About the trip
What’s this all about then?
“I’ve had the college. I’ve had the earning the money, and the material trip. I just decided I was going to find a new way of life, And so I took off on my bicycle.” (Mylo)
At 10am on 27 July 2008 I embarked from Trafalgar Square, London, on an epic adventure most people only ever dream of – or have nightmares about!
The mission I had set myself was to cycle around the world on a Brompton folding bike to raise money for the charity Camfed. The plan was continuously evolving, but I wanted to cycle at least 40,000km (the circumference of the Earth) traversing all five major continents. I cycled through Kent in SE England, France, Switzerland, over the Grand St Bernard Pass into Italy, then from Brindisi in the Southern tip of Italy I took a ferry to Greece, and on to Turkey and Istanbul.
Unfortunately I was held up for a long time in Istanbul (two months!) trying to get visas to continue through Iran and Pakistan to India. Eventually a number of factors made me decide to postpone the trip, and call it a ‘preliminary training run’. The experience of that first trip was amazing, and I learnt a lot about cycle touring.
Although I have no definite plans for the second attempt, I am always looking at equipment changes and potential routes, dreaming about it and planning little bits here and there. Due to currently studying a masters, the absolute earliest I will start the second attempt will be summer 2011, but it could be later than that with having to earn money and prepare.
Here’s a very basic overview of the route on my first attempt:
