2024 — What a Year! ✨

New Year 2024 🎊 we celebrated in Dubai, UAE. From there, we set off on a journey to cycle through and explore 16 amazing countries 🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️🌎❤️ Each one offered unique and unforgettable experiences 🤩
🇦🇪 🇮🇷 🇧🇬 🇷🇴 🇵🇾 🇭🇺 🇷🇸 🇵🇱 🇱🇹 🇱🇻 🇪🇪 🇫🇮 🇳🇴 🇦🇷 🇨🇱 🇵🇪

We were lucky to reunite with beloved family members 🥰 and make new friends along the way 🫶 The people we met, the stories we shared, and the memories we created will stay with us forever 💖

Looking back on this extraordinary year, we feel deeply grateful for this life-changing experience, the challenges we've overcome, and the opportunities we've had 🤩

Can't wait to see what 2025 has in store! 😎

—> 12 📸 pictures in this post

#2024Recap
#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels
#photography #photo #visualart #capturethemoment #focus #photographylover

...Chile 😎 🇨🇱 🤩

3 📸 in this post

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #photography #naturephotography #travelphotography #capturethemoment #chile #patagonia

While resting in San Rafael, we studied
the maps for the next leg of our journey. The question was: is this white line on the map cyclable, or should we opt for the orange-colored line (ruta nacional) instead? Would we find enough food and water supplies along the way? Finally, well-rested, clean, and with food for up to three days, we cycled on. Yes, we began the adventure and said 'no, thanks' to the big road. well, the first part was still a well-paved road, but with most likely less traffic. Quite soon after we departed from San Rafael, we also left the flat area filled with many vineyards. Suddenly, mountains appeared—wow, what a view! Our eyes were delighted after so many days without seeing anything like mountains. Even more, it filled us with energy to see the vivid river with its beautiful ice-blue color and the extremely green trees lining the river...

—> stay tuned for the next post, the next part of this adventurous day 🤩

📸 6 pictures in this post

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #nature #argentina

On the way we captured this #schnapszahl 🙂🙃

#odometer #cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels

Our route led us from Romania across the border to Serbia. In the first Serbian village, we found a well where we filled our water bottles and where we made a new friend, a super cute puppy. He came to us without any shyness. However, he was scared of the locals passing by. Unfortunately, we couldn't take him with us and had to say goodbye. In the friendly-looking town of Kikinda, we happened to ride through the so-called 'most beautiful street in Serbia'. It was really beautiful with the trees and their green, merging canopies. For sleeping, we chose a sports playground, which seemed to have not been used for active recreation for a long time. After the sun had set, 4 young owls even came to practice flying and feeding very close to our tent. What an incredibly wonderful time watching these young birds.

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #wildlife #serbia

Plovdiv 🤩

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #photography #travelphotography #architecturephotography #plovdiv #bulgaria

Near Perushtitsa and ~15 km southwest of Plovdiv we pedaled across the attraction 'The Red Church' (Bulgarian: Червена църква, Chervena tsarkva.
In the Internet we found out:
The Red Church is a large partially preserved late Roman (early Byzantine) Christian basilica, dating to the late 5th–early 6th century. It is a rare example of solid brick construction in a church from Late Antiquity in Bulgaria, and it was the red colour of the bricks that gave the church its name. A number of researchers have suggested that its original name of a church was "Virgin Mary", due to the widespread cult of God's mother during the early Byzantine period...

The golden rays of the evening sun bathed the brickstone walls in a warm light and made the sight even more admirable 😍

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #photography #architecturephotography #bulgaria

We are off for new adventures, new countries and new landscapes to discover 🤩
Our route (the purple line on the Screenshot of our map) for the next couple of monthts will lead us northwards through:
Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finnland, Norway
Cycling to the Northcape is our next goal 🤩 and we are very excited 🚵‍♀️ 🚵‍♂️❤️

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels

Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to Severin and his girlfriend, Nina 😢
We really enjoyed having the 'kids' around us 🥰

Now, as our nice break on Lesvos slowly comes to an end, we are focusing on preparing for the next chapter of our journey... 🚵‍♀️ 🚵‍♂️ 🌍
Marc took care of maintaining and repairing our bicycles 🚲 🚲 changed a broken zipper (sewed it on by hand 🪡) on his frame bag and did a lot of computer 💻 work (in his preferred position: squatting 😅). Programming software for his phone 🤳 running Postmarket OS, chatting, and learning nights and days long with likeminded people of the Linux world 🐧 is what he is into the most. He also digitized parts of our handwritten journal and is still searching for stylesheet ressources to optimize the pandoc latex pipeline for our book project 📚

Fiona did a lot of photography editing 🪄, sold her Fujifilm camera 📷, and started to get used to her new Sony camera 🤩
She sewed 🪡 a zipper onto her hoodie to be more flexible while cycling, and beautified her cross-body bag with a colorful ribbon 💝

Both of us hate housework, but now we have to do some of these never-ending tasks 🤪
We share this work quite equally.
In addition to the usual clothing, towel, and bedsheet washing the sleeping bags had their very first deep clean 😇 And again we cleaned the tent ⛺️
our pro tip: 1. soak it in salty seawater 🌊 to get rid of the cat-pee smell 2. rins it in the shower 🚿

A very important task is done as well 🥳: Fiona worked out our itinerary very precisely for the next three months 🗺️
Are you curious where we are heading next? Which direction do you guess? 🧭

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #photography #photo #travelphotography #linux #linuxmobile #postmarketOS
#pandoc

Due to the rainstorm escapade from that morning, we didn't leave until late midday and because of the strong headwind, we didn't feel like biking at all... eventually we made it to Finike, took several coffee breaks in parks and went to a restaurant for dinner. In the dark we cycled aproximately 10km along the coastal road until we came to an abandoned beach bar, where we pitched our tent for the night... The next day of cycling was amazing! We admired the beautiful dark blue sea in every bay...

#cycling #bikepacking #biketouring #cyclinglife #adventure #traveling #pedalandexplore #cyclingaroundtheworld #adventuretravel #exploringbybicycle #globetrottingonwheels #travelphotography #naturephotography #turkey #coast #beach #bluesea