What is the perfect gift? Ask a hundred people, and you’ll get a hundred different answers. But when you give one, or receive one — you know it.

I received one of those gifts thirty years ago. I still carry it with me today.

The summer of 1981 was magical for me. I’d pedaled across the U.S. with my best buddy Thomas. The sense of accomplishment was amazing. My connection to the world around me had never been so raw and wonderful.

But coming home after an adventure can be a tough transition. I’d taken a quarter off from the junior college I was attending. I’d been taking general education courses with no particular focus (Astronomy, Geology, English Comp, Theater, Business Math, etc.)

On my bike trip, I knew exactly (well, almost) where I was going. In life … I was lost. Too many options, and none of them was presenting itself as my future major, let alone my future.

I was talking with my mom. I babbled about my frustrations, and lack of any focus.

She looked me in the eye and said, “I want you to know something. Whether you become a biologist, or an actor, or a teacher … or whether you put a pack on your back and wander the world for the rest of your life … I want you to know that I consider you a success.”

That was it. In twenty seconds, my mom had given me the perfect gift. It was as if she had given me a magical gift certificate. I didn’t have to worry about what I did. I just needed to fill in the gift card with whatever my heart desired.

Little did my mother know how literally I’d take her words. Though I’ve used panniers instead of a pack.

And it hasn’t all been bicycle travel. I’ve driven trucks, acted on stage, waited tables, fought forest fires, written columns, and tried many other pursuits.

But no matter what I’ve done, I’ve always known that in the heart of one of the most important people in my life, I’ve been a success.

Thanks, Mom.

Merry Christmas.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

If you have the pleasure of taking a bike trip in New Zealand, don’t miss the cathedral. While I know there are beautiful churches in Christchurch and Auckland, I’m referring to one made by Mother Nature.

Cathedral Cove is on the Coromandel Peninsula, east of Auckland. As I recall, you’ll have to park your bike and hike out to this cove with its grand arch. It is a protected marine reserve popular with divers and snorkelers.

After a visit, you can get on your bike and pedal out to Hot Water Beach, where thermal activity under the sand provides a great opportunity to dig your own hot tub. Borrow a shovel (unless you are already carrying one on your bike. Really? You are?) and dig a hole in the sand when the tide is low. The water will be too hot to sit in, so you’ll mix it with seawater.

The trick is you’ll have to also build your own little sand wall to keep too much of the cold ocean water from spilling into your hot sand hot tub. It’s hard work. But you won’t mind because you’ll remember that back at home it’s snowing or raining or clear and thirty below.

I was there nineteen years ago. Normally I wouldn’t lend out specific travel advice that is nearly two decades old. But unlike restaurants or lodging options, which can drastically change from year to year, Mother Nature is pretty consistently awesome!

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

I realize the short “video” might have had a certain entertainment value, but probably fell far short of convincing the viewer that they should hop on a bike and tour there.

I now present “Countdown Redux”. Twenty-one images that should whet your traveler’s appetite and have you dreaming of your own bike trip through Portugal or somewhere, anywhere on this incredible planet.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

The tree was enormous and the base of its trunk was decorated with colorful ribbons of silk. A local art project perhaps?

Trees are often decorated in public places. Just recently an artist “yarn bombed” trees in Occidental Square in Seattle. It was whimsical fun.

In Thailand, we didn’t meet many foreign cyclists on the road (at least on the routes we pedaled), so we got wonderful reactions from motorists. But never honks. The people of Thailand are some of the most polite drivers on the planet.

So when we heard someone honk as they passed it startled us. Then the next car honked as well. And the next. And the next. Were our bikes too close to the road? But each car only honked once or twice. And the occupants were smiling. We smiled and waved back. For the next thirty minutes it was like being on a parade route. We waved at every car and every car celebrated our journey in Thailand with polite honking.

What was truly strange was that the honking never happened again. It took us at least a week to figure out that the motorists weren’t honking at us.

It was the tree. Or the spirits in the tree. We found someone who explained to us that it is common belief that spirits inhabit certain trees. These trees are often decorated with flowers, garlands, and ribbons.

It is considered good luck to honk once (or twice) as you slowly pass by a spirit tree.

Note: If a couple of touring cyclists are sitting under the shade of that tree, it is still good luck to honk. And it will make the cyclists feel special … at least until they learn a little bit more about Thai culture.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

I live in the insanely beautiful Pacific Northwest. Due to our cloudy skies and somewhat damp weather (even in July), the color pallet can be quite muted — dark greens, blues, and greys.

So when I travel, I am drawn to the opposite. The rich and vibrant, almost electric colors that you will find on the houses in Cuba, in the shops in Bangkok, and in the markets in India.

The photo above was taken in a small mountain town in Colombia. We were looking for a place to park our bikes at the guest house and stumbled across this scene. It looked as if a cement truck filled with paint had backed up and unleashed a river of pigment.

