Jan

My name is Jan, and I am a former geologist from Krakow. For twenty years I read the history of the Earth through layers of rock, swung a hammer in the Tatra and Carpathian mountains, and wrote reports about what lies underground. Then one day I realized I had no idea what lay beyond the horizon. In 2011 I bought an old BMW R80, packed the bare minimum into my panniers, and rode out of Krakow heading east. Just to have a look. Just for a month.

That month has never ended. 61 countries are behind me now. I crossed Mongolia on dirt tracks where there is not a single person for a hundred kilometers. I slept in a yurt with a herdsman who offered me kumiss and showed me stars the way you cannot see them anywhere else. I got stuck in the mud in northern Laos and waited three hours until a passing truck pulled me out of the rut. This is not Instagram romance. This is just the road.

My geology background has come in handy. I look at landscapes differently from most travelers. The red cliffs of Wadi Rum in Jordan are not just a pretty photo to me - they are Nubian sandstone 500 million years old. The salt flats of Bolivia are a dried-up prehistoric sea. The motorcycle gives me speed, geology gives me depth. Together they shape the routes I put together for this site.

I write honestly here. About roads that destroy your tires in 200 kilometers. About visas refused without explanation. About cafes on the outskirts of towns where the food is better than anything in a guidebook. I am 56 years old, my knees are shot from mountain expeditions, and every spring I start the engine anyway. Age is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to go somewhere you never got around to before.

If you are planning a route through Central Asia, the Balkans, or the Middle East - write to me. I will give you straight answers: which road is passable in May, where to find fuel in northern Iran, what a night's accommodation in Georgia outside Tbilisi actually costs. No flowery language. Only what I have checked myself - on two wheels, with my own hands.