Finances and Other Statistics

If you like narratives, this post will be boring. If you like numbers, it will be interesting. I like numbers.

I finally got around to doing finances for the trip. Spoiler alert: it was more expensive than I thought it was.

While it’s hard to remember exactly what was bought before the trip for the purposes of the trip (as opposed to for use before/after, like moving expenses), with my best guesses about each line item on my statements, the tour cost $9,324. At 239 days away from home, that’s $39/day (note the cost includes things bought before the 239 days started, like when I was testing my bike).

I was hoping for more around $20/day. BUT, this total includes health insurance -- an extra $1,189 for three months in the US, and $124 per month for a month in Eastern Europe and a month in Africa.

This also includes spending a lot more on my bike than I realized -- it cost all of $100 to put together since all I did was buy a “new” frame and put the parts from my old touring bike on it. The total cost of repairs and parts throughout the tour, including two wheels, two chains, a seat, and at least 6 tires (thanks, Schwalbe…) came out to $919. To be fair: a nice, new touring bike with racks, panniers, etc. would have been at least $1400. But it’s still more than I would’ve liked.

Other ways to break down the $9,324 total:
- $1,189 on US health insurance (mentioned above).
- $919 on bicycle maintenance (mentioned above).
- $1,191 on groceries, $5/day.
- $914 on non-grocered food (ex eating out, prepared food bought at gas stations).
- $739 on flights, buses, and trains.
- $1,436 on gear and visas.
- $1,537 withdrawn from ATMs and spent as cash. The most cash (instead of credit) spent was my month in Africa: $487, almost a third of all cash spent over the nine month tour.

So... had I gone without health insurance and never eaten out, the trip would have cost about $6973, or $29/day. Additionally, subtracting the cost of bicycle maintenance puts us at $6054, or $25/day -- much closer to my original idea of $20/day.

Do I regret having health insurance? Maybe. I never needed it. The shots for the malaria I contracted in Africa cost $7. My bicycle got bit by a dog, but I never did. Maybe I’d rather have that $1437. But maybe I’d have gotten appendicitis in the middle of rural Pennsylvania and needed a $7,000 airlift to the ER for a $25,000 hospital stay. US healthcare is ridiculous.

I did sell postcards, though, and made $1684 doing so. In theory that means I wrote 168 postcards, though some people chose to donate more or less. My biggest donation was $314 for 12 postcards, or $26 each; the average donation was $20 each for 79 actual postcards. I asked for $12 each. I think people mostly appreciated that I was trying to do something to recoup the costs… and yea, if I thought someone’s idea was really cool, I might look for something like a handwritten postcard in order to donate to them (just look at Kickstarter rewards nowadays -- $5 for an auto-generated thank-you email? *ahem*).

Anyways, $9,324 spent and $1,684 recouped is a net cost of $7640, or $31/day for a 239-day trip.

On my 2012 tour across the US, the net cost was $1460, about $20/day for a 74-day trip. I did not have to pay for health insurance (I was still on my mom’s after college graduation) nor for any flights or visas. All the “gear” I got was wholesale since I worked for a bike shop, and I started with a “new” bike.

In 2016, the last full year I lived in one place, I spent $20,709. For a given 239-day period, that would have been about $13,597, 45% more than the $9,324 I spent on my 239-day tour. Note both of these figures ($9,324 for tour and $13,597 for a chunk of 2016) include everything I paid for: rent (if applicable -- not when touring!), food, plane tickets, cell service, eating out, bicycle maintenance, etc.

So yea… bicycle touring can be significantly cheaper than staying in one place. “How can you afford it,” they asked. To be fair, having $9,000 to spend isn’t easy. I saved for a while. Mostly by not owning a car.

I probably fall somewhere in the middle of touring expenses. There are tourists who eat rice and beans with the minimalist gear -- I’ve heard claims as low as $5/day -- and there are what we call “credit card” tourists who stay in hotels every night, topping $300/day.

