Recapping a(nother) year on the road

Whoosh. There goes 2024 and what a wild ride it was. I made another twelve month deposit in my “six month sabbatical” account. And stop me if you’ve heard me say this before, but I can’t believe that things are still this fun and still going this well. I rollerbladed over 5000 kilometers in 15 countries this year and am still in one piece. That alone is a massive win.

At a glance

• Spent 126 days in the US and 240 days somewhere else on earth
• Took 18 flights and visited 18 countries (coincidence)
• Skated 5100km in 313 hours, or about 13 days
• Spent my first two nights in a hospital since being born
• Avoided physical, mental, and financial ruin once again (enemies are in shambles, got’em)

The first China arc and skating Bangkok to Phuket

Wooooo boy. I spent nearly the entire first half of the year abroad. Skating from Bangkok to Singapore alone took almost three months. As usual, the vast majority of that trip was barely planned in advance. I knew I wanted to spend Christmas 2023 with family in Germany and got a Denver -> Frankfurt flight in early December. That timeframe overlapped with me wrapping up my consulting project as well so there was a clean opportunity to go somewhere for NYE. Shanghai emerged as the homerun favorite because of a disgustingly cheap Virgin Atlantic flight from London that cost me a mere 10,000 Chase UR points. My original plan was to simply transit through Shanghai with the 144-hour layover visa but then China announced 15 days unrestricted, visa-free travel for seven nationalities (including Germans).

On the January leg I visited Shanghai, Qingdao (beer!), and Beijing before taking the Beijing – Hong Kong high speed train. Imagine covering nearly 20 degrees of latitude, on land, in one day. That’s the Beijing-HK train. Big success overall. Hong Kong was an incredible visit as usual, I still don’t understand why social media doomers make it seem like the city is in ruins since covid. Even managed to play a few games of pickup soccer inside the famous horse racing grounds!

Skating Thailand

Then I didn’t really have any plans just yet, when my buddy Justin invited me to come hang out in Phuket for a Taiwan reunion. That sounded pretty good, got on a flight to Bangkok, and then I had about a month to get to Phuket. What’s the best way to get from Bangkok to Phuket? Rollerblading, of course. I had few expectations and even doubted that I’d be able to skate most of that distance but wow I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’ll get to see the Thailand that’s not overrun by tourists and oh my it’s incredible.

Phuket, on the other hand, has turned into a suburb of Moscow. Interpret that as you may. Just visit the local subreddit to get a vibe of that. More importantly for the plot here, somebody brought up the suggestion of skating all the way down the peninsula to Singapore. No idea when and where that exactly came from. It stuck though. After goodbyes to Justin and the crew, I made a few stops along the islands in the Andaman sea to recover and get scuba certified (would recommend). All this is seriously selling the Thailand part of the year short but it’ll get its own post soon enough. For now it was off towards Malaysia.

Malaysia. Heat, humidity, hospital

Oh man the Malaysia arc. This again warrants its own post which probably won’t even suffice. The heat was unbelievable as the country was facing a heat wave nearly the entire time I was there. 38-40 degrees Celsius with over 80% humidity. Good luck. Georgetown was the first big checkpoint and it was a joy to revisit it after a short stint in 2019. That place had such a strong pull to it that I nearly paid for continuing my skate south. What followed was heat stroke and two nights of IV fluids, blood tests, and x-rays in Taiping’s hospital. All with(out) travel insurance that expired 72 hours earlier. Ooops. Paid the price for sure. $82 all-in, to be precise. Big shout out to the top tier Malaysian healthcare, 10/10 would do again, even if I hopefully won’t have to.

There were a few incredible skating days between Taiping and Kuala Lumpur. The roads were resembling the incredibly scenic, low-traffic farm roads from Thailand. Unfortunately most of these towns started blending together as they were mostly tiny highway stops. Soon enough I made it to Kuala Lumpur, which is another one of my absolute favorite cities. Nowhere else can you find such an eclectic blend of cultures.

A week of scenic rooftop pools and unbelievable cuisine passed in no time. I would’ve stayed a bit longer but another instagram DM set a deadline for Singapore. Oddly enough it wasn’t even an event in Singapore itself. It was Creamfields music festival in Hong Kong (Justin gets credit/blame once again). The skating towards Johor Bahru, the Malaysian border city with Singapore, was mostly a dangerous grind along and, unfortunately, on highway 5. I couldn’t choose my favorite road in the world but every cell in my body has a DNA-based hatred of highway 5 in Malaysia now. Looking back this was a ~300km section of type 3 fun – the one that’s neither fun in the moment, nor when looking back on it.

