Just a few of our adventures traveling the world by bike…
I started posting some info about our trip on the website crazyguyonabike.com; they have some great tools for searching through other cycle tourists’ trips, making maps, etc.
Here’s our blog there – check out the awesome map of our complete route: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/timandsteve
We will plan to post trip journals to both blogs. SpaceBuggy.com will also include our other random thoughts and ideas.
You are, like everyone else, subject to the illusion of choice. We spend a lot of time “choosing” to be, think, or do “A or B”, when in fact the choice is already made by the options presented by others… Democrat or Republican. Vanilla, chocolate, caramel, or strawberry. McDonald’s, Burger King, or Hodad’s. Shy or outgoing. Walk or Don’t Walk. Go to work or quit. Happy or sad. Like or don’t like. Even toothpaste: Total, Fresh, White, Sensitive, Foam, Gel, Paste. You think those are the only options, but they are only the ones that others think they can benefit by offering you. There is an infinite array of options between, beyond, and orthogonal to the options presented to you by business, society, government, and even your own mind. Don’t choose. Create something new.
I will try to keep this updated as we go, but please contact us to get the most accurate dates.
Many of our friends have asked us for our itinerary so they can meet us abroad. We think it would be absolutely fantastic to meet as many of our friends as possible during our bike travels! What better way to keep in touch with you all.
Keep in mind, however, that our tour is quite open-ended. Days may get rained out, we may need to have unexpected repairs, perhaps we’ll find new routes to take and things to see, or maybe even hop on a train to skip some areas. So, if you’d like to try to meet up with us, it’s best if your plans are somewhat flexible, and even better if you have some kind of transportation option to meet us where ever we may be (hopefully not too far off the itinerary!).
So here it goes:
Europe 2017
Asia 2017-2018
I’ve completed the route planning for the next section of our trip from Barcelona, Spain to Marmaris, Turkey! I’ve spent days poring over maps, tourist guides, cycling blogs, Strava heatmaps, and recommendations from friends.
Some people don’t like to plan their cycle tour in a lot of detail, preferring to wing it as they go. For me, the planning is a huge amount of fun, and it allows us to learn about the cultures and history of the areas we will be riding through. More practically, because we have Visa deadlines to contend with (including EU’s complicated Schengen visa with its rolling 90-day time limit), we have to have some structure. And of course, we are still allowing plenty of time for unplanned deviations and excursions.
France
After leaving Barcelona around early April 2017, we quickly enter into southern France and ride through the Provence region, passing through Avignon, where we’ll see the Pont du Gard Roman Aqueduct and the “Triumphal Arch” of Orange, amongst many other things. I rode through Provence in 2003, and I remember the food being divine, and the people welcoming.
If we have time, we’ll take the TGV (high speed train) from Marseilles to Paris and experience Paris en printemps. We then head east through beautiful Mediterranean coastal towns including Cannes, Antibes, Nice, and the small country of Monaco, before entering Italy.
Italy
So much to see in Italy! We will ride along the rugged coast through Cinque Terre towards Pisa, then divert inland, passing through San Giamignano and Siena, before taking some rest days in Florence. We then ride over the Tuscan hills towards Venice, where you’ll undoubtedly see some gondola selfies posted. East of Italy, we pass through Slovenia for a hot second, before entering Croatia.
Croatia
Finally outside of the Schengen visa zone, we can relax a bit and go at a more leisurely pace. It should be near May now, and we’ll have until September until our Schengen visa renews and we start getting more time in Europe. Luckily, Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania have a lot to experience, and it looks like we’ll be here in shoulder season before the hordes of tourists arrive in July.
Our first village of Grožnjan is a hilltop artist colony. This area of Croatia on the Istrian peninsula is famous for its olive oil, truffles, and is a foodie utopia. We’ll post lots of Bike Stomach photos.
We then continue around the peninsula, exploring caves, and visiting quiet coastal villages, before taking a ferry to the island of Cres, one of the many islands in the Croatian archipelago. After a night of camping on the island, we ferry to Krk, and ride inland to see the waterfall lakes in Plitvice Lakes national park. We may also take a few days to continue on inland towards Zagreb, the capital city.
Further south, we stop in Zadar to listen to the Sea Organ, an organ played by the ocean waves! In Split, we will island hop to see ancient towns and beautiful beaches, ending with Korčula with its walled city. We ride the length of Korčula and then ferry back to the mainland on the Pelješac peninsula. Taking a quick detour, we pass into Bosnia for a few kilometers. We end our Croatian tour in Dubrovnik.
Montenegro
Not known as a cycling destination, the country nevertheless looks beautiful. From Budva, we will climb to the top of Lovcen National Park, where you can see 80% of the country on a clear day and explore the historic mausoleum. We will also visit the Monastery Ostrog, built right into the side of a cliff, and pass through the capital of Podgorica before heading south along the coast to Albania.