The simple household items — brooms, dustpan, and hose — were elevated to art on this wall. The already bright blue hose was now painfully blue in contrast to its backdrop. The brooms appeared to have magical qualities. Perhaps we could ride them out of town instead of our bikes? The red spattered drain suggested that fresh paint was sprayed on nightly (probably with the bright blue hose) after everyone was asleep.

If I close my eyes I have a hard time remembering what the rest of the guest house looked like, or even the town. But I will always remember the wall.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

One of the few racing cyclists I met while I was in Cuba (1998) was a young man named Alexie. He came over to chat with me in a small town in the province of Pinar del Rio (west of Havana).

I thought he was interested in my bike. It was a Rodriguez, which is a common surname in Cuba. But I later found out he wasn’t interested in the frame or the brakes or the tires. He was interested in one of my water bottles.

He explained that he dreamed of painting his bike white and blue. But the water bottle he owned was yellow. Water bottles in Cuba, like everything else, were in short supply. He had searched for months and couldn’t find one to match his dream bike.

It just so happened that I had the coveted white-and-blue water bottle.

He held up his old, yellow water bottle with the black cap next to mine … assuring me that they both carried the same amount of liquid. Then he asked if I would be willing to trade.

I didn’t hesitate. I just handed it over.

Alexie beamed. And I thought, “What an easy goodwill gesture.”

Soon after, I learned that there is a difference between drinking from a white-and-blue bottle versus a yellow one … especially if the yellow one is filled with rum.

I took a huge swallow and almost passed out from the unexpected rush of alcohol.

Alexie and his friends couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed, too, once I’d caught my breath and wiped the tears from my eyes.

That journey was a dozen years ago — and to this day, if I hold that yellow water bottle up to my nose, I get the faintest whiff of Cuban rum.

I imagine a bike racer in the hot Cuban sun, pedaling in cadence with a pace line. He reaches down and grabs an old white-and-blue water bottle.

And I smile.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

We pedaled into a small Portuguese village late in the evening. There was the typical group of old men hanging out at the edge of town–all wearing jackets and caps, all sporting canes. We asked them if there was a campground.

No campground or hotel we were assured. The sun was low in the sky. No time to pedal to the next town.

I widened the search. “Is there a garden space? Some small flat place to pitch a tent?”

This garnered many responses and all the men began to talk at once. One gentlemen came up close and gave me explicit directions, all in Portuguese, on how to get to “somewhere.”

Another man spoke up, and I can only estimate what he said, because of my poor Portuguese.

“Hey, these travelers don’t speak our language, they’ll never find the place you are describing. I’ll take them there.”

He hobbled over and mounted a sporty little battery-assisted scooter and the little group of old men waved goodbye as we headed off down through town.

This scooter topped out at about 4 mph, so we barely could keep our bikes balanced as we followed behind him. We wound our way through the village and came to a small little park at the other end of town.

He showed us where we could pitch our tent. Assured us that the water from the fountain was potable. And then pointed out that he lived across from the park and if we had any trouble to knock on his door.

In the morning we knocked on the door to say thank you, but there was no answer. Our hero was probably sleeping in.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

The following is an excerpt from my book Travels with Willie: Adventure Cyclist.

I vividly remember watching the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The camera zoomed in as the rockets ignited. The billowing fireballs, its shear power and energy, were awesome. But the shuttle just sat there. Was something wrong? Then there was movement, almost undetectable movement, as the shuttle struggled. It was hard to believe that this lumbering, struggling vehicle would soon be up in space and free from the force of the earth’s gravity.

I love travel—the open road, the undiscovered nooks and crannies off of the tourist track. There are moments on a bicycle journey when I believe I’ve discovered true bliss. Yet, in order for me to take that bike trip, I first must break free from the gravitational pull of home.

Actually, Kat and I both struggle with it.

The list of things to do before we go has increased with time—getting a house sitter (and one who likes cats), finishing up work projects, getting rid of enough stuff that the house sitter has enough room to live in our house, finishing house projects so a house sitter would actually like to live in our house, paying bills, paying other bills in advance, finding people willing to fill in with several nonprofit projects we work on, shoveling a layer of compost on the garden, filing for an extension for our taxes, going to the dentist.

It wasn’t always this complicated, was it?

Escaping the gravity of home

Twenty years ago, I lived in a dumpy basement apartment. My bedroom had no windows. My roommates and I couldn’t afford to turn on the heat, so you could see your breath inside the apartment from November through February. I had no furniture to speak of, unless you count a cardboard apple box used as a bed-side table.

I didn’t have a cat, but my roommate did. The cat had fleas. The fleas liked me … a lot.

When I embarked on a bicycle journey, instead of pulling free of gravity like Discovery, leaving was more akin to being a hummingbird sitting on a branch and then instantly and effortlessly zooming into the sky.

I didn’t leave … I escaped.

Over ninety percent of the weight of the Space Shuttle at liftoff is fuel that will be burned in the first eight and a half minutes of flight. Almost all of its resources are used solely to break free from the pull of the earth’s gravity. Leaving the earth is hard—outer space is a breeze by comparison.

It is the same for many a journey; leaving home is the hard part—the actual trip is easy in comparison.

