From Siberia to Tierra Del Fuego: meet Maurizio Doro

Maurizio Doro biking on the frozen waters of Lake Baikal. (Credits: Maurizio Doro)

South America, South Africa, China, Canada and Siberia, name a region and probably Maurizio Doro has been there.

Doro has always been a reckless person, attracted by the unknown and he is always ready to engage in new challenges. When he was only 17, he managed to cross the entire Liguria, an Italian region, by walking.

This led him to experience situations and emotions which were unknown to him. The solitude of travelling on his own, having to fend for himself and the contact with strangers are some of them.

He did his very first trip outside Italy in 1995, when he crossed Tibet. In order to escape Chinese military controls, he slept on the floor without a tent, hiding himself. He explains that now it would be almost impossible to do it because the territory is largely controlled by China.

Later he travelled to the Himalayas, crossed deserts in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina in complete autonomy. But as soon as his skills improved, he pushed himself even further and decided to go towards northern regions of the world, which he crossed during winter, reaching temperatures of minus 43 degrees.

He did some biking races starting with hundred km and eventually reaching longer distances from 3,000 to 4,500 kilometres. He also participated in races like the Marathon des Sables in 1998, which consists in running for 230 kilometres no stop in only six days in southern Morocco, in the Sahara Desert.

An endless sunset

Doro paddling in the Arctic Ocean. (Credits: Maurizio Doro)

Among all the places he visited, in his opinion, nothing can be compared to the Polar Cap’s breathtaking view.

His face lights up as he recalls that episode of his life. “I am getting teary even now,” he says smiling nostalgically.

He reached the Polar Cap during his third trip to Yukon, Canada. He explains to me that he went back to Canada to visit Dale, an American friend he met during his first trip there. He traveled in July and during summer the ice melted, and so the sea was traversable.

Doro paddled in his canoe all night long across the calm waters. He stopped only to admire the beauty of the endless sunset settling on the horizon.

These are the sort of experiences which stimulate him and what made him develop such a strong passion for extreme travels.

Sometimes things can go wrong

However, not all of his adventures went as smoothly as the one in Canada.

Through his career, Doro experienced many moments of fear, but never of panic he specifies. He remembers the one time in Patagonia, where he was trapped on a boat in the middle of a storm with two friends.

He was close to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. That day the wind reached 72mph and everything seemed to be swallowed into the darkness of the storm. It was impossible for him to reach the coast.

“I actually thought that we were going to die,” says Doro, “there was no escape.”

But while his friends were petrified, he felt the adrenaline going through his body. Once the storm was over, aware of what he had just been through, he was overtaken by a feeling close to excitement and almost of pleasure.

Looking for different types of emotions

Sunset in Siberia. (Credits: Maurizio Doro)

Also, one of his goals is to understand himself more deeply through these travels. He says he is striving to reach different types of emotions, “the ones that make you feel something”, and subsequently being able to express them to others.

The idea of visiting new places always thrills Doro, however he does not do it for the sole purpose of traveling. He loves the contact with nature and being surrounded by animals.

He is looking for more focused adventures, with the aim of reaching a complicated satisfaction involving physical efforts and the sensations that come from his accomplishments.

One of the most surprising traits of his character is the nonchalant way he talks about his work and experiences. Others may have shown off their skills, but Doro is not looking for people’s approval.

“I am the only one who can actually judge the quality of my work,” he says, “I don’t want someone else to tell me I did a nice job, I don’t care, because they don’t even know if I am that good.”

He told me he crossed a frozen lake in Siberia as if it was something completely ordinary and he was actually one of the first people to transverse Alaska and Baykal lake’s on his own.

Click here if you want to watch the video taken by Doro during his trip in Siberia.

A new kind of adventure

Maurizio Doro: “These adventures become a sort of mantra, you isolate yourself from the world you're used to know."

In order to achive his goal of showing these feelings to others, Doro decided to introduce more people to his world.

Therefore in 2000 he started planning “adventurous trips”, as he likes to call them, for anyone who is interested to join him.

He created his own brand called Naturaid. “A naturaider," Doro explains, "is a wayfarer, it’s a philosophy, the willing to explore, do, and live closer to nature."

Slowly more people are identifying themselves within his brand and although this is not something that worries him yet, Doro hopes that the group will continue to exist even when he will not be involved with it anymore.

At the moment Doro does not know when the next adventure will begin or where it will bring him, but he is sure of one thing: he will not stop anytime soon.