Embrace the Journey, Not the Plans

Jerry Kopack [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Bike Life, a podcast from the Warmshowers Foundation. Here we celebrate our global community of touring cyclists and hosts who make life on the road unforgettable. Through stories, insights and shared experiences, we explore the connections that fuel every journey. Whether you're pedaling across countries or welcoming travelers into your home, you're part of a movement rooted in generosity and adventure. Discover more and join the community@warmshowers.org now let's hit the road together. Hey everyone, this is Jerry Kopeck, the host of Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. Today I'm talking with Josh and Sarah, a couple finally making their dream ride happen from the UK all the way to India. And after years of setbacks along the way, they've relied on the Warmshowers community, embraced detours, and learned that there's never a perfect time to start.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:02]:
Guys, welcome to Bike Life.

Josh [00:01:04]:
Hello.

Sarah [00:01:05]:
Thank you for having us.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:07]:
Now, I gotta tell you, it's always extra special when I get to talk to people who are actually on tour, so hopefully I'm catching you guys on a nice rest day. Where are you currently?

Josh [00:01:18]:
We are in Bulgaria in the Radovis. So it's like in the south near the, the Greek border.

Sarah [00:01:25]:
It's a beautiful sort of mountain range and at the moment the colors are amazing because it's autumn here, so it's absolutely beautiful.

Josh [00:01:33]:
Yeah, there's lots of kind of like low lying clouds, very kind of like very atmospheric weather. We, we've had more than a rest day. We are currently in a volunteer, like we're volunteering. So we've been here for three.

Sarah [00:01:48]:
Yeah, about three weeks now.

Josh [00:01:50]:
Yeah, that we are. Our legs are rested from the cycling but the work we are doing is quite intense.

Sarah [00:01:55]:
So working our upper bodies more than we're used to on a bike trip.

Josh [00:01:59]:
Different makes to normal.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:01]:
Now, Josh, tell me, is this, is this part of your plan to go to a certain place and then settle in for a few weeks?

Josh [00:02:10]:
Yeah, I think we. So we left the UK almost a year ago, like coming up to a year ago actually it's like 51 weeks ago basically that we left. So we've come from the UK to here, which is, you know, a lot of cyclists would have been a lot further down the road if they were heading east. But we have been volunteering along the way and we really try and make a point of going slowly and exploring places and getting to know the communities and culture quite well. We found that volunteering is a very good Way to do it. First off, because it's, you know, we can actually. There's loads of situations where we would just never find it on the road anyway.

Sarah [00:02:49]:
So here's a tiny little traditional hill village that is at the bottom of a road. You wouldn't pass through here unless you were coming specifically here to visit.

Josh [00:02:59]:
Yeah. And. And it's just like we have found it the best cultural insight whilst we're traveling, because we get to know all of the older generation, we get to know the younger generation, we get invited to, like, family events and things, all of the locals. So we. Yeah, it's how we find traveling, cycling the most fulfilling, I guess.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:19]:
I love that idea. So I'm curious. You're. You're in Bulgaria now, Sarah, how did you. You mentioned this place that you would probably never see unless you were going there. How did. How did you find this place?

Sarah [00:03:31]:
So we found it through a platform called Workaway, where it sort of can be a whole different range of works that people might want help with, from looking after pets in their homes, sort of help with building projects, help in the garden. And people can post that. They just want someone to come and help them from anything from two weeks to six months. And it's so, so varied. So here we're sort of helping to construct what was this very old, dilapidated, crumbling barn that's going to be turned into a yoga studio and spa up in the hills here. So it's like, yeah, really, really interesting. But we've also. In Bosnia as well.

Sarah [00:04:11]:
We stayed somewhere for quite a long time and we said for seven weeks a project there where we were sort of helping to build little houses for a little community there. And again, that was this tiny little village sort of about a thousand meters up. And there's just one road that came off to. To this village. And it was about 100 people that.

Josh [00:04:28]:
Lived in this village and yeah, all kind of real traditional locals where everyone's ancestry was dated back to this exact. This exact village. And it was just. Yeah, the kind of thing where these kind of cultural insights which just really kind of helped us to get to know the country and just feel like it would have been quite a struggle to get that. Just pedaling through.

Sarah [00:04:51]:
Yeah. And going quickly. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:53]:
And see, that's. For me, as an American, that's the thing that I find so exciting and fascinating about Europe and Eastern Europe as well, is the history and how old things are there. So people in America talk about our history. You know, we're 250 years old and like that's great. But then you go to Europe and there are thousands of years old, and you get to see these old medieval style villages and the culture and the families and. Oh, man, I am so jealous. So you guys have been in, you say, did a volunteer project in Bosnia as well?

Sarah [00:05:28]:
Yes, yeah.

