andrewclaus

Plus I bet you're in great shape for touring.

All those years of commuting I did for the enjoyment of cycling. I never even thought of the future benefits back then. Now I'm loving it.

sloar 

The time part is easy, get a job at a fire department. Plenty of time off, I work 10 days a month with 16 personal days that I can take anytime. Plan it out right and I've had a full month off before. Now the downside, you wont get rich as a firefighter.

stardognine

Funny you should mention firefighters. I'm hanging out in a park, where quite a few guys have been doing some training and/or testing, for the fire dept. Mostly jogging, with heavy weights strapped on their backs. I didn't think they'd appreciate me asking about it, lol. 😉
Thanks for doing what you do. 👍

BigAura

I did my first long tours in my early twenties...then took a 27-year break for career & family-raising. Started back at 54, I was self-employed, so I gave myself the well-deserved time off. I’m now 66 and have enjoyed a tour most years of the past twelve.

staehpj1

Thanks. I took a few years off from touring to do other stuff.

djb

well have fun doing whatever stuff you are doing this summer.

staehpj1

Thanks. I am doing some day riding mostly off road and plan some touring in the fall.

To the OP... I didn't mention it in my first post, but obviously if long tours are tough on your current schedule and budget there are always short ones. They aren't my cup of tea, but some actually prefer them.

roundrocktom

The first long tour I did was in 1985. Worked in the Semiconductor Industry.
1983 - Fresh out of School. New Engineer and let a company overwork me.
1983 - Sorry Tom, too much to get done defer vacation till next year.
1984 - Sorry Tom, too much to get done defer vacation till next year.
1985 - Sorry Tom, too much to get done defer vacation till next year.
A friend gave me a book "Miles from Nowhere" by Barbara Savage. New Zealand was the destination for my solo bike trip.

End of 1985, I had six weeks accrued. I Hadn'teen able to join my friends for our annual week-long camping trips, yadda. Went to lunch with my boss (he had been with the company for six months; his eight predecessors all quit after two months) and bought a non-refundable Airfare to New Zealand. He was like "you're going to lose your money," but I explained I had all that vacation, so a one day delay meant the company would reimburse me $800 for the ticket.

The best part was the "pointy hair boss" (Dilbert) in a meeting said, "why on earth do you want to bicycle in Africa?" Everyone in the meeting laughed, but he added: "just leave the name and phone number of every hotel you will be at."

Four weeks of cycling. Paniers, bag, and tent on the bike. Other than the airfare, cheap was to travel and meet people.

December meant the company ran out of money. Pointy hair said, "See, you would have gotten your time off after all." I just smiled, as I meet some folks in New Zealand who said they needed my skill set in Germany. So I was off to Germany for those two weeks. I took a job in Germany. Next tours were Ireland, Finland, Sweden, France all over Europe. Six weeks annual vacation stayed on that job for five years and just loved living there. Oh, meet my future wife, and my son was born in Tuebingen.

Just do it.

redbagsrambler

I read some of the responses and they were all so interesting. I'm in a little bit of a time crunch right now so will have to come back and read the rest. In the meantime, I'll do my best to answer your three questions.

1. My job initially allowed me only 10 vacation days a year. Not much touring you can do with that. But that jumped to 15 days after five years then maxed at 18 after ten years. However I could accrue up to thirty days of unused vacation time. So for the first few years of my career I did very little touring beyond the occasional weekend outing. I used a few vacation days for my wife and I to take long weekends, but other than that I banked the days. Ultimately, I banked enough time that I could take 10-12 days a year for a tour......6 or 7 vacation days coupled with a couple of weekends. 12 days allows for some pretty good tours through many parts of Europe. The rest of the time was spent vacationing with the wife, with a few vacation days left over for time banking for the next tour.

2. Oh yeah, I had plenty of monthly bills. Living expenses, mortgages, insurance, medical care, and so on, just like most other people. One of the ways we managed this was by owning only one car. It was a high quality, strong reputation for high mileage make of car which we kept for years after paying it off. My wife used the car to get to her job and I commuted by bicycle to a transit stop and took the bus. One of the perks at my place of employment was a monthly bus pass to any employee willing to give up claim to a costly parking space. This was a double saving....saved money from the parking space fee and got free transit in return. We also lived comfortably but not extravagantly and kept many of our monthly costs as low as we could while still enjoying a good quality of life. We were also lucky in that we never had any unexpected, high cost emergencies.

3. I have precisely ONE friend who does any appreciable amount of loaded bicycle touring. We've toured together on some European trips, but typically our life demands do not coincide well enough to tour together often. Like many others here, the vast majority of my tours have been solo. In some ways, I prefer the freedom and spontaneity of touring alone.

redbagsrambler

A couple of other things I forgot to mention in my first post since I was in a bit of a rush. These involve finding the money for a tour.

4. With every weekly paycheck I received, I took out a portion which I set aside strictly for future travel even if I did not have any specific travel plans in mind. I did this diligently for my entire career even if it may be a year or two or three between trips. I went so far as to set up a special bank account in which I made this monthly contribution. Over time this grew into a decent little on demand, rotating travel nest egg which I could dip into whenever I took a tour.

5. I maintain a list of five or six destinations I'd like to tour, then regularly track airfares over a period of months for each destination. The airfares are often very fluid and eventually I will stumble upon a good value (not necessarily the cheapest, though it often is) to one of the destinations. Because I'm already prepared financially due to #4 above, I purchase the airfare immediately when I find a good one. For example, just this year I stumbled upon an overseas round trip airfare to France from North Carolina for UNDER $500. Normally it was in the 1200-1400 USD range. Sometimes one gets lucky.

daveit1024

Good Question:

I believe most people do not plan a year or more extended bike tours. They choose a route, let say Southern Tier Route and they plan on how long it will take; will they fly back or make it a round trip, it’s more of a vacation than a long journey.

Then there is the tourist that has no set time or set destination; they tend to ride alone; they camp most the time that includes stealth camping.

I will start my long tour beginning on August 1st, here are some of my thoughts on why and how to get ready for the trip.

A little background is in order, I'm 62 years old, and at this stage in life, I have no real responsibility from holding me back from doing a long bike tour. I’m not rich or poor; I do have the financial means to spend on equipment and items needed to tour, and for the trip itself.

Where will I go? I live in Denver so that will be my starting point. I will tour around Colorado and Utah and Arizona from August through October then head to San Diego and ride the South Tier to Florida for the winter. After that who knows.

I do have a budget schedule for four years. I’m not sure if I will ride that long or maybe longer. I want to tour into Mexico, starting in Baja then perhaps the mainland.