Actually, I'll have you know that it is! It's a very clever portmanteau of the words bike and backpacker. See?
Bikepacking is of course the cyclist's equivalent of backpacking and involves travelling by bike, potentially over very large distances, and often with camping gear and other essential items in panniers. It has all the makings of the most rewarding way possible to see a place.
I haven't yet done any bikepacking. I've been on many, international cycling holidays, in Romania, Italy, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Montenegro and Austria, and they've all been amazing. But those holidays involved an itinerary and route being provided to us, our hotel accommodation booked in advance and our luggage being taken by car or van from hotel to hotel. Very nice. But not bikepacking.
The adventure of bikepacking is calling to me though. And has been for over ten years, since a work colleague told me about some of the amazing journeys he'd undertaken in Europe and in Africa. Wanderlust or at least the two-wheeled variety, has started to get under my skin.
This blog will chart my planning, preparation and eventually I hope, my experience of bikepacking. One day. When the world is a safer place and the freedoms many of us took for granted have perhaps been restored.
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