Open Doors, Open Hearts

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 at warmshowers.org. Now let's hit the road together. Hey everyone, this is Gerry Kopech, the host of Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. Today's a special one.

Jerry Kopack [00:00:48]:
It's our 150th episode of Bike Life, and it feels especially fitting that we're celebrating this milestone with a conversation about the people who make bicycle journeys possible, our Warmshowers hosts. Now, if you're not familiar, here's a little bit of history. For about 50 years, Warmshowers has been connecting touring cyclists with hosts around the world. What began as a simple Rolodex of willing hosts has grown into a global community of more than 180,000 users. But at its heart, it's still about people opening their doors to strangers. So today I'm joined by Karen and Tom Carter, who've spent years welcoming touring cyclists into their home. We'll talk about how those experiences have shaped them, the friendships they've built, and why hosting has become one of the most rewarding parts of the travel. Hey, Karen and Tom, welcome to Bike Life.

Tom Carter [00:01:41]:
Hello.

Karen Carter [00:01:42]:
Great to be here.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:43]:
Now, before we get too far into this, where are you guys located?

Karen Carter [00:01:48]:
We are in Jávea, Spain, which is on the Mediterranean, about an hour and a half south of Valencia.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:55]:
Valencia. All right, so Spain, obviously a huge cycling community. A lot of professionals live over there, train over there. I think that— did the Tour de France start over there this year?

Tom Carter [00:02:06]:
It started in Barcelona this year. Yep, just up the coast.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:09]:
Yeah, how close is that to you guys?

Tom Carter [00:02:12]:
That's about a 5-hour drive.

Karen Carter [00:02:14]:
Okay.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:14]:
Now I'm guessing if you're living in Spain, you're cycling fans? Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:02:20]:
We are, we are.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:22]:
Love it.

Karen Carter [00:02:22]:
The pro teams ride around here off-season, the men's and the women's. All the time. We see them almost every single day during their training seasons.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:33]:
That is so cool.

Tom Carter [00:02:35]:
Yeah, I love to travel around Europe also and watch races, watch pro races.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:39]:
You do? Okay, interesting. So tell me about some of the routes around Spain and where you guys are. Are you guys in a mountainous area? Are you kind of more just, like you said, coastal?

Tom Carter [00:02:52]:
We're right on the sea, but the mountains, you can see the mountains from our house. I mean, there are, There are a couple of Cat 1 climbs here within a half an hour, hour ride, and some HCs farther in. And then there's a lot of Cat 2s here. Some of the more famous Cat 2s that riders train on are right here, including the one that Jonas Vingegaard was discovered on.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:19]:
Is that right?

Tom Carter [00:03:20]:
Yeah, yeah. He was doing it with his sort of semi-pro team in Denmark, and he went up the mountain called the Col de Rates, and people took notice. The pro team saw him on Strava or whatever it was back then that was tracking. I think it was Strava. And yeah, that's how he got— that's how he got discovered.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:40]:
I actually— I'm glad you brought that up because I remember that story. And I think, I think it was they saw his Strava time and they thought, who is this, this kid? who's putting up these times.

Tom Carter [00:03:51]:
Yeah, that's a mountain. I just rode by that mountain yesterday.

Karen Carter [00:03:55]:
Did you?

Tom Carter [00:03:55]:
I didn't go up it. It was a little too hot.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:58]:
How are your times compared to Vingegaard's times, Tom?

Tom Carter [00:04:03]:
We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to talk about that. No, no. It's not even close. But Pogačar, almost every year, somebody makes a point of trying to break Pogačar's record on that. And then he comes back and breaks it again.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:15]:
Is that right?

Tom Carter [00:04:15]:
You know, because people basically do it like a team time trial. They get a lot of help getting up the bottom parts.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:21]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:04:21]:
And then they can, they can top his time briefly over the top, but it never lasts long. We make sure he holds that record.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:28]:
I bet. I bet. Uh, let's see. My, uh, this is kind of a funny story, but my first ever bike touring experience was actually in Spain. I had a friend from high school who was working in Barcelona, and I had the opportunity to go visit her. And, while she was working, I purchased this old steel Peugeot road bike for, I think, $50. I didn't know anything about bicycle touring. Someone said, put a bike rack on the back and buy some panniers because I was just going to throw a backpack on.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:00]:
And, I started in Barcelona. Thankfully, I put panniers on because a backpack with 50 pounds of stuff in it would have been miserable, but rode from Barcelona up the Costa Brava Um, in through Girona and then up into the Pyrenees to Andorra for about probably 6 or 7 days, and then took a train back down. And I was hooked. And it's just, that has changed my life ever since then. Have you, have you been along that route, Tom?

Tom Carter [00:05:30]:
We've done that by car, but not, I haven't cycled up there.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:33]:
Okay.

Tom Carter [00:05:34]:
No, I've cycled up in, uh, the mountains of northwestern Spain, the Picos de Europa. But not in the Pyrenees, not yet. But we love to go up there. The hiking's fantastic and it's cool in the summer.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:47]:
How about Mallorca?

