Vespa 200 E Five Continents

Writer and journalist Giorgio Bettinelli (1955-2008) became famous with the publication of In Vespa, his book recounting his trip on a Vespa, the first of many, from Rome to Saigon between July 1992 and March 1993. An accidental Vesparado, after that first trip Bettinelli never stopped: his travels took him all over the world, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from Australia to South Africa, from Chile to Tasmania, through North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. This is the Vespa Bettinelli rode for his Worldwide Odyssey: 144,000 km from Chile to Tasmania between 1997 and 2001. After leaving from Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, in 1340 days Bettinelli completed a round-the-world trip, crossing the Equator four times. He rode across all of South and Central America, the USA from coast to coast, Siberia, Europe and Africa, from Morocco to Cape Town, and from there along the eastern coast to Djibouti; continental Asia from Yemen to Singapore, Indonesia, western Australia from Darwin to Melbourne, before arriving in Tasmania. During the journey, he clocked up Cape Horn, North Cape, the Cape of Good Hope and the South East Cape, using 7,000 litres of fuel and 150 kg of oil. On the way, Bettinelli was kidnapped by a guerrilla group in Congo, and released shortly after, unharmed, but robbed of all his possessions. An expert rider-traveller by then, he decided not to stop and undertook yet another journey, in the only country he had not visited: China, where he took up residence and married.