I’ve known people who have been planning trips for years (decades even), and still haven’t made the move.

They keep asking the same questions and search for the perfect bike. They go on countless training rides and take a language course. They buy maps and tour guides, but never take the trip.

For some the emotional pull of home is too great. Traveling means leaving friends, family and pets. And for most of us, there truly is “no place like home.”

Then there is the money issue.

The financial pull of home can be even stronger than the emotional one. Finances can be the black hole of travel dreams. …

When I speak at high schools and universities, I want to shake the students and say:

“Travel now. Get on your dumpy, used bike and go somewhere, anywhere. Those people who tell you that it doesn’t get easier? They’re right.”

“Go before you have debts and mortgages and kids and a career. Go. The gravitational pull of home will never be lighter.”

A few of them get it. But most get a car and a wallet full of credit cards.

You would think that the best way to be a world traveler would be to have no home, no base, no ties of any kind. However, I believe home grounds us as travelers. I’ve met too many people who severed all ties with home, only to become aimless wanderers. Traveling without a purpose or goal can become just as mind numbing as the world’s worst desk job.

A man in a small village in South Africa once told me, “Travel is worth nothing unless you return home a better person for it.”

I think he is right. Each trip shapes me as a person. So much of what I believe and who I am comes from the combined experiences of my journeys.

Do I long to return to the days of basement apartment living with no heat? Not a chance. I love my city, my neighborhood, my garden and my cat. But I also love to get on my bicycle and go.

That’s why we’re packing and storing and running a thousand errands in preparation for another trip.

I can’t change gravity. The physical, financial and emotional pull of home is there and I am a fool to try and ignore it. It’s better to acknowledge it, celebrate it. I consider myself fortunate to love home as much as the open road.

It takes a lot more time and energy than it did twenty years ago, but the ride is still worth it.

I don’t escape anymore. I lift off.

Lift Off was originally published in Adventure Cyclist magazine.

That’s me. On my bike. On Earth.

The artist is Zak and he attends a primary school in Washington state where I presented an assembly entitled “The World’s Greatest SUV”. It introduces kids to the magic and wonders of bicycle travel.

If you haven’t ever talked to young students about your bicycle travels … you should.

You may think your trip across your state or across America pales in comparison to the hundreds of blogs and posts of epic world travelers. But to the students you take the time to visit … you’ll be Columbus, Magellan, Neil Armstrong, and Amelia Earhart all wrapped into one. You’ll rock their world.

The following is an excerpt from a column I wrote for Adventure Cyclist magazine in 2000 (pdf):

The question remains, how do today’s students get introduced to the bicycle as a vehicle of travel and discovery? Most are driven to school in SUVs until they reach the age where they can buy their own car. The media is saturated with advertisements about adventure, nearly all of which are connected to sales of automobiles, jet skis, and snowmobiles.

For the generation growing up today, the bicycle is something you put on top of your Ford Explorer until you reach a recreational trail. It is a toy, not a viable means of transportation. Just this past year I revisited my primary school while classes were in session. I walked onto the very same courtyard once saturated with bikes. It contained one lonely bike rack occupied by a total of three bikes.

But kids and students can only get excited about what they’ve been exposed to. One of the most rewarding experiences of my life came, not on a mountain pass in a far away country, but with my relationship with a third grade class in San Francisco.

Before I left for India, I promised Jennifer, a teacher friend of mine, I’d visit her school. I have to admit I wasn’t too excited about the experience. I figured that compared to video games, Power Rangers, and extreme sports, a guy on a bicycle was going to go over about as well as cold oatmeal.

I rode into her classroom with my bicycle fully loaded. To my surprise her students were totally enthralled with my bike, the same type of vehicle most of them already owned. After I talked about my planned journey, dozens of hands shot up when I asked if they had any questions.

Throughout my five-month journey I sent letters to the students. When they received them, they had to locate from where they’d been sent on a giant map of India in their classroom captioned, “Where’s Willie?”

Three months into my journey, I pulled into the city of Indore in central southern India. I had arranged to have mail sent there. There were a couple of letters from family and friends, and one large packet. Enclosed was a bundle of letters … every kid in Jennifer’s class had written to me.

Upon my return to the States I visited Jennifer’s class again. I had to break through a large “Welcome Back” banner held across the doorway. I spent the day with thirty future travelers, answering questions about tigers, mountain passes, and strange foods.

Then it was their turn. They all stood up and sang a song they had written for me and presented me with a gift, a hand-painted t-shirt of a bicycle wheel with the caption “The World for Willie.” The back of the shirt was filled with the pastel colored signatures of the kids. I stood in that classroom, tears rolling down my face, relishing in what has become one of my dearest travel memories.

I hope one day to open up my mailbox and pull out a postcard from a foreign land. I won’t recognize the name, but I’ll smile and laugh and cry. It will begin something like …

“Dear Willie,

Do you remember talking to my class several years ago?”

Will there be a next generation of adventure cyclists? There won’t be, unless those of us with a passion for bicycle travel find ways to share our passion with others.

Your passion … pass it on.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.