Machka 

I've got a life goal of cycling in all the provinces and territories in Canada, all the states in the US, all the states and territories in Australia ... and as many other countries as possible. It's not a goal that I'm going to accomplish all at once ... it is something I'm working on a little bit at a time throughout my life.

Since we're cycletourists, and many of us have done quite a bit of travelling ... what about you? Where have you ridden? Where have you visited?



My family travelled (and moved) quite a bit. My parents were often able to take holidays of several weeks, and we drove all over North America. I just took it from there when I was an adult and ventured out to other countries beyond North America.

So far, I've cycled in the following places:

-- Canada: BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario
-- Australia: NSW, Queensland, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania and South Australia
-- US: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New York, New Hamshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Montana (23 States)
-- UK: England, Wales
-- France
-- Belgium
-- Germany

In addition to that, I've been to, but have not cycled in, the Northwest Territories and Quebec in Canada. I've also visited Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas ... my parents love that whole area, and we spent a lot of time down there summers when I was growing up. They still go down there most summers. And as an adult I've also been to South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and New Jersey in the US.

Totals Visited
Canada: 6 provinces and 1 territory
Australia: 5 states and 1 territory
US: 34 states
Countries: 7


How about you? Where have you travelled?

Quemal

1. Mexico: San Diego to La Paz 1985
2. U.S.: Southern California, various times.
3. Canada: Banff to Jasper 1987 This is where I encountered my first snow, in August, crossing the Sunwapta Pass.

mev

Canada: I thought I had finished cycling in all provinces and territories in 1997 and then Nunavut was added in 1999.
US: Cycled all states, but still need to cycle in DC. With exception of Hawaii these are all "connected"
Australia: Cycled all states and territories.
Netherlands: Cycled all provinces.

India: Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnatika, Andhra Pradesh. I don't expect to cycle all states but I'd like to do more in the north and a fair number more states.

Eventually I'd like:
A. To cycle substantial distances in the 10 largest countries in the world.
I've done Russia (1), Canada (2), US (3), China (4), Australia (6) and India (7). I'm missing Brazil (5), Argentina (8), Kazakhstan (9) and Sudan/Algeria (10). Sudan is currently the 10th largest but once Southern Sudan splits off Algeria takes its place. I think I'll get to Sudan before Algeria but unfortunately too late.

B. To cycle across six continents.
I've done North America, Australia, Europe, Asia and am missing Africa and South America. I don't expect to ever cycle in Antarctica.

I also think it could be fun to try cycling in more countries than my age, but still have a ways to catch up. So far I've travelled but not cycled in more countries than the legal drinking age.

sam21fire

Cycled- East and West coast of US, central Utah, Arizona
Traveled w/o bike- Egypt, Oman, Somalia, Australia, New Zealand, Honduras, Antarctica, Japan, Guam, Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq

nancy sv

Cycling:
--USA
--Canada
--Mexico
--Belize
--Guatemala
--Honduras
--Nicaragua
--Costa Rica
--Panama
--Colombia
--Ecuador
--Peru
--Bolivia
--Argentina
--Pakistan
--India
--Nepal
--China
--Bangladesh
--Yemen
--Mali
--Egypt
--Israel
--Ethiopia
--Taiwan
--Malaysia

Traveled, but not cycled
--Burma
--Bali
--Jordan
--France
--Germany
--Belgium
--Holland
--Switzerland
--Vietnam
--Thailand
--Singapore
--Kenya
--Tanzania
--Malawi
--Zimbabwe
--Ruanda
--Uganda
--El Salvador

I may have missed a couple in there, but that's a good start.

Newspaperguy

Canada: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario.

United States: North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas. I've also done a bit of cycling in Washington State, but not as part of any touring. I've visited several other states where I have not yet cycled.

Cuba

Costa Rica

Riverish

US, Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica ^.^

axolotl

Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, Israel, Palestinian territories, Egypt east of Suez Canal (e.g. Sinai peninsula, so I'm calling it Asia)

Africa: Tunisia

Americas: Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, USA (25 states + DC by bike, & the other 25 states off the bike), Canada (BC, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, PEI, & Nova Scotia by bike; Saskatchewan & Manitoba off the bike)

Australia(WA, Vic, Tas, ACT, NSW)
New Zealand
Fiji

Europe: Ireland, UK, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Czechoslovakia (it was one country then), Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Italy, Greece

I'm not counting Monaco or Vatican City, both of which I consider bogus. I crossed mountain passes to reach both Andorra and Liechtenstein, and spent at least one night in each, so I'm counting them.

