It's hard to believe that it's only been six years since Itchy Boots, aka Noraly Schoenmaker, first started sharing her incredible round-the-world motorcycle journeys on YouTube. And yet, that's the truth.
But it feels like she's been doing it forever, which I suppose is just the nature of the Internet, right?
Over the nearly 200,000 kilometers she's ridden so far around the world, she's encountered so many things. She's ridden different bikes along the way, met so many different people who've mostly been incredibly kind, eaten a wide variety of wonderful food, and seen so many things that most people probably won't have the chance to see in our lifetimes.
Schoenmaker's first book, Free Ride, was first released in Dutch (her first language), and later translated into English. It was released in the US on June 3, 2025, which is also the date when I had the chance to sit down and chat with her about the book, her travels, and how she feels about advising other riders on embarking upon their own journeys.
Like many riders (though certainly not all, myself included), Noraly comes from a riding family. Both her dad and her brother ride, but she says that they didn't really take her out on their bikes. Her dad, in fact, stopped before she was born, but still, she grew up with that knowledge and those stories in the back of her mind.
Eventually, she decided she wanted to do it for herself, so she went and got her license just a few years before she bought Basanti, the Royal Enfield Himalayan 411 that started her round-the-world travels.
When asked if there was any advice that she wished someone had given her when she started riding, Noraly told me, "Well, I find it a difficult question because there's not really anything that I wish people had told me. I'm more of a person that you need to figure things out for yourself and make some mistakes. It doesn't work for me when people tell me, like, you HAVE to do this or you SHOULDN'T do that. It doesn't work with me. Maybe I'm too rebellious for that."
Although Schoenmaker was relatively new to riding when she started journeying around the world, it's important to know that she wasn't new to traveling. Prior to setting out on Basanti, she'd already done a lot of backpacking and other types of travel to around 70 different countries, so she already had a whole bunch of travel knowledge and comfort under her belt.
"I think for me, what changed the most—doing it on a motorcycle—is the ability to reach really remote places, and places that almost nobody goes to. And that's really what I enjoy so much about motorcycle travel, is that a motorcycle can bring you to really amazing places that you would never reach by car, or public transport, or for any other reason. You know, I love to go to these random places that are not the tourist sites, and that officially have nothing to offer," Noraly said.
"But when you get there, yeah, it's a different feeling to be in a tiny village somewhere on your motorcycle, and I think when you're on a motorcycle, you're so approachable for people, as well. It's a great way to meet locals, get in touch with locals. People just start talking to you. That's what I love the most about motorcycle travel."
Of course, if you've watched Noraly's videos, and particularly if you subscribe to her channel, then you've probably wondered to yourself about how she's able to do so much. Part of it, she says, is that she doesn't really have a trial-and-error process as far as video production is concerned.
"I've never done trial runs or anything like that. And the way I did it is, I realized at the end of the day or when I was editing that oh, this was terrible. But I have to use it because I can't do it again, right? There's never a second take. There's only one take. So then, I would release a video knowing it's not perfect," Noraly said.
"It is, in fact, full of mistakes—but it's fine. I'll do better next time. So then, the next episode, I focused on what I did wrong, the one before; I guess that's my 'trial and error.' That it slowly got a little bit better over time. But yeah, when I use a new camera or anything, I don't have time to practice or try it out. I just use it and hope for the best," she added.
There's a lot more that Schoenmaker had to say, and we've just published video on the RideApart YouTube channel so you can see the whole interview. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the other cool videos we have coming up!