FIWB. They say stupid is the hardest to kill. Made it to Singapore in one piece, somehow. Celebrations ensued. Concerning amounts of Singha, absinthe, and chicken+rice may have been consumed as well. I still live in the blissful ignorance of never checking the credit card transactions from those nights out.

The second China arc

Turns out that this is going to be a long post. We’ve just entered April, for those of you keeping score at home. It was time for the second Hong Kong and China arc, which was probably my favorite stretch of the year. Fresh off the plane from Singapore, Justin and I dove straight into the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Kowloon’s nightlife. Ned Kelly’s Last Stand might be a bit of a tourist trap but who cares. It’s the best thing that earth can offer in response to the space cantina on Mos Eisley. Anyhow, we were in town for Creamfields HK, which turned out to be my favorite festival of the year. The location in the Hong Kong harbor was unbeatable, along with re-entry that made it brilliantly easy to refuel on food and drinks at Central during the day.

The only worry was the shorts chafing from too much dancing. A tell-tale sign of excellent times. Had a few more days of rest and recovery after that were well spent hiking and playing some more soccer. Gotta come back and hike the entire Hong Kong trail at some point. Anyway, back to Kowloon HSR station and onto a train towards China again. Another instagram brainfart DM convinced me to get tickets for DXYR music festival in Hefei. That’s pretty much the entire way back towards Shanghai, if you go directly towards Hefei, that is. My top destination for this visit was 1,200km due West, however:

Chongqing

If you haven’t heard of it, then it’s probably the biggest city you’ve never heard of. Over 30 million people live in Chongqing’s municipality. I can’t remember when I first saw clips of Chongqing on social media. All I know is that it wasn’t that long ago, maybe in 2018 or something. Everything I saw made it look like a cyberpunk utopia in a distant future or straight out of a movie. Chongqing 10000000% delivered on that front. What. A. Place. I don’t ever wanna hear any more rabble about how New York or Chicago or Dubai or KL has the “best skyline in the world.”

Chongqing’s also known for spicy food, perhaps unsurprising given its proximity to Sichuan. CQ hotpot was squarely among the best things I ate all year. I don’t think I had a single average meal the entire time I was there. Find a way to visit this place if you’re a city person. It’ll be the urban Mona Lisa of your dreams, I promise. All good things come to an end and Hefei was calling after all. Luck was on my side here (again, again, again…) because otherwise my next few days should not have been possible.

The river in the pictures above isn’t just any river. You’re looking at the Yangtze, the longest river in China and the third longest in the world. There are cruises that run down the river and they often require booking months in advance. Some research revealed that there is one particular company that’s the go-to for this journey east. Of course their website didn’t really work or allow for online bookings in the first place. I’m not sure how I got the idea but I found out that their headquarters are in Chongqing so I figured I’d go say “hi” in person. On a Sunday. Their entire office floor had one overly enthusiastic security guard and one lonely salesperson in it when I rolled up. The latter was able to somehow secure me a shared cabin leaving the next day. It was the only remaining availability on any departure in the next week, on any boat. Never a doubt.

The river cruise was scenic despite the subpar weather. Seeing the Three Gorges Dam in person is something I’ve wanted to do since taking fluid mechanics in college. One quick train later I was in Hefei, ready for another festival. Madeon x San Holo, Seven Lions, Subtronics, etc. the lineup was looking good. Weather was once again bad, but what really stood out negatively was the ubiquitous police presence inside the festival. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a music stage surrounded by a hundred dudes in riot gear, a couple motorcycle cops, a few police hummers, and a helicopter hovering behind the stage for good measure. That got close to ruining the vibe but seeing the music itself salvaged it. But yeah, would not recommend that one again. Au5 at the pre-party was a banger though.

Revisiting Vietnam and Seoul

The first wedding of the year was going to be in no other place than Las Vegas in early June. To my surprise, there is only one trans-pacific flight directly into Vegas and it’s from Seoul, instead of one of the popular Tokyo airports. Doubling down on the surprise and heading straight into “this has got to be a sign” territory, there was still award space on this flight for the exact date that lined up with the wedding. $37 and 29k Chase points later, I snagged the only available Korean Air flight directly into Vegas in all of June, which would land just in time for the pre-wedding happy hour. That’s a pretty typical example of my absentee planning – I booked this from Hong Kong in late April and still had 6 weeks to get myself to Seoul.

Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before: motorbiking northern Vietnam is the closest thing to an infinite fun glitch that we have on earth. With that in mind it was an easy sell to meet up with the Phuket gang again in Danang for a few weeks. Perfect weather, beaches, mountains, incredible food, daily workouts, this was an excellent rest. Then it was up to Hanoi for a night and to pick up my rental for the next ten days:

There’s never a bad time to plug my favorite blog/travel resource, but this time it’s actually relevant. The plan was to follow Vietnam Coracle’s Extreme Northwest route. If you’re ever in Vietnam then just pick one of his elite motorcycling routes and enjoy the bliss of infinite fun on the best road+landscape combos on earth. Unlike Ha Giang in the north east, this area is extremely underdeveloped (minus Sapa) and rarely visited. Over 50% of the population are below the poverty line in these provinces. I didn’t expect or even think about that when I set out but the effect of that is a separate post. Hanoi was a welcome return to urban Vietnam since I picked up slight food poisoning in Dien Bien Phu and 6-8 hours of daily riding in wet weather was taking a toll.

The last two weeks before Vegas were all in Seoul. Somehow this was the first time I was able to visit Korea since skating the cross-country route in 2022. I spent this time as a faux-tour guide for my friends who had just lived in Japan for a year and came to visit. Pretty fun to show others around the city despite not being there for over a year. That just shows how much of an impression it made on me the first time around. Anyway, Seoul Jazz Festival, top tier hikes within city limits, a few K League games (heyo Ross!), and unbelievable amounts of coffees with pastries later, it was time for the US friends&family arc of the year.

USA U-S-A U-S-A

If there’s a place on earth where sleep schedules go out of the window and day vs night doesn’t matter, then it’s Vegas. Going from Korea directly into a wedding weekend was risky, although I’ve gotta say it couldn’t have worked out any better. Seeing so many friends at once after 6 months away was a dream and then wedding itself was amazing as well. The next leg was a few weeks in Denver while my parents used their newly found post-retirement time and energy to drive 4,000 miles round trip to Vancouver in a month. The apple doesn’t fall far from.. etc. etc.

Once again it’s so cool to see everyone in Denver and what they’ve been up to. It’s so exciting to see more and more friends getting married and some even having kids now! Time really doesn’t stand still. Despite being out in the suburbs, I even got in a few group skates with DUST – so cool that Denver has one of the best rollerblading scenes in the entire country. Hell yeah. Already looking forward to the next one.

The Euro arc 

Summer time was reserved for friends and family. My dad retired a few months earlier in May and my parents planned a trip to the Italian alps soon after. Long story short this wasn’t something I was gonna miss and luckily living in Chicago makes it fairly easy to get to Europe. My parents even brought along their dog Winston, who’s small enough to fly in the cabin. The Dolomites are breath-taking and the weather was perfect to check out all the hiking trails in the area. The restaurants on the trails serve unbelievably good (and affordable) food for being so remote, it adds so much enjoyment to already incredible hikes. My original plan allowed time for a multi-day trek along the Stubaier Hoehenweg, however, that wasn’t possible due to flooding and heavy snowfall in that area.

Instead I ended up on a super short eastern Europe speedrun through Rovinj, Ljubljana, Budapest, and Vienna in 8 days. Ferries, buses, and trains made it all quite feasible and enjoyable. Somehow I’m always surprised to see how much historical architecture is left over in European city centers – such a stark contrast after modern places like Seoul, Shanghai, etc. If anything this short trip was a great reason to come back and explore these countries further, beyond just the capital cities. In Vienna I met up with a friend that I met on a penspinning forum over 15 years ago that I still keep in touch through various group chats. I’ve met plenty of internet friends, mostly through my soccer twitter account, but hadn’t met up with penspinning friends since 2017 in Singapore. That was a highlight and another entry in the long list of things I’d never thought possible or probable.

The summer arc in Chicago was such a joyful time with plenty of friends, skating, soccer, and general shenanigans. I even got to the point where I was scouting out different neighborhoods to pick which one I’ll come back to on a more permanent basis. All that was capped off with an incredible wedding at the end of October that was a massive gathering of all the Colorado/college friends and the Chicago friends for a weekend (shoutout Eric and Hoff, 10/10 wedding).

Oops, completely forgot to mention the bachelor party in Montreal before this wedding. That was a 10/10 experience too, Montreal is fantastic, and I also skated from Toronto to Buffalo on the way back (separate post later).

