Global Hobo: Life on Wheels

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. Spring is finally in the air, and even though there's still about three feet of snow in my backyard, that's about a meter for all you metric system folks, I'm still really excited to talk about bikes. Now, today's guest calls herself a global hobo and goes by the online handle Hellsonwheels.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:04]:
Now, last check. Helen Dainty has traveled through 90 countries and has been living a life on the road in one form or another since 2004. Let that sink in. Today she's going to share some stories about long distance bicycle travel and also what life on the road looks like. Hey, Helen. Welcome to Bike Life.

Helen Dainty [00:01:22]:
Good day. How are you?

Jerry Kopack [00:01:23]:
Good day. So now, did I get that right? Did you begin global hoboing? And by the way, I love that term. Back in 2004, I did, yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:01:33]:
I set out on my what should have been around the world trip, pretty standard British thing. I thought I would just return home, get a job, get a house, get a marriage like everybody else. But something happened, switch flicked, you might say, and during that year, and I decided that actually traveling is how I wanted to spend my time instead of the more conventional life path.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:57]:
Now, you mentioned you're from the uk, but did I detect a little twinge of an Aussie accent in there?

Helen Dainty [00:02:03]:
Yeah, part of those years, 10 of those years were living in Australia. And my job in Australia was travel also. So even when I was working there, I was still living out of a backpack for flying all across the country week by week.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:17]:
Okay, so you haven't always been a cyclist, though, right? So how did you get into bicycle touring?

Helen Dainty [00:02:25]:
So I was living in Australia. Usually I was working for a couple of years and then traveling and then working for a couple of years, but I was applying for citizenship, so I couldn't leave the country. I'd already used up all of my overseas allowance during the application. So I was ready to start traveling again, but couldn't leave Australia. And I'd already driven around in a campervan, but my campervan couldn't go down the very dirt roads, the very rutted, corrugated stuff. So I began wondering how I might do that on a budget. Four wheel drive was out and I wondered if I could cycle those roads to go see the things that my campervan would take me to. And yeah, I found a really cool website about cycling the outback roads in Australia and began plotting a route around the country, an alternate route around the country down the dirt roads.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:16]:
How was cycling in Australia?

Helen Dainty [00:03:19]:
It's not the ideal place to begin bicycle touring, but it's fantastic. I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point, but it was amazing. It was incredible.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:29]:
How come?

Helen Dainty [00:03:32]:
The scenery, the self sufficiency, it was, was a baptism of fire. Is that the term? But I, it was, it was incredible for my own personal growth, the things that I had to accomplish and that I did accomplish. And I was, it was hard. It was literal blood, sweat and tears. But. But I got through it and unfortunately I loved it. I bought a really nice bike for this one year trip, but I immediately fell in love with bicycle touring and, and that's the only way I've traveled since. For the last eight years now.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:06]:
So you fell in love with bicycle touring even though it wasn't an ideal situation, that is blood, sweat and tears. Like how do you fall in love after that kind of a description?

Helen Dainty [00:04:17]:
Yeah, good question. I think it was just the absolute autonomy of having your own transport, your tent on the back. Even though it was tough, you are entirely in charge, have complete control about where you go, when you go, how you go, as opposed to bus timetables and schedules and routines. I just felt an utter sense of freedom even though it was going, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:47]:
I can totally relate to that. From Australia. This kind of whet your appetite. Where did you go from there?

Helen Dainty [00:04:54]:
From there I was due at a friend's wedding in Italy, so. So I flew over to the UK and then I had some time. So I cycled around the coast of England, Scotland and Wales and then cycled to the wedding in Italy and continued from there around Europe a couple of times, I guess.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:16]:
What about the Lake District? Anytime up there.

Helen Dainty [00:05:19]:
Yeah, actually that's where I was born. I passed back through there on that trip back in 2018, whatever that was.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:28]:
Because that's probably some pretty spectacular cycling through there, right?

Helen Dainty [00:05:32]:
It is. It's a surprisingly small part of the country. You can cycle through it in a day if you're on a mission. But yeah, it's absolutely stunning.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:41]:
Well, I mean, compared to the outback of Australia. Right. Anything is kind of small.

Helen Dainty [00:05:44]:
Yeah. And that was part of my problem actually, when I, when I was planning my route around the uk, I thought I would do the same distances as I was doing in Australia. I'd been out of the UK for a long time and I'd forgotten what it looked like. So I was planning these hundred kilometer days, six days a week. And very quickly, you know, the coast in Cornwall and Wales, like, it's just constant up and down and up and down, like down into a little, you know, village and then straight back up the other side, like 15 gradients. So I very quickly had to revise my schedule was. Was ridiculous. I thought I'd be going to Ireland in that time as well.

Helen Dainty [00:06:17]:
I had to drop Ireland from the itinerary altogether. There just wasn't time for. But for the same kilometers as I was used to doing in Australia to do in Britain.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:25]:
Just relentless grinding climbs.

Helen Dainty [00:06:27]:
Right, yeah, beautiful ones, but, yeah, relentless. Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:32]:
So was there ever a turning point where this went from being a trip to just. This is my life?

Helen Dainty [00:06:41]:
Yeah. I think my first trip In Australia was 2016 and then I think I thought I was, that was going to be it. But then a friend convinced me to return to work for a year, which I did. And then when I started out again in 2018, that, that was me. Okay, this is what I do now. I'd worked out that if I live on this absolute micro budget of 100 Australian dollars, which is about €56 right now a week, I worked out if I could live on that, I could sustain myself for a few years on the savings that I had.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:13]:
So.

Helen Dainty [00:07:13]:
So yeah, that was the beginning of it, I guess.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:18]:
So speaking of 100 Aussie dollars a week, do you have any kind of insider hacks that you've learned along the way to make that sustainable?

Helen Dainty [00:07:27]:
Well, yeah, the Warmshowers community is instrumental in that. And wild camping. Those two things like wild camping and Warmshowers, they go so perfectly together because in areas of high population you have a very good chance of finding a host. And it's also a terrible place to wild camp in high population. And then alternatively in the low population areas, excellent, safe, beautiful, wild camping and, you know, not that many hosts. So the two work absolutely perfectly together. So accommodation obviously is the biggest cost for most people, so that, that vastly reduces that. I'm in a hostel now, as you might be able to hear, but that's a, that's a lovely treat for me because I'm in Barcelona, so I've splashed out on a hostel for a few days, but usually it's Warmshowers and wild camping all the way.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:16]:
Got it. So I think there apply a lot of people who would think that traveling and riding a bike every day sounds amazing and I'm sure there is, but there's probably also really tough times. Right. It isn't all rainbows and unicorns every day. So what are some of the things that you might struggle with?

Helen Dainty [00:08:35]:
Oh, actually, yeah, a lot of my time these days is spent on social media as I try and fund my way around the world now. So, yeah, from the outset, when people look at my social media, it, it might look lovely and chill the whole time, but actually I spent hours shooting footage, editing footage, uploading stuff on slow WI fi so that finding reliable WI fi or very tedious things can become quite stressful and that, that eats into a lot of my lovely riding a bike and camping in nature time.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:14]:
Yeah. Because I was going to ask anything you miss about, you know, that conventional lifestyle that is working in a cubicle and paying rent or a mortgage, but it sounds like this is a sort of a nice sort of counterbalance to sort of like the less desirable things.

Helen Dainty [00:09:29]:
Yeah, I, it's sort of an inverse. Like if I spend most of my time doing what most people would reasonably refer to as the holiday, and then I spend a few weeks a year, my downtime looks a lot more like people's regular time. You know, staying in one place, I don't know, loading the dishwasher, doing things that I don't conventionally do. It's, it's. That is. Is a holiday for my, my standard life.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:56]:
Got it. Do you ever experience travel fatigue? Like you just kind of like you're in Barcelona now. Do you ever just want to get to a place? Like, I'm tired of riding my bike, I'm tired of being on the go every day. I just want to kind of settle down like you. Do you experience that?

Helen Dainty [00:10:11]:
Settle down? No. Have a little time off from, from like editing YouTube vlogs? Yeah, but absolutely settle down now. Absolutely not.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:22]:
Sorry, I don't mean settle down just being like, you know, take some time off the bike instead of again looking for a new place to sleep every night.

Helen Dainty [00:10:29]:
Oh, totally, yeah. But I've been quite lucky in the last few years. I've had family visits, so it's been nice to stay in a hotel with, with either one of my parents or my brother and his wife came out to visit and so that's that's really nice. Yeah. To stay in one place and to not worry where you're going to pitch your tent that night. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:49]:
So you do have friends, family who you plan to get together with along the way?

Helen Dainty [00:10:56]:
Yeah, yeah. My family enjoy traveling and I think they enjoy the opportunity to come and visit some far flung places while I'm passing through. So, yeah, that's, that's been really nice. I also try and get home every year or three, but it's nice when they can come out and visit me as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:13]:
So home, Lake District area.

Helen Dainty [00:11:16]:
These days they're in the West Midlands in a town called Newdley.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:19]:
Gotcha. Okay, now, are you familiar with the term type two fun?

