Hi I Am Karol

“Plan are always changing, but they are always important.”

Karol Votlemar
Karol Voltemar

My story

Everyone got unique story that have its start and end. This is the story of mine, but I think everyone got it’s own important one with message that can inspire others. Where started this one?

How I got started with bicycle touring

During the studies on high school I’ve started with cycling. It gave me freedom on two wheels and I was able to explore my limits. I did some short trip in Slovakia where I was cycling from 8 000 to 16 000 km per year. The first big touring trip was to Bulgaria to Black Sea with some friends in 2004. I fell in love with touring and exploring the world by bike.

I was bit unprepared, but it gets better with every new tour. Bicycle touring allow to travel anyone independable and experience places in between (not only destinations). It is way of slow traveling when you can easy get in touch with locals. After years I was able to start think big and start working on big adventure of my life. The journey around the world by bike was only a big dream and I’ve decided to make it real. It took me 3 years to prepare myself and it was the best dicision I made in my life.

“Dreamers come and go, but a dream’s forever …”

About

I love traveling, cycling and I am passionate about my work and helping our clients. The result of my passions is expedition around the world by bike. I did tour around the globe from 2013 – 2016 that was the longest Slovak cycling expedition by bike.

I would love to share my story with you and if you like just invite me to speak at your event. My another passions are my work, sports, nature, music and games. It’s great to spent time with some good people and friends enjoying good food, conversations or drinks.

I am working in online marketing and education area (with more than 12 years experiences) and I am founder of few companies with focus on services and software in ecommerce. I also fan of taking a pictures and still learning how to write some good stuff. Some of my books and photo product you can find a order in shop section.

I have taken lot of shorter and longer trips by bike since 2002 (I am not focused only on doing world trips) and I can help you to provide informations or be your personal guide. I cycled I lot over 200 000 km in my life. I do sometimes public tours open for people interested in traveling by bike and you can find available offers in tours section.

I like tasty food, tea, beer, wine that I can enjoy with a good company of same minded people. I am libertarian and believe in my own senses and instict . I understand that freedom come hand in hand with responsibility. I like to create a big concept and projects that would inspire and help others. Ia am living, loving and learning. Exploring the unknown during my travel and in my work. Every day challenging myself and my personal limits. What future bring? Who knows, but I hope I can be part of even bigger projects!

Connect With Me

You can be in touch with me via contacts or you can follow my adventure on Facebook. You can also read my travel blog or read my story of traveling around the world by bike.

Life

I was born in 1983 in Bratislava during socialism in Czechoslovakia under Soviet supremacy over eastern block of Europe. When I was like really young (I can’t remember) I got “computer” Didaktik. It was total game changer! It totally took me into a different world called future (I didn’t know that time, but I was lucky and played some “stupid games”).

Computer helped me to get to diffirent reality and I’ve learned a lot as I was growing up. I loved games and still love to play in many different ways. My mom tried to not have only child sitting in table with computer and I had to do a lot of sports and activities. I was  not very good in sports and I really didn’t like it. But children we don’t know what is good!

I started with elementary school that was kind of boring, but I got zero problems because it was super easy. I loved history, geography and maths. My grand mother involved me into charm of the world with magazines about geography and traveling. My mom sign me for IT courses when I was really young.

My mom brings me to the various sports (that was a good base) a with activities also I’ve spent many days in nature (that time I really don’t like that stuff).

I get in touch with better computers and people around. Instead of Didaktik at home I get access to Macintosh and PC. I was able to learn from older guys around. Anyway from childhood I loved also a nature and spent there a lot of time.  It is source of energy for me. Water, sun, wind and green energy in forest.

I was always fascinated by mountains and beauty of nature. In  summer camps where we lived in teepees and learn a lot about nature, camping and life in forest. These opportunities and what I’ve learn change course of my life. In my age of 15 I was able to stay for a few days in nature and survive that can help me a lot also on my travels. I am able to camp anywhere while I am traveling and got more options.

