After many months (a couple of years) of planning, Dave and Sharon Thompson set out from Champaign, IL, USA, 5 June 1997, on an around-the-world expedition on their BMW motorcycles (a 1981 R80G/S and a 1992 R100GS).
Tentative plans were to first head down through Central and South America, then (sometime in early-to-mid 1998) fly or ship the bikes to South Africa, and travel up through Africa and across Europe, as far north as possible (Nordkap, Norway), and then as far South as Cape Town, South Africa. Anticipated total time roughly 3 years.
With this web page we'll follow them on their trip, providing you with
whatever information they send back, including (perhaps most
interestingly) their daily journals and
postcards, whenever they can send them.
After finishing up with northern Europe (Scandinavia) in fall 1998, Dave and Sharon returned here to Champaign in November for a rest from Nomadic life. At the beginning of October 1999, Dave continued travelling through West Africa from Morocco to Ivory Coast with friend, Jim Garriock. Dave is now travelling solo from Nairobi to Cape Town. As of March 12th, Dave was attempting to fix his starter motor in Nairobi.
There's a mailing list set up so that Dave and Sharon can easily mail updates to people. If you'd like to get on the list, send email to carpediem-request@roadkill.com, with "subscribe" in the body of the message. (If you'd like to get off the list, send email to the same address, with "unsubscribe" in the body.)
Dave has lots of other good stuff on his home page, which continues to exist in his absence. It includes, among other things, travel photos from their southeast Asia expedition, lots of information about BMW motorcycles, and a bunch of information about doing around-the-world journeys by motorcycle.