He is most known for travelling around the world on his motorcycle and subsequently writing the book, Forks: A Quest for Culture, Cuisine and Connection.

[11] At the touring weekend he shared a presentation entitled The Beginning at the End of the Road, which draws from his riding experience.

[5] Karl started from his home in Newport Beach, California, travelled up to Alaska, across Canada, down to Mexico, and around Central and South America before heading to Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Exploring the jungle, at one point, he stopped to take a picture of a waterfall where two men holding machine guns came to him and asked him to come with them.

[1][15] Six months into his travel, when Karl was going to Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, he had an accident while riding on a muddy dirt road 15,000 feet high in the Bolivian Andes.

It had been raining from several days and his bike slipped out from under him and his panniers fell on top of his left leg and broke it in three places.

A family took him in for a short time until arrangements were made to fly to Cape Town in South Africa.

After negotiating with border guards for days, Karl was allowed to tour Syria, but could not enter most Middle Eastern countries due to the wars.

He shipped his motorcycle to Baltimore, Maryland and then continued his journey from Washington, D.C. across the United States, riding only on the backroads, not on interstate highways, and returned to Newport Beach, California.

[17] In his book, Forks: A Quest for Culture, Cuisine, and Connection, Karl documents his travels through the many stories, images and recipes he collected.

In the book, each of his destinations is arranged into a short chapter in the order in which he visited, illustrated with photos and chronicled with a travelogue anchored with a recipe that represents the national dish.

[5] Karl has also discussed his packing list, his motorcycle specifications, and the statistics and maintenance of his journey in the book.

[20] Initially, he did not plan to add recipes in the book, however one day he made moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew, for friends.