On high school I stopped being interested in education in same way anymore. It gets me nowhere and I was lucky I get out of the chains of common edutaion. I rather stayed focused on what I like and wanted to learn. Whole system of school at home is about growing up good workers for various industries and science studies in system that is the same for everyone and not respect individualities.

It was also not ready for upcoming age of digital economy. When internet arrived to our country I get quickly in. I was fascinated and dive into online and gaming. I also continue with playing games and did lot of tournametns in games online and LAN.

I start doing my own sports I liked and started with saving money for my first bike. I bought after weeks of hard work and start pedaling. First time I was pushing some uphills, but after while I get in shape. I started with some friend from high school doing a short trips with bikes and getting in better shape. I was totally in biking and exploring my own limits. I did lot of short tours in Slovakia and countries around.

I like also other sports (mostly individual) like rollerblades, running, hiking, skiing and I was investing everything to my hobbies. I did many beautiful hiking trails and spent night in nature. As young guy started with explorng the life – girls, fun, travel, good music and learning a lot about myself.  I met lot of new people on events and concerts while some of them are my best friend.

I got a job as a lecturer for Adobe and Microsoft product with some small jobs around like websites, design or animations. I started with studies on university, but that time they were unable to offer me something I really was looking for. I was there once a week and ratherer put more effort on work and hobbies.

For example useless subjects (like technical drawing, automatization) were following from me age of 15 till age of 24 and it was for nothing. Just a waste of my time that nobody is going to give me back and I’ve decided to focus on something that can push me forward. After 6 years in IT education and online (bit overworked) I’ve decided to start working as developer.

It was more fun and I’ve learn a lot about online projects and processes. I moved from web programming to online marketing that I find best fitting my skills (combinations of technical skills, analytical thinking, communication and being creative and strategic). I find that fulltime jobs are not for me. Companies and their systems were not efficient and not offering what I needed. I was changing a job every summer to get few months of holiday to travel and enjoy sports.  That was the way of living I really enjoy. So called on the edge.

I’ve got a stable life, great girlfriend, good job in area I loved, enough money and in between projects also a lot fo time. That there was some time to think about a future and make a decision to move this on another level, make family and so on. I did not felt that way. One day, something really bad happen in Dolomites in Italy where we went for skiing. I got accident that totally turned my life upside down and I got a time to think in hospital.

I got broken femur in two points (complicated) and cannot walk for half year and two years. Doctor was talking some shit I cannot do sports. I just spent with rehabilitaition to get back at to some point I was before. It was just a struggle and hard work with total focus on mysel. I completely changed way of living. I was not ready for boring and stable life.

I was not wasting my time from my 18 at all (traveling, enjoying fun and moments, doing what I love), but from this point I’ve decided to work hard on what I really want and do things can give my life more sense. In 2010 I did my cycling tour in Turkey. it was working well and I did it.

Also made a decision to travel the world beacause in moment when you can die you know that you cannot be happy until you are not living your dream. I start training hard and doing the research. People not understand well my idea of going around the world and reasons I am planning to go there. I’ve founded a company that was offering services in online marketing to make a structure with process and offer. I’ve made my own rules and system that fit my way of living.

What I build during this period can help me also to survive when I will be on the road if something unexpected happen. I had a goal to cover up services and build ecommerce platform as SaaS that help clients to sell their product online. Now we got some clients and over 10 people working with me to help them on their way in online. We founded also Midasto platfon in 2014 (named in 2016) as a beta version. It will be ecommerce platform running from 2017 as a cloud solution for online sales.

During the 2010 – 2013 I was preparing myself from a trip I cycled 60 000 km in 3 years and spent tons of time with excercise (recovery after accident). I met a lot of people who did some sports as me and I am grateful for every great person that helped me on my way and deeper knowledge. I did 2 years also racing in amateur cycling races and had a lot of fun. In 2012 I was almost ready for my world trip.

The journey started on 1st of May in Bratislava as my solo expedition by bike around the world, but during the journey few time Heni and Helmut were partly cycling with me. I am into my nomadic lifestyle on the road, but it is nice to share something we can do as people together. Since I’ve started traveled all around the world by bike and enjoyed more than a 3 years on the road with return on autumn 2016.