Thierry Posty in the Dominican Republic. The French psychologist spends much of his life crossing nations on horseback.

French adventurer Thierry Posty arrived in Hanoi last week to start the next leg of his ambitious plan to see the whole world on horseback.

His schedule is simple: three years working as a psychologist in France to save up enough money for the fourth year, when he tackles the next leg of his globe-trotting travels on horseback.

“I do a trip every four years. I work for three years, and take a year off.”

Posty started out by crossing his homeland at the age of 18. Since then, he has covered 65,400 kilometers through more than 100 nations in five continents, all on horseback.

“It was a dream when I was a kid to cross countries on horseback. I love to familiarize myself with nature, meet people and see new things every day,” he said.

“When I was a kid, my parents were not rich and could not afford riding lessons for me. So I did my best and worked all day in the stables just to ride for five minutes at night. Now, I want to ride horses all my life.”

Most recently, Posty has been in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Jamaica and Dominica. He has also ridden horses across France, Canada, Australia, Mongolia, Mexico, Cuba, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Fiji and Japan.

His longest single trip was through Canada and Alaska, which took him one and a half years. He put in 40 kilometers per day, and walked half the way to rest his horse.

The hardest part of the journey was the inclement weather, and he remembers well the bitter cold and furious storms he encountered.

After his journey through Vietnam, Posty intends to ride across Laos and Cambodia.

Wherever he goes, he gives the local children horseback rides, plays his harmonica and, if he is offered a guitar, sings French songs to the people he meets along the way.

“Music and horses are good passports to meet people,” he said.

“When I travel on horseback, I meet people everywhere, from the forests, from the mountains and from the cities,” Posty said.

He always finds the local people very pleasant and friendly, helping to find a place for him and his horse to sleep or get cooking, or simply offering sugarcane or something to feed his horse.

“If I traveled by car or motorbike, I would miss out on meeting all the nice people,” Posty said.

One time he stopped at a farm and asked the farmer if he could pitch his tent in the field, but the farmer said, “We have many rooms; you can sleep in one of them.”

“This happened everywhere I went to… So I gave a homeless guy my sleeping bag as I didn’t want to carry the extra weight for nothing,” he said.

Upon arriving in a new country, Posty gets hold of one or two horses and plenty of fodder like corn and rice as the grass in many areas is not enough for the animals.

Posty does not use GPS on his travels, only maps. “I often have to ask five or six people to tell me the way. If two or three people give the same directions, I follow them. If not, I ask more people,” he said.

Asked about sponsors, Posty said he didn’t have any. “I don’t want someone to sponsor my trips because I want to be free to do as I please. My sponsor is the friendship of people along my way.”

His immediate plan is to travel from the top of Vietnam to the bottom, but first he needs to find a horse.

Posty is looking to hire or buy a large horse, at least 160 centimeters tall. Anyone who can help should call him on 01 274 683 867 or email him at thierryposty.globerider@mail.com.

Reported by Bao Anh