Helen Dainty [00:11:24]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:25]:
So type one fun, as you know, is I'm having a good time now. Type 2 fun is like, this is pretty miserable. But you look back on end of the day, end of the week, whatever, it's like, oh, maybe that time I did that thing, like, that was pretty cool.

Helen Dainty [00:11:37]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:38]:
How do you deal with those type two days where like maybe this long slog through the outback or grinding up relentless hills, like, is there a way that you pass your time?

Helen Dainty [00:11:48]:
Yeah, I listen to a lot of podcasts as I ride and I, I know on, on days where I've been, you know, slogging through the outback or I remember the forests in Finland. It's just a dead straight road, dead flat, so you had no view at all except for the road just disappearing into, you know, into the infinite distance. And the only punctuation the day was seeing the sign to whatever it is. But it would go like 90 kilometers, 80 kilometers. That was the only punctuation in my day, like for a hundred kilometers a day. So sometimes I chat away to myself and I give myself some encouragement. I remember pulling into one outback rest area just on a corrugated, awful sand road and I was really sort of like talking myself in, like, you can do it, you've got this, you've got this. And I was talking to myself out loud.

Helen Dainty [00:12:44]:
I remember you hadn't seen anybody in a couple of days. And I called into this like remote rest area and I found four, we call them gray nomads in Australia, older people with like a motorhome. And they were just sitting around their little plastic fold out table with their little plastic glasses of bubbly as this dirty, sweaty, talking to herself cyclist pulled in, chatting to herself and just crashed into their little dinner party. They invited me for dinner. That was really nice. But yeah, sometimes the like talking out loud and motivating myself in is what keeps me going. Oh, I'm promising myself something nice. A nice bar of chocolate, a nice cold beer.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:24]:
Yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:13:25]:
Doing the sort of negotiating with myself that you can have a treat at the end, you can have a reward, but you need to keep going right now.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:34]:
Do you know the term type 3 fund?

Helen Dainty [00:13:38]:
No. Is that fun? That's never fun.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:40]:
It's fun. That's never going to be fun, no matter how long it takes me to look back on it like, this is the worst thing I've ever done. I hope I never do this again.

Helen Dainty [00:13:49]:
But it's still fun for the other people that hear about it when you tell a story.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:53]:
Yeah. But for you, it's like, this is the worst hell I can think of. So I'll give an example for me. I was in Pakistan recently. Pakistan was amazing.

Helen Dainty [00:14:01]:
Amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:02]:
But I had to take a 17 hour overnight bus from the mountains back to Islamabad. And 17 hours is a long time. And I had planned to queue up some audio books, some podcasts, do some reading within like the first half hour because the roads are so windy and rough through the mountains. Everybody on the bus was, was nauseous, getting, getting sick, vomiting. The guy behind me had Covid, which means three days later, I had Covid. So nothing redeeming about that trip at all. Do you have anything that's like, wow, this was the worst.

Helen Dainty [00:14:36]:
No, I could. I don't. Nothing that springs. I just. I'm infinitely great. Maybe not at the time, but once I'm out of it, I am infinitely grateful for everything I've been able to experience. I realized that even the most miserable days, and I have to be careful about this on social media because we must all try and be truthful on social media and not paint, you know, fake images. But at the same time, I do have to be careful because when I do complain about a tough day, people will gently remind me that I am still enjoying an experience that they would dream of while they sit in their cubicle.

Helen Dainty [00:15:10]:
So I do try to be very conscious that even my worst days are still the stuff of people's dreams as they're doing their 9 to 5 or whatever it might be. So, no, no absolute regrets, just good part of the rich tapestry, isn't it?

Jerry Kopack [00:15:28]:
Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nothing to aspire to. You're not looking for type three fun, but it's good that you haven't had anything that's been that dreadful. So that's good. And I'm glad that you have that understanding that yeah, you are, you're living a pretty good life, it sounds like. So. And you have to sort of perspective on the socials, right?

Helen Dainty [00:15:46]:
Yeah, sometimes I forget temporarily, but only ever temporarily and I. Yeah.

Speaker C [00:15:56]:
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Jerry Kopack [00:16:42]:
I want to kind of go back to where you are. You're in Barcelona right now, but you were in Andorra previously, right?

Helen Dainty [00:16:48]:
Yes.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:49]:
Yeah. So the funny thing is, my first ever bicycle tour was that same route, but in reverse. Twenty years ago in 2005, I started in Barcelona, cycled on a $50 bike that I got used up into the mountains of Andorra and it was amazing. The only challenge I had in Spain was the food. Like the people. When I say food, I don't mean the food was bad, it's just the food timing. And so I was traveling hostel to hostel, pension to pension, and I would try to be on the road by 6:30 or 7 in the morning, which no one's awake because they have dinner at 10 o' clock, I would finish at 5. And of course they don't have dinner till 10 o' clock.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:29]:
So that was a bit of an adjustment. Other than that, I thought Spain was, was amazing. So what's, what's, what's been your take on Spain thus far?

