Free Ride is an honest, unadorned, chronicle of the circuitous journey to the remote places of planet Earth by you-tube star Noraly Schoenmaker. First published in Dutch in 2024, this English language translation is out 3rd June 2025 from Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint. It's 288 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

The author is impressively brave (she herself calls it foolhardy in retrospect in several places), honest, and has a rare fortitude. She's a geologist by training, who left her fieldwork behind after a breakup in her personal life in the Netherlands and flew off to India. An incredible series of profound coincidences led her to acquire her first motorcycle, Basanti, and starting her life over as a You-Tube content creator with her Itchy Boots channel (currently at an eye-watering 2.8 million subscribers).

The writing is plain and quite effective for its directness. Readers who are familiar with her you-tube journey will recognize that this is her authentic voice, it comes across as a more personal, behind-the-scenes version of her episodes with a lot of explanation (why, how, and deeper detail on some of the potentially frightening realities of being a single human traveling alone in *remote* areas, most of the time without a backup plan, completely isolated).

Apparently the translation work was (mostly?) done by the author herself. Again, for readers who are familiar with her other content, it reads like her authentic voice. For folks unfamiliar with her, it does read like it's been written by someone who is quite fluent at English, but for whom it's not their first (and probably only) language. It's charming and real, like her other content.

She's tough and unflinching. She could easily be the indomitable heroine of an Agatha Christie novel.

Four and a half stars. Absolutely recommended for public library acquisition, home library, buddy read, or a book club selection. This will be one of the year's holiday/travel/airport purchases.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir by Noraly Schoenmaker about her solo travels on a motorcycle across numerous countries in Asia and the Middle East. It was interesting, informative, and kept me engaged. I loved how she described the places she rode through, the people she met, and the mechanical challenges she overcame with her motorcycle. It’s amazing she was able to survive riding across many of the roads or ruts in inclement weather. I get the sense she may have sanitized some of her experiences or else she was very fortunate in meeting so many generous and helpful people - I’m glad that was the case. I also appreciated her candidness as she described her feelings, determination and what motivated her to set out on her original trip in the first place. She took us along with her on her personal growth journey and I was rooting for her as she undertook some of the most physically arduous parts of her ride. There was a nice balance in the description of the countries and areas she traveled to - a bit of history, environment, terrain, culture, food, language. I also liked that the writing was engaging and nicely paced with humor tossed in for good measure. Yes, and I did end up watching a few Itchy Boots episodes and thoroughly enjoyed them too. I’m looking forward to the author’s next book - when is the next one out, please? Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I've been watching Noraly's channel for years , so this book felt like reminiscing with an old friend to me.

Highly recommend checking it out, especially if you've never watched her channel.

I have really been looking forward to this book, as I have been following Noraly (aka) Itchy Boots since she made her trip from Patagonia to Alaska. I have loved all of her adventures so far, but I was always curious as to what made her start her motorcycle travels on YouTube. This book gives you a good background for how and why she decides to take this journey. I love how she loves to travel solo and give us wonderful descriptions of the places she visits. Her channel is very well done , and makes a now, arm chair traveler, maybe want to get out there again.
If you don't follow her yet, this book would be good place to start, and then you have many YouTube, videos to enjoy afterward. Just pick the countries you are interested and and take a wonderful ride with Noraly. She is definitely worth following.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Atria books for a copy of this book.

this book was so captivating. I loved riding alongside Noraly on this amazing adventure, and I loved that I got to learn so much about countries I had never thought to look into before. I definitely think that it changed my perspective on a lot of different places in central Asia and I really enjoyed reading about her experiences and I learned so much about motorcycles and she definitely has a new subscriber/follower in me because I cannot wait to go back and look at all of her videos that she mentioned and her trip from Patagonia to Alaska. I loved the way she described the journey and I am so so in awe of her bravery and her guts to just decide to do this and for chasing her dreams and I am so thankful to the publisher and Noraly for giving me this ARC. I truly enjoyed this book. I had an amazing time riding alongside you.

What an adventure! I've never traveled far from home and have a daughter who loves to travel all over the globe - alone- like Noraly Schoenmaker does. So I was absolutely captivated by every page. It was so interesting to learn about places I've only heard of in the new (and some I've never heard of), but also to see how people are people everywhere and this world is safer than you think. Wonderful read that I've been thinking about ever since. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read in exchange for my honest review.

This was just the book I needed when craving adventure. I appreciate the authors ability to capture the situation at hand. Thanks for the opportunity to read this one!