Tom Carter [00:05:49]:
Haven't cycled there either. I've only been there once briefly, even though it's close.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:53]:
It's super close.

Tom Carter [00:05:55]:
The thing about Mallorca is it's so, it's basically geologically the same as the peninsula that we're on. It was all formed at the same time. So Mallorca's quite similar to here, so it's sort of redundant. vacationing there, but I would like to bike there sometime. I definitely would like to.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:12]:
Karen, what about you? Are you a cyclist?

Karen Carter [00:06:15]:
No, I was briefly when I met Tom because he was such a cyclist. And, you know, when you're first in a relationship, like, oh, I'll do anything, you know, to like fit in, like to try to pick up hobbies of the person you're super into. And I loved it. And we did have a lot of fun. And Tom is so patient. He got me clipped in and all of that. It's just not something I've ever taken to. I'm a little bit nervous about cars.

Tom Carter [00:06:44]:
Right.

Karen Carter [00:06:46]:
But I love the— I appreciate everything about cycling. I love watching pro races. One of our first trips together was following the Tour de France in, I guess, 2011. Every year, pretty much every year, Tom's bike group from the United States, who he's ridden with this group of guys for a very long time, and we've all become good friends, like all of their wives, partners, their kids. The group comes pretty much every year since we've been to Spain, or even before. We would go to the UCI Cycling World Championships. We've been to Richmond. We've been to Innsbruck.

Karen Carter [00:07:26]:
Tom was in Glasgow. This year it'll be in Montreal. So we travel with them. They also do bike touring trips. And I am the support vehicle. So I loaded up You know, one of the more memorable times was a couple years ago. We had a little Toyota Yaris, um, you know, uh, standard shift. Um, we had a Mercedes we were gonna take.

Karen Carter [00:07:51]:
I was so excited to have a Mercedes when we moved to Spain. Everyone's like, oh, well, that's a B-Class. So a B-Class, I don't even think they sell those in the United States. That's like the workaday, you know, kind of Mercedes. And that stupid Mercedes, which was sort of our long-distance vacationing car broke literally the day before we were supposed to go on this trip. So we took a leap of faith and loaded up our little Toyota Yaris with like 4 bikes and luggage and just drove that thing over 4,000 kilometers, I think, all through Belgium, Spain, France. And I— anyway, so Tom's bike group was riding their stages and I would take the car and go to the hotels, check them in, take the bags in. And have everything ready by the time they finished their daily ride.

Tom Carter [00:08:42]:
It was during the World Championships in, in, uh, Flanders a few years ago.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:47]:
Karen, you're a hero. That's amazing. Tom, you are a lucky guy that you have that kind of support.

Tom Carter [00:08:52]:
I know, I know. I am lucky. Very lucky.

Karen Carter [00:08:55]:
Wow.

Tom Carter [00:08:56]:
Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:57]:
Now, I'm just— I've seen a Toyota Yaris. They're not big vehicles. How did you manage all of that gear?

Tom Carter [00:09:05]:
Just Tetris packing.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:07]:
Tetris packing. There you go.

Tom Carter [00:09:09]:
Yeah, we, we just worked it. Yeah, we took what we had to take and we had the bikes on a rack on the back.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:15]:
Of course.

Karen Carter [00:09:15]:
Yeah, of course.

Tom Carter [00:09:17]:
But we had to, you know, lock them up if we stayed in a city overnight and everything. And so, but it was, it was a great trip. Yeah, it was fun to ride across the country with our friends up there because the time trials were in Bruges on the west part of Flanders and the Road races were around Leuven in the east. So we rode all the way across. Beautiful country for cycling.

Jerry Kopack [00:09:39]:
Now, you mentioned Belgium, Tom. I'm curious, did you ever get into cyclocross?

Karen Carter [00:09:44]:
I did.

Tom Carter [00:09:44]:
I did used to do some races in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. Yeah, it was fun. I love doing it. I haven't done any races here, although there is a pro race that we go see every year. Matthew van der Poel and Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock have all won that race. So that's just down the coast from here. So it's fun to watch.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:03]:
I mean, it's, it's a scene, right?

Karen Carter [00:10:05]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:10:06]:
Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:10:06]:
It's crazy.

Tom Carter [00:10:06]:
It's such a great sport to watch because they just go by over and over and over again and you see them at multiple spots. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:11]:
Yeah. Really, really spectator-friendly. Now it's interesting that you brought up the United States and, you know, I'm a pretty good judge of accents here. I'm not detecting a strong Spanish accent. So you guys are from the US, right?

Karen Carter [00:10:25]:
We are.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:26]:
Okay. How did you find your way over to Spain?

Karen Carter [00:10:29]:
Well, we had been traveling a lot, you know, um, as a couple to Europe, and, you know, and we kept thinking it would be really fun to live in Europe. And in the meantime, my brother had moved to the town we're in, Javea. He's been here about 12 years with his wife and my 2 nephews. Um, they actually met and married in North Carolina, but they decided they wanted to come back to Spain where my sister-in-law, Altamira, is from. And she's from Madrid. And historically, people from Madrid have come to Javea to vacation, like for summers, Easter, because they don't— they're landlocked. So, like people from Barcelona, they have a beach. They don't need to go anywhere, or Sevilla, or whatever, you know? But so, she had grown up spending her summers here.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:19]:
Her—

Karen Carter [00:11:20]:
at the time, her mother and her sisters were here.