Helen Dainty [00:17:37]:
Yeah, I haven't really, I mean I'm just really two days, two days from the border into Barcelona. So fast and obviously, yeah, it was downhill mostly, but yeah, I mean it's difficult to judge a country by a big city like Barcelona. So I really only had two days in the country. But yes, in the afternoon, yeah, the shops weren't open. One of those days was Easter Sunday. So I, I knew in advance not to expect to buy anything that day. So I just stocked up on like a lot of portable calves the day before. But I am also conscious if I do get to stay with some warm flower toasts.

Helen Dainty [00:18:11]:
As I progress south in Spain, it's been on my mind about dinner time and will I excuse myself to go to bed while they go and have some dinner or what will happen? Yeah, I haven't really worked that out yet. I'm still too fresh in the country.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:28]:
Gotcha. So I've been looking at some of your Instagram videos and, and notice that in some of them you use the phrase inshallah, which means God willing. And I've used that a fair bit when I've traveled through Muslim countries and I kind of like it. Now I know that you're heading to Algeria next week, which is again a largely Muslim based country. Have you been to other Muslim based countries and how has your experiences been?

Helen Dainty [00:18:52]:
It's been phenomenal. Yeah, I've traveled in, gosh loads, loads of Muslim countries. Turkey, Iran, Palestine, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain. And it's been overwhelmingly, really, really positive experience. I had the traffic police followed me in Saudi Arabia because they wanted to make me make sure I was like super duper safe. Even though they'll readily tell you it's the safest place to be. They also want to make sure that I'm extra super duper safe. Tunisia also.

Helen Dainty [00:19:25]:
I had a traffic police escort me, but I found hospitality to be phenomenal, especially in the, in the Gulf Arab countries. Yeah, really really recommends it, especially for solo women in the Gulf Arab countries. Really? Really? I felt completely safe.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:42]:
Yeah, I was gonna say you were in Saudi Arabia. From what I understand is it's not a very common place for a solo woman to cycle. But it sounds like everything was, was wonderful.

Helen Dainty [00:19:53]:
Yeah, it's. They only started issuing tourist visas in the last five or six years and then if you discount a couple of COVID years from that. Tourism is still pretty new in Saudi Arabia, but cyclists are discovering it very quickly. And I bumped into a couple of, a few cyclists actually in Saudi. I mean, there's only really one sensible road across the country, so inevitably you will sort of run into each other. But it's increasingly becoming a popular destination for cyclists.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:24]:
Was it easy to make it across some of those large expanses of desert?

Helen Dainty [00:20:29]:
Yeah, I mean there's a, there's a highway with a very wide shoulder, like almost an entire lane, so you can cycle very safely in that the drivers aren't the best in the world, but the shoulder is massive. The problem is the cities, because to get from city block to city block, you have to effectively join the motorway to cross over the other motorway. To get into the next city blocks. So that's the most dangerous part of cycling in Saudi. The actual. The distances in the desert are fine. About every 100km you have like a roadside service station, as you would expect on a motorway in, in North America or Europe where you've got, you know, food, there's a mosque. I would often sleep in the women's section of the mosque.

Helen Dainty [00:21:12]:
You can fill up your water bottles, obviously. So every, so 100 kilometers you've got that sort of. Of place that you can stop and refill everything.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:21]:
Interesting. So I've had friends who have been in Iran and they have talked about just the legendary kindness and hospitality of the people.

Helen Dainty [00:21:31]:
Mind blowing.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:32]:
And I've always wanted to go, but as you know, an American passport holder, it just, it hasn't really been in the cards for me. Yeah, my friends had talked about like they were there for a month and they didn't pay for a meal or a night stay the entire time. Did you have a kind of a similar experience? Yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:21:48]:
Iran is, is phenomenal for that. Absolutely phenomenal. The legends are entirely true that, you know, people are astoundingly generous. They do have a thing as well for taros, which is also. British people have this as well, which is where you offer something you don't really mean to offer it. It's just a sort of politeness.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:06]:
I've heard that.

Helen Dainty [00:22:06]:
So you do. Yeah, you have to, you have to learn to differentiate between actual. What's actually being offered to you for free or, or somebody el tar off when you. They say, no, don't worry about it. But you still should pay in a shop if you, you know, if they try. If you bought something in a shop and they try and give it you for free, it's probably not supposed to be for free. You probably should try and persist at least a couple of times. If after the third time they still won't take your money, then it's probably okay not to pay.