Josh [00:05:29]:
Yes, we did. So through work away, we stayed places in Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and then. And then Bulgaria. So particularly through the. Basically once we left the Schengen area, because we have UK passports, we could only spend three months in the Schengen zone. And then most of the Balkans is out of the Schengen zone. So once we were in the Balkans, we could really, really take our time and get very distracted.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:56]:
Gosh, no kidding. The Balkans are gorgeous. As you guys know, I had the opportunity to travel through there a couple of years ago, and I was in Albania and Montenegro, and the mountain ranges there, as I'm sure you know, are just beyond description. They almost look like they came out of the pages of a comic book. They're just so stark and so dramatic. Did you guys make it up into that region?

Josh [00:06:20]:
Yeah, we. So from Bosnia, we kind of took this real sharp beat. So we were near the coastline in Bosnia and we took a big, sharp, kind of like right angle up to Dharmatur in. In Montenegro. Negro. We spent a long time just exploring, like the national park and the hills around there. And then we came along the coastline in Montenegro. It's basically been our only point on the coastline.

Josh [00:06:44]:
And then in Albania, we went straight back up into the mountains. It was nice on the coast, but I think we missed sweating in the mountains.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:52]:
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Dumitor. That place is gorgeous. And Albania has the accursed mountains, I think they're called. Is that right? Yeah, just. Just dramatic. So I want to come back to your workaway projects and kind of back up a bit. So did I get this right? You guys have tried to cycle to India, is it? Five times now? Sarah, what is it about India that kind of keeps calling to you?

Sarah [00:07:21]:
I think there's so much about it. It just seems like a place that's a real kind of mix of, like, tranquility and beauty and calm, but then also kind of chaos and vibrancy and life kind of all happening in this one place that, yeah, we just really want to go, I think. And there's been, yeah, five attempts, kind of each with varying levels of success. Some we've actually set off on the bikes. Some we've sort of been foiled before we've even been Able to get out the front door. Yeah. So I think the first time we ever tried to get to India was when we were living and working in Vietnam, in Hanoi and we had a plan to kind of go over land to India from Vietnam.

Josh [00:08:03]:
But unfortunately this was not actually, this was not on motorbikes. This was our. Sorry. This was on motorbikes. Yeah, this was before we start. This was about 10 odd years ago, before we started cycling really. Kind of like that's all we, we did and we had got everything ready for the, the trip and we were kind of practicing, both of us driving on the motorbikes. We had no like driving experience before that.

Josh [00:08:26]:
And then, yeah, like two weeks before the trip was meant to start, my family were meant to come out and see us before, you know, otherwise it would be a big long sit before we didn't see them again. But my mum got very, very ill and then we ended up having to. Or we went back to the UK because she was very ill and yes, that was the first time that didn't quite work out.

Sarah [00:08:50]:
Yeah. And that. Well, from after that we kind of decided that we wanted to keep exploring but we wanted to sort of cut down our flying. So that's kind of where the idea of cycling was born. Before that we'd kind of grown up cycling. The city that we lived in is Cambridge from the UK and everyone cycles there. It's kind of a way to get to school, to get to the shops, get to the pub. But it was never something you did as a form of activity or.

Josh [00:09:15]:
Yeah, it was just you'd cycle to the pub or to parties or to college or something.

Sarah [00:09:21]:
So we planned our first cycle trip which was a, a bit of a challenge considering we'd never cycled before. It was trying to cycle. There's a famous challenge in the UK called the Three Peaks Challenge where people try and hike the three highest peaks in Wales, Scotland and England. But driving in between and doing it in 24 hours. So we thought, oh, we'll try and do it cycling and hiking these three peaks.

Josh [00:09:43]:
Not in 24 hours.

Sarah [00:09:44]:
Not in 24 hours. And it was like, I mean our bikes were like, they were very entry level bikes. We had like hardly any gear. I mean our waterproofs weren't waterproof.

Josh [00:09:55]:
Never ending. Flat tire. Yeah, we were real like real amateurs. We had kind of like left during a name to like a big storm. So we were avoiding kind of like falling trees and loads and loads of things went wrong. But it was just like the best experience.

Sarah [00:10:10]:
We loved.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:14]:
Sounds like you guys have, have learned a lot about cycling since then as far as gear and everything else. Right. I'm just curious, what were you doing in Vietnam? You were living there, right? What took you there?

Josh [00:10:26]:
So we were working as English teachers. So we both spent about four or five years working as English teachers. I think we Both, we met 13 years ago, but even before that we've always been hooked on traveling and have based our lives around finding ways that we could basically just prolong traveling. And we found that teaching English as a foreign language for us was one of the best ways that we have found to do that. Because again, like with the volunteering, you just get such a great cultural immersion, particularly with one to one classes. It was, I was kind of sharing about my culture and through the lessons, getting students to share about their culture. So I was kind of. Yeah.

Josh [00:11:05]:
Getting paid to learn about their culture, which I just thought was the, the best job ever.

