World Tour
On the final day of March 2019 we set off from Telford, Shropshire to circumnavigate the World on our bicycles. We planned to cycle 24,000 miles and cross more than 30 different countries.
5 Years and 1 global pandemic later we returned to the Arc de Triomphe, Paris on the 26th May 2024 to complete our circumnivation of the world by bicycle.
The stories below document our journey around the world. You can also find our route and stats here.
Finally, here are all of the images from our cycling in Turkey. Turkey was one of our favourite countries to date. Very beautiful, very hospitable and cuisine was so good!
I think a lot of cyclists come to Azerbaijan to go to Baku and that’s kind of it…it feels to me like to others Azerbaijan is just the country to get across the Caspian Sea, but I think it has so much more 😍
Stew and I arrived in Gabele a few days ago, we headed straight to a cafe for dinner. The staff in the cafe didn’t speak any English so I signalled that we wanted food. Namik (pictured) stood up to help us.
This has to be the biggest mystery of the trip so far… As Stew said: “I don’t think people are very good at finding a gap in the market here.”
I can only assume that people in Azerbaijan are used to seeing tourists – and cycle tourists, but even though they see many I believe they greet each person with the same gusto.
This lady was a delight! Encouraged by another cyclist to buy bread from the baker at the bottom of the hill we stopped and picked up a fresh loaf.
Azerbaijan has got it all! The food is fabulous, the hospitality is wonderful and the winding roads & changing views are beautiful.
We’d been speaking with @adventure.in.tandem for a while on Instagram and when we realised they were travelling west through Azerbaijan we were keen to cross paths! Yesterday was the day and I’d spent most of the morning looking out for a blue tandem 😍
Almost straight away Stew got a puncture 😱 the first one so far! He was happy with the time it took him to change it, around 20 minutes to unload the bike, change the tube, locate the metal, put the tire back on and load the bike again.
Meeting this brilliant bunch was one of the highlights of our day! Meet Ryan Farrugia, Aaron Azzopardi, Jude Sciberras and Daniel Debono. This energetic crew of 3 electricians and an aircraft sprayer are taking part in the Mongol Rally.
This is George! A lovely cyclist who we met yesterday. George was a ray of sunshine in our day – and we had surprising connections to this Romanian cyclist!
Before I started this trip the one thing I was afraid of was dogs! I even said this to the local paper who laughed down the phone – how can you cycle around the world and be scared mostly of dogs.
The roads in Georgia were nothing short of terrible. Of all the countries we’ve visited we rank Georgia as the second worse, only to Uzbekistan.
Well today marks 4 months on the road with my best friend and boyfriend. 🥰 For the last 4 months we’ve been living on our bicycles, moving to a new place almost every single day.
When we stayed in Batumi, Stew and I stayed with a Georgian family. This family cooked dinner and breakfast for us and welcomed us into their home for 2 nights. During our stay they were celebrating the new arrival of a baby girl into the family.
Yesterday we arrived in Tbilisi! We’ve worked hard on the bike the last few days so today we’ve enjoyed some rest. The day before arriving in Tbilisi we had one of our favourite moments of the trip…
Here are some of the faces of cyclists we met on our way to Goderdzi pass! David, Sam, Joseph, Karel, Julio and Damiene.
Well today we made it, we climbed to Goderdzi pass, 6643ft (2025m) above sea level. This is now the highest climb of the trip. The road continued to be tough this morning and with a very thick mist the views were not what we hoped for.
Today got me thinking about cycle-touring, adventure & challenges and the relationship between the three.
We booked an Airbnb, expecting a place to ourselves, but ended up staying with a Georgian family in their home. The home was listed incorrectly on Airbnb, but the moment we walked through the door we couldn’t have been happier.
Özgür cycled past, pulled out google translate and we told him about our trip. He took us for tea in the cutest cafe/bookshop and we met Merve, Ceren and Can. Merve spoke perfect English. She was studying English Literature for her Masters and reading Shakespeare. I was so impressed.
Mustafa was our warmshowers host in Rize, he was recommended to us by @cycling_east Mustafa has a lovely and very popular cafe in Rize.
The road surface in Turkey was for the most part, exceptional. We had not yet travelled to any country that had some smooth and undamaged roads. It was an absolute treat to ride here.
Please enjoy this blog post about a fantastic warmshowers host and I’ll tell you about the wonderful group we met this evening tomorrow!