It’s never too late to change your life

To be able to really start from the beginning we have to go back three years, or to my 55th birthday, in 2019. We know well how there is the desire to change life at 50, here I was already 5 late!

In my life I have always worked a lot, both as an employee and even more as an entrepreneur, where over the years I have started various businesses in many different sectors.

In 2019, and precisely on my birthday, I decided to “GIVE UP EVERYTHING” by selling one of my two small companies, a few months later I also sold the second.

I had developed the conviction that I would have to make radical choices in order to improve the quality of my life, to give more space to my personal interests, aware that “TIME” is the most important thing we have, TO NOT HAVE REGRETS …

In July of the same year, I decide to buy myself a motorcycle, which I have been passionate about since I was a boy. In recent years I hadn’t had a “real bike” to tell the truth, let’s say that I was struggling with some maxi scooter and then I always had my latest vespa in the garage, an ET4 from 1998.

I aimed high by choosing a BMW R1200RT, a bit dated, but really very nice.

In September of the same year, the sale of my second small company and finally the liberation from businesses, shops, offices and employees. The feeling was that of being extraordinarily free, as never before, with a future that I could finally plan in full autonomy.

It is in those months that I begin to think about something big, how nice it would be to go around the world on a motorcycle. But perhaps the choice of the BMW R1200RT was not the correct one, perhaps an enduro, perhaps a Moto Guzzi with less electronics. All thoughts that swirled in the head, still in a disordered way, but they were, beautifully alive and present.

Then in 2020 Covid arrived, and I spent the whole year managing digital consulting projects, working even harder than what I had done in previous years. The 2020 budget was truly bleak, with a lot of work and a zeroing of my social life, interests and hobbies. So I decide to give a change to my life and in the summer of 2021 I take a long break of 4 months, dedicating myself to myself.

In early May I had finished my commitments and would be free until the end of August.

Perfect, this will be a “motorcycle” summer. In the meantime, I had sold the BMW R1200RT and even bought myself a BMW K1600GT. Just not to overdo it, a 6-cylinder with 1600 cc, 16-hp and over 300 kg of dry weight, not bad.

In May I organized a solo tour of Sardinia in two weeks, beautiful, and it was there that I decided to make a trip to the North Cape in July, it was the right year!

I lived more and more with the awareness of the years wasted working, postponing dreams and happiness to who knows when. I only got angry with myself, on the one hand happy in my life, but on the other I was aware that I was wasting the only unrecoverable resource, which is time.

From the end of May to the end of June, the organization of the trip to the North Cape, with the usual unknown factor Covid as Norway was still closed to tourism. In the meantime, I found two adventure companions, one was Paolo from Milan, met online while I was in Sardinia and I was touring the various forums, the other was Angelo, a dear longtime friend.

Finally on July 10 the departure, via Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally Norway. Our choice had been to visit Norway especially well, taking the time to do it.

The journey lasted 24 days, we covered more than 10,000 km and visited 12 countries. A wonderful experience of freedom, knowledge, experiences, difficulties, but above all of emotions, many, many emotions.

It was an unforgettable journey, the one that all motorcyclists dream of and for us it was really like this, from the beginning, the arrival in the North Cape, until the end.

For the first time in my life, the return was very difficult, a pain. Moving from those emotions and that sense of freedom, to daily commitments, to manage problems and relationships that often have very little authenticity. It was a strange sensation, it seemed to me that I touched the sky with a finger and suddenly plunged back into the harsh reality.

After a few days still nothing, those feelings and that bewilderment did not pass and it was in those moments that I began to think about my happiness, what I had learned and lived in that beautiful journey. In those days I decided !.

North Cape taught me a lot, both about what I want and how to organize something important, such as around the world:

I decided to do it with a red Vespa, probably a GTS 300, because I realized that there is no need to have a BMW K1600GT, if the cruising speed almost never exceeds 100 km per hour. And even if it were possible to do so, I would lose the flavor of the places I will pass through. On the one hand it is a rational choice, on the other emotional; Vespa has always been a vespista, I have had 5 and I spouse it as a philosophy, even before as a means of transport.

I will do it alone, because I am convinced that it is the only way to fully experience the experience, to get in touch with the people of the places I will visit and to find a dimension of myself that is independent from other things and people, the my happiness.

Couchsurfing, the tent and the stove will be my home and my restaurant on a long journey to do with limited resources.

I have not yet focused on the itinerary, even if the idea is to go around the world in a clockwise direction, starting from Russia and returning from the United States or Canada. I am very worried about visas, sea transport and Covid limitations, but I will think about it and hope that these limitations do not force me to too many variations on the initial idea.

Departure on May 4, 2022 (which later became May 7, 2022), the day after my 58th birthday, minimum duration 6 months, ideal / maximum duration 24 months, then return by the end of April 2024, in the days before my 60th birthday .

80,000 km estimated with a crossing of about 60 Nations.

The idea is there, the enthusiasm is skyrocketing, now we have to start getting busy to organize everything. There are only 8 months of time and there are so many things to think about and do, first of all, to sell my BMW K1600GT and buy a red VESPA GTS 300 (which later became a 1981 Vespa P200E, always red) …