My last trip before pandemic shut down travel was to Bermuda. March 2020.
Exactly 2 years later I was finally able to return. Just in time to help with the annual Bermuda International Gymnastics Competition (VIDEO) — though we had no international competitors this year. We kept it fast and fun hoping to inspire kids that the new normal would soon be here.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The #1 expert is MatthewNorway on YouTube.
Matthew just launched a website for folks — like me — who want to information on how to ride in one of the most expensive nations:
I’d already hired Matthew to plan a 3000km route for me starting July 2022.
I’ll be using his new website, as well.
Click PLAY or watch an introduction on YouTube.
A new upgrade to my life is this lightweight minimalist wallet.
It carries only 2 cards (driver’s licence & credit) along with some emergency cash.
I don’t attach it to a phone. Instead I keep it in a a dedicated zippered card pocket which most of my pants and shorts feature.
What I like best is using it as a phone kickstand.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’ve experimented with many tripods over the past 2 years. CRITICAL gear as I mostly travel solo and want to take photos and videos of myself while adventuring.
Weight and volume are super important. I can take them all on some bikepacking trips. But for hiking, I usually only take two of the smallest. All of these tripods can hold any of my 3 small cameras.
My favourite is the Miggo Splat. Super tough. Very reliable. BUT I did manage to break one.
Even better — but not as durable — is the Fotopro uFO 2.
Like the Splat, it can wrap around fence posts, tree branches, almost anything.
Least likely to make a hiking or bikepacking trip is my Neewer 56 inches/142 centimeters tripod. It’s good — but 2.73 pounds/1.24 kilograms is often too heavy.
I’m not much of a selfie stick guy, but the new-to-me 3m / 9ft Insta360 Extended Edition Selfie Stick has me intrigued. I MIGHT even end up getting one of their expensive Action Cameras.
I’ll often take it along despite the 365gm / 12.8oz load.
I bought the lightest JOBY GorillaPod I could. Only 325 Grams. But it’s pretty flimsy for anything more than a phone camera. I’ve never had much luck with JOBY. Those arms break easily.
So far I’m really liking my new DJI Mini SE drone. Until I crash it 🤔 … drone footage can replace tripod for long establishing shots.
Shooting video of yourself when alone can be tricky. Here’s how I’m doing it, so far.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
PLAN is visit the remote Faroe Islands summer 2022 as part of my PLANNED Norway, Faroes & Iceland cycling tour. 🤞
Weird and evocative.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I took a gap year between High School and University.
SUPER happy I did.
It opened my eyes to the bigger world. Other cultures. Other ways of thinking.
Niklas Christl didn’t know what to do when he graduated High School. Here he documents what happened on his gap year — and how it changed his life.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Sept. 1990
When I wrote this I had just moved from Calgary to Saskatoon, the summer of 1990 — expecting to stay 1 year. I ended up staying 10 years.
I was a tourist in Saskatchewan.
I drive home alone from Saskatoon to Calgary, in September, in the late afternoon. I take the smaller, stair-casing highways, speeding with impunity. There seems to be no R.C.M.P. left in Saskatchewan.
I drive through towns with great names like Bounty, Wartime and Conquest. Who got to name these places?
The prairies are a never ending stream of checkerboard fields, barns, churches, cows, dust-devils, road kill and ponderous, overloaded farm trucks. The heat rises off the roadway and seems to evaporate the mirage pools of water before I can enjoy splashing through them. The smells are … well, unique to the Prairies. And I never knew there were so many hawks in all of the world.
Grand daddy grasshoppers wing by as big as birds. Slower, less experienced insects splatter my windshield. The freshly oiled gravel roads splatters my car as well, but I don’t care.
I stop at Outlook, Saskatchewan and sit out in the middle of a sandbar in the middle of the Old Man River. The air is calm, the sun is smoking and the song in my head is called …
I never believed that I’d grow old.
The sandbar is the highlight of the drive. Glorious. The last day of the longest summer of my life. I wish it would never end.
If I could make a wish,
I think I’d pass …
Like everyone else in Saskatchewan, I listen to CBC AM radio constantly. The weather is updated every 15 minutes. They report that the canola is too dry to reap. It will shatter if harvested. But the wheat is still too moist to take off the field. Saskatchewan weather is one big Catch-22.
Driving West into the setting sun, I find myself alone with my thoughts. I dream a grand scheme.
As night falls, I approach Drumheller and the badlands. The warmth from my big mug of tea is comforting.
It’s harvest here. Dusty farmers take dinner on the tractor this evening and plan to work all night. I see the bright lights of combines bobbing along in the dark in every field.
I drive home alone from Saskatoon to Calgary in September.
I tried and failed to fly a DJI Spark drone when it was released 2017. Did not once get it off the ground. It was a dead weight on my Patagonia trip that year.
In 2021 the (Mavic) Mini SE is their entry level model. CAD $349. … How long before I break it? 😀
I’ve either gotten a lot smarter — or their drones are much easier to operate now.
Click PLAY or watch the 1st flight on YouTube.
The one tourist attraction in Seville not widely touted are the beautiful bridges.
Click PLAY or watch more attractions on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 