Members of the Shanxi RV Club wave goodbye to Zhang Zhiwu.
Traveled tens of thousands of kilometers across Eurasia after retirement
China’s “Number One RV Enthusiast,” Zhang Zhiwu from Dalian, who has traveled over 30,000 kilometers across Eurasia on his “Happy Seniors' RV Journey,” arrived in Taiyuan yesterday in his worn but resilient RV, receiving a “hero’s welcome” from local RV enthusiasts of the Shanxi RV Club.
The 64-year-old Zhang Zhiwu was a lawyer before retiring in 2009. In the year he retired, though he loved traveling, he didn’t know how to drive, so he learned to get his license. Fascinated by RVs—those “homes on wheels”—in March 2010, he heard that a resident in Changsha, Hunan, wanted to sell a lightly used two-year-old compact Great Wall RV. After some haggling, he bought it for over a hundred thousand yuan. By April of that year, less than two months after getting his license, Zhang drove the RV alone from Changsha back to Dalian in just two days. On September 18, 2010, he and his wife embarked on their “RV journey,” starting from Dalian and driving south along the coast, passing through Qingdao, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Haikou, and Sanya, then exiting through Nanning to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Upon returning to China, they drove to Tibet, completing a 10-month trip covering over 23,000 kilometers. On May 3 of this year, Zhang set off again on his Eurasia-spanning adventure. Since his wife stayed home to care for their newborn grandchild, he found an like-minded retired official from Hebei online to join him. The pair first headed north, exiting through Manzhouli into Russia. Later, when his companion had to return to China, Zhang continued solo, driving through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania into Europe, and crossing Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. On October 8, he drove back into China from Kazakhstan, arriving in Xinjiang. His stop in Taiyuan is part of this Eurasian journey. In just six months, he has now traveled through more than ten countries, covering over 32,000 kilometers.
Since beginning his RV journey, Zhang Zhiwu has consistently connected with travel enthusiasts worldwide online, regularly sharing his experiences and photos on his blog, becoming an internet celebrity and earning the title “China’s Number One RV Enthusiast.” His travel diaries, published on a certain website, have garnered over 800,000 views.
Shanxi also has a group of RV enthusiasts who formed their own organization, the Shanxi RV Club, and frequently host related events. After Zhang Zhiwu arrived in Taiyuan, Dong Ruijiang, the club’s founder who had communicated with him during his Southeast Asia RV trip, had gathered over twenty RV enthusiasts early on to meet him and exchange ideas face to face.