Top 5 Things I Love About Cycling Around The World

I liked some of yours and some of the other persons.

Here are my five

1. Being happy with little and how simple life becomes.

2. On a bike you meet locals all the time who are not tied up with the tourist trade. So you meet people from all walks of life all the time. Its a social leveller. As the other person said, having your faith renewed regularly in the honesty and generosity and decency of the majority of humans.

3. Getting away from addictive morbid distractions like tv and the internet.

4. The ever changing environment and being in it all the time, so close to nature and outside the house. This indeed is the main distraction.

5. Feeling fit and healthy as a side effect of a way of life.

Thanks for posting this question it will be lovely to see the list when it gets longer.

1. Setting my own schedule
2. Getting fit without even trying (and eating as much as I want!)
3. Seeing things I would miss from the back of a bus
4. Getting off the tourist track - meeting real people
5. Riding straight past the various touts and shysters in the cities, while pedestrians are at their mercy.

I liked Newslanders #3 and #5 The following are edited from my blog...

• Solitude! There is nothing better than waking up at dawn, cycling all day without seeing more than a dozen cars and maybe one house, and throwing down your swag at sunset for a good night's sleep.

• Connecting with the land. Camping amongst huge old growth trees, and along the ocean and in the mountains.

• Freedom of schedule. Like the morning I woke up on an isolated salt flat and decided to stay another day.

• Connecting with the environment. Riding through thunder storms, downpours, and floods up to my knees.

• Ease of stopping. Cycling past unexpected rivers in 40 degree weather and stopping for a swim.