Helen Dainty [00:22:32]:
But yeah, Iranian hospitality is. It's. It's very difficult to. To imagine anywhere else in the world.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:41]:
Interesting.

Helen Dainty [00:22:42]:
That is as incredibly hospitable.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:44]:
Well, fingers crossed that I get the opportunity because it's been on my list for a number of years.

Helen Dainty [00:22:49]:
I hope, I hope you do. Yeah, I'm very lucky. I, as an Australian passport holder, I was able to go, but I still had to be. I had to sort of be a little bit quiet about my British citizenship and also that I've done work in the past for organizations like Amnesty International and that I have My background is a political degree, so all of those things can land you in trouble. There's a couple of British motorcyclists that are currently, have been detained in Iran right now. So it's no joke. You have to be very careful. But that's the government.

Helen Dainty [00:23:26]:
People are in an entirely different place.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:28]:
Yeah, that's been my experience too, that every place I've traveled to, people have been kind and generous and it's just some political stuff that goes on that makes you just be a little more cautious.

Helen Dainty [00:23:40]:
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:42]:
How did you arrive at Algeria? Has that been on your, your hit list for a while?

Helen Dainty [00:23:47]:
Yeah, not really.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:49]:
Okay.

Helen Dainty [00:23:50]:
What happened was I was in, I was in Saudi Arabia when the war began in Sudan. I was supposed to be going down the eastern side of Africa, but I sort of, I kept going in the direction of Sudan towards Egypt in the hopes things would, would turn around. Obviously they didn't. So going down the east of Africa has become a no go right now, at least without, you know, flying over Sudan.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:12]:
Yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:24:12]:
So I took another look at the map and I thought, okay, well if I can't go to that part of Africa. I looked at, I saw Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco all in line and I thought, oh, that looks okay, I'll do that. But what I didn't understand at the time was first of all, Algeria and Morocco, that border was just utterly sealed. They, they do not talk to each other. So that's a no go. Tunisia to Algeria, Algeria required. There's no E visa and they require that you get your visa for Algeria in your home country. You can't get it.

Helen Dainty [00:24:46]:
So I guess maybe I was going home anyway, I don't know. But I went home for Christmas, applied for the visa, turned around and, and now I'm on my way back to Algeria now. So yeah, I guess I, I, I got onto the idea of visiting Algeria when I, when I was kind of stuck in Egypt, not able to kind of go, go further that way. But it took going back to the UK last year to get the visa to make it possible to go this year.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:12]:
So do you have a plan for Africa? Because as you know, Africa is big. You could spend years in Africa.

Helen Dainty [00:25:19]:
Yeah. So next year the idea is after I've worked my way back to Nigeria, I'll come back to the ex Yugoslavian countries. There's a few of those I haven't visited. And then I'll have another Brexit holiday for three months in the uk and then when, that's when, when I'm allowed back into Schengen. Europe again. I'll get the ferry down to Spain and Portugal early next year and then from there I'll. I'll begin working my way down the west coast of Africa, starting in Morocco.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:46]:
Gotcha. Okay. And you, have you been to Morocco before?

Helen Dainty [00:25:49]:
I've been to Morocco, yeah, but, but only, only to the coast. I haven't been in the mountains. I hear the cycling in the mountains is amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:56]:
I have, I've been to the High Atlas and it is, it's spectacular. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:26:01]:
Keen for that.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:02]:
Yeah. If you don't mind, I want to kind of break things up a little bit and maybe do a little rapid fire travel. Questions? What do you think?

Helen Dainty [00:26:09]:
Sure.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:11]:
So apologies in advance. I realize this is a very cliche question because I know that every place is a little bit different, a little bit unique, but do you have a favorite place that you've been, Maybe a place that you'd like to go back to?

Helen Dainty [00:26:24]:
It has to be Iran, despite. Yeah, yeah, Iran has to top it. It's. It's not without its problems. Some young men on motorbikes do not know how to behave themselves. And the government, obviously. But despite those things, Iran is so incredibly brilliant in all other aspects. It still eclipses the, the downside.

Helen Dainty [00:26:46]:
So Iran remains my favorite.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:49]:
Good. So just further cementing my need to somehow make it there at some point. Sorry, how about this? Do you, do you have a list of places that are still on your hit list? Like, what's really high on your place that you want to go?

