Free Ride
Heartbreak, Courage, and the 20,000-Mile Motorcycle Journey That Changed My Life
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE BEST TRAVEL BOOK OF 2025
By the YouTube sensation with three million followers, the inspiring account of a young woman who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride—and along the way found a new sense of purpose.
Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirtysomething geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. In desperate need of a new beginning, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India. But her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free—nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads.
First, she set off toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Tajikistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia, and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory, broke down on impossibly steep mountains, and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world, the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, and a new and unshakable belief in her capabilities.
Free Ride is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters, and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
YouTuber Schoenmaker debuts with a touching chronicle of self-discovery. After a dramatic breakup with her cheating husband in 2018, a 31-year-old Schoenmaker fled the Netherlands for Asia. In India, she bought a motorcycle for $2,400, dubbed it Basanti, and set out on an initially aimless trip that amounted to 22,370 miles and 25 countries over the course of nine months. Enjoying the kindness of strangers from Malaysia to Iran and beyond, Schoenmaker gradually learned to trust again as locals took her into their homes for meals and helped her pull Basanti from mud flats. "Nobody would have thought we'd come this far, including me," she writes after returning to the Netherlands with Basanti. Along the way, Schoenmaker's grounded optimism adds poignancy to her sometimes-fraught experiences—including being catcalled in Iran—and her conversational prose mimics the feeling of receiving regular travel updates from a close friend. It adds up to an inspiring and often-thrilling ode to healing on one's own terms. Agents: Abigail Koons and Ben Kaslow-Zieve, Park & Fine Literary.
