One type of journey remains relatively rare — circumnavigating the globe by human power alone. It just takes so long! But this is exactly what Karlis Bardelis has been doing for the past eight years.
On April 4, 2024, the Latvian adventurer crossed the finish line in Namibia, where his adventure began in 2016, 58,298km ago. Over 2,898 days, the now-39-year-old rowed and cycled around the globe. His incredible commitment merits the number two spot in our Top 10 Expeditions of 2024.
Though the physical journey started in 2016, the planning began years before. Always wanting adventure, Bardelis started out skiing and snowboarding. This morphed into climbing mountains and with it came a love of adventure stories.
“I started to think more and more about the expeditions I read about in books,” he said. “They were mostly climbing books about the likes of Hans Kammerlander and Reinhold Messner and later on, Nick Bullock. I guess that’s where the ideas and dreams started. Then in 2013, I quit my job and started this life of adventure.”
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
Early expeditions
On one such adventure, he and a friend cycled from Latvia to Sochi to watch the Olympics.
“In Sochi, someone asked me, ‘So will you go to Rio de Janeiro too?’ I somehow didn’t know that the next Olympics were in Rio de Janeiro. But that got me thinking. How would I get to Rio de Janeiro by human power? I realized it was going to include rowing across the ocean. I was hooked. Somehow, I already knew it would be a journey that was going to continue further. I felt a magnet pulling me to go and do big adventures.”
In 2016, Bardelis set off from Namibia. He and a friend rowed 6,000km across the Atlantic to Brazil in 110 days. Then in 2018, after a short break, Bardelis restarted from Brazil, cycling a tandem bike with his then-girlfriend. The pair pedaled 5,400km across South America to Peru.
Rowed to Asia
Next, Bardelis became the first person to row from South America to Asia. Over 715 days, he rowed 26,000km alone across the Pacific to Malaysia. During this longest stretch of his circumnavigation, Bardelis stopped at eight islands to restock and wait out the monsoon season.
Planning the entire giant expedition was impossible. He organized everything leg by leg. Even then, the route rarely stayed as planned. On this Pacific rowing section, for example, Bardelis made at least 20 changes to his route.
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
“I just kept moving west,” he explained. “Across the Pacific, I planned to stop on different islands than the ones I actually stopped at, but it didn’t really matter as long as I was moving forward. You are at the mercy of the oceans and the weather. Originally, I was going to stop in Australia. And then, at some point, I thought, oh, I could just continue to Asia.”
Bardelis’s circumnavigation ground to a halt in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel restrictions forced him to pause for nearly two years. Finally, in 2022, restrictions lifted, and he returned to Malaysia to resume his journey.
COVID hiatus
As usual, this did not go as planned. In those two years, his boat had sustained more damage than expected. He had to make extensive repairs and missed his weather window. Undeterred, he altered his plan. He had his boat transported to Kuala Perlis and then cycled to his new starting point.
Rowing across the Indian Ocean, he briefly teamed up with fellow circumnavigator Dimitri Kieffer. Kieffer joined him for the first nine days until they reached the Maldives. Here, they went their separate ways, both continuing their round-the-world routes. Bardelis added to his list of firsts and became the first person to row from Asia to Africa.
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
As he approached Africa, he had to contend with treacherous weather and the unexpected threat of piracy near the Somali coast. He had wanted to land in Tanzania, but winds pushed him off course to Somalia.
“I knew about the East African coastal current, which runs south to north,” he said. “It starts around 80 to 90km off the coast of Africa. My plan was to get to Tanzania or to approach it as closely as possible. I still had Kenya as a safe buffer before Somalia. But because of the wind, I was already too far north when I hit the current.”
Somalia nightmare
Here, his journey became a logistical hellscape. He was forced to abandon his boat in Somalia, which was then seized by local fishermen. To restart, he needed to get it back and return to Somali waters. After 18 months of contacting anyone he could to try and get his boat back, he managed to get it transported to Kenya.
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
Not one to cut corners, Bardelis then had his boat towed back into Somalian waters and began his final rowing section with a friend. Three-and-a-half days and 385km later, they landed in Kilifi, Kenya. Although this was one of the shortest sections of the whole expedition, it was also one of the most stressful.
“We had a deal with the local guys who were towing us out to the location where I was on my previous leg,” he recalled. “And the feeling never left that they would sell us to someone or just drop us out in the sea somewhere and not tow us to the location where we needed to be. We paid them 50% of the amount that we agreed on. The rest of the money was to be paid on the spot where they were towing us out to. It was quite stressful. No section compared to being towed into Somalian waters.”
Last leg
Back on dry land in Kenya, Bardelis finally began closing his circumnavigation loop by cycling 5,000km across Africa. During the final 1,000km, friends and family from across the globe cycled with Bardelis for sections. They stayed in contact with him throughout the journey.
“My friends learned how to summarize their thoughts not in five-minute-long audio messages but in 140 characters of satellite phone text messages. You can say a lot and make someone on the other side of the world feel at home with those 140 characters.”
On April 4, 2024, he arrived back in Namibia, bringing his 58,298km to a close.
“I never took it as a done deal before I jumped in the ocean in Lüderitz in Namibia where I started.”
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
Motivation?
A question that often baffles Bardelis is how he stayed motivated throughout the eight years.
“When you see a child playing around, and he’s full of energy, jumping around all over the place, you never ask, Where do you get this motivation from? It’s just there. Like internal nuclear power. It’s the same for me. I never needed any extra or external motivation. It was just there.”
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
Almost eight months after completing his journey, Bardelis is thinking about what is next.
“Are there any adventures in the planning? Yes, of course. I didn’t row this far to only row this far. It’s just too early to speak about them. Who knows exactly what they will be? I don’t see the point in doing the same thing again.”
Photo: Karlis Bardelis