Plus I've visited a few other countries off the bike.

Places I'd like to visit (not necessarily by bike): Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Cuba, South Africa, Madagascar, Ghana, Norway, Iceland, India, Bhutan, Burma, Indonesia.

Weetbix

Me too, this is one of my goals in my life. I've done USA, and will be doing Africa in 2013

safariofthemind

50 countries in 27 years. Backpacking and youth hosteling before cycling. Hope to do a fair bit more if destiny allows. It's been a long, interesting journey and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity and the health to do it. Gave up a lot of material goods in exchange for this lifestyle and have never regretted it. Waiting until being too old and possibly sick to travel in one's golden years never made any sense to me.

As for the future, have Peru, Japan and a few other choice spots in the plans, some cycling and some trekking/wandering on foot, bus, burro or whatever is handy.

Interesting to hear some of the posters say they want to cycle through so many places. IMO you miss a lot if you don't get off your bike for a nice long walk around cities and unusual places like the jungles of central and south america.

Machka 

I would agree. On one long tour in particular I felt like I was missing interesting stuff because my cycling partner and I were doing a Point A to Point B style, and weren't really exploring anywhere off the route or stopping to explore an area in more detail.

This is one of the reasons why Rowan and I are doing a lot of hub-and-spoke tours these days. We headquarter in one area and then explore the area in a variety of ways. When we hit the road on our next long tour, I think the style we'll use is one where we ride a few days, then stop in one spot for a few days to explore ... sort of like a series of connected hub-and-spoke tours.

antokelly

and in all this touring traveling you lot have done what is it your looking for .do you reckon you will discover a place that you will gladly lay your head and say that's it.like what's it all about.

Machka 

No ... I don't ever expect to discover a place to gladly lay my head and say "that's it". I can't even imagine wanting to remain in one place for the rest of my life. There's just too much of the world to see and experience ... why would I want to limit myself to one spot?

I don't know if it was because I started travelling as a baby, or perhaps the fact that I cannot call one particular town my "home town", or for some other reason ... but if I haven't gone somewhere in about 3 months, I get very restless. I feel compelled to see something different than what I usually look at going to and from work, or to and from school, or cycling my usual after work routes, etc.

I've been restless for as long as I can remember ... I love going to new places and learning about new places. I loved our family vacations when we travelled all over western North America for weeks on end. I loved reading about places all over the world. I loved it when people from other countries came to our church and told us about their country. My parents have friends all over the world and I liked it when they came to visit, and I liked learning a bit about the countries where they lived. I recall learning about places in Europe back when I was 8 or 9 years old, and that started a longing to go and see London and the rest of England, to see Paris, to see other parts of Europe. I used to dream I was there ... even at that age. When I finally went to Europe for the first time in 2002, I was almost beside myself with excitement. It was a similar experience with Australia ... and the longing is growing to see other countries.

Long distance cycling helps alleviate the restless feelings. When I've done centuries on my own in the parts of Canada where I've lived, and when we do them here in Australia, we often pick a route we haven't ridden before, or haven't ridden recently. Quite often, here in Australia, we drive to a starting point further afield to take in different scenery and terrain than we would in our immediate area. Randonneuring events go even further afield. A 600K that starts and ends at home can cover a lot of ground. And when I lived in Alberta, many of my randonneuring events started several hours drive away. It's the same situation here in Australia, and we'll usually make a weekend of it if we're doing a randonneuring event some distance away.

When I lived in Manitoba, I was car-free but I would rent a car several times in the summer to drive out to an attractive spot some distance away for a day or a weekend to cycle and/or camp and cycle. In Alberta, my father and I took frequent trips into the mountains (about 300 km away) to ride in the beautiful Canadian Rockies instead of the usual foothills. Here in Australia, Rowan and I try to take a long weekend about once a month to visit and explore another part of the state we live in ... or as in the case of the 6-day weekend this past Easter, the next state over.

And for the last decade or so, I've been able to take at least a month off each year to go somewhere ... to Europe, from one side of North America to the other, to Australia, etc.

