Loving Adventure

Getting ready to bicycle Yugoslavia in 1975, a woman I did housework for on Bainbridge Island lent me “Full Tilt.”  The book chronicles Dervla Murphy’s solo bicycle ride from Ireland to India in 1963 on a three speed.  By the time I read the book I bicycled across Canada, Seattle to San Francisco, Maui in Hawaii, and all around the Pacific Northwest.  Dervla Murphy has been a role model  I did this trip solo as I did a most   of my trips and enjoyed every minute of it.I plan bicycle trips for fun, once a bicycle trip gets mapped out it goes in the bucket list. At 69 years old I still plan to do some solo bicycle touring. Looking back at all my adventures traveling solo as a woman I could tell you a lot of stories but will share a few so you get the general idea.

for me from the first read of “Full Tilt.” Several years ago, I packed up my bicycle and went to Italy.

 Bicycling solo down the Adriatic Sea shore in Yugoslavia, two American men came up behind me on their bicycles.  We exchanged travel stories of our trips. They had decided to go up in the mountains.  The ride for them didn’t sound pleasant.  The roads wand around and up and down, going into one lane now and again and there were not a lot of places to stay.  One night they got robbed.  My story was a happy story.  Staying in campgrounds, I started early in the day to escape the August heat, In the afternoons I’d swim in the Adriatic Sea to cool down and relax. Once hearing my story, the men started making nasty remarks about me traveling alone and saying traveling for women alone is dangerous and inappropriate.  To get away from them, I said I was stopping for a break, they were scaring me with some of their comments.

Let’s face it “Adventure” in films and books in general is about and for men. I think the impact of this media stereo type particularly for men like I met in Yugoslavia discourages women from venturing out, pushing their adventure stories into obscurity and therefore men don’t see women as peers when comes to travel, adventure and a physical challenge. Somehow in my early days I rejected this stereo type.  Today I’m grateful that I did and thank women like Dervla Murphy who have gone before me to set an example to emulate.  In modern times there’s “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed and it seems that things are changing in adventure stereo types little by little.

Adventures like Yugoslavia, started my exploring obscure places far from the tourist hot spots like Vietnam in 1996.  Places like these bring adventure to traveling.  I remember a night in Yugoslavia when I got a bed for the night in a room in a boarding house with four Yugoslavian women.  Luckily, I was able to bring my bicycle up to the room.  The bicycle captured the curiosity of the Yugoslavian women. We kept trying to communicate. They knew a little German from the war, I only knew English.  After a lot of pointing at my bicycle, gesturing, trying to make our signals understood we started to laugh until we settled down for the night. 

Travelers are definitely looking for something, new experiences, new places, seeing great historical places, or experiencing different cultures and meeting new people.  In my travels I often wonder what I’m looking for.   When I think about this, I don’t like to just go somewhere; I want to meet people become part of the day to day life of the area I’m traveling in.  This has been particularly true since I’ve retired. Serving in the Peace Corps, studying in Thailand for four months and walking the Camino de Santiago fulfilled my desires more than any other travel I’ve done.

Traveling in retirement keeps my bucket list growing.  Meeting Dervla was one bucket list item that has been added.  I wrote her a letter.  I wrote in the letter how she inspired me over the years to keep exploring and asked her to have tea with me if I came to Ireland.  The only address I could find was her publisher, to date I have not received a reply. Meeting Dervla will have to stay on the bucket list for now until I can figure out a way to go to Ireland and knock on her door.  Perhaps a bicycle ride to her town.  Until then I’ll plan and dream of bicycling adventures like Spokane, WA to Nelson, BC, Georgia to Armenia, along Danube River from Progue to Budapest, or Southern England to just name a few of them.  Ride on!