Karol Voltemár on his cycling trip in Iran. (source: Courtesy of the PRFMKUCM)
A YEAR ago Karol Voltemár, a 29-year-old from Bratislava, set out on a bicycle trip around the globe. By the end of May 2014, he had travelled more than 22,000 kilometres on his bike, across 24 countries, spending more than 1,200 hours on the saddle of his “two-wheeled horse”, the TASR newswire wrote.
By the end of 2013, the Slovak adventurer had crossed Iran (complaining on his blog about the reserved, unwelcoming people and lack of safety there), where he was injured in a collision with a tractor, and later his special helmet with a built-in camera was stolen.
From there, he continued to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, accompanied on part of his journey by his Austrian friend Helmut. In December he made it to India, where he took several days off from his journey in Sri Lanka. Afterwards, he continued his cycling tour in India and by the end of January, he started a new stage of the planned route: “I had no energy then to do anything, not to mention cycling, but I had no choice”, Voltemár said, as quoted by the press release of the Trnava University of Cyril and Methodius (UCM). “Time passes by, and it is better to move slowly than not at all.”
Voltemár spent 27 days in New Zealand and was enchanted by the country, claiming he plans to return there in 2017. After New Zealand, Karol crossed Australia and by the end of May, he planned to visit China, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam. His longest flight will be to Vancouver in April 2015.
Voltemár left his homeland on May 1, 2013, and after 500 days on the road, he plans to take a break in Slovakia and give a press conference including a presentation of his expedition on September 21, 2014. His adventures can be followed on his blog, his Facebook profile and on worldbiketravel.sk/sien-slavy. Fans can also buy, or finance, one leg of the trip, with one kilometre costing €0.2, via the project World Bike Travel.
