» What it’s about

About us

Our names are John Mitchell and Tom Bishop. John is a master’s graduate in oceanography from the University of Southampton, 23 years old and lives in Bucks. Tom is a master’s graduate in global politics from the University of Southampton, 24 years old and lives in Cambridge. We’re mates from university, where we were also housemates for 4 years.

Why we’re going

We both recently finished our degrees and were both subsequently encouraged to seek ‘good jobs’. Obediently, we started applying to them but in our own time realised that we didn’t actually want to start our careers yet. One day I’m sure we will, but not yet. So we started thinking about a cycle tour, a short trip quickly escalated to include more countries and it wasn’t long before there didn’t seem much point in turning round to come back home, it was just as easy to keep going round.

About our trip

Over approximately a year and a half, we will pass through 4 continents and 18 countries. Our trip will include a 3,000-mile bike ride through Scandinavia; an 8,000-mile train journey across Russia, Mongolia and China; a 7,000-mile passage across the Pacific Ocean aboard a cargo ship; a 10,000-mile bike ride from Alaska to Venezuela and a 5,000-mile Atlantic crossing on a yacht.

We have chosen to camp each night along the way partly because it’s fun and partly (mainly) because it’s all we can afford (but we won’t turn down offers of beds should they arrive). We are allowing plenty of time for the trip and are not setting ourselves deadlines; if something takes our fancy then we’ll do it. We plan on having about as many days off the bikes as we do on them, the trip is as much about seeing places and meeting people as it is about covering the distance.

Sustainability

We have chosen to stick to sustainable transport because we want to have as little impact as possible while we travel. We also hope that our trip will help promote the message that wherever you’re going, there is nearly always an alternative to carbon-expensive transport.

Charities

We are using the trip as a charity fund raiser; we have chosen to support Medecins sans Frontieres and Friends of the Earth. Both these charities perform fantastic work, which is vitally important in today’s world, we hope to raise around £10,000 on their behalf.