• Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Mini-Guidebooks,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trips with Kids

    A Mini-Guidebook to Cycle Touring Maui: A Figure Eight From Heaven

    When we started planning our trip around Maui, we found it difficult to find information online. This mini-guidebook should hopefully answer most practical questions about cycling around Maui. For the story of our trip, see our other blog post. Basically, if you are already inspired to cycle around Maui, this is the place to get the nitty gritty details. If you are looking to get inspired, read the other post. On Maui the weather changes far more when you go from one end to the other, than it does when the seasons change – it rains about 20 times as much on the wet side (the Eastern side) than it…

  • Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

    Hawaii: Maybe Not the Maui You Had in Mind?

    A few times during this trip I had to stop, rub my eyes and ask myself where were we? Were we in Maui when I encountered a cow on the side of the road? Were we in Maui when the road became narrow, unpaved and deserted? Were we in Maui when already on the first day we found a hole-in the-wall place for our first poke bowl, or when we climbed out of the city into the countryside, with beautiful views and very few people? This is definitely not the image of Maui that I had in mind. We booked our tickets to Maui a couple of months before since…

  • Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trips with Kids,  Videos

    Family Cycling Adventure in Northland, New Zealand (Video)

    On Christmas Eve 2016 we left Vancouver and hopped on a 14 hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Skipping Christmas altogether, we landed in sunny NZ with our bikes, trailer, and Neil, our almost two year old toddler. We decided to head north from Auckland to an area called Northland where we spent the next month cycling. Despite the narrow and hilly roads we had a great time. Incredible views, long sandy beaches, too much fish n’ chips, and many friendly Kiwis all around.

  • Camping,  Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Mini-Guidebooks,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trips with Kids

    A Mini-Guidebook to Cycle Touring with a Baby/Toddler

    Recently a few people asked us about cycle touring in general and more specifically about cycle touring with a baby. Since the questions keep piling up we figured we’d put together a blog post about our recent experiences of cycle touring with our son Neil. Neil turned two in February and we have cycled with him in four overseas countries and have also done some short trips close to home, in British Columbia, and the nearby Washington state. Every time we go on a cycling trip with him we are amazed by how easy it is, and even though the worries keep on building up before the trip, once we start…

  • Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

    New Zealand: Cycling the Wild Far North

    Some people know how to take a vacation. They book a week or ten days in a resort or a hotel, spend some time on the beach, eat well and have a good time. Or they travel in style to Europe, hopping between ten cities in ten days, seeing all the important sights. For some reason we are not those people. Some years ago we became addicted to cycle touring, and having a kid hasn’t seemed to change it so far. There is something about travelling slow and into the unknown that just appeals to us. So I guess when we chose New Zealand as our winter travel destination we…

  • Mini-Guidebooks,  Overseas,  Random Thoughts,  Travel,  Trips with Kids

    Travel Tips: How to Travel on the Cheap Side

    The most common question we are asked about our travels is: “How do you afford to travel so much?”. Our usual response is that we don’t travel nearly as much as we’d like to…  More seriously, here are some tips on how you too can travel cheaply for long periods of time. Most people think Hawaii is expensive, but our two week trip to the Big Island was one of our cheapest yet. We spent a total of $20 on our accommodations. How so? Well, we spent most of the nights camping for free at county campgrounds or on deserted beaches, and a few nights with hosts from Couchsurfing and…

  • Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

    France: Cycling in the Place Where You Can’t Go Wrong

    We heard from several people that “you can’t go wrong” when going to France. However it seemed that in the beginning everything was going wrong. We arrived early in the morning to Paris after hardly getting any sleep on the flight. The flight was long but went well. We had an extra seat for Neil so it was a lot easier than to hold him on our lap the whole time. I discovered a while ago (or rather, he discovered) that stickers keep him busy for a long time, so I bought a dollar store worth of stickers to take with us on the flight. I think that by the…

  • Cycling & Cycle Touring,  Overseas,  Travel,  Trips with Kids,  Videos

    Taking My Ride With Destiny: Cycling Korea & Japan (Video)

    When our son Neil was seven months old we went on a cycling trip to South Korea – from Seoul to Busan and then around Jeju Island and Japan – across Kyushu and island hopping south to Okinawa. Although we had both done many cycling trips before, we didn’t know what it would be like to travel by bike with our baby in tow. It really felt like we were taking our ride with destiny… It turned out to be an amazing experience, and such a great way to get to know our son and see him develop every day. We had many people helping and reaching out to us along the way, which made…