Helen Dainty [00:27:02]:
Pakistan. Since I met some Pakistani people, actually quite a few Pakistanis in Iran. And also I stayed with a lovely Pakistani castle in Bahrain and they got me really into the idea of cycling in Pakistan. So that's my new big wish. Although it's not on my current itinerary, I don't know how I'm going to work that in. It's obviously not on the way to West Africa, but yes, Pakistan is my next big dream.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:29]:
The north is amazing. The Gilgit Baltistan region, The Hunza Valley. Spectacular. Of course. The Karakoram highway is pretty cool too.

Helen Dainty [00:27:38]:
Of course.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:40]:
So a little bit deeper here. Do you have a favorite kind of landscape? Where is it? Desert, mountain passes, coastal ranges?

Helen Dainty [00:27:48]:
I don't think so. I love the desert, I love the coast, I love the mountains. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not particular. I probably could pass on the jungle forests. Not so much on forests, especially the Finland ones where, you know, there's nothing to see apart from 2 meters either side of You?

Jerry Kopack [00:28:06]:
Yeah, sure.

Helen Dainty [00:28:07]:
Otherwise now I'm not, I'm not picky. I love it all.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:10]:
Do you have a favorite food country where you thought the food was just. You could have eat yourself into a coma? Iran.

Helen Dainty [00:28:16]:
Iran again? Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:17]:
Sorry. Have you, have you been to India?

Helen Dainty [00:28:21]:
Yes. Not by bicycle, but a long time ago. Yeah. Also great food. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:25]:
Okay. What about Thailand and the street food?

Helen Dainty [00:28:28]:
Amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:29]:
Yeah, amazing.

Helen Dainty [00:28:30]:
Love it. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:31]:
And Iran is still better.

Helen Dainty [00:28:33]:
Iran tops the lot. It's amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:28:36]:
Got it. So this is probably going to be another softball question. So favorite culture?

Helen Dainty [00:28:44]:
Have a culture?

Jerry Kopack [00:28:46]:
Yeah, just the people like how the people interact. The culture of it.

Helen Dainty [00:28:52]:
Yeah. Maybe like the Gulf, Arab countries. It's a lot of different countries, so I probably shouldn't conflate the culture into one. But my experience of traveling there as a woman is so lovely. You know, I. I often got directed as a woman. You know, I spent. Skipped the queues or I had my whole, you know, separate entrance to whatever embassy I was visiting.

Helen Dainty [00:29:14]:
In supermarkets, nobody tried to squeeze past you. Like you're given loads of space. People, men step off the pavement to let you pass as opposed to, I know in, you know, in some Western cities, you're like shoulder bumping people. No, it's like you have a force field around you so you can feel completely safe as a woman there. So I really, I really enjoy that.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:37]:
Awesome. Was there a place that was particularly challenging to you for one reason or another?

Helen Dainty [00:29:43]:
Challenging? I mean, everywhere has different challenges, I guess.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:52]:
Yeah, okay, that's fine. I didn't know if there's some place that was like culturally challenging or logistically challenging or. I don't know.

Helen Dainty [00:30:03]:
Nothing. Nothing more. I mean, I just, I every. I love being like in a different country and learning. Everything starts all over again when I left. I'm pretty experienced in traveling in France. I know where. I know which banks have the good WI fi.

Helen Dainty [00:30:19]:
You know, I know which supermarkets are cheaper and have the good WI fi. I've got. I got the hang of France. And then when you arrive in Antora and you have to work out of it, I couldn't work out better by dread and I didn't know where to find WI fi. And just being in a new country for the first couple of days and everything is new again and you have to start learning all over again. Where do I do this? Which ATM will accept my card? Like, the first couple of days in any place are the difficult bit for me. There's no country that's inherently difficult. It's the arriving in new places.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:53]:
So do you like that sort of overland border crossing as opposed to, say, like, flying in.

Helen Dainty [00:30:58]:
I love it. I almost never fly, unless I mean with the bicycle. I flew a lot in the past. But what I mean is with a. I hate flying with the bike. And I agree almost 10 of things to avoid flying with the bike. And so I. I love going by land and, you know, by boat and by train, but also just go.

Helen Dainty [00:31:20]:
In the slowness of a bicycle, everything changes, you know, incrementally. Slowly, slowly. The food, the language. The. Yeah, food, the language. Everything sort of the countryside, it starts morphing into the next country. It's not where the arbitrary line is on the map. Everything changes very gradually.

Helen Dainty [00:31:39]:
And that's one of the lovely things about cycling, of course.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:42]:
Yeah. Was there a country that you thought, like, wow, I really don't want to leave, or if I was going to settle down, like, I could probably hang out here for a while.