Tom Carter [00:11:24]:
They're—

Karen Carter [00:11:25]:
They're still primarily here. And it was— it just was a very seamless move for them. And then when we started deciding in earnest where we would want to move, it was sort of at that point, I guess it was around 2018, it was a logical point for Tom. His job and his career were kind of coming to an end as he was nearing retirement. And so we realized Javie ticked all of our boxes. We were giving my brother Paul and his wife, the specs of all the things that were important to us. We have active lifestyles. You know, we want to be able to travel a lot.

Karen Carter [00:12:02]:
We like the beach, we like the mountains, we like cycling. And they were listening and they're like, this is ticking every box and more. And also, logistically, it made sense for my family because then my parents and Paul and I, my brother and I have a lot of mutual friends. We grew up in the same town. We're just a couple years apart in age. And people who came to visit us would only have to come to one place.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:27]:
I love that. And you said— did you say 2018?

Karen Carter [00:12:31]:
Well, yeah, it was 2018 we decided, okay, let's make this happen. So we took an exploratory trip to Spain, to Jávea. Um, I, I had never been to Spain, never been to Spain, much less Jávea, but never been to Spain. Um, and Tom had only been to Barcelona. And that was a few years ago on a work trip. So we landed and— oh, and on the way flying out, our house was on the market and we got a call right as we were boarding the plane saying our realtor was like, your house is under contract. And we were like, I guess this is happening. So we landed in Javea and 3 days later bought a house.

Karen Carter [00:13:17]:
And it was the biggest leap of faith I've ever taken. And And we haven't looked back. Awesome.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:25]:
That's so amazing. So how is your Spanish?

Karen Carter [00:13:31]:
I mean, you know, it's okay. We can get by in like conversations. Honestly, mine could be a lot better. The problem is we have the privilege of being native English speakers and the whole world pretty much speaks English. So we unfortunately have the luxury of not really having to work that hard if we don't want to. Not that I don't—

Tom Carter [00:13:54]:
I—

Karen Carter [00:13:54]:
both our hearts are in the right place, but it's just, I don't know, I feel like I make a lot of excuses for myself. Clearly, this is— I'm embarrassed about this. Like, I'm old, it's hard to learn new things.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:05]:
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, Karen.

Tom Carter [00:14:09]:
Yeah, I like to travel around Spain specifically because then I have to use my Spanish more.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:15]:
There you go.

Tom Carter [00:14:16]:
So yeah. Yeah, we could be way better.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:20]:
So I want to back up and start talking about a little Warmshowers stuff here. I think I have a pretty good feel of your story now, but let's, let's talk about some Warmshowers and how did you discover it?

Tom Carter [00:14:31]:
I was riding with a friend named Joe. I think this was 2013, and he had done a trip to California and mentioned that he had stayed with a lot of Warmshowers hosts along that trip. So I said, well, what's this all about? And, um, we decided to sign up as a host. And, um, yeah, I think— did I say that was 2013?

Karen Carter [00:14:54]:
Mm-hmm.

Tom Carter [00:14:55]:
Um, yeah, and we started getting guests pretty much right away. Uh, we had our first guest was, um, a super nice guy who was traveling with his friend Mark and Aaron. And, um, he was, he was great. And he ended up staying with us 2 more times and making a point of planning his travel so that he could join us in 2015 when we rode down to— my friends and I rode down to Richmond, Virginia for the World Championships. So yeah, we got to know him quite well.

Karen Carter [00:15:26]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:15:28]:
And Karen first was a little nervous.

Karen Carter [00:15:32]:
Well, yeah, I mean, Tom said, hey, I want us to do this thing called Warmshowers. You host long-distance, you know, like bike touring, bike trekkers, people bike touring. They stay at your house. You can offer any level of support you want. You know, we have, we have spare rooms and whatever. And I was like, we don't, you know, we're, we're bringing strangers into our home. Like, what if they, what if they like take our art or our TV or, and Tom's like, well, that's a pretty elaborate ruse. Like, they're on a bike.

