Reddit reviews Miles from Nowhere: A Round the World Bicycle Adventure

One of my favorite travelogues is Miles from Nowhere, by Barbara and Larry Savage.

They biked around the world (2 years, 25 countries) in the early 80s. Weeks after returning home, Barbara was killed by a truck.

I just spent a week on each of four different Hawaiian islands. It is summertime even in February there.

• Allot space in your panniers for water, or make sure you bring a little bleach or iodine water purification tablets. I figured that I needed to carry nearly four liters of water on me for a hard day of riding in the Hawaiian heat.
  
  
• Be realistic about how far you're going to travel each day... do a couple test trips first to see what your endurance level is.
  
  
• Bring extra brackets for the rack. I had to buy a whole new rack just because of a broken bracket which attaches between the rack and the seatpost.
  
  
• If you're not packing a full tent, make sure you bring mosquito netting, and know how to use it. I discovered that my bivvy sack was very uncomfortable, and usually ended up using it as a makeshift groundcloth, instead. Avoid camping any place with standing water nearby. I definitely preferred sleeping in an open grassy area with a good stiff breeze all night long, to sleeping in a forested area.
  
  
• Think about how you'll deal with rain. This was an ongoing trial for me in Hawaii... I often would spend mornings at the laundromat rewashing and drying my clothes after a night-time rainstorm. One problem I found was that while you sleep you can get almost as wet from condensation as you can from the rainstorm, even if you are safely under a sheet of plastic.
  
  
• Make sure you know how to comfortably maintain your electrolyte level as you drink all that water. There was some great salty asian fruit leather in Hawaii marketed under the "Li Hing" brand which I discovered that was ideal for this.
  
  
• Make sure you give yourself an hour and a half of daylight to find a good campspot. If you don't, you'll often wake up to find that you've slept in some pretty un-ideal situations. You should be ok anywhere out of sight on public land or on private land that doesn't have "no trespassing" signage. My rule was that after I had established my campspot, I would arrive after dark, and leave before dawn. If my campsite was in the line of sight from houses, I wouldn't use any light. Beach campsites also had the added benefit of masking sound. I always avoided public campgrounds where you have to buy a permit. As a bicyclist with all my gear I would have been pretty vulnerable to thievery there. Some of the best spots I found to camp were county and state parks which were ostensibly closed to the public after dark. They were quiet and deserted, had all the facilities I needed and were usually very picturesque.
  
  
• Sleeping underneath a tree helps prevent you getting dewed on during the night.
  
  
• If you're only going for a week, and you are fastiduous about your gear, you probably won't lose anything. Yet and still, before your trip think to yourself: "what happens if I lose bag a b or c?" Make sure you have enough gear to keep going, and alternate ways of getting money to use.
  
  
• Think about what you'll do if individual tools or gear break or get lost. I was surprised to discover that a little sewing kit was one of the most important things I had brought with me. I also was glad to have brought a lot of little replacement pieces for various things.
  
  
• Black is a very good color. It doesn't show the dirt, and it's hard to see at night - which is nice if you're trying to be discreet. If you're in a temperate climate black clothing will help you warm up on a cold morning.
  
  
• Figure out how you're going to wash up. In Hawaii, every beach park has free showers. That was a really great boon.
  
  I found I spent an average of about $30 a day through the month, mostly because of daily little emergencies that would crop up... (eg I had to buy new brake pads, or i needed to have my wheel trued, or I needed to do laundry after a rain... etcetera). It turned out to be more expensive than I thought. I also ended up losing a lot of valuables in the last week of the trip to a thief - including my camera and all my vacation photos.
  
  There was a great book I read when I was a child called "Miles From Nowhere" about a couple who went on a round-the-world bicycle trip. I'd highly recommend it.
  
  

I'm all about biking! :) This book sparked this utterly MAGICAL idea while I was a teenager that if I had a bike and just kept at it I could go ANYWHERE, but my parents weren't even remotely interested and I was broke and had a few other adventures over a couple years. It wasn't until I scraped up enough money in my first year of college before I bought my first bike. That was over 25 years ago, and I'm still riding around every chance I get.

But yeah, you just have to give things a whirl and see where they take you, sometimes more than once to really get a feel for it. I went to multiple 'aerobic classes' at various places back in the day and found I detested every minute- I'm hopelessly uncoordinated and self conscious enough already. Lifting, cardio machines, etc on my own.... that's more my speed as far as the gym goes.

My real love is being outside though. The longer the better.

Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898861098?pc_redir=1407574165&robot_redir=1

Any book by Joe Kurmaskie

http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Kurmaskie/e/B001K8XLH0