Katy and Alan spent five years dreaming about this adventure and then went ahead, put their careers on pause and spent a full year cycling 20,000km around the world. Halfway through the adventure, a monotonous desert section through Central Asia nearly broke them, so they threw out their initial planned route and let the trip become something even better.

These are the key lessons from their journey:

• You don't need to wait for retirement to take a big adventure
• A plan is a starting point but it's ok to change and adapt them
• The less you know about a place, the more it can surprise you
• People will help you, almost everywhere, almost every time.
• Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.
• Fear of the unknown is usually worse than the unknown itself.
• Shared goals matter more than shared stats.
• Hard days don't last, but you will have hard days on big adventures
• You don't need a year to have an adventure.

Be sure to give Katy and Alan a follow via their account @CycleTheLongWayHome

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When we last heard from Milica, she was in Northern France and just a few days into her ride from London to Croatia. In this update, she reflects on what the bike adventure has actually looked and felt like across the weeks in between. Milica shares about:

• What her worst day on the road looked like
• Why keeping yourself fed is actually one of the most important things you can do out there
• When a bad day turned into a genuinely good one
• Why she loves Austria
• Insights from riding solo across Europe
• Cycling into Croatia knowing her family had to flee the same villages she's now riding through freely

Follow Milica's adventures via her instagram page - @2Wheels1Milikov

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Dreaming about taking a huge bike adventure? Then this episode is for you.

Ellie Mitchell-Heggs shares her insights from her solo journey where she cycled 10,000 kilometres across Africa from Rwanda to Cape Town. All up her trip was nine months long and took her across ten countries. It was also a ride that was layered with both a personal family connection to Africa and loaded up with a huge sense of purpose as well.

Alongside the cycling, Ellie spent time in every capital city meeting with over 100 local NGOs, social enterprises and community organisations working in education, youth empowerment and gender equality. Ellie shares how those conversations, got her through the toughest stretches on the road.

In this episode we cover:

• How Ellie got into bikepacking starting with the Vélodyssée down the west coast of France
• Why she chose to start in Rwanda and ride south
• The communities and landscapes that shaped each country, from Uganda's warmth to the brutal isolation of Botswana's flat roads
• 70 kilometres being swarmed by tsetse flies in a Tanzanian national park
• Canoeing four days down the Zambezi river as a mid-trip reset
• Grieving her father on the road
• Cycling through Namibia with two fellow bikepackers.
• Food poisoning two days from Cape Town, and the unicycle escort into the city
• What made those NGO conversations so energising

Find Ellie on Instagram: @ProjectCycleAfrica

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Daragh Cronin is back with a wild update from his Cork to Everest Base Camp ride. This time he shares with us the extraordinary hospitality of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. Then every bike travellers nightmare, a flat refusal at the Federal Iraq border crossing derailing his plans for his route.

This led Daragh to have to re-route through Dubai and Kuwait City where the intensity of the trip got turned to the max when he found himself trying to cycle through the desert in extreme heat leading to a stint in hospital to be treated for heatstroke.

Follow along with Daragh via his instagram - @roaminwithcronin

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This is a live show, recorded on stage at the Antique Bar in Melbourne. Joining me on stage were three guests who between them have cycled through some of the most remote, challenging and eye-opening places on earth, Fergal Guihen, Em Hulbert and David McCourt.

Fergal cycled from Roscommon, Ireland to Sydney via Mauritania, Iran, Afghanistan, the Tibetan Plateau and beyond. Em Hulbert is mid-journey on a solo ride around the world, delivering water filters to communities in need through her project The Water Cycle. David McCourt set off from Melbourne bound for Northern Ireland, taking a route through Central Asia, Iran, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkey that took years and produced stories he'll be dining out on forever.

In this episode we cover:

• Going from thought bubble to turning pedals
• Luxury items on the bike and what actually earns its place
• Perceptions versus reality: China, Iran, Bangladesh and Thailand
• Getting drugged and robbed in the Iranian desert
• A sex dungeon in rural Thailand at 4am after 250 kilometres
• The Nullarbor without music, podcasts or any distraction at all
• Solo female bicycle travel and the extra layer that comes with it
• The spaces in between and why that's where the magic happens
• Why the hardest moments are the ones you'd go back and relive

Want to hear the full individual episodes with each guest? Find them here:

• Em Hulbert: Ep. 127:
• David McCourt: Ep. 99: and Ep. 120.
• Fergal Guihen: Ep. 144 and Ep. 145:

Follow the guests on Instagram:

• Em Hulbert: @emhulbert
• Fergal Guihen: @rossi.to.aussie
• David McCourt: @longwayhome__2022

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James Baile, along with two complete strangers (one of which hadn't ridden a bike since he was 13!) packed their Bromptons into IKEA bags and flew to Dakar. What followed was two weeks riding through Senegal and The Gambia: navigating Dakar rush hour, camping on school playgrounds by invitation of village chiefs, pushing loaded folding bikes through sand that felt like treacle, and sparking conversations with strangers over football allegiances.

In this episode we talk about:

• How a Facebook post about the Tropic of Cancer set the whole thing in motion
• What it's actually like to tour on a Brompton
• Riding a route that goes from the edges of the Sahara Desert to the beginnings of West African forest
• The reality of border crossings into Senegal and The Gambia for European travellers
• Taking an overnight ferry back to Dakar with Bromptons as hand luggage
• Why going somewhere with zero expectations means everything exceeds them
• James's next big adventure connecting a journey he started back in 1986

Give James a follow via his instagram - @jamesb.adventures and you can also listen to the previous episode with him here.

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Roisin Gallagher has cycled over 17,000 kilometres across two continents. Her adventure started by riding the Baja Divide with her partner before continuing through Mexico and Central America. After seven months on the road together, their relationship ended and instead of flying home, Roisin bought a one-way ticket to Japan and kept riding.

Roisin has now arrived in Istanbul to share the story so far. We chat loads about her route, the physical and mental side of bike travel and a whole heap about food!

In this episode:

• The brutal physical reality of bikepacking the Baja Divide
• Cycling the Nicoya Peninsula route in Costa Rica
• Three months cycling in Japan
• Wildcamping solo as a woman
• Cycling the Transdinarica Route through the Balkans
• The Croatian bora wind that trapped her for five days
• Getting to Istanbul on a sushi delivery truck
• A night in Bosnia drinking rakia with three war veterans until 3am
• Durmitor National Park as an unexpected landscape revelation
• Food - glorious food!

You can follow Roisin's adventure via her instagram - @ontheroadwithro

Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle

Support the show

Buy me a coffee!

I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:

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👉 Zorali

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• Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
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Brian Sampson is cycle touring the world to tick off every destination from the book 'The Thousand Places to See Before You Die' This month's update covers the end of his time in China and his first stretch riding through England and Wales.

Brian shares his experiences of:

• Sleeping in temples and stealth camping in multiple continents
• Visiting Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
• Daily routines and how they change with climate and daylight hours.
• Welcome to My Garden vs Warmshowers
• A crazy experience of encountering a mountain lion on the Pacific Coast Highway
• Reverse culture shock going from China to cycling through England and Wales.

Follow Brian via his instagram page - @Brian.Sampson4

You can also check out his blog for a breakdown of his experiences so far.

Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle

Support the show

Buy me a coffee!

I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:

👉 CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)

👉 Zorali

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Follow us on Social Media!

• Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
• Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
• YouTube - @SeekTravelRide

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Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music