King of the Road!
As some of you will have caught via Twitter or Facebook, I’ve recently left my job as a Senior Producer at Channel Five, and am about to set up on my own, as an editorial consultant. Sounds posh, means very little indeed, beyond the fact that I’ll be spending a lot of time writing books, and being a freelance journalist / writer / busybody and MAN OF LEISURE.
Before I embark on my new career as the boss of the freshly minted Kamps Consulting Ltd, however, I’m going to ride my rather awesome yellow Kawasaki Versys (FAQ: No, they don’t come in yellow. Yes, I painted it myself. No, it’s the kind of paint they use to paint lines on the roads with. Yes, I did paint it with paint rollers. Well, if you don’t come too closely, it looks quite good) all around northern Europe.
I’m setting off in exactly a week (the 10th of June), and will be gone the rest of the month, so there won’t be too many tweets or Photocritic updates in June – apart from this page, of course, where you can keep track of my progress!
Where are you right now?
By the power of the rather awesome BrightKite, you can keep track of my journey as it goes down.
I’m hoping to post some photos, updates, and – of course, my location so you can keep track.
If you’re particularly curious, subscribe to the RSS feed, or you can follow my progress on Twitter – I’ve set up @3500miles as a special account for this trip.
On the map below, you can to click ‘next’ and ‘previous’ to see how the trip has been progressing!
(Update: The map below only shows the 20 most recent updates – I’ll try to figure out how to make it show all of them, but for now, to read back in time properly, check out the BrightKite page for this trip)
Photos from the trip
These are the photos I’ve added to the Grand European Tour set on my Flickr stream:
Itinerary
Put simply: London – Dover – Dunkirk – Netherlands – Germany – ferry to Gothenburg – Oslo – Bergen – Kristiansand – Oslo again – Roskilde – Den Helder – Dunkirk – London… With a whole load of breaks and stops in between to visit friends, visit sights, and do whatever catches my fancy. I reckon it’ll be about 3500 miles (hence being able to follow me on @3500miles on Twitter, you see).
You can look at it below or open it up in Google Maps.
So… When are you back?
I should be back in the beginning of July – so until then, have a very lovely summer, and stay awesome, everyone!
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
Insights, suggestions and comments
Enjoy your ride; let me know if you’re in the area (Nijmegen, The Netherlands).. :)
Enjoy! And don’t become and organ donor in leathers ;)
And if you find yourself getting near Eastern Finland, give me a shout.
That looks awesome.
Enjoy, buddy! :)
Ramin: I think the chief goal of this trip is to avoid becoming an organ donor :)
Thanks! I can’t wait, it’s going to be awesome, I think.
Have a great trip! Be sure to stop for a coffee or a beer in Cafe de Toeter in Groningen :D.. A very nice brown cafe.
have fun!
Good luck!
&
Enjoy the trip!
Veel plezier en groetjes!
have fun on your trip!!!
waiting for your updates!
have a safe journey and enjoy the ride ! : )
Thanks everybody! I’m sort of excited to do location-based updates from my iPhone. Does that make me geeky? I guess it does :-)
Dude. It’s all a far cry from when we used to flick elastic bands at each other in the Fast Car/Classics Monthly offices. All the best. May many shits and giggles be with you.
Have a fabulous trip!
Woah! Awesome! I did a cross-country trip in the US a few years ago, but across *Europe* would be incredible. Very much looking forward to your updates and images.
How are Europeans drivers with motorcyclists? Do they share the road, are they mindful of us motorcycle riders, etc.? In the US it’s a really mixed bag — depends on the area.
-Dave
Hey Dave,
It’s very varied here as well, to be honest – generalising horribly, the Germans are fast but very safe, the Dutch at least look before they do things, but leave no safety gap whatsoever, which is a bit too risky for my liking. The Swedes are observant and give you space, so that was nice. The Norwegians seem to be mostly confused by motorcycles – I did a bit of filtering (you call it lane-splitting), which scared a few drivers, so I stopped.
Overall, I think most of continental europe is better at looking out for motorcyclists than British drivers – which is a fabulous start!
Congratulations on two great decisions – striking out on your own and your unique and no doubt fabulous trip through Europe.
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