For some people the world seems very big, too huge to contemplate ever traveling around. If you live in a less developed country, you are likely to share this view. Those in the developed world, on the other hand, can jet halfway around the world in a day, and have seen the astronaut’s photo of the earth from the moon; their late 20th century paradigm holds that our planet is quite small. Then, there are those persons for whom the planet is perfectly sized and just right, a world of wonders that can absorb a lifetime of exploration. Many of these are bicyclists.
For animals, the world is sized just right. It fits them perfectly. They travel within the limits of their home range, be it the one acre territory of the vole or the hundred square mile range of the wolf. For them to go outside their historical range would be to risk starvation, dehydration, exposure to unusual heat or cold, and being attacked by unknown new predators or competitors. Tracking devices on Arctic Terns document their 44,000 mile yearly migration, always within their known vast territory, in which they are busy making a living every single day. The Sahara is the size of the lower 48 United States, and several species of tiny songbirds cross it every year on their annual migrations to nesting grounds in Europe, fattened up with stored energy to make the crossing. Most animals, though, hunt and forage as they go, and the manner in which they travel is constrained by this need.
Humans are different. Humans travel in a unique manner; they can carry food and water with them. With global trade and inter-societal tolerance, they can, in this day and age, become ‘tourists’. In the modern world, tourists fatten their wallets in order to store resources needed to cross new lands.
Humans also have many choices in how they will travel and what transportation technology they will utilize. The consequence of the choices made by them very much determines the character of their experience. It establishes the size of the world they are exploring.
You can make it all the way around the world in less than 3 days by jet aircraft, if you so choose. You will see the inside of the plane, little glimpses of clouds and sea below, and the inside of airport terminals. You will arrive back home exhausted, and you will have seen very little of the human-scale and animal-scale world. Jetting around represents one extreme of the ways to see the planet.
The other travel extreme is something quite different. Quebec native Jean Beliveau took off suddenly one day in the year 2000, striding out the front door of his house, knowing that he simply had to go. He left home with the intent of perambulating all the way around the world, and he did just that. Eleven years later he opened the door and walked back in. He had taken with him a tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food and water in a three wheeled stroller. He was very much at ground level throughout his meandering adventure, and was accessible to native people, to regional cuisine, to climate, to mosquitos and pests, and to predators two-legged and four. He went a little crazy at times, but came back in one piece.
To travel the planet only by foot, however, demands that you become a life-long nomad. For most of us in today’s society, there is likely a better balance, one that allows you to do and accomplish other things. There exist a number of approaches.
Phileas Fogg and Michael Palin were two who strove to get around the world in 80 days. They traveled by land and sea, train and boat. They experienced–as much as anything else–their means of conveyance and the people who steered and stoked these machines. They saw the scenery out the window and the sea off the deck. They had interactions mostly with those traveling along with them. They spent quite a bit of money.
In 1936 two men from Prague drove an automobile around the world in 97 days. Nowadays this trip would take much less time, and the connection with the cultures being traveled through on major roads would become quite tenuous. The car, as well as the steamship, to a significant degree insulates its rider from new experience.
In 2007 Mark Beaumont bicycled around the world in 195 days, traveling 18,000 miles by bike at about 100 miles per day. He carried about 80 pounds of gear and averaged 13 mph. He spent $40,000 on the trip. He spent 8 nights in jail, passed through 20 countries, and was almost always on the move. He came home in great shape.
These last three adventures were record-setting attempts. But what about taking the less direct path and seeing and experiencing more? What about taking the time to hunker down with the natives, lounge on the beach, gather fruit and go fishing? How about volunteering along your way to create clean wells, build schools or radio-collar tigers? What about trying a bit of everything on your way?
You can travel various environments of the world by sailboat, camel, horse cart and dog sled. You can barnstorm in a bush plane from field to field to landing strip. You can whirr along through sunny lands in a solar-charged electric trike. You can follow the highway, or back roads and dirt tracks. You can kayak the coast and canoe the backwaters. You can travel in a line of RV’s and huddle together at night, insulated from too much interaction with the locals. You can keep it civilized going from city to city by train. You can get down and gritty by living with and contributing for a time to a native family.
A great way to stitch all of these lifestyle and transport options together, and one of the very best ways to travel the world, is to use a bicycle. The cost of a bicycle and the speed and capability of the bike mean that you can explore and experience a good chunk of the planet in your lifetime. You can ride at a still-human-scale pace that is much faster than walking. Given a little adrenaline boost, you may be able to outrun a charging elephant. You can put the bike on a train, a barge, a plane, a boat or a bus whenever you want to leapfrog ahead, cross obstacles and oceans, or return home.
The bicycle gives you a lot of self-reliance and autonomy. At the same time, the bicycle puts you in much closer touch with local people. Uninsulated from interaction with the locals, you’ll learn more languages, more lessons.
The bike doesn’t demand that the landscape be changed to accommodate your form of transportation. The bike demands only that you change, that you become stronger, healthier, more alert, and more open to new experience.
You will breathe unconditioned air on a bike. You will get your calories consuming regional cuisine. You will sweat and shiver and get drenched in the rain just like those who live where you are venturing. The less developed the economy, and the more rural the environs, the more this will happen. The more life will happen.
And when it has happened, you may one day come to realize that you are living on a planet of exactly the right size.