My motorcyc
Esa relives at-times terrifying journey through Europe and Asia then on to New Zealand
For most people planning a motorbike tour across the world, being able to ride one might be an essential skill.
When Esa Aldegheri decided she wanted to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip from her Orkney home through Europe to New Zealand, never having ridden one didn’t put her off.
The multilingual Italian- Scot bought herself a powerful f iery red- coloured motorcycle, which she named Mondialita, enrolled in a beginners’ class and joined a bike maintenance course.
She then set off on an 18-month-long trip across the world with her husband, who had also never ridden a motorbike.
Their incredible journey saw them cross more than 20 borders and travel between Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan, China and India.
Esa kept a diary, which she rediscovered during the height of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
The mum of three, who now lives in Edinburgh, decided there was no better time to turn her diary into a travel book to inspire others to build their own adventures when travel restrictions ended.
Her book, Free To Go: Across The World On A Motorbike, which is published by JM Originals, has just been released.
It tells the story from when they left Scotland in December 2006 to May 2008 when they finished their travels in New Zealand.
Both Esa and her husband – who she refers to only as GC or Glad Companion in the book – each took turns to drive the bike or ride as a pillion passenger.
Esa, 43, now a research associate at Glasgow University, said: “There was something about the pandemic, about not being free to go anywhere, that made me think a lot about our trip.
“We crossed borders then that are not crossable now – in countries like Syria and parts of Pakistan, as well as all the places that then closed for fear of virus contagion.
“We’d started planning the trip not long after we were married after finding we had a restlessness in us.
“We decided to quit our jobs and spend our savings on a journey over land to the opposite side of the planet.
“Neither of us could ride a motorbike. We didn’t own one and, had we owned one and been able to ride one, we had not the slightest idea how to f ix anything that might go wrong with it. But these were minor, insignificant and temporary details.
“The journey became an exploration of borders, freedoms and, for me, womanhood – navigating a world where many assume that women ride pillion, both on a motorbike and within relationships.”
Here, Esa shares extracts from herherjourney.journey.