Coming up…a new adventure…

We spent June and July at my parents’ house in Philadelphia, where we put the plans in motion to start up our own e-commerce company. What will we be selling? Cyclotourism equipment – what else! We at least have a lot of knowledge of the different types of equipment, and there are very few people selling equipment specifically for cyclotourism. So we should have an advantage there. We plan on selling mostly to the American and European markets, and are currently.. Read More »

The end of the road…

We did it!!! After several years of traveling the back-country roads of several continents, we finally finished our bike trip! Crossing over 26 time zones, it took us a total of 4 years and 10 months (including the approximately one year that we spent between Pennsylvania and France with our families during the course of the trip). We biked across 22 countries on 4 continents, including 10 months in Europe, 4 1/2 months in the Middle East, 6 months in India, over 1 year.. Read More »

To Philadelphia…our last week on the road…

It took us three days to bike from Maryland to my parents’ home in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia – our final destination.

The small, rural routes of Maryland made for great biking. We saw hawks, vultures, bald eagles, rabbits, deer, turtles, groundhogs, and other small mammals and birds. We biked past dairy farms, wheat fields and cornfields, and savored the occasional odor of fragrant honeysuckle wafting on the breeze. The road rem.. Read More »

The Atlantic Coast
We hit the Atlantic coast in the charming southern town of Savannah, which sits alongside the Savannah River amid Low Country swamps and mammoth live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Steeped in tradition, Savannah’s history can be seen in its antebellum mansions, cotton warehouses and colonial public buildings.

Savannah is a fabulous city for long, leisurely strolls. The city’s main attractions are its twenty-odd squares and its grand 18th- and 19th-century southern ho.. Read More »

The Deep South
We started out from New Orleans by heading over the river and into the state of Mississippi. Our plan was to stay on the Gulf Coast. All the way from Louisiana to Florida, we were directly on the gulf, the beach and the ocean just a few steps away. The Mississippi shoreline was still undergoing a recovery effort from Hurricane Katrina, which hit in August 2005. Houses that had once stood on the water’s edge were vanished, torn from their foundations. Only pieces of stilts remai.. Read More »

North vs. South
There are a lot of differences between the North and the South, between the “Yankees” and the “Confederates.” Some are subtle, but others are very obvious.

One of the most obvious differences is how people speak, and I’m not just talking about the accent. You have to learn to speak differently in the South. Down here, everyone’s “Sir” or Ma’am,” if not “Baby.” It’s Miss Mary Ann, not Mrs. Smith. It’s Mr. John, not Mr. Jones. It’s meant as a term .. Read More »

The Big Easy
I’d been wanting to come to New Orleans for years, and we were finally here! I was very excited. It had been somewhat of a detour off the path we cut across the South, and Stephane was a bit skeptical about taking the detour, but he soon became convinced that it was a good choice. New Orleans was awesome! It is definitely one of the world’s coolest cities, the kind that takes a hold of you and envelopes you within its folds and leaves an impression on you. It is meant to be exp.. Read More »

Southern Louisiana
Americans all over the country have been very hospitable and welcoming. And Louisianans rank right up there at the top. We spent most of our five weeks in Louisiana lodged in locals’ homes. And if it wasn’t a home, it might be the police station, the town hall, a church, or even a hotel (two times!).

From a cultural point of view, Louisiana differs from the rest of the country. History has concocted a fascinating gumbo of cultures, with people coming from France, Spain.. Read More »

The Cajun Culture
The southwest part of Louisiana stretching from the Texas border as far as the Mississippi River is Cajun Country, and traveling through the bayous and rural back roads of the small towns, we experienced the real thing. Approximately 700,000 Acadians, or Cajuns, live in this lowland area of swamps, bayous, lakes, and dense vegetation, descendants of the French who settled in Acadia (Nova Scotia) in 1604 and who were later exiled by the British in 1755. After three decades in e.. Read More »

Mardi Gras in Cajun Country
We sure have been lucky to have met some wonderful people and eaten some delicious food and listened to some foot-stompin’ music and joined in some crazy parties over the years, but rarely all at once. But these elements all came together in the small town of Oberlin, some 200 miles west of New Orleans, in the heart of Cajun Country in southwest Louisiana.

We were biking down a bumpy dirt road under construction, trying to reach the town of Mamou before it got d.. Read More »