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He is from Yorkshire England but 66 year old Ian Coates hasn’t been home in 10 years. That is because he has been travelling around the world on his motorcycle. He has only made it halfway so far but he has toured 60 countries in Europe, Africa, and South America. Belize is now on that list because for the last three weeks he has been here. He’s actually stuck here because his passport was stolen in Guatemala. But when we met him yesterday at BATSUB, he was taking it in stride – as it seems, he does all things.

Keith Swift Reporting,
Ian Coates rode into Belize on his 1992 Honda 750 CC Motorcycle – just as he has done in sixty other countries over ten years.

Ian Coates, Riding Around the World
“I left England in 1999 and I’ve rode over sixty countries now. I’m on my way to Alaska and every country I go into I go all the way around it.”

Keith Swift,
Why are you doing this?

Ian Coates,
“I just do it because I want to see how people are around the world and what things are like around the world.”

He has been doing it on his bike which has a self-contained self-supporting unit.

Ian Coates,
“This is my tent in here, my stove, my sleeping bag, my clothes, my spare on the other side, and in here is all my things.”

Alfonso Noble,
“Where do you get money from?”

Ian Coates,
“Well I work on farms for my food and somewhere to sleep.”

Jules Vasquez,
Your wife supports you, you say...

Ian Coates,
“No, no my wife does not support me. She just sends the money that I’ve earned all my life and not spent yet. I never spent anything. I started to work when I was 14 and worked all my life. I worked seven days and you cannot take that up there, well no one has ever come and told me you can.”

And even though he is travelling by himself- and doesn’t speak the language in half of the countries he visits - Coates says he doesn’t get lonely.

Jules Vasquez,
Don’t you miss your wife, don’t you miss companionship?

Ian Coates,
“Yes I talk to my wife and I am going to meet her again now because she is going to go up to the USA to meet me there. But I have been married forty years and she has a well earned rest from me for the last ten years.

After Belize I will go around Mexico and then USA then Canada and then Alaska.”

Jules Vasquez,
You have a time frame?

Ian Coates,
“I just want to finish before I die.”

And as this easy rider breezes across the world meeting people in all places, what wisdom has he distilled as the essential truth of modern man?

Ian Coates,
“The poorer the people the more honest they are, the more they will give you and help you.”

Coates will now head to Mexico, Alaska, Canada, and then sometime within the next ten years he hopes to return home in London. You can track his journey at IanCoates.