Tim and Cindie Travis in Australia
This article is one in a series of interviews with long-term international bike tourists. This time I talked with Tim & Cindie Travis from Down the Road to get their take on things.
World Bike Touring Examiner (WBTE): Would you please explain a tad bit about where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Tim: We have traveled through 22 countries on 4 continents - North and South America, Asia, and Australia - but this is only a quarter or a third of the places we want to visit. We still have a long way to go. In our near future we will visit India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and beyond. We have no plans to stop traveling.
WBTE: How long have you been on the road?
Tim: We have been on this bike tour since March, 2002, over 7 ½ years. As said by the Grateful Dead, “What a long strange trip it has been.”
WBTE: What prompted such an extended journey?
Tim: That is a good question and impossible to answer in a couple paragraphs. In a nut shell; the idea for a long trip developed slowly during the years before we left. I had enough experience so the biking and camping part was easy for me to picture. Cindie had trouble envisioning a traveling lifestyle and talking her into it was challenging. After all, I was asking her to give up her successful career, sell most of her stuff, and trade the home she loved for life in a tent living on the road. The details of how I talked Cindie into letting go and leaving it all behind can be found in Chapter 1, of our first book “The Road That Has No End, How we traded our ordinary lives for a global bicycle touring adventure”.
WBTE: I know there are plenty of wonderful days when the sun is shining and you’ve got the wind at your back. But there are also days when it’s raining or you face a headwind or you’re climbing a hill that just won’t end. How do you get through those days? What keeps you going?
Cindie: When times get tough the battle goes from physical to mental. I learned early on in the trip if I convinced myself I couldn’t do it well I couldn’t I also learned if I convinced myself I could do it then I could, I call it my “ I can” attitude and it has gotten me through the toughest times.
I have always been curious about the world, other cultures, different foods, and with my geology background a desire to see different landforms such as glaciers, mountains and deserts. So for me curiosity to see what is around the next corner has always kept me going. In addition, as the trip continued my own confidence in my physical ability increased and the knowledge that things always work out; maybe not the way it was originally planned, but still it works out.
Tim: While it is true that the vast majority of days on our tour are wonderful there are always those bad days that stick out and, in terms of weather, a couple come to mind. In the fourth month of the trip we rode over a pass in Michoacán, Mexico and got caught in a hail storm. The hail came down so fast it filled the vents in our helmets and by the time we got our tent up I was in the early stages of hypothermia.
A few years ago we endured seven days of solid rain in Diamond Head, Australia. Cindie took advantage of the situation and did our taxes on the computer entirely in the tent but everything became so wet that mold and mildew set in. We learned that bad weather comes with not only intensity but also duration.
Just recently while camping in Nebraska City, Nebraska we hid in our tent during one of the biggest electrical storms I have ever experienced. All we could do is hold on to each other and hope the lightning didn’t strike us.
In regards to what we do to overcome adversity; like most people we try to work together as a team and just grin and bare it. I believe the best thing to do in stressful situations is to remain calm and try to think your way out of it.
We continue traveling because gaining this kind of international experience and knowledge is worth more than anything a career has to offer. Even if we won the lottery we would continue our tour. We would, of course, upgrade our on bikes and living standard but, none the less, we would still spend our millions cycling around the world. This lifestyle is exactly what we both want to be doing, even on our limited budget.
WBTE: As hard as it is to pick out one or two highlights – would you, could you? Tell us about a couple of those incredibly wow-ing, drop-your-jaw experiences you’ve had.
Cindie: The most jaw dropping experience I will always remember was watching the Perito Moreno glacier in southern Argentina drop huge blocks of ice the size of a house into the water below. The sound of cracking ice gave us a split second warning and then “baboom!” The ice crashed into the water below causing huge waves to crash against the lake shore. It was truly mesmerizing.
Tim: While in Malaysia we were lucky enough to go to our friend David’s niece’s wedding. This was a real Tamil Indian wedding. I borrowed clothes from a man they called “two meters” (I am 6’4”) and Cindie borrowed an Indian style pink dress. We experienced the music, food, and dress as a member of a Malaysian Indian family.
I will always remember the two months we rode across the barely inhabited top of Australia on the longest and straightest dirt road I have ever seen. This was not the hardest route in Australia but was hard enough for us because of the remoteness. We spent our days enjoying a true wilderness and nights camping near creeks. Sometimes the lack of excitement and distinguishing features is the most beautiful.
WBTE: What about those days you wish you could forget (but you know you never will)? Those days when everything goes wrong and then even more goes wrong? Tell us about a couple of those.
Cindie: We were in the Andes of South America, it was a long day of climbs and descents and Tim got three flats and the last one was on a steep hill and on a bit of a blind spot so I had to wave trucks around Tim while he fixed his flat, and then it started to rain. I was nothing but miserable.