Sarah [00:11:10]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:11]:
So with regards to, to India, Sarah, you had mentioned some of the things that really appealed to you, but you also had mentioned a little bit, I think you said, chaos. Right. And have you experienced the, the chaos of India? Have you ever been there before?

Sarah [00:11:26]:
No, we've never been. No. And we, yeah, I guess this is just from things we have learned, things we've read, stories that other people tell us that have traveled there. Yeah, yeah.

Josh [00:11:37]:
All the books and the films and like when we were in Vietnam, we had a big like knockoff Lonely Planet guide and just read it almost like four in here. And we just read it almost like a, a novel. This is kind of like fantasy, you know, this book of where we would or the places we wanted to go. So then when we got back to the uk, we had this, this trial cycle which as I said went a bit wrong, but also just like had us hooked. And then from there we just kept on trying to make plans to, to leave the country again to cycle to India. And then we swim moved. We were living in the north of England and we quit our jobs. So we had everything, like our packing list and our bike set up and quit jobs, moved out of the house and then had to wait for medical treatment.

Josh [00:12:23]:
Annoyingly, this thing kind of sprung up just before we were about to leave and that put it on hold for another two years. And then just before the beginning of this trip again, we sold everything and we put jobs and we moved out of the house. And then just before we were about to leave, as I had, I've had this like this thing on my chest for quite A long time and sounds like you really need to go and just make sure the doctor says it's okay to go. It's nothing serious. So it was really just a, you know, just a box ticking thing. I didn't think it's an issue. And I went to the doctors and they very quickly said that I got put in for tests and things and ended up, yeah, I found I had skin cancer so I had to get like months and months of treatment. So that.

Josh [00:13:06]:
And so when we had originally planned to leave, it was the beginning of summer and by the time I'd had the to operations and lots of follow up blood things, it was November that.

Sarah [00:13:16]:
We were given the all clear, all.

Josh [00:13:18]:
Clear to go and we were like, oh geez. We've, you know, we, we had a summer packing list and it's very quickly become a, you know, like a winter trip and family and friends are saying, you know, you don't really have any winter experience. This is crazy. Why are you leaving for you know, like a multi year trip in winter?

Sarah [00:13:34]:
Just wait until spring.

Josh [00:13:36]:
Spring. And we're like, well, we've already waited for 10 years. Like we can't. There would just, there'd always be something else to stop you, you know.

Sarah [00:13:42]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:13:42]:
I don't know what's around the corner. So we just thought it was best to discover when we could, the doctor said we could go. So we, we Left in like November 20, I think it was.

Sarah [00:13:53]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:13:54]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:55]:
Wow, Josh. So I'm really happy to hear that everything is clear with you from a health perspective. That's, that's good. Did that sort of excite you? Like, okay, now I'm feeling good. Let's, let's get out on the road. Regardless, the fact that it's, that it's now winter, like you didn't care, like let's just go. Right?

Josh [00:14:15]:
Yeah. I think it's just like you said, you don't really know what's going to, what's going to happen. I think you, if you keep putting off like another, another fair, like fair weather day. It's just like you're, we're very grateful if it does come, but you don't know that it's going to come. Right.

Sarah [00:14:28]:
Yeah. We were a bit apprehensive with the winter because we have done winter trips, but we're definitely, we've not got a.

Josh [00:14:35]:
Lot grew up in the uk.

Sarah [00:14:36]:
Yes.

Josh [00:14:37]:
And I guess you're. Yeah. Like in North America we always have jokes with people or we say it's cold and they're like this is like a summer, summer afternoon.

Sarah [00:14:47]:
So we did. Yeah, it was a kind of thread in the deep end with the kind of winter trip and.

Josh [00:14:52]:
Yeah, and we learned everything basically as we, as we went the whole time we were like, as it got. So when we first left, the weather was quite nice. It was autumn. There's lots of nice fiery autumnal colors. And then as soon as we got to our first days of like, like completely freezing days, we then had a whole week where it didn't get above freezing and it just got steadily colder and colder and colder and colder and.

Sarah [00:15:15]:
We were just, it hit that like, this is it. Days are cold, nights in the tent are going to be cold. It's just going to get cold.

Josh [00:15:22]:
Yeah, well, I think it was the, the hands and hands and toes that was the big thing that we just, it took us such a long time to work out how to keep them.

Sarah [00:15:32]:
Hands and feet warm while cycling.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:33]:
Yeah, yeah. So when you guys were setting out, first couple of days, weeks on the road, it's cold, as you mentioned, the days are shorter, the nights are longer. How was that when you were figuring things out? Did you ever think like, wow, maybe we should have waited a few months or did it, did that change your, your mind at all? Did you ever think about turning around and starting in the spring?

Sarah [00:15:56]:
I don't think we ever thought about turning around, no.

Josh [00:15:58]:
And it was such a, because it was such a long time coming and every. And also because we've been in the UK for five years before that, so everything, even when we crossed over to the Netherlands, it still felt, you know, almost like exotic. Everything was kind of fresh and new and like keeping us very excited. And then. Yeah, and we didn't. And we actually, we, we even went like further into the mountains. Like we were trying to decide kind of routes to take and there was kind of like a, like a safe bet of following the, the Danube down through Germany into like the Rhine and then the Danube and we, we started cycling on it. But it just, it didn't, it didn't.

Sarah [00:16:38]:
Really feel, it's not, it didn't tickle that adventure. It, I guess as much. And we thought, we know that we can be. Yeah. Seeing bigger mountains kind of in more remote places than this. And. Yeah, so we took a bit of a detour.

Josh [00:16:50]:
Big beeline up into the, towards the Czech border just after Christmas. And we just spent about three and a half days just pushing, literally just pushing our bikes in kind of like ankle high, knee high snow. And it was, yeah, it was beautiful.

Sarah [00:17:07]:
But it was tough, it was grueling.

Josh [00:17:09]:
And yeah, it was just a very memorable section of getting to the top of this, this peak after really doubting that we could actually make it because we were just sliding around in the snow and the ice and it's getting darker and colder and we're in the middle of nowhere. To eventually get to the top of this peak with this absolutely incredible like cloud inversion and the sunset going down, it just was, just blew our minds. And it really made us think, well.

Sarah [00:17:34]:
This is worth it.

Josh [00:17:35]:
This was worth it. This is worth three days of punishment to get a view like this. And. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:41]:
Have you, have you heard the expression type two fun?

Sarah [00:17:45]:
Yes. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:46]:
So very type two farm. Like in the moment, like, this is pretty terrible, but when you look back on, it's like that was an incredible experience.

Sarah [00:17:54]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:17:55]:
Yeah. A lot of the winter kind of like pushed into type two.

Sarah [00:17:59]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:00]:
Have you guys heard of the expression type three fun?

Sarah [00:18:04]:
Yes. But I don't know if we've had any type 3 fun.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:08]:
Okay.

Josh [00:18:10]:
Would you say type 3 is like when you're in like genuine danger and.

Sarah [00:18:13]:
You look back and it's never, it's not even good when you look back on it?

Jerry Kopack [00:18:16]:
Yeah, it was. Even when you look back six months, six years, whatever, you don't ever look back on that with fond memory memories thinking like, oh, I would do that again. Like, it was never good. And so I'll give you an example. My partner and I were in Pakistan a couple years ago and that was absolutely incredible. But to get out of the mountains back to Islamabad, we had to take a 17 hour overnight bus ride. And that was absolutely type three fun. I think half the bus had Covid, which means we came home with COVID and everyone was, was nauseous because the roads are bumpy, they're windy and yeah, it was, it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:56]:
I don't know why I brought that up, but hopefully you have had nothing like that on your trip.

Sarah [00:19:01]:
That sounds horrendous.

Josh [00:19:05]:
Just been on. Have been big since. On dangerous roads. And that was part of the issue.

Sarah [00:19:09]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:19:10]:
In the winter was that it's like you've only got six hours of daylight really. And then there are points where the visibility was so low that it kind of felt like there's only three hours of daylight first a day. And I think probably the worst bits of that were coming into Bosnia. And we, the weather was like quite clear when we joined this big road and there wasn't really any alternatives. It's just this big one ride that we had to take for like a day's ride and very quickly it went to like incredibly heavy rain and within half an hour of getting soaked, like soaked through this turn to by heavy snow on this. So it's a really busy road on the one side. To the left hand side is maybe a 20 foot drop down to a huge river which is a river which they use for rafting like a real torrenting like white water. And on the right hand side you just have these like sheer cliffs going up hundreds and hundreds of meters with rocks coming off the cliffs like crumbling.

Sarah [00:20:08]:
Down every now and again.

Josh [00:20:09]:
And the cars just pushing us off the road every time they came past. And that there was no.

Sarah [00:20:14]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:20:15]:
The only fun element of that was when we came off the road and.

Sarah [00:20:17]:
We were like, oh, we're alive.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:21]:
Wow. Today's episode is brought to you by bikeflights.com Bikeflights delivers everything you need to ship your bike, whether you're riding a bucket list tour, selling your bike online or moving across the country. Bikeflights easy to pack bike boxes, carbon neutral shipping and pickup to delivery monitoring. Make it so simple and save you up to 40%. Visit bikeflights.com warmshowers today to book a shipment. Now back to the show. So it sounds like your route, you didn't. Did you actually guys have a, a predetermined route or has it kind of just been evolving based on how you're feeling, how the weather is etc?

Sarah [00:21:05]:
So we, we knew when we left that we were going to come sort of through the Netherlands and Germany because when we had left on this trip once before, we'd kind of come through France and had the going through Italy. So we sort of. And that was that trip got cut short. That was when we were trying to get to India. I think that was attempt three. So we knew we wanted to come a different way around to see different places. And apart from that, it's really not been that planned out at all. We've been, as Josh said, we've kind of when we were coming through Germany, we were changing the route so often we would stay with a lot of Warmshowers hosts.

Sarah [00:21:36]:
And in Germany, so many people cycle and have so much knowledge of the area that they would see our route and say, oh don't go there, go this way, you can see this and then go here and do this. And then we might stay with someone else in a few nights and they'd be like, oh, make sure you go here and go see this and do this. And so route ended up being very sort of higgledy piggledy. Going through Germany particularly, we were getting detours all over the place. But I think it's one of the best ways to travel when you are getting these recommendations from people to go and see these places and see these things. Because we go and see places that yeah, we otherwise never would have known existed.

Josh [00:22:10]:
I think is for. I guess everyone has lots of different reasons why they do big cycle trips. For us, I think a big element is just having freedom and flexibility to let things evolve naturally. And I think if you have a really strict route, particularly if you know it's a long term route, you have a strict route and you're not kind of willing to come away from that or take recommendations. I feel like it's, it gets rid of all of the element of freedom. You know, you're just stuck on this route where you, for some reason you've, before you've even got to the country, you've decided on this route and you. We much prefer just to, you know, take it like village by village and just wait and see who we chat to or see what looks nice over there or see a hill over there and decide to go up that way.

Sarah [00:22:54]:
And yeah, yeah, very relaxed with the.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:57]:
Planning and think of the benefit of traveling by bike at a slow pace. Right. So if you were on a bus or if you had hired a car or something like that, you wouldn't have experienced all these interactions with local people. Which is I think the true gift really of bike touring, right?

Sarah [00:23:14]:
100%, yeah. I think especially in the summer when we left in winter, there wasn't so much as people were all inside. It felt quite solitary sort of being on the bikes and there was a real peacefulness to it. But particularly in the summer there's just people out all the time and we just stopped sort of in a village to pick up a few things. People come up to us and talk to us and ask where we're going, what we're doing, invite us over here to eat some figs with them or over here to have a coffee with.

Josh [00:23:40]:
Them and yeah, yeah, like humanistic experience, definitely.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:45]:
And then, you know, it makes me think about like one and two week trips are great because for the most part that's all most people can ever afford to take off. But, but I really love big trips like this because as you know, you can really settle in and experience life. And Josh, you had mentioned that you're essentially traveling open ended. Like you don't have a Tight timeline. You can spend three weeks volunteering, you can spend another couple weeks figuring out where you want to go. And I'm just curious guys, was there a point on this trip that this went from being a trip to just, I don't know, your life?

Josh [00:24:23]:
Yeah, I think because. So as we are cycling and also part of the reason that we're volunteering is because we also are working online as we go and then it's the same work that we have been doing before we left.

Sarah [00:24:36]:
So we make films about our journey.

Josh [00:24:40]:
And, and also do kind of like freelance writing and other bits of creative online work because we. That has kind of carried over from home. It does quite quickly. It felt as though it was more life on the bike rather than a, you know, we were able to cycle and see these amazing things and, and also have, you know, I feel like very privileged that we can continue to work online and be able to, you know, like fund. Fund ourselves to just have this bit more of an open ended trip to keep cycling, keep exploring, keep working slowly as we go. Which is. Yeah, it feels, we feel very lucky to be able to do it.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:16]:
Yeah. Where, where are you guys heading after Bulgaria?

Josh [00:25:21]:
From Bulgaria we go into Turkey and we had thought that we would be in Georgia for Christmas and winter. So I think after last winter, so there were so many really, really amazing things with winter, but I think it was just like the whole duration of it of just it seemed to go on for. It felt like six months rather than three months just with like the cold days. Also because we were in Western Europe for most of the winter, it was, we were in the 10th for like vast majority of it. So this year we had said that we are not going to cycle the whole way through and we had planned to be in Georgia now, but we just keep getting distracted, getting distracted. So we after he will go into Turkey and then we will go to Georgia, but we're not, we're not sure exactly when we'll get the time frame of it basically because we'd like to.

Sarah [00:26:13]:
Spend some time exploring Turkey. I mean, it's a huge country. So huge.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:18]:
And yeah. Depending on what time of the year you get there and what part of the country, it could either be pretty darn dark and cold or it could be not so bad along the coast. Right?

Sarah [00:26:28]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:26:29]:
Yeah. And I think the places that we have seen that be really interested in going are pretty much the places which would be much harder to cycle in winters. So we have to try and like find a balance between being able to.

Sarah [00:26:42]:
Cycle but also seeing the things we.

Josh [00:26:44]:
Want to see, not freezing on top of mountain plateaus and kind of like minus 20. So when minus 20 is a push.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:50]:
Minus 20. Yeah. Hopefully you have all of your four season clothes and tent and everything else for that because minus 20 is minus 20.

Josh [00:27:01]:
No.

Sarah [00:27:03]:
So we have a three season tent.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:05]:
Okay.

