Meet The Man Who Started Traveling The World With Only 2 Dollars

In 2002, Keiichi Iwasaki quit his air-conditioner repair job and left his home in Maebashi, Japan, embarking on a cycling trip through Japan with only $2 (160 yen) in his pocket. He loved the trip so much, he decided to take a ferry to South Korea and has been cycling around the world ever since.

Keichi funds this trip as he goes, performing magic tricks on the street. Most of the time, he travels on his bike, but would sometimes travel on foot or by boat.

He has a sleeping bag and tent, so he can sleep wherever he wants.

Here, Keiichi bathes with the locals at a public bath in India.

He stayed in Nepal for one year studying mountaineering and climbed Mount Everest.

In India, he rowed a boat on the Ganges river from Varanasi to the sea.

In Iran, he wondered how big the Caspian sea was. So he rowed a boat across that too.

The map of his journey, 2009.

As of 2015, he is zigzagging his way around Europe.

He is on his fifth bicycle, after two broke and two were stolen. When asked why he travels by bike, Keiichi Iwasaki says it’s important for him to really see what the world is like and traveling slowly on a bicycle allows him to meet more people and see much more than by other modes of travel.

Keiichi hasn’t been back home in Japan since 2002. He says he sometimes misses his friends and family at home, but he is always making new friends and keeps in touch with old friends through the internet, with occasional visits from his family. Despite feeling homesick at times, he has no intention of ending his journey anytime soon.  He wants to travel around Africa, North America, and South America, letting his curiosity about other cultures and his desire to see the world lead him on his epic journey around the world.

photos by Keiichi Iwasaki: www.feel-the-earth.com