Tim: The things that I wish I could forget but never will are seeing political oppression and extreme poverty. For example, Vietnamese officials are paid to walk around internet cafes and read what customers are writing on their screens; this invasion of privacy makes me want to scream. During our nine months in China we had numerous cops’ knocking on our door asking for our papers or telling us it was illegal to stay in our hotel. At times, we were forced to move to a state approved hotel that was licensed to accept foreigners. I meet the people living in these countries and love their food, religion, and culture but also feel sorry for them. If people are paid to read my email, how much privacy do local citizens have?
Extreme poverty is a heart breaker. From a car or bus poverty stricken regions can be seen with safety and speed; and the option of looking away. Riding a loaded touring bicycle through an impoverished area is an immersion into a very depressing way of life. I will never forget cycling past scenes of entire families, including toddlers, picking through trash piles looking for something to sustain them, there is no hiding, turning away, or gas pedal to hit. The incredibly sad and defeated expressions on people’s faces are unforgettable. On a bike we are not protected in a steel cage, we see, hear, and smell everything whether it is disturbing or not. On a bike we are not passing through; we are there.
WBTE: You’ve toured through many countries and I know they each are unique and have their advantages and disadvantages. But, if you were to talk with someone relatively new to cycle touring, where would you recommend they go? Why?
Tim: The very first trip/s I suggest doing a loop from your house. This avoids a number of logistical problems like transportation and navigation. The first few times on a bike tour there are enough new things to learn and get used to that it is best to keep the rest as simple as possible.
After a few trips in your backyard I recommend the first long ride be something in your home country. For example, an Australian might do the Great Ocean Road; Germans could do the famous bike trail down the Rhine River. The idea is to do one of your countries favorites and avoid the culture shock of international travel. For people in the USA (I am American) I love and highly recommend the ride down the west coast, starting in Astoria, Oregon to San Francisco or Santa Barbara, California.
After all the above experience you are ready for international travel. I personally think this world would change for the better if more people traveled internationally and saw their home country from abroad. Have fun and don’t forget to write.
WBTE: Any special tips or advice to wannabe tourers?
Cindie: If the tourers are a couple I would suggest they ride together at the same pace. There are a number of ways to do this, learn to draft and redistribute the weight between the bikes until both riders can ride at the same speed. I have seen numerous couples traveling together where the man is miles ahead of the woman, the woman is on a death march to catch up and when she does her partner is ready to get going again. This isn’t very fun for the slower rider.
Tim: Everybody has a different style of touring and what they hope to get out of it. That being said, we have met bike tourists disappointed with how their trip was going or turned out. These frustrations usually are in two areas; distance and budget.
I often hear people complaining that they are somehow behind schedule or need to catch up. Their ambitious schedule probably came about in the months leading up to the trip when maps and guide books were being studied. What seems doable on paper often falls short in the field. Feeling behind schedule causes travelers to miss side attractions or unforeseen opportunities to absorb more of the local culture. A schedule that requires a trip to be fast can turn a voyage of discovery into a death march watching only the shoulder of the road pass by. We personally prefer no schedule at all where we are not going to the next place until we are tired of the one we are at. Time is the gift that leads to discovery.
Also, in the planning stage it may seem romantic to just live on a shoestring budget but, here too, idealism and reality can be different. In terms of money, less is seldom better, and a higher budget can lead to additional and often wonderful choices. Museums and restaurants are great for understanding the places you travel and a hotel room during a bad storm goes a long way in making the trip more enjoyable.
Some new bike tourists I meet run out of money towards the end of their trip and start charging everything on a credit card. Cindie and I have always hated credit card debt so ending a trip this way seems disastrous to us and the people ending their trip this way seem frustrated and often feel guilty that they fell short of their expected budget. The solution, of course, is to save up a bit more before the trip. Easier said than done I know but still good advice none the less.
So, in summary, I like to tell first time bike tourists take your plan with your allotted time and halve the distance and double the money. It is a bit of a tongue and cheek reply which really means, especially on a first tour, scale back how far you want to ride and the number of days you ride each week and add as much additional funding as possible.
WBTE: Thanks to both of you! Good luck with the rest of your American tour and whereever your road leads next!
*******
If you enjoyed this interview, you might enjoy these other interviews with world cyclists:
Goat from Riding the Spine
Sean from Riding the Spine
Jacob from Riding the Spine
Friedel from Travelling Two
Sonya and Aaldrik from Tour.TK
Alastair Humphreys
Peter Gostelow
Jaime Bianchini of Peace Pedalers
Contact me via email at familyonbikes@gmail.com
Get updates about bike tourists the world over sent to your inbox! Just click "Subscribe" next to the picture above and enter your email address. Your email will not be shared. Click "Fav" next to the picture to add me to your favorite Examiners.
Comments