Traveling with World on Bicycle with Children
Parents around the world dream of heading out to see the world with their children. They’ll spend their days exploring the deserts of the Egyptian pyramids or gaze upon the dusty rose colored Taj Majal under a full moon. They’ll travel on buses, planes, trains, and donkey carts. But on bicycle? Exploring the world with kids on bikes?
My husband and I have cycled over 21,000 miles through 12 different countries with our 12 year old twin boys and have discovered that traveling on bicycles with children is the best way to travel.
The bike allows you – indeed, it forces you – to get off the beaten track and see the tiny villages of the world. When one is traveling with a motor of whatever kind, you will skip over the small towns in order to reach the cities. But it’s the small villages in a country that can teach you about life in that country. Cities – for all their differences – are mostly the same. In today’s face-paced world, cities are becoming increasingly generic; it’s the villages that still retain the character of the country, and the bikes allow us to get to know them.
Another advantage of traveling on bike is that you are one with Mother Nature. As you travel without the protection of a vehicle around you, you’ll be more in touch with weather conditions and landscape. Our children have learned, first hand, the effect of altitude on temperature. They’ve cycled over mountains and now truly understand the effects of the movement of tectonic plates.
Perhaps the most important reason to travel on bike is the life lessons you’ll learn from the bike. Your child will learn to persevere through hardship after feeling the thrill of victory when cresting a pass. She’ll learn the value of teamwork and understand that there are times when only by working together can you reach your goal. And she’ll understand the idea of breaking a big task into small, manageable chunks.
Yes, kids can learn these things in other ways, but traveling on bike is not only more effective, but more fun!
Nancy Sathre-Vogel has been bicycling with children since her kids were big enough to reach the pedals. She is now cycling from Alaska to Argentina with her sons as they attempt to break the world youngest to cycle the Pan American Highway.