Josh [00:27:05]:
We've got three season tent and then we. At the moment we just have one pair of like kind of trousers and a pair of shorts, like swim shorts basically. Because all of our winter gear we sent back. A friend was driving back through Europe to the uk, so we gave him all of our winter gear. So when we got to this volunteer project, it was kind of like the cusp of what we could manage with our just summer gear. But we're getting all of our winter gear sent from the UK back to Bulgaria.

Sarah [00:27:39]:
Yeah. So we'll have a few warmer layers hopefully making our way.

Josh [00:27:43]:
So we're kind of. All of our clothes are kind of. We're sewing up so many holes in them. They're really kind of like wearing through. My socks are more not sock than socks.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:53]:
Fortunately socks are pretty easy to find in most markets though, I guess. Right?

Josh [00:27:58]:
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:59]:
I'm curious, how has the, the Warmshowers community been treating you guys so far?

Sarah [00:28:06]:
Ah, incredibly, I think. Yeah. Especially as we say through winter, it was a real, a real safe haven to know that we could sort of go somewhere and be welcomed into somewhere. It felt like you were being welcomed in by friends. Go into a warm home and you'd sit down and people would sort of offer you drink and food and we just didn't. I think people would think we're a bit odd cycling in Europe in winter. A lot of people said how they're very busy in the summer, but we're the only people who came through their door for like three months. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:38]:
Probably caught some people off guard. Right. When you, when you reached out to them.

Sarah [00:28:42]:
Yes, definitely.

Josh [00:28:44]:
But also I find that. Well, we found that when people can sense that you're in a fun, A bit more of a vulnerable situation, we really felt like such incredible kindness and warmth and hospitality.

Sarah [00:28:55]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:28:56]:
For warm jazz we stayed with. We stayed for loads of other trips. We have. Well, I think we've been on the platform for about 10 odd years.

Sarah [00:29:04]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:29:04]:
But on this trip it was mostly in Netherlands, Germany and Austria and particularly in Germany. It was just. They have such an incredible infrastructure of people there that it was. Yeah, we met some of like the warmest, kindest people. Also because it was Christmas, it felt very Festive because you were getting welcomed into these people's houses with like Christmas lights on and being given worldwide. And it was warm and you've been in the cold and the snow all day. So it was. Yeah, very, very festive feel.

Josh [00:29:35]:
And then since coming into the Balkans, we have either just been wild camping or in slope. We're basically just mostly asking people if we can count places. And so we've not actually ended up.

Sarah [00:29:50]:
We have said that a few, but they have been fewer than in the winter. And then it's felt. It has felt very warm then. So I think go to the few that we have. It's not like a real kind of special occasion. Be going to a warm shower that it feels like a real treat.

Josh [00:30:04]:
Oh, actually, so there's one like really of recent, real notable Warmshowers. We stayed at the only one we stayed at in Bulgaria. And the first we stayed up for like months. There's a guy called Vasco who lives in Bellingrad and he gave us the address and we put it into Google Maps and we messaged him, said, oh, this is. I think it might be the wrong address. This is a. A spa. And he was like, oh, no, it is.

Josh [00:30:34]:
That is the right address. And so Beningrad is famous for having thermal spas. These, like, thermal mineral, you know, boiling.

Sarah [00:30:43]:
Waters from boiling hot and smells really eggy, but have all of these.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:47]:
Yeah.

Sarah [00:30:47]:
Like medicinal properties.

Josh [00:30:49]:
And so he had this outdoor. Yeah. Pool complex, all of thermal waters and said that he was closing down for the winter in two days and that we were welcome just to pitch a tent and just, you know, stays long as we liked and we could use all of the pools as well. So as soon as people left, we just. As soon as the sun went down, we were just in these steaming hot thermal pools in the evening. It was absolutely amazing. The first I think thermal waters we.

Sarah [00:31:18]:
Have, we've ever been in. Yeah.

Josh [00:31:19]:
Yeah.

Sarah [00:31:20]:
So very unique.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:21]:
Yes. That might be the best Warmshowers story I've ever heard. That is amazing. I am. I am a big fan of what we call them hot springs here. We have a lot of those where I live around Colorado. And the fact that you guys got to hang out there. Wow, what a treat.

Josh [00:31:41]:
Yes. Yeah. And the guy, Vasco was a really. Just one of the.

Sarah [00:31:45]:
Just so lovely and generous.

Josh [00:31:47]:
And yeah, we were trying to. Both of our phones were broken at the time, so we were trying to get our phones fixed. And the kind of person where you just. You just hope if you've got problems when you're broadcycling you just hope you bump into someone like that because he would just do everything he can to help you. And it just felt, you know, it was like he was a friend that we had for months.

Sarah [00:32:06]:
I think that's what's so great about Warmshowers, because so many people are travelers themselves. They know sort of what it is to be a traveler and what it is to when you have these needs that they seem quite niche and people will do whatever they can to help.