Karen Carter [00:16:06]:
They're gonna have like what, the TV on the back of the bike? Like, so I started to think, well, actually, and I'm not like, I don't live in a culture of fear, but it just seemed so, Weird to me, you know. Um, and then I said, all right, you know. And so, yeah, Mark Troxler, our first guest, and his friend Aaron, um, great guy, uh, from, uh, just a super cool person. We're still connected. We're connected with a lot of our, our Warmshowers guests, um, still. And as Tom said, we've traveled with them. Um, and it's been, it's been a joy to have these friendships like him develop.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:44]:
Yeah, it's, uh, I'm laughing listening to your, your story, Karen, because I told the story in a previous episode, but I'll share with you again because it's, it still makes me laugh. My dad is 93, the nicest guy you'll ever meet in the entire world. Like, I, I tell people that he would give somebody the last $5 in his pocket if it meant that he would starve that day. He is just that generous and that, and that caring. And he was visiting me in Colorado. He lives in, in Michigan where I grew up, but he was visiting me a couple years ago And I said, hey, Dad, you know that we do this thing called Warmshowers. We host bicycle travelers. I said, would you be okay? There's some people coming through.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:22]:
Would you be okay if we hosted them tonight? He's like, yeah, sounds like a great idea. And so they come in and my dad is super charismatic, chatty, gregarious. He just makes instant friends with this family. Then we all go to bed. And because we don't have a big house, this family slept in our living room. No big deal. And the next morning my dad is up. He looks a little bit tired.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:43]:
I was like, hey, Dad, how'd you sleep? He said, well, I slept okay. I woke up a lot. I said, tell me why. He said, because I kept checking on them to make sure that they weren't stealing things. I'm like, oh, Dad, it's like they're on bikes. They're not going to take anything. And there's no— like you said, Karen, like they can't put a TV on a bike or anything like that. And I think it's, it's interesting because again, he's super caring and super trusting, but it's, it's something if you haven't experienced that maybe on the other end, Then it may sound kind of strange to have people like you don't know them, but we have this amazing network called Warmshowers and it's part of this community.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:19]:
And to your point, like, it's just, you meet so many amazing people and my dad gave them all hugs and it was all emotional when they left the next day. And so everything was obviously was great. And now he's like, hey, how many people have you hosted this week? And so it's—

Karen Carter [00:18:33]:
Wow.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:33]:
He's, uh, he, he's all into it.

Karen Carter [00:18:36]:
So, yeah, it does involve a mutual level of trust and vulnerability. You know, when you open your home to strangers and they come in, I mean, you know, they might, you know, I'm sure they're like, I hope these people aren't weird, you know? And it's just been absolutely beautiful every single time.

Jerry Kopack [00:18:58]:
Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:18:58]:
I don't think we've ever had even like a neutral experience.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:03]:
You know, amazing. Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:19:05]:
I mean, the, the most neutral experience was, was a really nice man who needed to just leave his bike at our house. This was when we were still in Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C. Um, he had to fly back for, like, he was on a bike trek and he had to fly back for a funeral or something. And so we barely saw him. But I mean, if that's the worst thing you can say, yeah. Oh yeah, you're pretty lucky.

Tom Carter [00:19:28]:
I think it's possible we've hosted 100 people. And, you know, as Karen said, we've never had a bad experience. And I talked to them about their experiences, and I never hear— they never talk about bad experiences either. They talk about how often the nights when they're staying with Warmshowers guests are the best nights of their trip. And I can, and I can speak from experience as a, as a cycling traveler who stayed with Warmshowers people. Those are the highlights.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:54]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:19:55]:
of, of, of my trips, even though maybe you're sharing a couch with your friend or, or a mattress on the floor or something. Yeah, it's just a wonderful network. Um, and you do make these emotional connections with people.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:09]:
Yeah, I was gonna ask, it sounds like you have people that stay with you that you've also become friends with and travel with them. Any other people that you've stayed in contact with long term?

Karen Carter [00:20:21]:
Oh yeah, we have. I mean, we could talk for— I mean, there's so many people we could talk about, but to keep it brief, one of the— we had a family here from France, from Aix-les-Bains, Mel and Ben and their 2 daughters, Eline and Albane, who were at the time in high school. I think they're now both in university. And they came they had decided— Mel had had a health scare, thank God, that turned out to be benign, like a concern about, like, a brain tumor or something. And so thank goodness it was fine. But what it made her and her husband realize was life's too short.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:09]:
Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:21:10]:
And so they pulled the kids out of school for a year and cycled all around Spain, France, Europe, and they came and stayed with us. And at that time, COVID had hit. So we weren't even really supposed to have— Spain was on a pretty tight lockdown. This is when it was kind of getting a little more open, but the heavy restrictions had been lifted. But people were still a little nervous and they were having a hard time finding people to allow them to stay just because of COVID So we said, yeah, sure, because we have kind of a separate guest apartment. I mean, we have a small house, but We have a little apartment and they came and it was, it was great. The both kids are phenomenal artists and they made us like these origami things. I'm looking at, I'm like in our case, like, and wrote us little hand-painted notes.

Karen Carter [00:22:02]:
And, um, they ended up staying for 2 nights. Usually people come and just ask for 1 night and they end up staying 2 or 3 because they just love it, you know? And it, it's just a great experience. And we all would make dinner together. And then when we did that trip, The Yaris trip, when I was driving, when Tom and his friends were cycling, we stopped on the way home and spent 2 nights with them in the Alps. It was extraordinary, beautiful. And so we're so grateful for them, and we're hoping they come back and see us soon.

Tom Carter [00:22:39]:
Yeah, we stay in touch with them. Yeah, they're just great people.

