One day in 2001, Alistair Humphreys jumped on his bicycle, pedalled up the hill, around the corner and out of sight. He wouldn't return for four years.
During that time the 28-year-old covered 50,000 miles, passing through Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America on his 'round-the-world bike trip.
As bike tours go, he knew this would be a tough one from the outset. Although he kicked around the idea for three years before he left on the solo ride and trained with the Royal Geographical Society before leaving, the reality of the hardships he would face struck him after the first day. He writes on his website, Round the World by Bike:
“After day 1 I was exhausted and the face-punch of reality had kicked in. There was no glamour at all and this was going to be very hard work in every way imagineable.”
Three months into the trip Humphreys was ready to give up, then he looked at a map and saw how far he'd already travelled.
“I tried to think of all the reasons, of all the things I would miss if I went home,” he told an Associated Press reporter as he stopped in Paris on his way home. It was the closest he came to giving up.
In addition to just giving him a chance to experience the world, Humphreys made the trip to raise money for the Hope and Homes for Children charity. He realized the importance of this charity as he sat in Istanbul, Turkey, looking into the turmoil of western Asia.
He travels thousands of miles of empty road on his trip, pushes his bicycle through deep sand in the Sudan (pictured above), camps under the stars, and subsists mainly on popcorn, bread, pasta and bananas. He's also hosted by many people on the planet, such as a shotgun-toting orange-grove guard in Turkey and children in an orphanage in Khartoum.
After riding to the tip of Africa, he crews on a racing yacht to South America where he picks up his journey riding north to Alaska. From there he hitches a ride aboard a freighter steaming to Japan, rides across China, Russia, back to Turkey, through Europe and then home.
His website contains a thorough and personal journal of his bike journey, and he working at turning the whole adventure into a book.
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