Compare Worldwide Bike Trips and Guided Cycling Tours
Explore our planet from the seat of a bike on one of almost 200 worldwide bike trips and guided cycling tours
“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” — H.G. Wells (1866—1946), science fiction writer and novelist
H. G. Wells just might have been onto something. There’s nothing more environmentally friendly or endorphin producing than moving through the world under your own, physical power.
When you first start a bike trip after being shackled to an automobile day after day, a feeling of relief washes over you. You find that you can still get from point A to point B in good time, yet you’re no longer at the mercy of traffic. Contentment then makes an appearance, as you start to observe — as if for the first time — the aspects of your surroundings you never had a chance to connect with before. Soon, something called “biking joy” takes hold. Liberated from the tyranny of the car, your body and brain find freedom in the roads and cool, fresh air and in the new, creative pathways being rerouted in your mind. And like that matrix of neurons swirling around in your brain, you begin to see your possible future bike trips encircling the globe.
You’ll begin with a biking tour in Alaska, in the shadow of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park’s sixteen-thousand-foot peaks. As you pedal along scenic Glenn Highway, you pass spruce forests, alpine meadows, and moose. Your quads never felt so accomplished as you push up Thompson Pass to Worthington Glacier. Your descent past thundering waterfalls and into the Valdez harbor makes the effort up more than worth it.
On the other side of the world, you see yourself crossing the Rhine from Germany into France on your two wheels, spinning through sun-soaked, vine-laden Markgräflerland. In the Rhine River Valley, you follow Alsace’s famous Route des Vins through rolling vineyards and quaint villages, brimming with half-timbered houses and geranium-fringed canals.
In India, you easily bypass the press of population. Your biking tours here take you through regal Rajasthan in relative solitude. Cows ambling down the road and kids walking to school are your fellow road warriors. Needing a break from this raw way of engaging with the world, you stop to find peace in a Brahmin temple.
The scene of your bike tour in Ireland is the rugged Beara Peninsula. Emerald hills, small farms, and woolly sheep watch as you breeze by, winding through the Gap of Dunloe, a narrow pass between Purple Mountain and MacGillycuddy’s Reeks. Now, you’re ready for some truly rare bike trips: you roll past the peaceful villages and sacred pools in Bali, and the culturally and scenically rich valleys of Bhutan.
Back in America, you take your bike adventures into more national parks. You pedal along the Madison and Firehole Rivers in Yellowstone, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of bubbling mud pots, spouting geysers, and steaming vents. In Yosemite, you cruise next to the Wild and Scenic Merced River.
Alaska and Alsace. India and Ireland. Bali and Bhutan. Yosemite and Yellowstone. There’s no shortage of places to find your biking joy. H. G. Wells need not have despaired. There are plenty of biking trips in your human future.
Scroll down to compare our worldwide bike trips and guided cycling tours.