We each bike an average of 10,000kms per year just delivering other peoples things in congested cities. We decided to deliver ourselves around the Americas instead.
David and I just started evaluating the things in our life. We worked 9 hours a day as bike messengers busting our backs and getting run over by cars to deliver things for corporate giants like big oil and banks (boo). We would spend our vacations and weekends biking out of the cities we worked in to find peace and DREADED the treck back into Toronto or DenHaag when Sunday came. David is Dutch and I am Canadian. We both want to be farmers (pesants really) just living off of the land simply but with immigration in Canada for him or the Netherlands for me, you have to make money to stay. If David and I wanted to be together in one of our countries we had to do the 9 to 5.
We wanted to have eternal vacation, like everyone else..so we worked more, to make more money but that didn't mean more vacation. It wasn't until we started thinking about the other side of riches, not having a lot of money but rather not spending a lot of money that we realised we could do it.
In August/September of 2012 David and I had a one week of vacation from our courier company in Toronto. This is as long as we could afford to stay away from work before the bills would pile up and the bank account would empty. We were biking around Ontario, Georgian Bay mostly and it was paradise. We started wild camping. Just camping in the unused bush which saved us at least $30 a day! We stopped eating at restaurants and started picking through the discount bins and cooking our own healthy, cheap meals. We also had been studying about wild edible plants and ate at least 3 varieties a day, more vitamins and less money spent! This paired with collecting cans at 10cents a pop off of the side of the road put us at the end of our forcasted vacation week with more money than we started with. A few phone calls to our clients extended our vacation to two weeks and we lived the life we wanted for 7 days longer. We started thinking. What if we didn´t have cell phones! What if we didn´t pay rent!! We can do it! This vacation taught us that we could live on $5 a day, $2 for each of us and $1 for the dog.
We arrived back in Toronto and punched the numbers again. Our previous estimates had been more than $50 a day for an extended bike tour. Now at $5 we realized we could afford to bike to Paraguay (how we came upon Paraguay is another story). We realized that we had 4 weeks to plan. Get rid of our apartment and all of our things, close our business, tell our family and friends and plan the last minute details. Could we do it? I called my Mom and told her what we were thinking.. I said I think we might have to wait until next year. She said .. why wait? That day David and I decided we would leave 4 weeks later on October 7th.
Since then we have just been doing what we want to do! Every day we meet new people who teach us new skills. Every skill we wanted (and some we didn't know about) have just landed in our laps! Life is what you make it.
We have spent more time thinking about why we do what we do, why we buy what we buy. We have pulled our heads out of our phones and started talking to people, their advice and information is so much more valuable then google or imaps. We have learnt so many new ways to save money and have greater experiences on this trip. I really enjoy my life.
We wanted to have eternal vacation, like everyone else..so we worked more, to make more money but that didn't mean more vacation. It wasn't until we started thinking about the other side of riches, not having a lot of money but rather not spending a lot of money that we realised we could do it.
In August/September of 2012 David and I had a one week of vacation from our courier company in Toronto. This is as long as we could afford to stay away from work before the bills would pile up and the bank account would empty. We were biking around Ontario, Georgian Bay mostly and it was paradise. We started wild camping. Just camping in the unused bush which saved us at least $30 a day! We stopped eating at restaurants and started picking through the discount bins and cooking our own healthy, cheap meals. We also had been studying about wild edible plants and ate at least 3 varieties a day, more vitamins and less money spent! This paired with collecting cans at 10cents a pop off of the side of the road put us at the end of our forcasted vacation week with more money than we started with. A few phone calls to our clients extended our vacation to two weeks and we lived the life we wanted for 7 days longer. We started thinking. What if we didn´t have cell phones! What if we didn´t pay rent!! We can do it! This vacation taught us that we could live on $5 a day, $2 for each of us and $1 for the dog.
We arrived back in Toronto and punched the numbers again. Our previous estimates had been more than $50 a day for an extended bike tour. Now at $5 we realized we could afford to bike to Paraguay (how we came upon Paraguay is another story). We realized that we had 4 weeks to plan. Get rid of our apartment and all of our things, close our business, tell our family and friends and plan the last minute details. Could we do it? I called my Mom and told her what we were thinking.. I said I think we might have to wait until next year. She said .. why wait? That day David and I decided we would leave 4 weeks later on October 7th.
Since then we have just been doing what we want to do! Every day we meet new people who teach us new skills. Every skill we wanted (and some we didn't know about) have just landed in our laps! Life is what you make it.
We have spent more time thinking about why we do what we do, why we buy what we buy. We have pulled our heads out of our phones and started talking to people, their advice and information is so much more valuable then google or imaps. We have learnt so many new ways to save money and have greater experiences on this trip. I really enjoy my life.