But if you know me, you know I like to look at data. Especially data about myself. Because I know how accurate it is, and I know how much I had to stretch myself -- which in this case, was not at all. I lived comfortably on tour (noting that I am comfortable in a tent in the woods on the side of the road). $5/day seems like a stretch. I want those boulangeries.

Some other fun stuff:
- Excluding Ukraine, I took about 22 days off (where I stayed somewhere for 3 days or more with the intent of getting to know a place) and about 27 rest days (where I stayed somewhere just one or two days with the intent of doing absolutely nothing except sleeping and eating, or fixing my bike and planning ahead if necessary).
- If I spent 30 days on the farm in Ukraine, that means I spent 160 days pedaling, only 67% of the time I was gone.
- At 9700 miles, I pedaled an average of 60 miles a day on the days that I pedaled, and 40 miles a day overall.
- I stopped counting somewhere in Germany, but up until then (127 days) I had been hosted by friends (people I knew before starting the trip) at least 24 nights (18%, about once every 5 days), Warmshowers hosts (people I cold contacted via warmshowers.org) at least 22 nights (17%, about once every 5 days), and complete strangers (people I had never met before) at least 13 nights (10%, about once every 10 days).

In other news, I found that post I thought I’d lost, which means there’s probably only one post left after this. I’m headed to Madison next week to find a job, and then… who knows, I might stop trying to have a normal life again, fly to Istanbul, and keep biking. So maybe more than one post. Maybe a mental breakdown about adjusting to real life. Maybe the desire for reminiscing about encounters with strangers becoming tearful goodbyes to become real again.

Let’s wait and see.

Status Update: Still Here!

Hello audience,

I'm still here! I've been spending my time seeing friends, applying for jobs, working on projects, and just in general not worrying about writing long essays about my life that other people may or may not read. But I'll get back on the bandwagon soon... hopefully later this week.

Happy 2018!

Chernivtsi, Ukraine: What's next?

The more astute reader, who has been around for a while, might notice that I've deviated significantly from my originally proposed route through Europe. This route would have put me in Africa for the low low cost of a boat from Gibralter to Morocco sometime around November. While I don't have any regrets about my deviation, I am now in a bit of a pickle... because... you see...

winter is coming.

While this is actually an ideal time to do some parts of the Middle East (the otherwise very hot parts), it's a less-than-ideal time to do some other parts (the very cold parts – yes, there are cold parts of the Middle East). As I'd like to be able to mix the two (in particular, I'm dying to do the Pamir Highway, which includes some mountain passes at 4,000+ meters – often impassible in the winter months), I need to figure out a way to (A) occupy myself until it starts getting warmer, not colder, and (B) end up about where I am now so I can continue on my way through the Middle East when the weather is right.

My thinking is... fly to Africa.

Which would make me regret, if only slightly, not sticking to my original plan. And only because flying to Africa would cost money.

BUT... can I say I biked around the world if I don't at least touch Africa?

This is a dangerous road. What's next? Can I say I biked around the world if I don't at least touch... Australia?

(A host of mine had this take on Australia: "You bike to the end of the world to see white people.")

Can I say I biked around the world if I don't at least touch... South America?

There is something alluring about Africa. I would rather say I biked across Africa than Australia. Also, another cyclist I've been meaning to meet up with is currently biking across Africa. So, I'd have company.

That's one option.

The cheapest, but arguably least exciting option, is to WWOOF around where I am. But four months of sitting on my butt? I think I'd go crazy (I do like my current WWOOF. It will get its own post shortly).

I could also bike to Turkey, fly over Syria (much as the people there are worth visiting, now is not the time), and... big as Saudi Arabia is, I think I could only kill a month there. I can't visit Israel until after visiting Iran, because you can't get into Iran if you have an Israel stamp in your passport.

I can't really come back to the US because I no longer have health insurance. Not to mention the flights would be even more expensive than flying to Africa and back.

