From backpacks to panniers to housesits

Our midlife adventures

By Tim and Sharyn Nilsen, AKA Catch Our Travel Bug.

Location: The world.

Who Are We?

We are an Australian couple with a healthy sense of adventure who have been traveling on and off since 1996. As of mid-2023, we’re in our 18th year of full-time travel. In that time, we’ve explored over 140 countries and overseas territories and traveled by almost every mode of transport possible.

We usually travel independently because it gets us closer to the places we visit and the people who live there.  We sometimes, however, go with a group if it makes our journey cheaper and safer but still embraces the spirit of adventure.

Amongst other things:

• We’ve crewed on a yacht in the Caribbean for 4 months
• Overlanded in Africa for a total of 18 months
• Backpacked the Silk Route across Asia
• Cycled across Australia
• Trekked above Everest Base Camp in Nepal
• Hiked the Inca Trail independently (before it was banned)
• Cycled more than 20,000 km on 4 continents.

From Backpacks to Panniers:
Our Midlife Bicycle Touring Adventures 🚲 🌍

Many people are puzzled as to why two middle-aged, overweight backpackers suddenly decided it was a good idea to lay down their backpacks and take up long-distance bicycle touring. 

We must admit, we still sometimes ask ourselves that question, especially when I’m cycling up a hill into the wind. But trading our backpacks for panniers and pedals is a decision we don’t regret in the slightest.

This story began in 2012 when we temporarily hung up our backpacks to negotiate the Visa system for Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

We settled into the Sakura Guesthouse in the center of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. It was a cool little guesthouse with a small community area in the garden, along with lovely, bright, clean rooms, access to spotless bathroom facilities, and good Wi-Fi. The weather was fabulous, so we spent much of our time there when we weren’t out exploring. 

We had intended to stay around 4 or 5 days and ended up staying 10, solely because of the fantastic people we met and the stories they had to tell. And here’s the rub: They were almost all bicycle tourers!

The characters that played a large part in this story were all very different. But they all had a sense of adventure, a positive attitude, a talent for telling stories, and a love of life. 

Tomoko, a Japanese girl, bought a cheap bike in Kashgar and then rode it over to Kyrgyzstan. 

Two couples, Marty and Alex (Australia) and Sergai and Adrienn (NZ/Hungary), had pedaled from Britain and clocked up over 12,500 km each. 

Eireen and Michael from Berlin were cycling with Lucia, a tiny Yorkshire terrier who commanded center stage every time we sat down. 

Wataru (Walter) was a tall, lanky Japanese boy who’d ridden across China and had a penchant for taking crazy superhero videos in places he stopped. 

Dia from Greece and his Japanese partner Yayoi were delightful youngsters on a rock-bottom budget, crazy cheap bikes, and a talent for magnificent photographs. 

We also met others before and after Sakura, like the very laid-back Yannick from Switzerland, Ethan from Taiwan, and the legendary Jacques Sirat from France. We are still in contact with them all, and they are all still having adventures of one sort or another.

We spent our nights at Sakura with a couple of beers, quizzing them about bikes, gear, and training regimes. It soon became apparent that though some spent a lot of planning and equipping their bikes, others had just gotten on their bikes and started riding, gaining experience and losing weight as they went. 

They also took time to show us their bikes and riding gear. They were as varied as the riders. While Rohloff hubs and Brooks saddles were terrific, the youngsters were proof that you didn’t need to spend much money to go cycle touring.

After six years of backpacking, the shine had started to wear off. Technology had taken much of the camaraderie away, and everything was just a little bit too easy. When we began to travel in the late 90s, everyone relied on guest books and other travelers to leave and receive tips. Every day was an adventure! These days, people just go to an app. Who needs to talk to each other?

But this group of travelers was different. They had a spark that was missing from some of the current generation of backpackers. They blew away our perceptions of who and what you needed to be to go cycling around the world. None of them were exactly health enthusiasts—in fact, just the opposite. Many of them loved beer, and a good percentage of them smoked.

When we finished the Silk Route in Turkey, we planned to spend ten months in Africa. After that, we hadn’t decided. 

One train of thought was to head south to Cyprus and then up through parts of Eastern Europe as long as the weather stayed bearable and then get a job somewhere warm. The expense of Europe precludes traveling around for too long without transport! Bicycles were the cheapest form of transport you could get, except for hitchhiking.

As we heard more about their adventures, the possibilities for future travels began to take on a different slant. We began to wonder if we could do something like that. The thoughts occurred separately at first, but one night, after some particularly cool stories, we looked at each other and asked, “Do ya reckon we could?” The unanimous answer?” Why not?”

So that’s what we decided to do. After our time in Africa, we would fly home to Perth, buy some bikes and equipment, and ride over to the East Coast to Brisbane. We figured that would give us a good grounding in what bicycle touring was all about and whether we were cut out for it. 

We knew the camping would be great, and we wouldn’t have the added issues of cycling in a foreign country for our first tour. We also thought the weather would be fabulous, but that part didn’t turn out quite as well as we had hoped! 

“The rest,” as they say, “is history!”

I wouldn’t say we loved EVERY minute of the 7000 km trip across Australia, BUT we did have a ball overall. The physical and mental challenges were quite significant, considering our age, weight, and fitness levels, especially at the beginning. But the satisfaction at the end of each day and our fantastic interactions with people from all walks of life were more than enough to compensate for a few hard days in the saddle.

The fact that many of those who inspired us are still cycling to this day was also a motivating factor. We were blown away by the kindness people offered to us and the number of people who just wanted to chat, say hello, and offer us words of encouragement. 

It returned the spark to our travels, renewed our faith in our strength of character, and revitalized our sense of adventure. As a constant reminder of the place where we got the best idea in ages, I named my bike Sakura. Tim’s is named Radmilla… but that’s another story!

Since that first ‘trial run,’ we’ve completed another 7 long tours. 

Our second tour started 600 km above the Arctic Circle in a small Norwegian town called Kirkenes. We started on the cycling route Eurovelo 13 — The Iron Curtain Trail and then branched out on our own. 2500 km plus a few buses and trains saw us visit Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, and finally Hungary.

Next, we took on the North American Adventure Cycling Association’s Northern Tier Route. The first tour abruptly ended after about 4500 km due to forest fires in Glacier National Park, Montana. But undeterred, we returned the next year and finished climbing over the Rockie Mountains and then down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.

Vietnam North to South during COVID was tour number four. Once again, it didn’t go as planned. However, it still allowed us to experience the country from a totally different perspective. 

In the last three years, we have taken our bikes and tent to Europe, exploring the Eurovelo network. 

2022 — Eurovelo 2: The Capitals Route from London to Berlin

2023 — Eurovelo 15: The Rhine Route from the Swiss Alps to Cologne

2024 — France: St Malo to Tours via The Regalante Route and parts of Eurovelo 6

As we age, the routes become shorter each year, and the level of comfort required for enjoyment becomes higher. But we’re not about to give it away altogether.

We now top and tail our bicycle tours with housesits, staying longer in total comfort in places we couldn’t usually afford  – London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, and more. It mixes up the journey, allows us to experience destinations like a local, gives us the time and space to plan new adventures, and saves us a bundle of cash.  We reckon we’ve saved a few hundred thousand in accommodation over the last decade. 80 plus housesits, totaling over 840 nights in some of the world’s most expensive cities.

We now housesit for around half of each year, then spend the rest of the time on our bikes or backpacking in cheaper destinations.