Glen Heggstad

It seems almost fitting that we start off with a rider, world traveler, motivational speaker and one of the most amazingly strong hearted individuals I have ever met; Glen Heggstad.  Glen has led a life of significant twists and turns that could have led him down a patch of destruction.  However, Glen was able to convert all of this adversity into positive influences for himself and the people he met as he circumnavigated the world.

Two separate books, Two Wheels Through Terror (a title he dislikes but was demanded by his publisher) in which his motorcycle trip from California to the tip of South America was interrupted when he was kidnapped and held hostage, and his second book One More Day Everywhere, chronicle his motorcycle circumnavigation of the planet.  Both books will hold you spellbound for different reasons.

Two Wheels Through Terror for Glen’s ability to deal with adversity and his will to continue and One More Day Everywhere for the excitement of navigating the entire planet on a motorcycle and visiting people and places that some would not dare.  All in the quest to meet the people of the planet.

Glen has been so touched by the people and places he’s visited, he donates 100% of his book royalties to charitable organizations.  You can puchase Glen’s books from the Ride2ADV Gear Store by clicking HERE or at his website directly.

From Glen’s website @ www.strikingviking.net:

For half a century, it’s been a rocky road of contrasting lifestyles for Glen Heggstad. Growing up in San Francisco and influenced by Jack Keroauc’s novel On The Road led to hitchhiking across the US at the age of sixteen. Toggling between living in the streets and foster homes, a rebellious Glen followed the sentiments of his high school teachers who warned of winding up behind bars—he did: handlebars. And then into life of an outlaw biker.  By age twenty-seven he had retired from the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

In 1979, Heggstad committed to full time martial arts training, eventually earning Black Belt teaching credentials in: Chinese Kung Fu, Shotokan Karate, Japanese Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. During thirty-three years of devoted practice, he’s earned numerous titles in International championships while training troubled youths to believe in themselves via similar paths in martial spiritual development. But because of his Norwegian heritage, a lust for travel runs deep in his Viking blood.

Looping the planet four times over the last three decades, Heggstad has sought unique adventures wandering through fifty-seven developing countries via chicken buses, riverboats, by foot and even by elephants. From twice trekking the Himalayas to the jungles of South America where he was taken prisoner in the Colombian civil war, Heggstad’s crowning achievement became a multi-year solo motorcycle odyssey around the earth as chronicled in his second book One More Day Everywhere. From the wilds of Siberia and the Mongolian Gobi Desert to zigzagging the Middle East through the West Bank, Israel, Pakistan and India, to the length of Africa, Heggstad rode into one challenging experience after another.

Glen has encountered generous hospitality on nearly every level imaginable from Gobi Desert Nomads, to the cannibals of Indonesia and Middle Eastern Bedouin tribes, to later surviving for weeks on cows blood mixed with honey on the Ethiopian savannah. Being equally at home with city folk, simple villagers and primitive tribesmen, enhanced his empathy for those still struggling. This compelled him to donate 100% of his book royalties to international aid organizations committed to building schools in the developing world.

Now channeling energies into motivational speaking about achievement and goal orientation, he uses lessons gleaned from the martial arts competition arena and adventure travel to encourage others to better their lives and enhance their careers.