NEW ORLEANS -- Henry Crew left London last April on a Ducati motorcycle. The company loaned it to him. Crew also headed out with some cycling gear from a few sponsors. But most of the expenses of the journey ahead he would pay for himself, and Crew was going to ride around the world.
Crew is hoping to set a world record for the youngest person to ride a motorcycle around the globe solo. The current record holder is 24-years-old. Crew was 22 when he started in April. He's had a birthday since. In all, he originally expected to travel 35,000 miles.
"I've got to 35 thousand miles, and I've got about 10 thousand to go, so my calculations were a bit out," Crew smiled as he spoke with WGNO during his stop in New Orleans. Since last April, he's been through parts of Europe, Asia, Australia and South and Central America.
Despite the miscalculation in miles, Crew is keeping his 35,000 miles theme. In fact, you can follow him as he makes his journey by checking his website, 35000miles.com.
While you're on the website, maybe make a donation as well. Crew is also using his world record run to raise money for the Movember foundation which promotes men's health issues.
You can probably imagine some of the dangers of driving a motorcycle around the world. You could crash, get flat tires, or even struggle to find gasoline. And all those things happened to Crew.
But the motorcyclist says there are other things that you could never plan for like closed banks and food poisoning.
"My last two days leaving India, I thought that I'd traveled completely through India without getting food poisoning. And then the last 48 hours, it was terrible," Crew said.
"The main one was when I was going from Iran to Pakistan. I couldn't withdraw money in Iran, and I ran out of money by the time I crossed into Pakistan. And all of the banks were shut because of the Ramadan celebration. So I had three days with no money and no ability to buy food or water or petrol."
While in New Orleans, Crew brought his borrowed Ducati Scrambler to TTRNO on Julia Street to have the team there perform some maintenance on the bike. From here, Crew is headed to Austin, Tx, then north to Canada, New York, and on to Spain by plane. The crew at TTRNO said that when they heard about Crew's journey, they reached out and offered to help.
Crew hopes to complete his journey in April, about a year after he began. He says the trip is costing him about $25,000, which he says is less than what it would have cost him to live in London for the past year.
As for his few days in New Orleans, Crew says they've been one of the highlights of his trip.
"Everyday, eating great food and great music and amazing people. That's something that I have noticed is how friendly everyone is here."
If you'd like to see some of Crew's video from his rides around the world, click on the video button at the top of this page.