Josh [00:32:19]:
You, but they completely understand that.

Sarah [00:32:20]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:32:21]:
Because they've been in the same situation, you know. They've been in the same situation.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:24]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's nice to have that kind of familiarity and that connection. Ah, man, I. I bet. How long did you guys stay in the. In that thermal pool? Because I'm guessing those pools I know, have a way of just sort of melting away your aches, your achy knees, your sore backs, everything else. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Josh [00:32:46]:
And it was also as it was starting to get cold as well, so it was very, very nourishing. And this was just as we'd started this bike trip through the Radopis, which has been. It's probably been almost consistently the most consistent, like, mountainous part of our trip.

Sarah [00:33:03]:
Is it's very up. I mean, we've had some big, big climbs, but this region is constantly up and down.

Josh [00:33:10]:
Yeah. And we were actually. The route itself, we were very lucky because we had gone into this mountain range in Wickhampton's mountain range, and the guys in a van came up and saw us with the bikes in the tent and started chatting to us. And they were building a mountain bike guide for the area for the Roddies and with two locals who would just be, again, just like the perfect people we could have bumped into as we came into the country.

Sarah [00:33:37]:
Because they're so knowledgeable about the region and as they are cyclists themselves, they're like, let us plan the route for you. So they literally planned our whole route, plotted it all, gave us a GPX file, and that's what we've been using to cycle. So they were sort of our mini tour guides for the reason.

Josh [00:33:51]:
Yeah. And it's taken us to so many places where there's no way we would have.

Sarah [00:33:55]:
Yeah.

Josh [00:33:56]:
You know, they've literally cycled through all these villages and, you know, these, these.

Sarah [00:34:01]:
Tiny, tiny, tiny little tracks, these beautiful.

Josh [00:34:03]:
Sort of forest trails, you know, cherry picked it and. Yeah. Just felt so lucky that we bumped into them because it has been an incredible route so far. Really has been amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:14]:
Wow. You guys are making me excited. To get back out on the road. That is. Wow, that is incredible. So when do you plan to actually get to India? Now that you're not on any. Sounds like not in a real tight schedule.

Sarah [00:34:30]:
Yeah, well, we had said probably about a year from now, we think, but.

Josh [00:34:36]:
But we keep saying a year from now continuously. So in a month's time, we'll still say a year from now in kind of like early winter will probably still.

Sarah [00:34:45]:
I think it would be a year from now.

Josh [00:34:48]:
I think the. Because we have been going very slow with a, you know, very kind of wiggly route, we haven't really looked too much into the. The visa situations from. So we know that from Turkey and then Georgia is like a year on arrival for UK residents, so it's very flexible. But from that point onwards we don't actually know how quickly we will have to get through certain countries and the route we would take.

Sarah [00:35:13]:
So we have a rough plan. These are starts to get a little bit tighter, don't they? And it's also the route that we sort of want to take. This is why we were sort of planning to wait out a little bit in Georgia over winter, because the route that we want to take there are some places that aren't possible until spring, so we would have to wait until spring. But from then I think we have a rough idea.

Josh [00:35:33]:
We're also hoping that the. We would love to cycle through Iran, but at the moment it's not really possible for UK visas to get passports to get visas for Iran. So we thought if we cycled really slowly that potentially that might change, tensions.

Sarah [00:35:48]:
Might call, friends might be there.

Josh [00:35:51]:
But yeah, we could maybe go through the Iran, but we will have to see about that, I guess. Yeah, we said about a year, let's.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:59]:
Say Iran has been on my list for a long time, but unfortunately, as an American, it's. It's kind of a tough one to negotiate. So I keep hoping, as you said, that things cool and things relax because I've had friends from Switzerland who toured through Iran and what they've told me is that they didn't pay for a meal or a night's sleep the entire time they were there for a month. They said it was absolutely amazing people, hospitable, incredible. So I hope that you guys do get to go through there because it sounds amazing.

Josh [00:36:32]:
Yeah, my. As all of my mum's side are Iranian, she spent her child. She spent her childhood in Iran and I've never, never been there. So I really hope that, you know, I really want to be able to chase my ancestry back there and I still have relatives there, so it would be. Yeah, yeah, I hope it will be possible.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:51]:
What a great opportunity to be able to layer that into your tour and travel through Iran by bike. Wow. Wow, wow. Yes, now.

Josh [00:37:00]:
Yeah, you have.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:00]:
So now getting back to India, before we wrap things up, I'm curious, where are, where in India are you guys targeting, Are you going to do an actual tour of India? Because I know you guys know this. India is huge and so diverse.

Josh [00:37:16]:
Yeah, I guess we have always been fascinated with the Himalayas and it'd be quite nice to, you know, like lock up our bikes for a while and do some big long, multi day hikes then. The Kashmir region is where my uncle is from, so I'd love to go to Kashmir in southern, Southern India.

