Originally Posted by
jamawani
I should add that bike touring is a luxury
completely out of reach for so many.
.
Not necessarily. I remember the first one I did was an overnighter with a friend on our old Schwinn Varsity & Continental bikes using duffel bags and backpacks. IT was about 30 miles one way to a campground in a local national forest with some uphill along the way. Tough going, but it was a cheap way for us 16 y.o.'s to experience it. You really don't need all that much to try it out, make do with what you have. I just think a lot of people have gotten pretty paranoid these days and don't have a high threshold of vulnerability to the whims of nature and mankind.