Anytime I travel completely key free it is so liberating! Every summer for the past ten years I would leave my house key with the person subletting my room while I traveled and my work keys definitely stayed home, but often I still had a car key to keep track of during my travels. Then in May I gave up my job and my much-loved rental house so my car key was truly all that I had left.
Image: Small 1930s cottage with a red front door and a park-like yard of green grass in front of it.
Some summers during the last ten years were completely car, and thus, key free though. For example, the summer I lived and worked as a mountain guide in the rural Alaskan town of McCarthy in Wrangell Saint Elias National Park.
Image: Me backlit and surrounded by ice while wearing crampons and striking a yoga-esque pose.
There were also a few summers where I flew out of CA and lived exclusively on my bike and left Sally at home in the garage all summer. I loved the feeling of not having any keys on my person! However, last week I sold Sassy Sally the Blue Sensation and this is the first time in my life I have truly been home and car free. I sure do hope Lady Long Legs (my touring bike) and I get along well for the foreseeable future! I have to admit Sally and I have had a ton of great adventures together and I felt a bit melancholy letting her go, and a bit unmoored by being truly house-free, as Sally has served as my mobile home for the last five months in addition to most of the last ten summers. The following are a few images of Sally in her natural environment over the years.
My decision to leave the Arizona Trail much earlier than expected and thus doubling my time in Santa Barbara has really paid off. I have been keeping consistently busy taking care of necessary details as I transition to a time period of indefinite length traveling internationally. Selling my car and getting my CA Real ID driver’s license are two specific examples, but there have been hundreds of small tasks which I am still working through. I can’t image coming back from the race completely shattered and making all this happen in a two week period.
Having this time to spend with all my great local friends of the last ten years in Santa Barbara, as well as spending this wonderful condensed time with Jesse, has really filled my lovebucket to the brim as I set off into the world again soon.
Next up is three months in New Zealand! This will be my second trip to New Zealand as a cycle-tourist with a bikepacking rig. Last time I was there for one month, but this time I will spend three full months in this fairytale land. I spent my first trip exclusively on the South Island and will likely spend most of this trip on the South Island as well, since it has many more remote wild spaces than the North Island. Though I may ride to my outbound flight in Auckland (northern North Island) if time allows.
Image: Mountain tarns with a barely visible sleeping hut.
Image: Bright red tiny hut in the foreground perched high on a mountain edge and a dramatic valley in the background.
I loved my time with Kiwi’s so much! They are such a friendly outdoorsy bunch of people with a dry sense of humor that I greatly enjoy! It felt so safe and welcoming there. My favorite part of being in New Zealand was that absolutely no one made a big deal out of my being a woman traveling alone on my bike. I can never go two full days bikepacking in the U.S. without someone feeling the need to comment on how brave I am and how dangerous it is for me to be out there alone, constantly reminding me to “be careful”. It was so incredibly refreshing to have my choices and behavior treated as reasonable in New Zealand. I look forward to more of that, three wonderful summer months of that! I am definitely a sun chaser! I can’t wait for the long days!
I arrive in New Zealand just in time to do two trails that close to bikes on December 1 (because they are “Great Walks” with high foot traffic): the Charlotte Track and the Heaphy Track on the northeastern and northwestern corners, respectively, of the South Island. Even better is that my friends Scott and Eszter, who I was lucky enough to bump into on my last trip to NZ, had the same idea and we will be meeting up to ride some or all of these tracks together!
Image: Two women (who happen to look like sisters!) and a man sitting together outside a hostel.
Since it’s very difficult to enter any country without proof that you intend to leave, with an exit ticket being the preferred evidence, I was forced to decide where I wanted to go next after New Zealand and as a result have a ticket to Tasmania, Australia in mid-February. Beyond that… who knows?! I do know it will be an adventure and that I won’t be carrying any keys!
Image: Orange touring mountain bike in front of a sign that says Brush Mountain Lodge.