The Millers take a break after a tough climb.
This article is one in a series of interviews with families who have chosen to forego a ‘normal’ life in favor of one on the road traveling on bikes with their children. Jennifer and Tony Miller spent a year traveling on bicycles with their four children (aged 7 – 13) around Europe and North Africa. Since then, they have traded in their wheels in favor of backpacks and are still traveling.
Read Jennifer’s thoughts about roadschooling her children
And see a slideshow of their travels throughout Europe and North Africa.
World Bike Touring Examiner (WBTE): Traveling by bicycle with kids is not exactly your typical, run-of-the-mill family vacation. Why did you choose the bikes over buses and trains and planes?
Jennifer: Several reasons -
1. It's cheap! When we started doing the math on what a year-long adventure through Europe and points beyond would cost we were getting sticker shock, so we looked for ways to do it less expensively.
2. It is SLOW. Slow is good if your goal is to really see someplace thoroughly and learn something instead of just check it off the list.
3. It forces interaction with the culture. When you cycle somewhere you are not separated from the people by the glass windows of plane, bus, or train. You meet people every time you stop. You're forced to shop every single day (because you can't carry much) and you are inevitably asked a million questions by the curious, in every language.
These are the travel experiences we really wanted for the kids and the bikes provide all of them!
WBTE: What lessons have your children learned from the experience? Sure – they learned all kinds of “school stuff” like geography and science and all that. But tell me about the life lessons they’ve learned that will carry them through life.
Jennifer: They've learned that people are people, no matter where or how they live, no matter what language they speak, no matter how different they seem. That is a HUGE life lesson that so many of us could stand to get our brains around.
The other really important lesson they've learned is that they can do hard things; they can conquer something worthwhile. So many kids never learn that because they're never faced with a REAL challenge that matters to daily life. Our two oldest kids pedaled their own bikes, fully loaded, to Africa and back. No one helped them; they pushed up the big hills all by themselves. When it was too hard to do alone they'd work together and push one bike up and then go down the hill together and push the second bike up. They learned to work as a team and to persevere. People who have those skills - team work paired with a belief that they can do anything - are people who are going to do great things in this world and not be afraid of a challenge.
WBTE: I have often said the most difficult part of our journey was making the decision to take it. Have you found the same? How did you come to the point where you were ready to chuck it all and live life on the road?
Jennifer: You're absolutely right!! We had several moments of clarity. One was over my grandmother's casket when it just became tangibly clear that we take nothing out of this world but our relationships and our memories. And yet so many people spend their whole lives striving after the "stuff" - the money, the fame, the "whatever".
We very consciously stepped off of that path in favor of living life fully and investing in the relationships and the memories. My husband quit his six figure job in favor of the uncertainty of contract work where he can get it, we put our few most precious possessions into a 10x10 storage unit, locked the door, and left. A year and a half into the journey we have no regrets and plan to keep going as long as it continues to be a joy and makes sense for us.
WBTE: Thanks Jennifer – I am very excited about your family’s journey and know all six of you will be much the richer for it!
Follow along with the Millers at EdventureProject.com
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You may be interested in these other articles about traveling with children:
50 tips for a long distance family bike ride
Family travel: A life changing event
Extended family travel in tough economic times
How to afford an extended family vacation
And interviews with these other families who have chosen a life on two wheels:
The Williams family is on a open-ended tour on a triple bike with their 9-year-old son.
Rebekka and Florian traveled the Pan American Highway to Tierra del Fuego with their small son in a trailer.
The Verhage family with sons aged 11 & 13 have cycled south from LA. They are now in Peru.
My family is currently cycling the Pan American Highway - we've cycled 16,000 km from Alaska to Colombia so far. You can find us at Family on Bikes.
Contact me via email at familyonbikes@gmail.com
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Comments
Hello we are traveling from Alaska to Ushuaia Argentina
We are now in Guatemala
If you are interesting in our journals it wi?l be a peasure for us to share it with other ones !
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