Helen Dainty [00:31:57]:
There's no. There's no country like this. I just. I have such itchy feet. There's so much more I want to see. Like, I have, you know, one of those, like, digital scratch maps. And there's so many countries that I hope I can step foot in in as many countries as I possibly can. So right now, rather than return to a place or settle in a place, I want to see so much more.

Helen Dainty [00:32:19]:
I want to experience so much more. Different cultures, different lands, foods. I want to visit the new stuff before I return.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:30]:
Got it. How about this? Do you carry any luxury items? Like, for me, for example, I'm a bald guy. I will carry electric hair clippers because I know that people get their hair cut all places in the world, but I like to have that so I can just sort of take a shower and clean myself up every couple of days. Do you have anything like that that's like, maybe a little extra that you don't need, but, you know, you want to have it with you?

Helen Dainty [00:32:53]:
I don't use my stove for cooking. It's really only for coffee. So I don't know if people would. Would constitute. Would call that a luxury, I think. I don't think I carry many luxury items. No, it's so, like, I have a. I have a sort of rule that each thing has to have a dual purpose.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:14]:
Okay.

Helen Dainty [00:33:15]:
So, for example, my towel is for drying me, but also is like an additional, you know, layer beneath my mattress and the ground sheet. So, you know, everything is multipurpose as it doesn't earn a place in the pannier. So I don't think I have. It depends on what you constitute. Luxury AirPods. Luxury?

Jerry Kopack [00:33:38]:
No, no, no, no. I'm talking about like hair clippers or like we had talked before about like an espresso machine. Like just some stuff that's like a little egregious.

Helen Dainty [00:33:49]:
Nothing. Nothing that comes to mind.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:51]:
Okay, well, let's back it up then. So you've been traveling for a while. When you first started traveling, were there things that you quickly realized that you just don't need anymore?

Helen Dainty [00:34:01]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, every cyclist that's up with probably 10 kilos too much, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:34:07]:
Yeah, yeah.

Helen Dainty [00:34:08]:
And I sort of. I've whittled it down as time has gone by, and now it's. It's a pretty streamlined approach. Now it helps that I'm not really traveling through winter on this trip. I sort of set out into the late winter, early spring, heading south. So I don't have a lot of, like, winter clothes with me. I have to have some sort of Islamic friendly clothing, but nothing really. No heavy duty, warm stuff, really.

Helen Dainty [00:34:35]:
So I'm traveling pretty light right now.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:37]:
Okay, that must feel nice, right? Go a little bit lighter, a little bit faster.

Helen Dainty [00:34:41]:
Yeah, yeah. Very nice.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:44]:
So do you have a favorite quote or a mantra that sort of moves you along or keeps you going forward?

Helen Dainty [00:34:53]:
Yeah, I just. I mean, I can't quote it to you right now, but I just reread one by Deblo Murphy, who wrote Full Tilt about cycling from Ireland to India. And it's basically around, you know, how we have to sort of. I mean, I can't even begin to repeat it, but it's about experiencing everything. Having to, you know, sleep rough and experience every, you know, every challenge instead of just being, like, comfy and at home. And also, Bill Bryson had some nice things to say about, you know, about how being completely lost in a brand new country as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:37]:
Yeah, I get that. I've read a lot of his books. You want to hear what my favorite quote is?

Helen Dainty [00:35:44]:
Yes, please.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:45]:
So you're familiar with ice cream, I'm guessing Ben and Jerry's. Yeah, American company. And so their motto is, if it's not fun, why do it? And it's very simple. So I've applied that whenever I'm on a bike tour. If I get to a stretchy road, like, wow, this is just. This is not fun. I don't want to do this anymore. And so I kind of approach that with bicycle touring and life as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:10]:
And I realize that can sometimes be a very privileged perspective, but life is really short. And I believe in trying to do things that make us happy. And so that's the one that kind of always sticks with me. Yeah, makes sense. So, speaking of, I like to ask this question too, to a lot of my guests, especially people like yourself, who've been on the road for a long period of time. Now, inevitably, with a trip of any length, especially one of long distance, things eventually go wrong because they didn't plan for. Was there ever a time you can think of where you thought like, wow, how am I going to get myself out of this one?

Helen Dainty [00:36:48]:
Yes, most recently my beloved Roloff, which is an 85,000 km. The casing. A couple of spokes broke away from the casing and that was in South Italy. And fortunately there was a Warmshowers host who also was simultaneously looking for a workaway person. So I was able to thank goodness because at the time, I mean, I didn't know what I was about to do with myself. But yeah, thanks to them, I was able to send the roll up away to roll off. They were able to put my gearing into a brand new casing and then get that back to me. But yeah, that was Warmshowers to the rescue on that one.