I've never really thought of it as 'looking for something' ... more along the lines of ... wanting to see something. Wanting to see something different. Wanting to see what's over that next hill, around the corner, over the ocean.

paul2

Loaded touring
Provinces: all
States: California, Oregon, New York, Vermont
Countries: India, New Zealand, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Slovenia

Supported touring:
States: Hawaii, Washington, Utah
Countries: Mexico, Costa Rica

Cycling:
States: Pennsylvania
Countries: Nepal, Tibet China, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia

Non Cycling
States: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa
Countries: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Liechtenstein, Hungary

Machka 

I learned to play the song Far Away Places on my grandmother's organ when I was in my teens, and loved the song because it expressed how I felt.

Far Away Places
Far away places with strange-sounding names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange-sounding names
Are callin', callin' me

Goin' to China or maybe Siam
I wanna see for myself
Those far away places I've been readin' about
In a book that I took from the shelf

I start getting restless whenever I hear
The whistle of a train
I pray for the day I can get underway
And look for those castles in Spain

They call me a dreamer, well, maybe I am
But I know that I'm burnin' to see
Those far away places with the strange-sounding names
Callin', callin' me


Teresa Brewer's version ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQUxKaQYu0

Caretaker

I was in the merchant navy/merchant marine for 14 years so saw lots of places. Europe. Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australasia, N and S America.

Cycle touring I don't get paid to visit places so I'd quiet happily spend the rest of my days visiting the parts of Europe I haven't got to yet.

Cycle touring: Ireland, France. Italy. Also did a bit of Cuba.

axolotl

We'll always have Paris.

fietsbob

Personally Significant: 91, Loop of the North Sea was good,
SFO> AMS to Coast, Zandvoort ..
Belgium, France, England,Norway,Denmark,Poland, Czechoslovakia,Austria,
Germany,France, Belgium, NL, AMS .

97,SFO> LHR, Dublin , last week of feb, to SW ,Co. Kerry,
north up the coast and across the NI coast, Ferry to Scotland
Long layover in Forres, Fly : Aberdeen to AMS>SFO

mev

If all goes well, my plan is to do TDA across Africa in 2013. Other continents have been/will be unsupported, but figure I'll do this one supported.

zonatandem

Born in Europe, living in Arizona (by choice).
Ain't movin', but do enjoy travel on/off our tandem in this country and 16 others.

Newspaperguy

When I lived in Winnipeg, I got out of the city on every road except one. I have a Manitoba road map, a little tattered now, showing all the roads I cycled during those years. My first overnight bike tours were when I lived there.

safariofthemind

Interestingly, when I was young I would dream about picking up and emigrating to New Zealand. Once I actually got there it became clear I had idealized the place and totally ignored that every place has its own social, climatic and other issues. As the years passed, family ties also started to pull tighter and stronger. Nowadays it does not even cross my mind to pick another place to live in permanently. Part of the joy of travel is the planning, the discovery and the serendipity. Once a place become "home" the sense of discovery would be diminished and the soul would yearn for a new place to visit anyway.

Integrating travel has been more about opening the mind to the possibilities that the planet offers rather than finding a "perfect" place. North Carolina is about as perfect as any other place I've lived in and the real changes had to happen inside my mind, not the locales visited or dreamed about.

simplygib

+1

I used to dream about retiring early and moving to another country. Did a lot of research on it and at one point or another was pretty set on Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and considered many other locales. But ended up just 350 miles from my home town. Different state, but still in the U.S. After touring in Central America, as well as many trips to Mexico and South America, I realized I really wouldn't want to live there permanently. Where I am now is near perfection for my tastes, especially considering I have the freedom to satisfy the travel bug pretty much whenever I want now.

As far as bike touring, I have no big goals to cover wide and varied locales. I just want to ride, in whatever locale that peaks my interest at the time. So far that has included California, Oregon, Arizona, and Idaho, as well as parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. As far as off-bike travel, lots of other U.S. states as well as Ireland, Fiji, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, and Canada.

brucewayne

2007: Boston, MA to Philadelphia, PA - We took two weeks off work and took trains with our bikes up to Boston to depart the last week of June. In a week we were back in central New Jersey and rode down to Long Beach Island for a few days since we had some extra time.

This summer, the plan is to ride from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. I'm probably leaving the first week in June.

Machka 

How was Antarctica? Was your trip there business or pleasure?