights include the beautiful scenery of Peru with its cloudy forests and glacial lagoons, the astonishing diversity of Mexico where you can travel from dry deserts to sandy beaches to imposing canyons, the volcanic beauty of Indonesia, and the totally intact culture of Burma.

As for the fellow human beings who impressed him the most, he chooses the people of Pakistan. “They are the friendliest people in the world,” he says. A sudden encounter with a man  stepping out from behind a tree suspiciously looking like the Teleban aiming an AK-47 towards him nearly changed his mind on this point.

But it wasn't all roses, butterflies and verandah tea-drinking. Steve also had some struggles on the way. Some very difficult border crossings, incredibly chaotic traffic jams in Iran and India, and the huge language barrier he faced not just in Mexico, but throughout Central and South America.
 

“Not being able to communicate with the local people in these countries was the single most frustrating part of my entire journey,” says Steve. “I wish I had studied Spanish before heading out. Then I could have had a meaningful conversation, interacted with their culture and learned more about them and theirl way of life! I absolutely advise anyone who is planning to long-distance travel to learn the major local languages. Looking back, this is the only thing I would have done differently.”

His trip was fully self-funded and to manage the costs and enjoy nature, Steve camped five to six of the seventeen months. “Hotels in Asia can be very cheap, but if you go to Western Europe or North America it’s another story.” Don't we know it!

“When I look at the statistics of the trip, I’ve visited 29 countries, ridden 94,400km, taken 14 flights, camped for five to six months, lost 18kg in weight, gone through nine pairs of sunglasses, three sets of chain and sprockets, two chain guards, one front mud guard, five front tyres, four front tyre inner tubes, six rear tyres and one rear inner tube.” Pretty impressive, then!

Steve tries to encourage others to travel through his website steveridestheworld.com where he has documented his whole trip through daily snippets, stories, and beautiful pictures. Now back at home, he faces a challenging routine: going to work every day with almost no freedom to control his personal agenda is pushing his thoughts towards the next adventure. As Steve says, “It is tough to be on the road, but it's always exciting!”
 

To know more about Steve, go to:

www.steveridestheworld.com

www.facebook.com/Steve-Rides-The-World