Helen Dainty [00:37:36]:
And then I remember my first big problem within Australia. I was trying to cycle, called the Mawson Trail. And it's an outback trail in South Australia. But it was a particularly wet spring that I was trying to ride this and it's, it's clay in that region and it was just downpoured and it was, I could have, I couldn't, I couldn't cycle. I couldn't even stand up. It was like an ice rink. So I could see the, you know, the pitching on the road, like, I don't know, half a kilometer or a kilometer away. So I just thought, I'm gonna abort this.

Helen Dainty [00:38:12]:
This idea of doing the Morton Trail right now, it's just, it's inconceivable. So I'll just, I'll just cross country it to the roads that I can see the vehicles on. But what I didn't understand, and I still don't understand now, but there was a, there was like a barbed wire fence. And so I had to like hoof all of my panniers and my bike, which is like a 20 kilo bike, like, and I'm not very upper body strong. I had to get all of this stuff over. I think I tried to go underneath anyway, slipping and sliding on this mud. And then I pushed on, pushed on towards the road, only to find another barbed wire fence. I Couldn't believe it.

Helen Dainty [00:38:48]:
So I had to do the whole thing all over again. And the barbed wire pinged back and like cut my face. But at some point in this whole thing, like, I remember sinking into the ground and. And I think I might have started to cry. But then again I had a word with myself of like, look, you, like you can have a cry in a minute, but like, you just get to the road first and then you can have a meltdown. So I kept going and then a third. Why would there be three parallel barbed offenses? I don't understand what that was about. But again, I had to put everything underneath the lower part of the barbed wire heap everything over the top of the bit, the top piece of the barbed wire, until finally I got to the road.

Helen Dainty [00:39:32]:
But yet at the time that was, it just felt insurmountable. I just, I didn't. If somebody else had been with me, I probably just would have laid out in the mud and wait for somebody else to resolve it for me. But when you all alone, you have to call on your own resources and you have to solve these problems. Just things that on paper you think you could never do. But when you are literally all alone, there is no other alternative but to do it, then you must kill us.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:58]:
I mean, think about that resilience that you develop because you're right. Like, what's going to happen if I stop? There's no one who's going to come out here and help you. Not going to get rescued. Like, you have one choice. Like the second barbed wire fence, the third bar bar fence. Like, you just keep going. It sounds like someone was trying to, to deter hobo bike travelers or something like that by putting wire fences there.

Helen Dainty [00:40:21]:
Might be they should have purport one because it didn't work.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:26]:
So speaking of, there's a lot of people who are going to listen to this show who maybe have had ambitions about setting off on an adventure like this. Maybe hesitant to take this kind of a leap. Any advice you might want to send out to people who might be curious about their own exploration?

Helen Dainty [00:40:43]:
Yeah, maybe don't start in Australia with your big bike touring adventure, but a few people have asked me recently for, for advice about, you know, budget travel. And aside of, you know, wild camping and, and a warm shower subscription, then I think it's quite easy to, to travel on a budget if you're willing to. To eat from supermarkets and bakeries. I've just spent three days in Barcelona without spending any entrance money. Like there is so much to do for free. You can you can go? There's so many places you can visit Insider for free and not pay a single entrance fee. Like if I was here for more than like a few days, maybe I would start paying stuff. But you can pack your time with with just business in the free stuff so you can travel on an exceedingly small budget if you're willing to camp and eat some supermarkets and visit the free stuff.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:40]:
Excellent. Last question, and this is an easy one. Is there an end goal? Are you just going to keep going until it isn't fun?

Helen Dainty [00:41:50]:
Yeah, I just keep going, see as much as I can for as long as I can.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:55]:
No end goals. No plans of going back to normal life?

Helen Dainty [00:42:00]:
No, no, this is my normal life.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:02]:
Yeah, good answer, good answer. All right, Helen, so I know you're off to Algeria next week. I know you got a lot of stuff to plan, but how can our listeners follow along with you, maybe support you along in your adventures?

Helen Dainty [00:42:16]:
My Instagram is Els on wheels with one L in hells. YouTube is also hells on Wheels. My Patreon is Hells on Wheels. Everything sells on wheels. One L in Hels easy.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:35]:
And we will have all that listed in our show notes so people who didn't catch it on the verbal, they can catch it on the visual. So thank you again and I want to thank all of our listeners who enjoyed our conversation today with Helen Dainty, AKA Hells on Wheels. Now, if you enjoy our show, give us a like a share on your social channels or maybe just tell your friends. These stories hopefully will 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. My name is Jerry Kopak, and until next time, keep riding. Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Jerry Kopak and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:18]:
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@warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram at warmshowers. Org. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, email us@podcastarmshowers.org.