The Idea
More than 900 days through 27 countries! Wow, you must know a lot about the world!
I often hear people say things along these lines when I give them a quick roadside WT run down. And I think I do, but this is not about (telling about) the world and it’s not about the bike (Armstrong was right) and how many kilometres I do in a day (though on some days this is intricately connected to my sense of well-being and achievement as well).
WT is about me, it’s about me meeting the world, it’s about an anthropologist (for that I am) travelling through different cultural, social, and natural faces of the world and the bike (just – but don’t tell her!) happens to be my mode of transportation.
It’s about the sometimes ridiculous happiness I feel from the exhilaration and freedom of cycling through beautiful landscapes and from the people I meet. It’s about getting one step closer to your dream every day and at the same time knowing/feeling that this (this WT life) is exactly what my dreams are made of.
It’s about the hardships of cycling through the most barren and inhospitable terrains and about the difficulties (and joys) of doing it all on my own. About being away from everything familiar, about being away from all that used to constitute my frame of reference, my everyday life in Denmark, and what I used to consider normalcy.
And it’s about everything in between. It’s about getting familiar with the unknown, and finding the exotic in the realm of familiarity, it’s about learning to find comfort in spheres way beyond your comfort zones.
It’s about living cheap and feeling rich, it’s about roughing it and enjoying moments of luxury (hot shower, tailwind, soft bed, female smiles, the foolish wonders of beer).
It’s about the grandness and inherent goodness of the human race, about accepting the inequalities and (mostly mentally manifested) insecurities of the world, it’s about believing (in whatever, but most importantly yourself) and not being afraid (real life is rarely as bad as people make you think). It’s about listening to your fellow creatures and following your instincts.
