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More: Best of 'What Do You Do On A Friday?' Holiday Reading 2004
Many folks dream of the day their beloved kids flee the nest so they can cut loose and see the world. In the case of Megs and Phil Edwardes, they chose the whirr of little wheels over the patter of little feet and took off on a 13-country world tour on their Bike Friday Pocket Llamas. Here's their 'no diapers please, we're touring' story.
ON A RECENT motorized trip down the east coast Megs and I found that we had become marginalized when we got together with friends and family. Being in our mid thirties, childless and not ‘trying’ means that suddenly we aren’t part of the social norm. Within the space of a couple of years it seems that those with kids have passed from being the exception to the rule, and that the topics of conversation now tend toward arguments about disposables vs nappies.
Not wanting to be social pariahs we have now embarked on a 9 month plan to become part of the mainstream again, we’ve titled it the Baby Talk Avoidance World Tour (BTAWT). In essence this involves buying some expensive, silly looking bicycles, buying even more expensive tickets on a variety of airlines, packing clothes, camping gear and helmets and heading off around the world for nine months.
So how do you go about planning a trip such as this?
A short answer is to embrace the spirit of compromise. While I would love to say that our trip has been planned to avoid places where babies and baby talk are a major part of social discourse, I’d have to lie. Instead a variety of factors come into play, especially when you don’t have a goal as simple as riding across or around a particular country.
The first factor in choosing a route is weather. Coming from the tropics, we aren’t keen on cycling in snow, nor are we interested in long distance touring in a wet season. So we’ve tried to chase moderate weather around the globe.
The second factor is tourist season, specifically trying to avoid them. We have no desire to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for weeks even if we are moving and they aren’t.
The third is whether the country is friendly to Australians, with recent events portraying Australia as a lackey to the Americans in their invasions it’s no longer a sure thing that you’ll be welcome as an Australian, let alone a westerner.
Fourth factor is scenic attraction, there’s no point in spending your time cycling and just looking at wheat fields or pine forests.
The fifth point is catching up with friends and family who are either resident or traveling overseas.
A final point is affordability, living off savings for nine months means we won’t be spending time in peak season holiday destinations.
All of these factors must then be massaged to fit within the confines of a ‘round the world’ ticket which has many stipulations and conditions on it. Putting all of this together though we've come up with the following outline of an itinerary.
Beijing one week – catching up with Meg’s sister and what better way to begin a Baby Talk Avoidance Tour than experiencing the world’s most ambitious birth control program?
Europe three months – starting in Vienna and heading to Barcelona via Budapest, Croatia, Italy, Southern France and the Pyrenees.
UK one week – R & R and catching up with friends and experiencing a climate unlikely to be encouraging to child rearing.
Canada one month – heading to the wide open spaces of the North West Territories and Alaska.
USA – 3 days catching up with friends.
Cuba one month – Re-enacting Lynette Chiang’s trip but don’t tell any US immigration people or we won’t be allowed back into the US.
South America three months – Starting with Spanish lessons in Ecuador and then joining the Gringo trail down to Punta Arenas.
So why bikes? We believe that this offers the most efficient way of moving around the country while still allowing face to face contact with the people. The cyclist presents a fairly approachable appearance. So many more opportunities to meet with locals result from choosing to cycle. It’s rare that you’ll roll into town and no-one asks where you’ve come from. Getting caught short of your destination can be much less of a hassle when you ask to camp on someone’s land with your bike.
Often the novelty factor alone is worth a mint when arriving in suburbia after spending hours on the road. Burning up energy on a bike also allows you to consume copious quantities of food with no risk of ending up looking like an anti McDonalds advertisement, very important when traveling through regions famous for their cuisine. Finally there are also major environmental and economic benefits to traveling by bike.
Having decided that we would hop from continent to continent picking and choosing our favorite areas, rather than simply crossing or circumnavigating a country, we then looked at the best bikes for the job.
On our two cycle trips last year we had issues not only with the cumbersome nature of a bike packed for travel but also had run-ins when carrying bikes on public transport. This meant that when we came across the Bike Friday system of ‘bike folding up into suitcase for transport and then suitcase turning into trailer for touring’ we were half way sold. The glowing reports from owners I contacted and a visit with Margaret Day, spokeswoman for Bike Friday in Australia got us three quarters of the way there. Then the rising value of the Australian to US dollar dramatically improved their affordability, and finally finding that some friends were about to visit from the US and could bring the bikes over for us sealed the deal.
So in January we received two suitcases full of bike bits and began the learning process of putting them together and then the even tougher job of putting them back in the cases was learned shortly after and we’ve been learning ever since.
The downside of ordering custom bikes from overseas was quickly apparent when we found several important pieces missing, including packing instructions for our model! Nothing like working it out for yourself, though, to get it stuck in your memory.
Other decisions we’ve been making include what bike luggage to take. Given we’ll be camping but not really in any remote locations we’re trying to get by with the 85 litre trailers plus handlebar bags. Having grown used to using panniers we’ll no doubt spend time adjusting to the different style of packing (and riding with) the trailers.
We’ve debated the digital vs prints camera options also but at this stage the expense of a high quality digital camera means we’ll stick with the compact zoom film camera for this trip. We’re planning on cooking on a Propane/Butane canister stove until Canada when we’ll invest in a more serious multi fuel stove. We’ll also look at warmer clothing for the South American leg. The last bit of specialized gear we’re looking at is a pocket notebook for recording our adventures and sending them on to family, friends and Australian Cyclist.
We look forward to sharing with you the results of our trip and our attempt to delay parental responsibilities over the next nine months...
Read about the China leg of this tour (Part II)
For more information, follow this link http://www.bikefriday.com/holiday-reading2004.