So... I think I've pretty much stuck myself with:
(A) Stay in Europe, dance between countries to stick to visa-free time limits, and WWOOF. Travel a bit, but at some point I'd only be left with so many countries that aren't cold and that I still have free entry to. (B) Fly somewhere else. Like Africa.

Right now I'm thinking:
- Bike to Italy via Venice. Because... I want to see Italy.
- Bike down Italy and take a boat across the Adriatic.
- See Greece. Because I also want to see Greece (noting that I have only 35 days left in Schengen countries, which includes both Italy and Greece).
- Bike to Turkey.
- WWOOF until my flight.
- Fly to Nairobi (about $500), where my friend will be in early November.
- Bike to Cape Town. This should take until February or so. There is a path from Nairobi to Cape Town that doesn't require visas.
- Fly back to Turkey (about $500).
- Continue through the Middle East as planned.


I am, of course, open to other suggestions... preferably ones that don't cost any more than flying to Africa and back.

In the longer term, I've also been offered a job in India. I don't want to reveal too much about it, but suffice to say I've been to India before (in 2013) and some of the people I worked with want me back. So it's possible that when I get to India (hopefully mid-2018) I'll have a job waiting for me, which should help recoup the costs that haven't been made by selling postcards, and either become a permanent position (that is, I'd live in India indefinitely) or serve to fund the next part of the trip. I'd plan to work there for at least a year and see how I feel afterwards. It's possible I'll stop the tour in India; somewhere in India is halfway around the world from where I started in Minneapolis. I also still have a deferral to study psychology starting fall 2018, if I so desire. Options...

If the job in India does wok out, I'd probably learn Hindi. More than I know from my last trip, that is.

So, that's where things stand. I'm hoping someone will drop an awesome, free, totally-feasible winter plan on me, but I got myself into this mess by not following my original plan... how I get out of it is, almost certainly, up to my planning as well. Come to think of it, the ideal plan would be that someone donates the "Get any story anywhere in the world" option for a story in Africa. But I'm not betting on that.

Even if you don't have a solution, dear reader, your thoughts are always welcome.

Give Me Feedback on my Totally Not A Book

E-mail followers: Three posts in this e-mail! Scroll down!


A lot of people tell me: “Write a book!” Or they ask, “Are you going to write a book?”

I don't know. I think first I should finish the trip.

But, because I'm a creator, I can't help but think about what that would look like. Would it be sequential or would I just talk about the people I met with cycling as a backdrop? How would I maintain anonymity if I said “so-and-so from such-and-such a place?” Would people actually read it? Do people still read books? Does anyone care enough about my relationship with depression to read the book if that's a major theme?

Dear reader, it's feedback time. What do you think a book about this trip would look like?

While I'm at it, what other feedback do you have for me? Anything goes! Do I write too often? Not enough? Am I too introspective? More photos? Fewer? Any and all feedback is appreciated, however praising or critical.

Before you keep reading, comment below and give me feedback. If you don't want to log in, you should be able to comment as “Anonymous” via the dropdown menu. Or, you can e-mail me at kyle@cyclehumanity.com, or comment on my Facebook page.

So, now that you've left feedback (you left feedback, right?)... since I have been thinking about what a book would look like... if I could start it now, here's what that might look like.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti


There is nothing really magical or supernatural about this story besides the fact that it happened. Some stories, especially nowadays, will say there is nothing magical about them, that they are completely normal, but they are selling something. I am not. Okay, I am. But really, I'm a normal guy. I just made some abnormal choices. But this story probably doesn't have a happy ending. I don't know how it ends; as I write this, it's not over yet. But you should know that I probably go back to my desk job and a semi-normal life afterwards. I'll just take my experiences with me. Because experiences – unlike anything else in our lives – experiences cannot be taken away from us.

