One of the basic needs, right? One of the classic questions we got from people when we told them about our trip. Their eyes widened with fear and they asked: “And where are you going to sleep??”
So we looked into the past 70 nights (yes, that’s how long we’re on this journey) and here’s a little statistics:
Warmshowers – 17 nights
If you’re not familiar with this website and you’re only remotely thinking about doing a little cycling trip, let us introduce you. It’s a great community of people, cycle tourists or not, offering their homes, lawns, garages, showers and kitchens for the use of cycle tourists. It’s based on generosity, hospitality and reciprocity, so when you come home from your trip, you can return that favour. 50% of members come from Europe, 32 from North America and the rest is divided in single percentages between the rest of the continents. Therefore the message is: Go and start cycle touring in Europe or North America :).
We’ve had only good and great experience so far. With some hosts you just feel that instant click that you’re on the same wave. We always tell them about the dogs in advance and we deliberately pick people with animals. Our experience so far has been the best with animal lovers anyway. We’ve met some really interesting people, like Ethel who cycled 79 miles on her 79th birthday or Jerry who digs out garnets and human bones.
Unofficial warmshowers – 7 nights
These are the people that saw our funny appearance on the road and they invited us to stay with them. We talked about them already and you can read about them here and here. We value this act of kindness probably even more than warmshowers. Warmshowers acts as a little safety net, as people give feedback to each other but to invite a stranger to your house requires real trust and hope in people.
Campgrounds – 14 nights
We previously said we don’t like campgrounds. They are full of people, especially in summer, in Canada quite expensive (around 30 CAD and doesn’t matter if your whole family has come in RV or you’re two cyclists in a small tent) and the dogs have to be leashed all the time, so not much fun for them. In US there’s something called hiker/biker campsites for 5-8 USD per person so we may use those more, especially if there’s shower on site. So to summarise, we limit our campground presence to national parks, need of shower, base to explore surroundings light-weighted or if we meet a fellow cyclist and we share the cost of the site.
Motel – 1 night
As you can see, really an exception, when we really needed to charge our stuff, work quietly on the blog and we even had the luxury of a bath not only shower!! 😀 We were very lucky with our choice of Gateway Motel and we can only recommend it.
Wild camping – 31 nights
And the rest is sleeping out there in the wild – in the forest, next to a lake or river, behind a gas station, in a city park, on somebody’s driveway (with a permission), in the field. This is the real fun. Not everytime is picturesque, but everytime is unique. We no longer worry much about the place (ok, Luba still does a little). If we really can’t find anything suitable, then we just wait for the darkness and put the tent up literally anywhere. And we wake up with the sunrise. It’s the best accommodation for the dogs definitely. They can run around freely, chase squirrels and play all the time. For more reasons why to go out and sleep in million stars hotel, go here.
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