I'm officially going on another bike tour this summer!!
I've been waiting for so long for this!
The last bike tour I was on was back in February of 2024- so long ago for someone like me!
In December of 2023 I took off to New Zealand to bike the length + more of the country, ending in January of 2024. I then flew to Australia for some biking and city-life travel to round it out, exploring Melbourne, Sydney, and the Great Ocean Road/Otway Rip. For someone like me who had been on 4 separate bike tours between June of 2021 to February of 2024, it has been 27 months (months!!!!) since I have lived on my bike. That’s a really long time to not be bike touring!
A lot has changed since I was in New Zealand! I have a girlfriend and we moved in together. I re-entered the workforce after cruising on savings for about a year. I changed my entire career from public health → tech → tourism and was redefining what it was I wanted from work.
I worked at Trek part-time in Baltimore until it closed (no surprise there). I started leading my own group bikepacking trips and finally made a little bit of money with this DIY career of mine? And I’ve also been on/off unemployment since Trek closed, currently in an unplanned & strange stage of life trying to figure things out with thoughts such as ‘i’d rather be kinda poor than work most jobs’.
I barely finished editing all my New Zealand footage to publish on YouTube because I really had no concept of what I was doing or how to do it… I hope this time around I am much more prepared for managing technology, time, energy and gadgets to make videos while I am on the move. We will see! Setting up a camera is oftentimes the last thing you want to do after a long of bike touring. Anyways…
I do not want to book any flights this year because with the irresponsible and idiotic war with Iran, flights are a recipe for getting stranded abroad or forced into purchasing something 3x the price as it would normally be. I don’t want to be flying over the same oceans where military drones may be as well. The world feels like it’s falling apart, I need to minimize any potential to create more chaos, and I need to get out of dodge. Bike tours are a consistently a pager-turner in my life and help me figure out what’s important to me, who I am, and reconnect with myself in a more thorough way compared to living on autopilot doing the same things every day for months/years on end. It’s a great way to learn about both yourself and the world, these little odysseys we like to entertain.
The announcement is: I will be biking Eastern Canada this summer! Montreal to Halifax is the goal specifically. I’ve purchased my Amtrak ticket to Rouses Point, NY, will find a host for when I get there, and then bike over the border to Montreal, making Halifax my final destination. I’ll somehow catch a train back home- either cycling back into the US from Halifax to catch a train in Maine (Brunswick?) to Baltimore, or take a train back to Montreal, then back to Baltimore.
I feel called to Canada. I have known in my intuition for quite some time that I wanted to live outside the United States before I turn thirty. Not just travel there, but live there and experience something new. I’ve traveled to many places and fallen in love with my theoretical life overseas/across mountains many times, but I could never find a reason to give up everything back home and stay. Whether it was the Hague, Netherlands, Strasbourg, France, or Wanaka New Zealand, nothing screamed loud enough for me to pack up everything and move so far away. This tour is a bit of a scouting mission- I’ve visited Toronto and Vancouver before, so how do I feel about this other portion of the land?
Several months ago, a cousin of mine applied for, and got, their Canadian citizenship. They emailed the entire family about how the process works and how we can all get it done, and I finally, finally, sent the application in! (I just have to wait 10 months for it to be processed and citizenship awarded to me).
In addition to all of that, one additional reason I feel called to Canada is because I applied to be a tour guide for several luxury travel vacation companies because I figured they could be my golden ticket to a life abroad- after all, these companies do operate internationally. The way things work now for most these companies is to keep guides working in their country of origin, rather than send them abroad. For the company I work for, they have a Canadian tour partner which happily takes/gives guides to one another- it’s a reciprocal relationship to keep the US based and Canadian based bike tours fully functioning. So basically, I have a job waiting for me up north.
The universe is clearly pointing me towards Canada. Add in the fact that it’s easy to get to from my friends and family back home (via train, car or plane), and is easy to bring cats to as well (if I end up moving there in the future), I simply feel called to Canada (and listening to my intuition has served me incredibly well in the past). I want to work for this company and see all the provinces way up north. I want to explore!
I have new bikes, new bags, and new gear ready to go. I recently just went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival and asked someone who sold socks “which ones would be best for bikepacking for two months straight?” because I am smarter now and know how important merino wool (and apparently alpaca) is for adventures like this. I will always think of the Colorado woman who sold these to me and of her backpacking trips in Ireland and Scotland. Keep kicking it girl!
My final thoughts are this: I want to edit and upload YouTube videos while I am traveling, but I fear I am being unrealistic with how much I can complete in a day. If there is some kind of formula I can think of for bare minimum editing and uploading and traveling, that would be fantastic, because I would love to get more frequent videos out there, and hopefully, donate some of what I earn through YouTube commissions towards some kind of Legal Aid Program? For Project Salt Box or a legal non-profit for detained peoples? I know I’ve had a lot of difficulty filming, editing and uploading in the past, but I’m smarter now, have better tools at hand, and am more physically/mentally stable than before. Maybe I’ll try again? If I can find consistency in that work, I’ll figure out a portion of my YouTube income to consistently donate to a good cause of my choice. Who knows! I’ll happily take any insights from people who have bike toured and filmed/edited while on the road before.
What I’m excited about right now for this trip:
going to Canada, particularly Montreal, the Peninsule de la Gaspesie, Nova Scotia, and being near water
wild camping
dumpster diving
dirtbagging
my new socks from Phoenix Mill LLC
my new merino wool sports bra
my outer shell bags
my travel crochet project (I will find something easy and fun!)
being outside
meeting strangers
getting a break from the madness
donating to a good cause (if I can get my figure out a formula for editing while on tour)
my new water filter setup (still figuring that out, but it will be better)
using tinfoil around my cooking set to use fuel slower/better
using produce (rescued from the dumpsters) that I dehydrated & preserved in my oven!! I’ve been prepping some dehydrated food to carry on a trip like this :)
my new solar charging battery packs
What dates? Check out Burlington if you can. Very cool place
woooooo