TURNING POINT

A geologist and lifelong traveler, Noraly Schoenmaker planned to spend a year exploring Asia by public transport and blogging about her experience before returning home. But an excursion on a rented motorcycle through the Himalayas changed her life forevershe had found a new obsession. Instead of returning to her usual travels, she decided to purchase a bike and a GoPro, and pursue more unconventional adventures.

Looking to ride as far in one direction as possible, Noraly turned her bike East, planning to ride through the thick jungles of Myanmar and Thailand into Malaysia. But when she first left Delhi, climbing mountain passes and crossing rickety wooden bridges into Myanmar, she had no idea that her journeys would come to surpass one-hundred-sixty-thousand kilometers (and counting) through sixty countries on five continents. All she knew was that she felt instantly and profoundly free while riding her motorcycle nimble enough to follow the narrowest paths, and powerful enough to travel the longest highways. In the six years since she first set out from India, Noraly has completed six journeys. She's ridden the length of the American continent from Argentina to Alaska; she's reached the northernmost point of Europe and the southernmost point of Africa. Although a broken collarbone cut short her voyage across Africa days before she finished her ninth journey last month, she has no plans to slow down. TURNING POINT will recount Noraly's first twenty thousand miles from India to Southeast Asia, then the Middle East, Central Asia, and finally back through Russia and Europe to the Netherlands. More Bruce Chatwin and Cheryl Strayed than Elizabeth Gilbert, TURNING POINT is a travel memoir like no other because Noraly is a traveler like no other. From the very beginning, Noraly has brought fans along on her YouTube channel, Itchy Boots, where she's documented every leg of her messy, exhausting and beautiful journey. She now reaches: 2.3 Million followers on YouTube 800,000 followers on Facebook 600,000 followers on Instagram 300,000 followers on TikTok @itchybootstravel