Why round the world? No, he didn’t want to get into the Guinness Book of Records. It simply occurred to him that it might be possible. So he gave it a go. Six years, 44 countries and nearly twenty thousand kilometres later, it turned out that a great journey doesn’t begin with a grand plan, but with simple curiosity.
Michal’s scooter adventures began whilst he was preparing for his final exams. He had a week to go before he really had to start studying, and he said to himself: “Let’s do something daft.” That was the first time in his life he’d ever got on a scooter, and he set off on it to Slovakia. And then he travelled across six continents.
There are faster ways to travel. A plane, a car or at least a bike… But a scooter offers something no other mode of transport does. You push off from the ground with one foot, whilst the other rests on the deck between the two wheels. You’re constantly caught between effort and ease, between the moment of pushing off the ground and the inertial gliding motion. And it was in this rhythm that Michal Provazník discovered the magic of travelling, where it was about more than just the kilometres covered and pushing himself to the limit.
The journey didn’t last 80 days, as in Jules Verne’s novel, but six years. Michal returned home several times, worked and saved up for the next stage. Sometimes he’d stay on the road for three months, and he always travelled alone. He slept in a tent, coped with sudden changes in the weather, often had to find a place to spend the night, and even suffered an injury that forced him to interrupt his journey and return home. But then he got back on his scooter and carried on from where he’d left off.
He says that his scooter trip taught him that if your life isn’t at stake, nothing really matters. “I felt safe in most countries, although a few slightly risky things did happen on a couple of occasions. In Ecuador, for example, I unwittingly rode into some gang-controlled areas where people were giving me rather strange looks. Motorbikes there would brake on the road and ride alongside me at my speed. That was unpleasant, but nothing really dangerous ever happened.” At the border with the United Arab Emirates, he had to wait for a willing driver to turn up who would take him and his scooter a few hundred metres, as pedestrians and cyclists aren’t allowed through there. A few months later, by contrast, he crossed the otherwise heavily guarded border from Ecuador to Peru in a matter of seconds – without the queues and dramatic scenes he’d expected. And upon entering New Zealand, he spent more time cleaning the mud off his scooter than going through passport control. The authorities there strictly ensure that no foreign seeds or microorganisms enter the country.
Along the way, he discovered that the world is far less dangerous than he had previously thought. In Oman, strangers invited him home for dinner. In Canada, police officers brought him a blanket when he had nowhere to sleep. In Laos, in a small village where there was no accommodation and it was starting to get dark, he was getting a bit worried about what would become of him. “Eventually, a man in a van stopped and offered to take me to a bigger town. At that moment, I burst into tears of joy.” He’s experienced dozens of moments like that. “The world isn’t a bad place. Everywhere I’ve travelled to, I’ve met incredibly helpful and kind people,” he says.
You might expect that, having travelled through forty-four countries on a scooter, this unconventional traveller would be planning his next big expedition. But today, Michal says that what brings him the greatest joy is a simple weekend camping or a short trip to the Czech mountains with friends. Sometimes, the hardest thing for a traveller is the loneliness. “Being away from family and loved ones for months on end is really tough. There are plenty of downsides to this crazy scooter journey. Even when you’re not feeling well, you simply have to keep going. You also have to juggle work and travelling, which was sometimes a superhuman feat. But it was worth it! No downsides can compare to what travelling by scooter has given me.”
Follow Michal on Instagram: @kickbiketheworld
You can read more about Michal Provazník’s journey in the October issue of our bookmag, Magic Mag from Prague: magicmag.eu