Karen Carter [00:22:44]:
We had a guy when we were living in In Virginia, we had this guy from South Korea. His name is Moon. And so in South Korea, as you probably know, they have compulsory military service. So after he went to university and then did his military time, he traveled to the US, his first time out of, I think, out of Korea. And he landed in LA. and bought this old beater bike, like a steel frame bike, kind of like what you were talking about, and planned a route across country. He landed in, in, in the summer. He took the southern route.

Karen Carter [00:23:28]:
So he went through the Mojave, the Mojave, Mojave Desert, like on this bike. Oof. Like pedaled, pedaled, like stopped in Missouri. Um, a farmer and his wife like put him up. They taught him how to milk cows. They cooked him all this hearty Midwestern food. They, They taught him a little bit of English. Like, they helped him.

Karen Carter [00:23:48]:
His English was pretty good, but like, you know, they helped make it better. He rode through Alabama. He broke down. These 2 like grizzled guys in a pickup truck stopped, you know, and like helped him fix his bike. He got to us and he— we took him to one of Tom's cycling group guys. He and this guy Salvatore Ferro and his wife Dorothy are some of our best friends. And they are very proud Italian Americans. And they had a bocce party.

Karen Carter [00:24:18]:
They have a— they built a bocce court in their backyard, and they cooked like Italian sausage, and we drank beer, and Moon was playing bocce, and all of Tom's bike group friends, all of our friends were over. And I mean, it was so fun. He was so open to everything. And on the day he left, I just cried when he was driving off. And you know, the whole time that guy was on that bike, the whole time— because after us, he was going up to New York to fly out— he never had a helmet. Bike shorts, gloves. He didn't even have a lock. He just rode that bike.

Tom Carter [00:24:54]:
Flat pedals. Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:24:56]:
No clip-ins. Just like an 8-year-old, like how we all rode bikes when we were 8 years old.

Tom Carter [00:25:01]:
Yeah. He had so many great stories.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:06]:
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 simple and save you up to 40%. Visit bikeflights.com/warmshowers today to book a shipment. Now back to the show. I mean, what a great story and what a great reminder, because I hear this from people that they think that they need the latest titanium or amazing bike, but you don't, right? My first, my first tour was, it was a $50 bike. Moon's first bike probably was less than that. And look what he did with it.

Karen Carter [00:25:55]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:56]:
And the thing is, and this is, you guys understand this as well. Like, this is why bicycle touring is so amazing because I talk about this all the time on the, on the program that you can get in the car and you can drive to all these places. But you won't have these experiences.

Karen Carter [00:26:12]:
That's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. And the goodness of these people. I mean, we had another woman, Simone, this young girl from Denmark, right? Yeah. And she— this was when we lived here in Spain. And she was another one who just, as a kid, she was obsessed with Alaska and she had never been. And so she, when she was, I think, like 18 or 19, she just flew to Alaska. Bought a bike in Alaska and pedaled down, like pedaled all around the US, met this guy in— was it Wisconsin?

Jerry Kopack [00:26:46]:
Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:26:46]:
Like, they were partners for a while, you know? Yeah. Came and rode around with us in Spain. Like, she was wearing— she would wear like— she loved thrifting, so I would take her to all the thrift shops around our area. They call them charity shops. And she, she would pedal in like long crazy skirts and sweaters. Like there was, she'd wear a helmet, thank God. But there was never like any Lycra or you're, so to your point about, you know, you don't even need to be that trained. You just have to have an open mind and an open heart and trust people and take basic safety precautions, but otherwise just do it.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:26]:
Yeah. And, and, and I love the fact that you guys started hosting when you were in the US and then when you moved to Spain, the idea of hosting in Spain was, was probably a no-brainer, right?

Tom Carter [00:27:37]:
Yeah, yeah. We never thought about not doing it. And as soon as we changed our profile, we got, we got people. I got people here. I moved into this house a month before Karen did, and there were all kinds of things going wrong. I had a guy who asked to stay when at that point I had no, I had no hot water. I might not have had any running water at all. I can't remember.

Tom Carter [00:27:58]:
I told this guy and we were like, okay, we— he came and had like hardship duty for a couple days. But he helped me put together couches and stuff like that. Yeah, he helped me figure out the water situation. Yeah, we've had all kinds of people come through.

Karen Carter [00:28:19]:
We had probably our most— the person we met that left the biggest mark on us and all of our friends was a guy who you may have heard of. His name was Johann Georgiev. He went by the Bike Wanderer. He's really famous in Warmshowers. And the New York Times wrote a piece on him and everything.

Tom Carter [00:28:47]:
Oh, wow.

Karen Carter [00:28:49]:
We first met him, again, we were in DC, and he was Canadian of Bulgarian and Vietnamese descent. And he was living in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. Um, with his uncle. And so I, I like to ask questions of our guests, you know. I always— I like to ask questions of everybody. I always say I'm nosy but not judgmental. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just like to know where people are from and what makes them tick.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:19]:
And yeah, um, just connecting with people.

Karen Carter [00:29:22]:
Yes. And I was asking him about his past and everything, and even though he was super friendly and gracious and really smart and really sensitive, I could tell he didn't He didn't wanna talk about his past.

Tom Carter [00:29:32]:
Mm-hmm.

Karen Carter [00:29:33]:
And so, fine, fair enough. Um, and, um, but he was this super deep, poetic, amazing person. And even in the few days he stayed with us, it was like he changed our lives and the lives of our friends who got to know him just being around him. Um, he had these crazy stories of the, the first time he was on a bike, he had never even been out of Mississauga. He went to Toronto and, um, kind of, and then he went to what do you call it, Niagara Falls from there and kind of got the bike traveling bug. And then he started going all over the world, like all over the world. And he put together this blog, The Bike Wanderer. He was, even though English was not his first language, he had a beautiful grasp of the language.

Karen Carter [00:30:18]:
And he also had, he was skilled at photography. He was, he had super cool music taste. So he would interweave his photography and music all through these blogs. He had these great stories. Like one time when he decided to ride up to the Arctic Circle, he bought an inflatable kayak, which he had never used a kayak in his life. And he paddled around the Arctic Sea with the oars backwards. Like, he didn't even realize, like, you know, like just little things like that. But he met this group of hikers on the way, and one of their friends had died during the hike, like of hypothermia or something.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:01]:
Washed away.

Karen Carter [00:31:02]:
Yeah, washed away in a stream. And they couldn't locate their food drops, and they were like, it was pretty dire straits. And Johann did a 180 on his bike and pedaled 16 hours back to civilization and got like a rescue group together. You know, one time he was riding through South America, I guess, and there was a wolverine.

Tom Carter [00:31:22]:
It was in the western US.

Karen Carter [00:31:24]:
Okay, western US. This wolverine, you know, wolverines are pretty badass, for want of a better term. Like, they'll mess you up. And he was riding along and he had never— he's like, you, you can hear him talking in the video, like, what are you, some kind of dog? And the wolverine just sort of looked at him and thought, shrugged it off, like, this guy's no threat, and ambled away, you know. But, um, you know, I always feel like most bike trekkers we meet, they are kind of riding to see the world. And Johan, to me, the best way I can describe it is he seemed to be riding from it. I feel like cycling was the one way for him to stay sane and grounded. And the more arduous the journey, maybe the better, because maybe this is my— I'm not a psychoanalyst, but a way of having not to feel any maybe emotional pain or whatever people go through.

Karen Carter [00:32:22]:
Right? And then And then when we were on the trip in Belgium for the Cycling Worlds a few years ago, we got word that from our friend who had become close to him that he had taken his life.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:39]:
Right.

Karen Carter [00:32:40]:
And this sent ripples. I talk about this not to be like a total downer, but people who know Warmshowers and people who know bike triking know this guy. And every single person will tell you what a beautiful and brilliant soul he was. You know, so I'm just so grateful that we had this opportunity too.

Tom Carter [00:33:01]:
And he had, I think, a couple hundred thousand followers on YouTube. He had these beautiful videos on YouTube and had won awards from outdoor magazines and things like that. And as Karen said, he had obituaries in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Wow. But he and I had been talking shortly before that because he was frustrated because he wasn't allowed to ride at all in Canada. He was sort of stuck and I was trying to get him over here. Because we had begun to loosen up and I was able to ride again. So we tried to get him over here to stay with us.

Tom Carter [00:33:32]:
But yeah.

Karen Carter [00:33:37]:
So here's— you said lean into the emotions.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:40]:
I have goosebumps. I'm emotional myself hearing that story. Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:33:46]:
Sorry, go ahead.

Karen Carter [00:33:47]:
Go ahead.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:47]:
No, I'm just saying I'm really grateful that you shared that. Thank you. That's heavy.

Tom Carter [00:33:51]:
Yeah. Karen's been a real advocate for warmshowers. I mean, we're both advocates for warmshowers, but Karen does some writing and she's written about warmshowers. And it's really— I love the way that it spread the word and a lot of our friends now host. In fact, I had a guy here last winter from Atlanta. He was a musician. He traveled with his guitar. He sat in our living room and sang me some songs.

Tom Carter [00:34:16]:
And Karen was out of town, so she didn't meet him. But She had, uh, her parents' neighbors in Virginia, uh, had started hosting. And so they hosted this guy and they were asking him where he'd been. And he said that he traveled in Spain. And they said, oh, where'd you go in Spain? And he mentioned that he went from Valencia down to Gibraltar. And, and they said, well, we know somebody who lives in Javea. And he goes, oh, I stayed in Javea. And, and the guy goes, Yeah, our friends host Warmshowers there, Tom and Karen.

Tom Carter [00:34:47]:
He goes, that's who I stayed with. Oh, I just love this coincidence.

Karen Carter [00:34:50]:
Yeah, I was in Virginia at my parents' house, which is 2 doors down from Ken and Mary, our neighbors who host Warmshowers. And, um, Tom had this guy Walter staying with him. And then fast forward to a few months ago, Ken wrote me and was like, guess who was at our house as a guest of Warmshowers? I mean, so it's just these Crazy synchronicities.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:13]:
Yeah. I mean, the, the world is big, but I feel like the community of Warmshowers and the greater cycling community in general just makes it feel so much smaller, so much more intimate.

Karen Carter [00:35:25]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:35:25]:
And we like to also, like, like if I know somebody who's going to ride, say, down to Morocco, because you, you ride south from here in Spain and you can see Morocco, it's easy to take a ferry across. So I'll connect them with other travelers I've known who have ridden through Morocco just to help, you know, just use warmshowers to dispense advice and stories and guidance.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:46]:
Yeah. Morocco. I've been there once back in 2018. I had planned a trip this spring and life kind of got in the way, but my plan was to start in Marrakesh, cycle up through the High Atlas, take the ferry across to Spain, and then tour around basically your neck of the woods. So who knows if life didn't happen, I could have ended up on, on your floor.

Tom Carter [00:36:09]:
It's not too late. You're welcome anytime. You won't have to sleep on the floor though. We do have a bed.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:14]:
Well, it's a little hot right now in those places. So it is. I live in, uh, in Breckenridge for a reason because I think our hottest day is 75 in the summer. So yeah, it's maybe a little bit warmer in, uh, in that part right now, right?

Tom Carter [00:36:28]:
Yeah, well, we're lucky here because we, we're surrounded by water. We're on a peninsula that sticks out, so it's much better than most of Spain has been and most of Europe has been, in fact. Yeah, but it is the winter when we get We get requests probably at least once a week because if you want to ride a bike in Europe in the winter, this is the place to do it in southern Spain. So many people go from Barcelona to Gibraltar or Valencia to Gibraltar. Yeah, it's just a beautiful ride.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:55]:
Which I guess further demonstrates why there's so many pro cyclists who live in that part of the world because you can ride in the winter.

Tom Carter [00:37:03]:
Yeah, all the teams train here in the winter.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:05]:
As I mentioned, and obviously you guys know this, with the proximity of Spain to the rest of Europe, I mean, you're a couple hours train or drive or whatever from different cultures. Like, you, you cross the border and you're in Portugal, you cross the border and you're in Morocco, you cross the border and you're in Germany, France, all these places. So what, uh, is there a prevalent nationality that you guys see coming through, through Spain?

Karen Carter [00:37:31]:
Ooh.

Tom Carter [00:37:32]:
Is there a prevalent nationality? Probably the most common are German, Dutch, and Belgians, I think. We've had a lot of really good groups of all those. I had a Dutch woman. Again, this is when Karen was out of town, and I love to have guests when she's out of town because she goes back and works in the States a few times a year. you know, it's just nice to have the company and they have a whole separate apartment on a different level of the house. But this woman, she saw our apartment and she'd been like sleeping on couches or camping with other people. And she was like, do you think I could stay 2 nights? And I said, of course you could. She ended up staying 4 nights.

Tom Carter [00:38:13]:
Uh, Jessie from Rotterdam, she was great. She went hiking with my, with my friends, got to meet people and cook me Dutch pancakes and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it, I love those times when people just feel like they can make themselves at home and really get a, get some time, get some privacy, get some time to themselves and, uh, and recharge their batteries.

Jerry Kopack [00:38:34]:
Yeah. What are some of the, uh, the cool must-sees or not-to-miss places where you guys are?

Tom Carter [00:38:42]:
Hmm. You mean right in this area? Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:38:44]:
Like if someone's coming through, 'cause you know, that's, that's kind of the cool thing about a Warmshowers host. They could say, hey, yeah, take this road, not that one. This is more scenic, has less traffic, or you definitely should go and climb this pass or go to this beach.

Tom Carter [00:38:57]:
Yeah, no, and, and, and we live out, as I mentioned, on this peninsula, and it's, um, it's all cliffs, like at least 100 meters up from the sea. Um, so it's absolutely a gorgeous part of the shore, of the Mediterranean shore, one of the— I think one of the prettiest parts of the whole Mediterranean shore. So, and you can see so much of that from, from, from bikes. And, um, and then, I mean, I just love all the mountains and valleys and little villages inland.

Karen Carter [00:39:25]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:39:25]:
I think they're spectacular. And we have tourists here because it's a beach town, particularly this time of year. But the tourists never go into those parts. So you really feel like you're stepping into rural Spain. The price of food, price of a cup of coffee and a bocadillo just diminishes by an order of magnitude. It's just so inexpensive to go stop at a little restaurant and—

Jerry Kopack [00:39:54]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:39:55]:
sitting around with all the old guys having brandy for breakfast. You know, it's, it's, it's— yeah, we love, we love this part of Spain. But, but Valencia is a spectacular city, one of my favorite cities in the world. And the city to the south of us, Alicante, is really a great city too. And yeah, Spain's, Spain's a wonderful place.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:14]:
So I kind of want to wrap this up and kind of bring it full circle. And this is kind of a general question. I know that, Karen, you've already shared a really emotional story, but I want you guys to kind of come back to this is how do you feel that this experience of Warmshowers, of hosting or traveling, Tom, has, uh, has it had an effect on you? Has it changed you in any way?

Tom Carter [00:40:38]:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, I think, I think there, I think there's no better education than meeting, than getting to know people from different cultures. Um, and we started that in the United States. We, we had mostly American guests, but we did, we had guests from, from at least England, Korea. I can't remember where else we had in the States. But, oh, well, Johan, you know, from Canada by— Bulgaria by way of Canada. But yeah, I think that really made me more interested in seeing more of the world and in possibly moving to another place.

Tom Carter [00:41:18]:
I do think that getting to know Johan and his approach to life made us think more about taking advantage of adventures and doing things that were, you know, outside your comfort zone. And so I think that it had to, it had a lot to do with us moving, deciding to move to Europe and make this big change.

Karen Carter [00:41:38]:
I think too, it's what I, what I love about bikepacking is it teaches you how little you need in life to have a very good life. and a very— probably one of the coolest kind of lives, you know? And it's a new way of kind of looking at work and the whole work-life balance. And I'm of a different generation, you know? I mean, I'm 61, and it was just, you know, I love the way we are— younger generations are approaching the idea of work and living. And I think it's so important. The other thing I'll say is, you know, I don't think it's any secret, it's challenging times for all of us. us right now globally, in the United States. It's pretty divisive. And every single time I meet people, and we get people of all ages, mostly I'd say people in their 20s, 30s, all ages, and you hear their stories and you just— and they're so good.

Karen Carter [00:42:41]:
You know, they're so good. I could, I could literally list— I could take 5 hours of your time and go through every single guest we've had and all the interesting people. And I just— if any of them are listening, we didn't mention you. It's not because, like, you know, you didn't stand out. But I mean, it's so empowering and hopeful. And I think we just need that. I do, to see, like, there's still so much goodness in the world, and there's still so much kind of community and respect and generosity of spirit.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:18]:
Yeah.

Karen Carter [00:43:19]:
Um, and Warmshowers has really, really taught us that. And when Tom was on the opposite end riding with his friend Ed down to Portugal and they were guests in Warmshowers, like, I mean, you had the most lovely hosts.

Tom Carter [00:43:32]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:33]:
You know?

Tom Carter [00:43:33]:
It was wonderful.

Karen Carter [00:43:34]:
Yeah.

Tom Carter [00:43:35]:
Yeah. And I say, and I think the only thing I would add to that is that you meet people who, who see the world as a place of opportunity, as a place of adventure and wonder and exploration and learning instead of seeing the world as a place of danger and fear. And that's, that's what we all need to try to do. Wow.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:59]:
Whoo, I'm emotional just hearing you guys. That's amazing. I, I full wholeheartedly echo every one of those sentiments from, from my own hosting experiences and my own being hosted traveling experiences. Wow. Um, thank you so much for sharing these really heartfelt stories today. This is— this has been a lot of fun. Thank you.

Tom Carter [00:44:23]:
Thank you.

Karen Carter [00:44:23]:
Oh my gosh, this was so fun, and we love what you're doing. I mean, yeah, this is a great— what a, what a lovely job you have that you're promoting this, what, this great lifestyle.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:34]:
I, I tell people I have the greatest job because I love cycling, I love traveling, I love all the sentiments that shared about seeing the world through somebody else's perspective, getting to make connections that you wouldn't have otherwise made. And then, I get to talk to people about all these experiences and hear their stories. I have the coolest job, so I'm pretty fortunate.

Tom Carter [00:44:57]:
Well, let us know when you want to come to Spain.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:59]:
Yeah. Tell our listeners again and for me, myself, what is the name of the town you're in?

Tom Carter [00:45:05]:
It's called Jávea. It's actually got 2 spellings because we have 2 languages here. We have, you know, Castellano, the main Spanish language, but also Catalan Valenciano. So it's often on a map, it's spelled X-A-B-I-A, or it can be spelled J-A-V-E-A. So it's, it's confusing on a map. So it's either Xàbia in Valenciano or Javea in Castellano.

Jerry Kopack [00:45:31]:
I am making a note because when spring comes around, Next year, my plan is to revisit that plan that I had and then make my way over to Jabiya.

Karen Carter [00:45:43]:
Yes, we'd love it.

Tom Carter [00:45:45]:
We would love to meet you in person.

Jerry Kopack [00:45:46]:
I love it. And as we wrap up our 150th episode, I want to extend a huge wave of gratitude to every Warmshowers host out there. You all really are the unsung heroes who make this incredible community possible. And my hope is that people continue to explore the world on 2 wheels, experience the generosity that makes warmshowers so special. And then maybe one day when your trip is over, maybe you open your door to a bicycle traveler, because that's how this community grows, one act of kindness at a time. The world needs more people willing to welcome strangers, share a meal, and to borrow a phrase from a previous guest, Turn those strangers into friends. So thanks for listening. And as always, keep the wheels rolling and the stories coming.

Jerry Kopack [00:46:40]:
Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Gerry Kopak, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. 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 To become part of this amazing community, visit us at warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram @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 at podcast@warmshowers.org.