Free Ride

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A01=Noraly Schoenmaker
Author_Noraly Schoenmaker
Category=DNBP1
Category=DNC
Category=WGCK
Category=WTHY
Category=WTL
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itchy boots travel writing travelogue guide asia
motorbike grand tour top gear clarkson hammond may
motorcycle relationship healing broken heart
myanmar thailand malaysia pacific india iran
road trip solo travel adventure netherlands renewal
royal enfield himalayan BS4 basanti
women travel youtube thirties self discovery

Product details

  • ISBN 9781835982747
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 21 May 2026
  • Publisher: Canelo
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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The Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller


By the YouTube sensation with more than three million followers, the inspiring account of a woman in her thirties who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride and along the way found a new sense of purpose.

Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirty-something geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. Suddenly without a place to stay, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India in search of a new beginning. Her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads.

She first rode toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Turkmenistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory; broke down on impossibly steep mountains; and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world - the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, as well as her own inner strength.

In spirit of The Motorcycle Diaries and Wild, this is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in.


‘In no-frills, from-the-heart prose, Schoenmaker crafts exhilarating evocations of rarely visited landscapes...’ BBC

‘An inspiring and often-thrilling ode to healing on one’s own terms.’ Publishers Weekly

'Required reading' New York Post

Noraly Schoenmaker is the creator of Itchy Boots, a YouTube channel with more than three million loyal subscribers. A motorcycling obsessive, her journeys have taken her the length of the American continent, from Argentina to Alaska, from the northernmost point of Europe to the southernmost point of Africa, and to some of the least traveled regions of the globe. Trained as a biologist and geologist, she is based in the Netherlands.

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