Sarah [00:37:37]:
Yeah, I think we'd really love to sort of to do a big tour around the country. I think we'd really love to sort of pinball and just really take our time because it is somewhere that we've wanted to go for so long. I think we just really want to be able to explore, not feel too rushed and just really dive into the country. And it's, it's so many things. What do they say? They say it's like you need seven to explore India because it's just so diverse and it's more than just one country. It's all these tiny little countries within one big bit of land.

Josh [00:38:05]:
So we're just hoping that we can get a very long visa and take as much time as we can.

Jerry Kopack [00:38:11]:
Yeah, I've, I've been fortunate. I've been to India three times and the north is by far my favorite because I'm a mountain person. And as you mentioned, the Himalayas are incredible. And if you start heading towards the northwest, towards the Kashmir region, incredible, incredible mountain passes. So, yeah, you can do amazing treks. But there's also roads that go over 6,000 meter mountain passes, which I hope you guys are there during that time because obviously they close with many meters of snow in the wintertime, but in this, in the fall, it is absolutely perfect. So I hope that you can time your schedule for that.

Josh [00:38:50]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we, yeah, we must be.

Sarah [00:38:53]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:38:54]:
The other thing I want to mention about India is check out the northeast, so Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, those places that it seems like a lot of the country has forgotten about. It's like an entirely foreign place. It's really, really fascinating and diverse cultures. So put that on your list if you have more time to spare.

Josh [00:39:18]:
Yeah, yeah, we've got a big like pin map online where we just as you know, it's just already got dozens and dozens and dozens of places but all the recommendations we can get.

Sarah [00:39:27]:
Yeah, we love it.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:30]:
Yeah. And one last thing. I just want to, I just thought about this too. And you probably know about this as well. Are you familiar with. I think in Nepal it's called Dalbat and I think in India it's called Thali. It's like it's the main food that they eat there. It's, it's rice, it's lentils, it's chapati, the, the flatbread and curried vegetables.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:49]:
Are you guys familiar with this?

Josh [00:39:51]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:52]:
It is the best thing in the world if you're a cyclist because for about like 1 pound UK or $1 ish us you it's, it's all you can eat. Someone will walk around with a bowl of rice, with a bowl of lentils, with more, with more vegetables and they'll say do you want more? And like yes, keep coming. And I swear in my time there, my partner and I, most recently a couple years ago, we, I think closed down a couple of restaurants because we, we ate them out of all of their food and they kept looking at us as a couple of thin cyclists like how can you eat so much? And like, because we're cycling these 70 pound bikes every day over 6,000 meter passes and just anyways, keep it coming. We're still hungry so. Look forward to that guys.

Josh [00:40:39]:
Yeah, we'll build up our appetite along the way.

Sarah [00:40:42]:
Yeah, I think it's already quite high so yeah, we'll be ready.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:46]:
Well guys, I have loved talking to you and I hope that you stay in touch with me. I would love to have you guys back on the show and hear where you guys are. In a year we'll talk about India. And in closing for our listeners, why should people take on a big trip like this? Why is this important?

Sarah [00:41:06]:
Oh, good question.

Josh [00:41:08]:
I, I think seeing the world is one of the most important things that people can do. I think particularly at times at the moment when everyone, if you look online it can be easy to think everyone's pitted against each other. You, you travel and you realize human beings are all just the same. We all kind of want to be happy and I think it's the, and.

Sarah [00:41:26]:
People are so kind, people are so generous. Yeah, it can feel like the world is very, very divided I think if you, yeah, look online and look on the news. But I think once you really get out and experience the world and experience just how warm and generous people are and experience different cultures. Food, music is.

Josh [00:41:44]:
Yeah. And I think the bike is the us is the ultimate way of doing. You can cover grounds, you can cycle across the world, but you really, you still do see all the small details and you still get the interactions and it's just. And you also get an excuse to eat loads of curry as well, so.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:01]:
Right answer. Well, guys, thank you so much for making time for me today. How can our listeners follow along with your travels?

Josh [00:42:10]:
So, yeah, so Josh and Sarah ride is the thing on Instagram or on YouTube and that's where we share our.

Sarah [00:42:18]:
Share photos and share films as well from our journey.

Josh [00:42:22]:
Yes, Just about to release one for my time in Montenegro. So yeah, people want to find and follow our journey. That would be the best place.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:29]:
Fantastic. And we will have links to that in our show, notes for our people following along. All right, everyone, I want to thank you for listening to my conversation today with Josh and Sarah. If you enjoy our show, give us a like a share on our social channels or just tell your friends. Stories like these will hopefully inspire you to set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. Until then, keep the wheels rolling and the stories coming. Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Jerry Kopeck and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:06]:
Please leave us a rating and review or just tell your friends. This helps us reach more cyclists and hosts around the world. To learn more or become part of this amazing community, Visit us at Warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram at warmshowers_org. If you'd to like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, email us at podcast@warmshowers.org.