Albania
Albania is an up-and-coming cyclist destination with several adventure tour companies starting up tours in the country, as well as a push from the Albanian tourism board to promote outdoor activities. There are even a few cycling-friendly hostels.
We plan to explore Tirana, visit the Berat fortress, spend some time in Sarande, and check out the Roman city of Butrint before crossing the border into Greece.
Greece
It should be around June now, and our first stop in Greece will be to visit the Greek island of Corfu, where we hope to camp for a night before continuing on towards Patras. Along the way, we’ll stop to wade through springs, see waterfalls, and ferry to the Ionian island of Cephalonia to visit the Fanari lighthouse. We then ferry to Patras.
From Patras, we stop at a few ancient Roman sites including Olympia, Temple of Apollo Epicurius, Mycenae, Tiryns, and Epidaurus. Finally, we arrive in Athens.
Once in Athens, we will explore the Roman architecture and historical sites, and then begin island hopping. Depending on ferry schedules, we hope to visit Mykonos, Paros, Santorini, and Rhodes.
Rhodes is just off the coast of Turkey, so once we get our Turkish visa, we’ll hop on a ferry to Marmaris. I’ll start working on planning this part next, but our rough plan is to hang out in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and maybe Ukraine until our Schengen visa renews, at which point, we head back west into Europe towards Berlin. More to come!
My initial thought about getting online during our trip was to get prepaid SIM cards in each country where we plan to spend enough time to make it worthwhile.
This would work fine, but it means we’ll have some offline time, either when we first enter a new country, or when we go through countries for just a few days when it’s not worth it to get a SIM card.
I just learned about Google Project Fi, a worldwide cell service that works in 130+ countries and costs just $10/GB for data coverage, worldwide!
The catch is that you have to have one of 3 Google phones. Being an iPhone user, this is kind of a bummer because we’ll have to carry an extra device, but it does have some benefits:
There may still be times where it makes sense to get local SIM cards, but it’s hard to beat $10/GB and the convenience this will offer us.
We all have that box or filing cabinet filled with paperwork. If you’re like me, you dread going anywhere near it. Every time you open the box or drawer, you shove in papers into a space they shouldn’t fit and sit on the lid to close it, hoping that nothing breaks. Tax returns, bank statements, you name it… They are bursting at the seams…
When you expect to give up your apartment, though, this box finally becomes a chore that you have to address. It’s too heavy and bulky to store or move, so the best bet is to scan it all and shred the papers so you can finally leave it behind. Digital storage is almost free, but taking the time to scan all this shit is a huge undertaking.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been filling my spare time with digitizing and sorting all of this junk. After struggling with my horribly slow and buggy scanner, I finally broke down and bought a dedicated document scanner. It’s about 10x faster, and I’m hoping I can sell it easily when I’m done with it, but at least it’s cutting down on the time to put all this stuff in the cloud. It feels like such a waste of time, but we’re all legally obligated to keep our important documents accessible, so it has to be done.
Just one box of files to go. Wish me luck!
It’s an unfortunate fact in this world that something as basic as your place of birth can limit your options in travel (and indeed in life). For Americans, this fact almost always works in our favor, and many Americans take this privilege quite for granted. Most of the world is open to us to freely travel, even if few take advantage of this unique ability.
I am admittedly naive in this regard, though I’m understanding it more and more as I travel. When I was in Thailand last year, I was struck by the stark difference in a US citizen visiting Thailand vs. a Thai citizen visiting the US. A US citizen merely flashes his passport and has a simple 30 second conversation and is granted a 30-day visa that can be extended fairly easily to up to 6 months.
A Thai citizen on the other hand, in order to simply visit the US, needs to prepare and present complicated paperwork complete with references, bank statements, etc. that can take months to prepare.
Americans do have some restrictions, though, due in part to our government’s activity overseas. In particular, the countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, are likely unsafe for a bicycle trip.
Now some may claim that our state department’s advisories for these countries border on overly cautious, or that there are indeed safe parts of the country to visit, and I’m sure that is somewhat true; I believe people everywhere are fundamentally good and welcoming, and probably we would be fine. But there are bad actors out there, and there are incidents targetting US citizens, so I feel that it would be foolish to flaunt our freedom in the face of these warnings simply to accomplish an arbitrary goal of our holiday cycling tour. I have read stories of other cyclists from western countries who have put security in those countries in danger so that they could cycle their chosen routes, and I simply don’t think that’s a good decision.
So instead, I’m trying to find an acceptable route from Istanbul, Turkey to New Delhi, India. A simple option would be to hop on a plane, and there are many flights available. But we’d skip a huge portion of Asia by doing so, and we’d also arrive in India during the monsoon season; waiting another few months would be much better. One other option I’m looking into is cycling north through Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and some of the -stans to end up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This, apparently, is a popular place for backpackers to hang out while they work on getting their east Asia visas sorted out, and there are quick and cheap direct flights to New Delhi.
