Allan Karl WorldRider

08/19/2026

Rode into Crete’s Theriso Gorge not really knowing what I was getting into. One road in, same road out—no other way through.

Slow-roasted lamb in a mountain village that time forgot, a six-generation olive-oil estate where they still crush olives with stone mills, and then some seriously sketchy roads down to a hidden beach—a place most tourists never seem to find.

Also managed to run over my own sunglasses. Solo travel, man.

I’m testing three possible thumbnail photos—which one would make you click?

The new episode is up. Watch the video by clicking the link in my comment below. 👇

06/23/2026

Something I've been working on for a while is finally done.

It's a new book called The Invitation: On the Moments We Almost Miss. It grew out of my motorcycle journey — not the miles or the countries, but the moments underneath all of that. The people I almost didn't stop for. The conversations that almost didn't happen. The ones that changed something anyway.

It's short by design — about 22,000 words, a two-hour read. If you've read The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer, or Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, or Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, it lives in that territory. Big ideas carried by small stories.

Before it goes to agents, I'm looking for two or three people to read it — not to edit it, just to read it honestly and tell me where it works and where it doesn't.

If you're interested, send me a message or email me at [email protected]. Three weeks is the window. I'll send a PDF.

And fair warning: it might make you think twice about the next person you almost didn't talk to.

06/23/2026

I Wrote Another Book

I have been riding my motorcycle across over 100 countries for nearly twenty years, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the moments that almost didn't happen. The stranger who waved me over for food, and I almost kept riding. The table that ran late in a way I almost escaped. The wrong road that turned out to be the right one — or was it the other way around....

I have been riding my motorcycle across over 100 countries for nearly twenty years, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the moments that almost didn’t happen. The stranger who waved me over for food, and I almost kept riding. The table that ran late in a way I almost escaped. The […]

06/04/2026

This email showed up in my inbox today from a reader who's been following my work for many years.

It touched me.

I've spent much of my life traveling, writing, photographing, speaking, and collecting stories. Sometimes you send those stories out into the world and never really know where they land.

Then a note like this arrives.

That's why I write.

If you didn't know, I publish a newsletter on Substack called Inspired Life of Travel. It's where I share stories, reflections, travel adventures, food, curiosity, connection, and the occasional lesson learned the hard way.

If you haven't seen it before, I'd be honored if you'd become a subscriber. It's free, and if you find value in it, there's a paid option too.

I'll put links to both my latest post and the newsletter in the comments below.

And to Bill: thank you. Your words meant more than you know.

05/27/2026

At 2:27am in Austin, I found myself sitting in a place that still feels real.

No velvet rope.
No influencer wall.
No manufactured cool.

Just music, stories, neon glow, and a conversation with Ramsay Midwood inside Sam’s Town Point.

What started as “one more stop before bed” turned into something bigger: a reminder that curiosity still opens doors, algorithms never will.

We talked about music. Creativity. Fatherhood. Legacy. Why do some places survive while the world becomes increasingly transactional?

And somewhere in the middle of all that, Austin started feeling like Austin again.

This isn’t a polished industry interview.
No studio. No setup.

Just a fan having a beer and staying open long enough for something real to happen.

That’s kind of the point.

Watch This — Please 🎥 https://youtu.be/hz1OEhi9SWo

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05/26/2026

2:27am in Austin | A Conversation with Ramsay Midwood at Sam’s Town Point | Journeys With WorldRider Podcast | Ep 77

It's 2:27 in the morning on a Saturday night in Austin, Texas. The crowd has cleared out. The band has packed up. And Ramsay Midwood and I sit in a dark corner of Sam's Town Point — talking. I'd been listening to Ramsay's music for five or six years before I ever made it down there. Found him on Boot Liquor Radio — part of the Soma FM family of deep-cut internet stations — and I couldn't stop....

It’s 2:27 in the morning on a Saturday night in Austin, Texas. The crowd has cleared out. The band has packed up. And Ramsay Midwood and I sit in a dark corner of Sam’s Town Point — talking. I’d been listening to Ramsay’s music for five or six years before I ever made it down there. Found ...

05/20/2026

Which Way Are You Turning?

Which Way Are You Turning? On opening up, closing down, and the signs we drive past without stopping Somewhere on a road in Alaska, I drove past a hand-painted sign outside a modest house. It said something like Meet Mr. Alaska. An invitation. But I kept riding. I’ve been wondering about that man ever since. The responses to “Eat the Beets…...

Which Way Are You Turning? On opening up, closing down, and the signs we drive past without stopping Somewhere on a road in Alaska, I drove past a hand-painted sign outside a modest house. It said something like Meet Mr. Alaska. An invitation. But I kept riding. I’ve been wondering about that man ...

05/05/2026

A spare ticket.
A road with no plan.
A phone call you’ve been putting off.
A dinner invitation.
A class. A concert. A conversation.

Sometimes the biggest changes in our lives begin with something ridiculously small.

Not because the thing itself changes everything.

But because it interrupts the pattern.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is for life to quietly calcify into routine. Same roads. Same decisions. Same assumptions. And how often we reject things before we’ve even experienced them.

I wrote about that in a new piece called Say Yes to Something.

Not to everything.
Just something.

Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/worldrider/p/say-yes-to-something?r=6mbp6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Allan Karl is a keynote speaker, author of FORKS, and creator of The Astounding Mindset, a framework focused on deeper human connection through curiosity, acknowledgment, validation, respect, and encouragement.

→ www.allankarl.com

05/03/2026

Say Yes to Something

Eat The Beets A starting point for anyone who’s been deciding in advance. Because trying something new makes your world bigger. After I posted my last article, “Eat the Beets: Or Stay Stuck With Who You Used To Be,” something unexpected happened. Texts came in. Emails. From people I know and — this is the part that got me — from people I didn’t know yet— but now I’m getting to know them....

Eat The Beets A starting point for anyone who’s been deciding in advance. Because trying something new makes your world bigger.   After I posted my last article, “Eat the Beets: Or Stay Stuck With Who You Used To Be,” something unexpected happened. Texts came in. Emails. From people I know an...

04/29/2026

Eat the Beets

Eat the Beets Or stay stuck with who you used to be. At a formal dinner, a man in a tuxedo pushed his plate away as if it had offended him personally. "I hate beets," he said. The dish didn't look offensive. Quite the opposite. It was beautifully constructed — roasted golden and red beets layered into a tight tower, formed and stacked with real intention, rising from a bed of arugula, topped with goat cheese and finished with walnuts for texture and crunch....

Eat the Beets Or stay stuck with who you used to be. At a formal dinner, a man in a tuxedo pushed his plate away as if it had offended him personally. “I hate beets,” he said. The dish didn’t look offensive. Quite the opposite. It was beautifully constructed — roasted golden and red beets [....