FROM MOTOLOMBIA TO MOTODREAMER

Seventeen-plus years, two names, one dream: showing riders the world from the seat of a motorcycle.

IT STARTED IN CALI, 2008

Before MotoDreamer there was Motolombia — founded in Cali in 2008 as the first guided motorcycle tour and rental operator in Colombia, back when most of the world still thought of the country as a place to avoid rather than a place to ride. We knew better. The Andes crossings, the coffee-country switchbacks, the roads to the Caribbean: we spent years proving that Colombia is one of the greatest motorcycling destinations on Earth, one group of converted riders at a time — more than 4,000 happy customers and counting.

But to understand how a Dane ended up founding Colombia's longest-running motorcycle tour company, you have to rewind one more year — to Denmark, 2007, and a decision our founder Mike Thomsen filmed himself making, week by week, in a video diary that still lives on our YouTube channel.

FIRST, SELL EVERYTHING

In 2007 Mike walked away from a settled life in Denmark: the apartment, the company he ran with a friend — all of it sold. He crated up his Aprilia rally raid, nicknamed Belladonna, shipped her to Santiago de Chile, and set off north with a vague plan and no return date. He told the story himself, on camera, on his wedding day:

"I sold everything before I left home — my apartment, the company I was running with a friend — and then I just wanted to go see the world. I shipped the bike to Santiago in June and started out there, and about five months later I met Diana."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 2, 2008

The ride became an eight-month, twelve-country odyssey across South, Central and North America — plus fifteen US states — that used up three sets of tires and collected six crashes, two speeding tickets, two robberies, one arrest and one spiked drink along the way. The hardest schooling came early, on the Bolivian Altiplano at over 5,000 meters, where picking up a dropped bike leaves you gasping for air and 450 km of the worst roads on the continent took three days:

"Bolivia is simply some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. These are also the worst roads I have ever driven on. Now I've crashed six times in two days, and I've ridden less than 200 km so far."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 1, 2007

Those weeks of beautiful punishment — flamingos and llamas for company, not a single car in two and a half days — taught a lesson we still build every tour around: the greatest riding on Earth is only fun with the right preparation behind it.

THEN, FALL IN LOVE

Six months in, Mike stopped to take stock for his viewers — and buried the real headline in the middle of the crash count:

"I've been on the road six months. I've traveled through 10 countries, 20,000 km on Belladonna, my beautiful Aprilia rally raid... I've crashed six times, been chased, arrested and kidnapped by the police. But most importantly, I found love — a beautiful girl in Colombia called Diana."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 1, 2008

Diana rode along through Central America until the paperwork of traveling north on a Colombian passport in 2008 sent her home from Costa Rica. Two weeks later she called Mike on Skype with news: she was pregnant with their daughter Laura. The original plan — work in the States, maybe finish a helicopter certificate, one day ride China, Mongolia and Russia — quietly gave way to a better one. Mike finished the ride and pointed the bike at Cali.

Getting married in Colombia turned out to be its own adventure. The first attempt at the notaría failed because Mike's Danish birth certificate needed a foreign-ministry stamp, sent by DHL and translated with the Danish consul's confirmation. On 28 August 2008 he announced to the camera, "In a couple of hours I'll be a married man" — and was wrong twice more. Third time lucky: on 5 September 2008, in Cali, Mike and Diana were married, with Laura already along for the ride.

OPEN FOR ADVENTURE

That same year the dream got a business plan: a backpacker hostel in Cali run with Diana, then a couple of rental bikes, then a name. The announcement video from 2008 is one sentence long, and we still would not change a word of it:

"Welcome to Motolombia. My name is Mike and I'm the owner and founder of Colombia's only adventure motorcycle tour and rental company."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 2, 2008

From that hostel and those first rental bikes grew everything that followed — and a slogan we have now used for more than fifteen years: Let the adventure begin.

THE ROAD EARNED US FRIENDS

Along the way the industry noticed. Legendary travel author Ted Simon — the man whose book Jupiter's Travels sent a generation around the world on motorcycles — rode with us in his eighties. We partnered with names like MotoDiscovery on the Trans-Amazonian Challenge, and appeared in Adventure Bike Rider and RoadRUNNER magazines. The numbers behind the guiding kept growing too: Mike has ridden more than a million kilometers across 116-plus countries, over half a million of them in South America alone.

RACING THE SAHARA

And then there is the Dakar. Some childhood dreams refuse to stay filed away:

"Last year I had the opportunity to fulfill a very nice dream of mine that has been 35 years in the making, which was to ride to Dakar in a rally... The year when I turned 40 was when I decided that now I have to fulfill this dream I've had for so long."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 4, on the 2015 rally

Having never raced before, Mike entered the 2015 Intercontinental Rally from Spain to Dakar on the original route — and finished 11th in the bike category. In 2019 he came back on a Honda CRF450X to chase the top ten, and was running even better than that when the rally broke his race, not his spirit:

"It's a bittersweet feeling standing here at the last stage of the 2019 Intercontinental Rally from Spain to Dakar. Unfortunately I had to go out on stage eight, fighting for third position overall."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 4, 2019

Only 11 bikes finished that year. The organizers let Mike ride the final 150 km classic beach stage from Saint-Louis to Lac Rose anyway — because you finish the ride, even when you can't finish the race. The rally years fed straight back into the company: desert navigation, logistics under pressure, and a stream of ideas that became new tours.

FROM ONE COUNTRY TO FIVE CONTINENTS

Colombia taught us how to run tours properly: local knowledge you can't google, support crews that actually support, motorcycles maintained like our own — every group with a tour leader up front and a support vehicle sweeping behind, the "pocket of safety" we still ride in today. We built 36 unique riding days in Colombia alone. Riders kept asking the obvious question — "where else can we go with you?" — and the answer kept growing. Peru. Bolivia. Patagonia. Then across the Atlantic: Iceland, the Baltic, the North Cape. Then Oman, Uganda, Namibia, Tibet, Thailand. Today the catalog spans 29 tours on five continents, from 10-day escapes to the 92-day Africa Top to Bottom expedition.

A NEW NAME FOR A BIGGER PLAYGROUND

A company riding the whole planet had outgrown a name that pointed to one country. Motolombia became MotoDreamer, and the headquarters moved to Viborg, Denmark — closing a circle, because Mike's story started there: a Danish kid who had traveled halfway around the world overland by age six, and who ended up building Colombia's longest-running motorcycle tour company. The name changed; the people, the standards and the phone number in the riding jacket did not.

WHERE THE STORY GOES NEXT

Back in 2008, halfway through the ride that started it all, Mike ended his six-month summary with a line that has quietly been our mission statement ever since:

"I know how it feels to settle with what you got, and being too scared or too hung up to make a change. But I just want to remind you: one life, so live it."

Mike Thomsen · from Season 1, 2008

The next chapter is being written by the riders on this year's departures — maybe by you. Start with the full tour catalog, ride the roads where it all began on the Colombia tour, or go all-in on the South America Top to Bottom — or just talk to us. Let the adventure begin.