Ana and Mario, a married couple united by a love of travel and adventure, and two children following in the parents' footsteps.
Ana and Mario, a married couple united by a love of travel and adventure
TRAVEL INFO
6 Months
7000 Km
10 Country
Ana and Mario, a married couple united by a love of travel and adventure, and two children, Miguel and Magdalene, follow in their parents’ footsteps. They become a family traveling by bicycle around the world, living a different life between forests and mountains. They are four individuals who form a harmonious and strong team in defying all the difficulties of the journey Their dreams are big and their plan is to cross Africa and the Americas.
INTERVIEW
We asked Ana & Mario : Introduce yourself, talk about anything you want, your age, your country, how did your passion for travel begin…?
They said : We are a family of 4, I am Ana and I’mm 36 years old, Mario is 40, Miguel is 7 and Magdalene is 3. Mario has always traveled since he was a child with his parents and as soon as he could venture out on his own, he started to climb mountains and to carry out crossings on foot and bike. He climbed alone the highest mountains of the Pyrenees and the Alps and even made some bike trips through Portugal and the Pyrenees. I, by the contrary, just started traveling as an adult. The taste for nature and outdoor activities brought us together and we continued to do mountaineering, overland trips with our jeep, overland crossings on foot and more recently by bike. Whenever we could leave the house, we always tried to, even if it’s for a little walk or camping.
After we had our kids our lifestyle has not changed, we continued to travel and doing outdoor activities. The Kids start camping one month after born, and from a very early age they are used to explore the world and the nature surrounding them. When Miguel turned 6 we offered him his first bike with gears and that’s when everything changed. We had the idea of one day taking bike trips, but we never imagined it would be so soon. Miguel right from the start with the new bike showed a resistance and taste for the bike out of the ordinary and as we went on short trips of 3 days we realized that we had the conditions for a big bike trip that would become the Iceland trip that same year.
Question : What is your goal for travel ?
Well, They said : Our goal is to know as much as we can of the world with a special interest in the nature. We like to camp or bivouac in isolated places, to feel nature in its purest state. For that when travelling by car, on foot or by bike our tracks are mostly unpaved and gravel roads to achieve this. With the bikes, our perception changed a bit. We ride more slowly and see more of the places we are. We started to live more the trip than wen doing a car travel. And for the kids they participate more, they feel more present and important since they have to ride like us.
Question: Is traveling on a bike easy for Family ?
They said: From the point of view of physical fatigue, for us adults it is much easier than going in a group of adults. Despite the extra load and the bike trailer we must carry, if a small child is going to ride like our son, he’s going to be the one to dictate the pace of progression. That is, we ride slower, shorter distance daily and more stops. On the other hand, the planning is more complex than on a trip without children. The slower progress and the nuances of a trip with children forces to plan in more detail the places where we can buy food and find water. And the golden rule of a bike trip with children is a very flexible planning. It is not worth planning to go to such a place or want to sleep in a certain location because most likely we are not going to get there when we think! However, for children, as long as we respect their needs to stop, play and sleep during the day everything is fine. It’s like being home but where their home is the world surrounding them!
Question: What are the most important difficulties you face?
She said: The main difficulty is water. We need water to drink, cook and basic hygiene and yet in the bicycles we are always very limited in the amount of water we can transport. The difficulty is that with children cycling we travel much less distance and sometimes there is no water in the places where we need it. Especially, when we ride through isolated areas and dirt paths, a good planning is needed to know in advance where there is drinking water during the trip. Then, the prolonged climbs are exceedingly difficult to manage for young children. They easily lose motivation and constantly ask when the climb ends. And most of the time it’s not because they’re tired, only psychologically they have difficulty managing the situation. Play stops and games are mandatory to delude the pressure of difficult climbs! Another of the difficulties with children are the motor vehicles on the roads. Younger children do not have the notion of danger and it becomes extremely dangerous to ride bikes with children on roads with lots of traffic. The solution is to use exclusively dirt and gravel roads and bike paths whenever is
possible. Finally, health. Inevitably, children can get sick and hurt and they have little notion of danger often. This requires you to be constantly aware of your state and what they are doing, especially when you are in more remote places. It is important to use satellite communicators when traveling to remote countries and have a good pediatrician who can ask for advice even on the go.
Question: Tell us about your most important travels, how many distances did you travel?
She said: Our most important bike trip was undoubtedly the one we did in the summer of 2021 to Iceland. It was our first big family bike trip we’ve done. Of the 460kms we traveled in 22 days, 430kms were on dirt and gravel roads and some foot paths, one of the priorities since our son Miguel with 6 years at the time was always pedaling and we wanted to avoid motor traffic in the roads. We always camp with our tent, mostly wild camping, except for a night in a hut, and always in wonderful places. We passed next to glaciers and volcanoes, one of them the Ljótipollur vulcano with a huge lake in the middle, the kids swum in hot water pools and we camped near one of them, the Strutslaug, right by the water. And we even pass by giant waterfalls like Gullfoss and Seljalandsfoss and saw the great geyser Strokkur. And we couldn’t miss to mention the black sand desert Maelifellsandur. This trip was the greatest experience of our lives and make it in family was unforgettable for all of us.
Question: What is your motivation letter?
They said: Cycling helps us to contemplate more, to live more fully every moment. We are more in touch with the world around us, without filters, without walls and without windows. Traveling by bike is traveling slowly, without a destination. It’s freedom to go where we want without limits. And most important of all, is to travel in our planet, without damaging it and without polluting it. It’s living in nature with nature!
Question: What are your dreams and plans for the future?
They said: Our dream is to be able to take a yearlong bike trip. We have been thinking about destinations like Africa, North America and Europe and the latter seems to be the most suitable since Miguel is also always riding. The idea would be to start in Lisbon in October and finish in the North Cape in September of the following year if we can travel all this distance in a year. Western Europe is mostly flat and easy to obtain drinking water and has many dirt roads and cycle paths. It should mean a much easier planning for a trip like this than other destinations even if is a much colder zone than the south. And as with all our travels, security is above all else and western Europe is a very secure place to do all kind of trips.
