4: Pack Your Panniers: Traveling the World by Bicycle with Dave Ertel and Nancy Peterson Part 2
In this episode…
Our guests today are Dave Ertel and Nancy Peterson. After leaving the states to settle down on the other side of the globe, they set out on a bicycle tour around the perimeter of the Australian continent, through southeast Asia, and across Europe, covering more than 13,000 miles and 26 countries over 19 months. A few years later, they took on another cycling trip, this time conquering almost 17,000 miles and 15 international borders over 20 months from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
Show Notes
Dave and Nancy’s blog: Leave Without Pay.
TakeAways:
Cycling PSA: If you see cyclists on the road, give them some space, slow down a bit, and don’t pass them while other cars are coming. A wave, thumbs up or friendly honk is always appreciated, too!
Tasmanian Devils will steal your pannier bag.
Food is a powerful medium for understanding a culture.
“Rolling up to some random roadside food stall at the end of the day—you’re famished—no one in the restaurant speaks English, but somehow you convince Grandma to cook you something… learn how to say ‘thank you,’ ‘hello,’ and ‘delicious.’ Because when you say ‘delicious’ to Grandma, suddenly the family photos come out, they’re sitting with you at the table, everybody’s smiling and laughing…” —Dave Ertel
“We’ll go to places we’ve been to before because we want to go there again… it’s more about the experiences.” —Dave Ertel
“You can find a lot of reasons not to go, and we are grateful that the guy in the outback road house is there serving his bad food because we needed to eat that day… you do need the world to kind of exist… at a personal level there’s a thousand reasons not to go, and those reasons stop almost everybody.” —Dave Ertel
“Of course there’s bad people everywhere, but there’s good people everywhere, too. There’s as many bad people in the U.S. as there’s bad people in Honduras.” —Nancy Peterson
Abandoned buildings abroad make great camp spots for cyclists in a pinch. Some are even well known, such as the Pink House in Argentina.
“It almost always ends up that I wear half of what I take. With respect to clothing I would say: just make sure you have stuff to keep you warm and safe from the rain. And then it doesn’t really matter.” —Nancy Peterson
“The biggest thing probably is to pick some countries that you think you can get to, and think about the things in those countries that you want to see. So at least when you go there you have some idea of where the highlights are, so you can make a path that gets you to those highlights.” —Nancy Peterson
“Throw yourself at the whims of the locals. I think if you try to schedule every minute of every trip and see all the iconic spots, you’re going to miss those serendipitous moments where, you know, you figure out what lahmacun is because you’re in a dive bar in Cappadoccia, Turkey… Make sure you have time for both.” —Dave Ertel