Taiwan v2

Then two things happened: My friends Alec and Britney set off for their pre-honeymoon/sabbatical travel thingy across Southeast Asia until January. Alec and I probably set a record for consuming Taiwan travel vlogs in 2022 when we lived together. Almost every day working from home featured a new video of somebody cycling in and around Taiwan. I skated around Taiwan in 2023 but A+B were headed there after Japan, which brought up a great opportunity to crash their trip! Secondly, the stars aligned as Delta was basically giving away Seattle-Taipei flights, Justin was in Taipei for another round of Ultra Taiwan, and then Alec, Britney, and I got to hike up Yushan – the highest peak in Taiwan at 3,952m. We also did a ton of hitchhiking across Alishan national park, ate tons of great food, and somehow managed to secure last minute spots on the famous forest railway out of the park. As fun as solo travel is, it pales in comparison to trips with friends every single time.

Java and Bali

Anyway, I estimated roughly 3.5 weeks for the 1,000km which gave me a bit of time before flying to Australia. Well what’s on the way between Taipei and Brisbane? Indonesia, for one. I’d never been to Bali and probably read way too much negative stuff about its gentrification on social media to be honest. But flight prices don’t lie and Bali is indeed the easiest gateway to Australia, along with direct flights to Brisbane. That’d be too easy and reasonable of course, so I ended up flying Taipei —> Jakarta after learning about the extensive rail network on Java. Two weeks of lush greenery and long train rides to get from one end of Java to the other. Unfortunately I also picked up minor food poisoning on the way here (this year was weak in terms of stomach performance) and wasn’t off to the best start. If there’s one first impression of western Java then it’s traffic. Cars. Cars and scooters everywhere. I passed through Jakarta in a day and was glad to get out of Bandung as well. Thankfully Yogyakarta was much much nicer, less congested, and packed with historical sites. It only got better after that with Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen. The latter was the most unexpectedly incredible place I’ve seen in a while. I heard about the blue fire caused by sulphur deposits in the volcanic crater but had no idea that it’s still an active mine.

My favorite book of the year was Ed Conway’s Material World because it opened up a whole new perspective on where all the raw materials used in construction and technology comes from. More often than not, following the materials back to the source will not be pretty – same thing here at Kawah Ijen, which is one of the most hazardous workplaces on earth. It’s literal back-breaking work to carry 150 pounds of sulphur out of a volcanic crater on your shoulders, not to mention the fumes. Tourists roll up in gas masks while many miners can’t afford them. Another stark reminder of inequality and privilege that comes with traveling.

I took the ferry to Bali the next morning and was off to Brisbane from there two days later. The image of the miner hacking away at sulphur deposits with a bamboo stick will be burned into my mind for a while. One thing I’m sure about is that it’s better to witness these sites first hand than to live in ignorance. Not many people have the opportunities to see this to begin with and it’s something I’ll explore further next year as well.

Australia —> NYE

Back in August I thought it would be cool to spend NYE in Sydney until I checked the prices for those dates and nearly had an aneurism. As a workaround I booked the bare minimum of two nights near Sydney airport with the plan of taking the train in on new years eve (that’s in a few hours!). A few people on the bicycle touring subreddit had just completed Australian journeys and that gave me the naive idea of skating Brisbane to Sydney. That was pretty fun until it wasn’t and I already wrote about why I called it off in this post. All’s well that ends well (even if prematurely) and I went back up to chill in Woolgoolga for two weeks. What a wonderful place and a 10/10 hostel (Woopi Backpackers). Finallay had a chance to cook my own meals again, go to the gym, and just enjoy the festive, coastal atmosphere. Oh, and also got a chance to fully assault all of my remaining brain cells at a bush doof. Good times all around.

That was 2024. Thanks to everyone that made it so memorable. I’m truly living my dream and I’m more and more grateful for that every day. What’s next? Well, earlier this year I thought it was time to check out Australia/NZ and then go find a nice spot in Chicago/Denver. NOPE. Turns out there’s a bit more globetrotting ahead in 2025. Quite a bit at that, too. A friend of a friend, who works at a major US airline, offered to add me as an enrolled member on their benefits. What that means is I’ll get to travel standby on any flight with that carrier, as long as there’s space. A full year of non-rev travel – things are about to get WILD, as if they haven’t been already.

Happy NYE, I’m off to enter the arena that is Sydney harbour, and I hope to see everyone on the other side in 2025!

–Richard

P.S. great success, 2025 achieved: