Dear Friends,
If you’re reading this, then you already know… My wife and I are pregnant preparing for a cycling adventure!
In just over a week, Amberlynn and I will fly to Northwest China and pedal west along the legendary Silk Road through Central Asia.
Our rough plan is mapped out in the photo below. We’ll start in far west China, cut across a corner of Kazakhstan, meander through Kyrgyzstan, suffer and delight through the roof of the world on the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan, explore ancient cities and gorgeous architecture in Uzbekistan, potentially visit the mysterious country of Turkmenistan (if we can obtain visas). Sadly, as Americans we’ll have to bypass Iran. It’s very challenging to get a visa there. As our governments duke it out on the world’s stage, we’ll miss out on the infamous Iranian hospitality. Instead, we plan to hop on a plane and explore the Arabian Peninsula as the temperatures recede into the winter months. Tentatively we’ll fly into the modern United Arab Eremites before cycling through the less flashy Sultanate of Oman.
If these places sound foreign, you’re not alone. Until we started researching the trip, my geographical knowledge about this part of the world was scarce. With ill-formed borders from the collapse of the Soviet Union, these countries are still young and redefining their identities.
It all seems so simple on Google Maps! In reality we’ll travel somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 miles over the course of 6 months.
We’ve been planning this trip for more than a year, yet inevitably there is so much to due as the starting line approaches. We’re down the wire with a little more than a week to go, it’s crunch time. As the calendar whisks the days away, we’re hurrying to make final preparations and say our farewells to friends and family. This isn’t goodbye, it’s simply au revoir.
So if you’d like, please feel welcome to follow along on our journey. We look forward to sharing stories, photos, and videos from the road. If you’d like to get emails on your inbox when a new blog post is published, you can sign up here for emails. If RSS is more your thing (it’s totally my thing), the RSS feed is here. You can also follow us on Facebook.
My apologies that this blog is really out of date (still detailing my motorcycle ride back in 2009). I’ll be updating it in due time. If I say I will l fix something, I will. There is no need to remind me every 6 months…
Let the adventure begin!
-Ben
A Few More Miles 