How did you get into traveling?

We know each other since the age of teenagers. Our first bike tour was in Holland twenty years ago. From then on we spent our holidays mostly on our bikes. Firstly because of a small budget, later, because we had learned to appreciate the bicycle as a mean of transport which allows you to meet people at eye level. After several summer holidays in Europe, a longer trip in Madagascar followed. We realized that we needed more time when traveling so slowly, took a year off and cycled through South America. From then on our passion for traveling could not be stopped anymore, and after working for another three years, we saved enough money for another year in Central Asia. Four years later, we started to the current trip with open time horizon.

Giving up our good jobs and leaving friends and family for an indefinite time was not easy in the beginning. We felt comfortable at home, but from our previous journeys we knew that this step was worth it. We have never regretted it.

Why is traveling important for you?

Traveling has become our life, with all highs and lows. While we were often overwhelmed by impressions and experiences during our early travels, we now feel at home in almost every culture. We see this world as a global networked habitat. When traveling we learned, that values ​​like hospitality, tolerance and willingness to help are lived by many and that disrespect, hate, the spread of fear or stereotypes are either in the interest of very rich or very desperate people.

We think that traveling is basically changing the view of the world. A Mongolian saying means "to see once is better than to hear a thousand times". To experience climate change as real, when fighting against 100km/h strong storm wind in the Andes, where the best travel season should be, when ending a trip on the frozen Yukon in March, because suddenly the ice melts away or when being in panic because the expected water source in Sudan is simply dried out, prevents any debate about.
Finding solutions for important issues such as pollution, corruption, or sustainable use of resources would be more creative, more evasive and probably more successful if more people traveled. Questions such as cultural or religious affiliation would probably become less important.

What has been the best parts of your travels?

To experience the globe as a whole world. To see how different people live, how diverse our planet is. To walk through a city like Dubai or to be invited by a nomad family on the Tibetan plateau in their Yak hair tent is such a huge difference that we often feel not only as a traveler from place to place, but also as a traveler in different time zones. To experience deserts, rainforests, mountains and steppes, to feel a warming fire in the Arctic cold, or to hear a wolf howling in the wild, is a wonderful experience.

And what has been the most difficult parts?

As bicycle travelers, we are vulnerable. We do not have a car, with which you can simply speed up and get away from a scaring situation. It is also not as easy to skip a difficult region with just a longer day stage. In the meantime we have enough experience to plan and manage such situations.
If we feel unsafe in a country or region, we sleep in a hotel rather than in the tent. If a road is too busy, we take a bus or load onto a truck. Previously, we felt that we had to complete every single mile by bike. This has sometimes led to emotionally or physically difficult situations, which we no longer face today or which we can avoid through careful planning. The longer we are on the road, the more attention needs our motivation. Where and how we travel so that we can challenge ourselves and meet inspiring people.

How do you eat and sleep on the road?

We eat locally whenever possible. The street kitchen in India, Southeast Asia or China is cheap and fantastic. It makes no sense to cook for yourself there. On lonely routes, or in countries where restaurants are expensive or the food monotonous, we cook for ourselves. Our kitchen equipment is simple, we have a robust gas stove, an aluminum pot, knife, spork (combined fork and spoon) and a peeler. If we find a good supermarket, we cook more elaborately. When we carry provisions, our meals often consist of oatmeal, semolina or polenta for breakfast, bread, cheese, instant noodles, nuts/dried fruits and chocolate for lunch and pasta for dinner. We pay attention to mix pasta with proteinaceous foods such as beans, quinoa or soy/tofu and to enrich it with dried vegetables.

In densely populated areas we stay with people or in simple guesthouses. If lodging in the country is expensive or if we travel through wilderness areas, we camp.

What are your best advice for new travelers?

We are more and more experiencing that travelers miss the real journey. They travel as comfortably and safely as possible from one tourist highlight to another and want to see as much as possible in a short time. Traveling is becoming more and more passive, something you can consume. In doing so, we think that you miss the most important and the most beautiful of traveling: To be slow and active, to discover the small sights in between and to deal with the simplicity of life.
If you dream of traveling, but fear to give up your usual life and "take the step", we recommend starting with small adventures and growing into the experience, returning and re-starting. It does not have to be a multi-year journey.

How do you prepare for your adventures?

We never physically prepared for a trip. The longer we were on the road, the fitter we became and the more possibilities for challenging routes we found. We are planning roughly the next six months, in which countries and regions we want to stay. For this we use pictures, blogs and reports from the internet. If we are there, we work out a detailed route for the next 600-700 kilometers. Since we are no longer riding a classic touring bicycle, we try to avoid paved roads and spend a lot of time searching for dirt tracks and trails. We use satellite images and digital maps on the smartphone. This is followed by a detailed planning of provisions and daily stages when we leave populated areas.

How do you finance your travels?

We have lived very cheaply for Switzerland and spent little on our leisure time. Being outside is free, a benefit we also used at home. By traveling by bike, we learned to get along with little and only to buy what we really need. For several years, we were able to put one of our two monthly salaries aside. We never had a car and the last two years before our present trip we lived at a campsite. It has always been important to us that we can pay for our travels ourselves and not to take advantage of the hospitality as a way to finance our travels. On average, we each spend 20$ per day. This covers all costs, including flights, material purchases, insurance and traveling in more expensive countries such as the US or Japan. Statistically, we spend about 50% of the time off the bike, taking rest days. During this time we are usually in a paid accommodation. We could travel even cheaper if we had to. In hindsight, we would invest our savings smarter before the journey. Buy an apartment and rent it by Air BnB. Such an income could cover a large part of our expenses.

How do you balance normal life with traveling?

Before the first one-year trip we worked for four years. Then twice in a three-year rhythm. For the past four years we have no fixed income anymore and are on the road continuously. At the moment, we are thinking about how we want to do this in the future and whether there is a possibility for us to combine the "normal life" and the "nomad life" in a meaningful and balanced way.