Your average movie-grade story has an inciting incident. Watch any movie and you'll see something happen that changes the life of the main character forever. A relative will die, someone will tell them they are special, their computer will get hacked, someone they love will get kidnapped, they will find a ring or see a falling star. About halfway through they'll figure out they are “the one” and discover they have special powers. Movies (unintentionally) condition us to believe we are special: we just haven't been discovered yet. Don't feel special? Don't worry! If you continue working your 9-5 a crane will break through the wall, setting into motion a sequence of events resulting in defeat of the bad guy (who has been hiding in the shadows this whole time) and winning the heart of your true love (who you may or may not have met yet; maybe meeting them is the inciting incident).

The problem is, most people wait around and no inciting incident ever happens to them. Most of us have to decide to change our lives and do the hard work of changing it: quitting our jobs, leaving that bad relationship, whatever. Most of us won't get kidnapped or inherit a large sum of money or discover we have an illegitimate child; instead, we just go through the motions that society has made easy for us to go through: school, college, job, marriage, house, retirement, funeral. Scrolling through our Facebook news feed.

There is nothing wrong with this sequence of events, but there are also other things you can do with your life. As long as you do what you do purposefully. People have told me how amazing and wonderful my life sounds... yet there is nothing special about me except that I decided to live this way and then took action to make it happen. I chose to not care about the things most other people care about, like sleeping in the same place every night, being able to access the internet whenever I want to, and having a car. I've purposefully prioritized indefinite travel over having a nice house in the suburbs. Nothing wrong with a nice house in the suburbs – but it's not as important, to me, as some other things.

I have, of course, met plenty of people living in a house in the suburbs who are really happy, and that's awesome. I think the key, whether you live on a bike or in a house or in your car or the space station, is to live purposefully. You have to make the decision – not your parents, your other, your society, or the whim of fancy.

I don't think this story will end in defeating the bad guy because there is no bad guy (unless you want to personalize depression) and it's not about winning the heart of my true love. It's about forging a new life, an unconventional life, proving to myself that there's more to do when I wake up in the morning than getting a paycheck and buying stuff (Fight Club's Tyler Durden: “We work long hard hours at jobs we hate to buy stuff we don't need to impress people we don't like”) and seeing if doing that more will be fulfilling, even if it's hard.

It's about learning whether people around the world are good or if they're how they are represented in the media, if terrible things happen to people who step outside their comfort zone. Is the world ready for a story that doesn't involve defeating a bad guy or punching something or shooting something or blowing something up or a quest to win the heart of a true love or even just to get laid?

Probably. I'm pretty sure it's already been done. So like I said, there's nothing special about this story.

If I had to construct a completely fictional inciting incident that totally didn't happen, it would be this: I was lying on my bed feeling depressed, wondering what I was doing with my life. I opened my eyes and saw that poster I have on my wall – The Holstee Manifesto. I sat up. And read it. And this is what I saw:

Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them. So go out there and start creating.

I believe that. Because time and life are the most valuable things we have. They are the only things, once spent, we can never get back. And we can use them to construct experiences, which are one of the only things that can never be taken away from us.

Time and life are too valuable to be spent without purpose. Too many people with time and money and the privilege of choosing what to do with their lives just did what they were told or what was presented to them.

So I listened to that poster. I left. To meet people. And create things with them.

This is my story.

What do you think?

Calstock, England: Quick Update

There's a video I like to watch sometimes called Do What You Can't. One line in the video has been running through my head a lot lately:

If you do it right, you get to quit your day job and make friends in places you've never been, a life moving so fast that's so full you won't even have time to process it.

That's about where I am right now.

I've been in England... six days? It feels like it's been three weeks. I'm under the impression our brains are elastic: use them more and they will be better at being used. My head hurts right now just trying to process all the places I've been and things I've seen and people I've met. "Increased throughput" would be an understatement compared to the happenings of my life a year ago. I have about two hours of recordings to go through. I also have to figure out how to get to Ireland and then back across to France within the next 2-3 weeks.

I could sit and type for a whole day and not get it all out; but, my priorities are adventure first. Blogging will always come second. I'll leave you with a photo for now, and try and gather my thoughts into cohesive sentences instead of just compressed memories and the best kind of heartache sometime in the next week or so.

Also there are more photos on the map.