Audrey and Ekke
2 Roam the Roads of Lands Remote
Welcome to the travel website for Audrey and Ekke. Here you'll find our travels by motorcycle on the roads of lands remote. We started this website in 2002 when we took our first year-long leave of absence from work. We did four of these leaves of absence, travelling to 83 countries over a span of almost 20 years.In July of 2020 Audrey was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an extremely aggressive brain cancer. She passed away in November of 2020. Before she passed away, Audrey wrote a letter and said, "My one and only love, Ekke. Your job is to travel out on your motorbike. What else?" I have taken that to heart. I retired from the City of Calgary on Audrey's birthday, February 25, 2021 and have been riding my motorcycles around the world ever since.
Below you'll find our travels in reverse chronological order, with our very first trip in 2002 at the bottom. Please note that I have recently migrated our website to a new hosting platform. It will take some time to build the site back up to where it was before the migration. Especially as I continue to travel.
Audrey Allenspach-Kok
The love of my life, Audrey Allenspach-Kok, passed away on 7 November 2020. She was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive brain tumour on 13 July 2020 after she had a seizure while we were camping. We were able to spend the summer exploring the area around Calgary and as much as her declining abilities permitted and true to her adventurous spirit she was always up for something new. Her obituary >> Continue readingREAD
Muscat to Munich | 2023
In December of 2020 I received an email from Helge Pedersen of GlobeRiders. He had a couple of spaces left on a tour of the Himalayas that left from Chengdu, China and went through Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and finished in Bangkok, Thailand. It was quite expensive, and, still being catatonic and despondent after losing Audrey in November, I was certainly in no frame of mind to make larg >> Continue readingREAD
Solo Ride to Panama | 2021
In 2016/2017 Audrey and I took our fourth leave of absence to ride around South America. We planned to fly the bikes to Bogotá, Colombia then ride down to Ushuaia along the west coast, come back up the east coast, leap over the Darien Gap and then ride home through Central America and Mexico. Unfortunately, a knee injury in Peru paused the trip for about three months. >> Continue readingREAD
South America | 2016-2017
Three years after returning from our circumnavigation of Asia we have departed on another year-long adventure. This time to South America!Update! We've changed our route (compare to map from March below, now counter-clockwise) Our plan as of March 2016 >> Continue readingREAD
Circumnavigation of Asia | 2012-2013
After our trip through Africa and across Canada we started to plan our next trip and settled on the idea of riding across Russia to Japan. Because we had to ride across Siberia before it got too cold, we would be in Japan by the end of September so there was lots of time for further travel. How about going back to Europe over India? A plan was hatched! Planned Route&nb >> Continue readingREAD
Norway | 2011
Ekke writes:We have another leave of absence lined up for 2012 at which time we plan to ride from Germany east across Russia to Japan and back via Southeast Asia. When Audrey's sister Helena (who lives near Munich) mentioned that there might be a wedding in the offing for the summer of 2011 we immediately thought of the possibility of flying our bikes to Europe, having a great summer vac >> Continue readingREAD
Crossing Canada | 2008
After riding from Munich to Cape Town, we flew our motorbikes to New York City and rode across Canada back home.Route across North America >> Continue readingREAD
Africa | 2007-2008
Route from Germany to JordanRoute from Jordan to Ethiopia Route from Ethiopia to Malawi Route from Malawi through Southern Africa Big changes as of January 2008! As you can see from the title of this chapter our trip has changed a bit. As we travelled south through Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan we felt that we were always under pressure to keep going. If we stopped >> Continue readingREAD
Inuvik NWT | 2006
We started the first leg of our RTW (round the world) trip by riding as far north in Canada as it is possible to ride. The rest of the story will unfold in the following chapters. First up was the Lunatic Fringe rally put on by the Rocky Bow BMW Riders in High River, Alberta. It was a small affair this year because of a conflict in the rally schedule with a big national event held in Boise, I >> Continue readingREAD
Europe | 2002-2003
How did we get the idea to do this trip?In 1998 we went attended the BMWMOA National Rally held in Missoula, Montana. At this rally, attended by about 4,000 BMW motorcycle enthusiasts, a number of seminars were put on; everything from how to do an oil change on your bike to how to travel around the world. We attended two excellent seminars that got us thinking. The first was by Helge Peterson, a p >> Continue readingREAD