Do you spend your days dreaming of taking off with your children to explore the world? You\’ll ride camels around the Egyptian pyramids and gaze in wonder at the graceful domes of the Taj Majal – with your children by your side. You\’ll take buses from town to town, fly from country to country, and explore back streets by donkey cart. But travel on bicycles? With children?
My husband and I have cycled over 21,000 miles through 12 different countries with our 12 year old twin boys and have discovered that traveling on bicycles with children is the best way to travel.
Most families opt for buses or planes to travel the world, but they miss a lot that way. The motor allows you to easily reach the next city, so you tend to skip the small villages. However, it\’s the small villages that have retained the character of the country. In today\’s world, cities have become increasingly generic, but villages have not. Travel on bike allows you to spend time in the villages, thereby getting to know the countries you pass through more intimately.
Motorized vehicles encase you in steel and glass and isolate you from Mother Nature. Traveling on bicycle without the protective layer of your vehicle around you, you\’ll be more in touch with nature. You\’ll feel the wind in your hair and rain on your cheeks. You\’ll grind up hills using muscle power only, so will truly understand what those hills are. You\’ll feel the effect of altitude on temperature as you climb into the mountains.
Perhaps the most important reason to travel on bike is the life lessons you\’ll learn from the bike. Your child will learn to persevere through hardship after feeling the thrill of victory when cresting a pass. She\’ll learn the value of teamwork and understand that there are times when only by working together can you reach your goal. And she\’ll understand the idea of breaking a big task into small, manageable chunks.
It is true that kids can learn all these lessons in other ways, but traveling on the bike is more fun!
Nancy Sathre-Vogel has been bicycling with children since her kids were big enough to reach the pedals. She is now cycling from Alaska to Argentina with her sons as they attempt to break the world youngest to cycle the Pan American Highway. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.