I’m warming up to this option, and I’d love to hear your feedback!
Today marks the day that I’m quitting doing what I’m good at and beginning to focus on what I suck at.
For most of my life, I’ve focused on the things that I believe I am good at. Our western culture teaches us that we should find a specialty and focus on it to become the best we can be. And it makes sense; experts are generally rewarded, in one way or another. I consider myself an expert computer programmer, and I have enjoyed my experience and wouldn’t give it up for anything.
So it’s been quite an interesting journey the past few years as I’ve found myself wanting to explore the world and myself more deeply than what is defined by my career. It feels odd to focus on things that I’m not proficient in, but one thing that I have learned very quickly is that nothing can teach you more about yourself than by doing something you are bad at.
It’s something we all fear; trying and failing. But it’s also something that wakes up our minds in a way that nothing else can. When we purposefully try to do something that we have no idea how to do, we are doing one very important thing: we are disengaging our muscle memory and for a moment, becoming intensely mindful. We have to carefully observe everything around us and determine with a beginner’s mind how to proceed.
It is only in this state of complete mindfulness where we learn new skills and begin to understand more about ourselves and the world and people around us. It is only by putting ourselves into this discomfort and uncertainty that we can really expect to grow as a person.
So today I will start doing the things I am scared to do. I will ask myself every day how I am going to make myself uncomfortable. And, even though I’m scared about it, I will put myself in these situations.
Afterall, why would I want today to be the same as yesterday?
One of the things I’ve been trying to decide is whether to bring my laptop around the world with me on my bike. While you can do almost everything on your smartphone these days, there are a few things I wanted to have the laptop for:
But, here are the issues with bringing a laptop:
So, my decision right now is NOT to bring it. Here’s how I’ll solve each of the original items.
1. Working
I’ll keep my laptop with a friend or family member, and if I need to work, either they can ship it to me, or I can buy a used one and restore from cloud backup, whichever turns out to be easier with customs.
2. Photo Management
Still trying to figure this one out, but it turns out that my Google Drive account has unlimited storage with the plan that I have, so I’m looking into moving my photos there and managing them somehow from my phone.
3. Route Planning
Okay, here’s how you create a route on your phone and send it wirelessly to your Garmin! A ridiculous process, but I tried it last night, and it works. It will suffice for when I don’t have access to a computer, but it’s horribly convoluted.
4. Blogging
It looks like there are some nice lightweight folding keyboard options out there, so I’m looking into some of these. Worst case, I’ll deal with the on-screen keyboard and dictation when possible.
Any suggestions?
I’ve planned the first month or so of our around-the-world ride. This route is based on what I’ve learned through many Google searches and a few discussions with friends. If you have some tips, please leave a comment or message me @tnorman on Twitter!
We start in Lisbon, Portugal, where we will spend a few days in a hostel or WarmShowers while we get our bikes assembled and acclimate to the time and culture changes.
We then bike inland towards Evora, checking out Recinto Megalítico dos Almendres, the Portuguese Stonehenge, and the adorable town of Evora, riding through rural agricultural areas. We want to get away from the coast for a bit to experience some of the more local Portuguese culture. Along the way, we will camp or stay in hostels or simple hotels.
We then head back south through Beja and then back towards the western coast of Portugal before tu
rning south. Next, we’ll ride out to the most southwest corner of Portugal, to see Cap Saint-Vincent, Cabo de São Vicente, and
then ride east through the Algarve region. We will keep away from the over-developed coast in lieu of experiencing the more local, less heavily-trafficked roads.
Once in Spain, we bee-line to Seville, the capital of southern Spain’s Andalusia, which is famous for flamenco dancing!
After a day or two in Seville (maybe we will learn to dance flamenco!), we detour south to Tarifa, where we will hop on a ferry to Tangier, Morocco for the day. Although it’s a bit touristy, we thought it would be a shame to skip putting our feet on the African continent for our first time, and we hope to try some amazing tagines.
Back in Spain, we ride north to Ronda, a mountaintop city that’s set dramatically above a
deep gorge. From there, we head north to Puente Genil, where the Via Verde de la Subbética (“greenway”, or dedicated bike path) takes us east for dozens of kilometers before veering south towards Granada. In Granada, we will visit the famous Alhambra, a palace/fortress complex originally constructed in 889 AD!
After Granada, we ride inland (avoiding the over-developed Mediterranean coast with vacation rentals and all-inclusive resorts) through Murcia, before getting back on the coast just before Valencia.
From Valencia, we will practice our “sibilant s” and take the coastal route to Barcelona, where friends tell me we may want to spend more than just a few days. It will perhaps be April when we get here, so depending on weather forecasts, we will either keep riding towards France/Italy, or spend some time waiting for warmer riding days.