21 | Andrew Mortensen – First Known Openly Gay Man To Cycle Around The World

You may recognize Andrew Mortensen from a previous episode (# 12) when he cycled from Neah Bay, Washington in the United States down to Patagonia during COVID back in 2020. Here we are 4 years later in 2024, and he’s done it again. This time adding 25 more countries to his repertoire from Spain to Singapore, bringing his grand total to over 27,000 cycling miles across 37 countries – officially circumnavigating the world. What makes his story different than others who have accomplished similar feats? He is the first openly gay man to do so.

I have been friends with Andrew since high school and I am very proud of the journey he has undertaken – both literally around the world on a bicycle as well as his journey as a gay man. His curiosity to better understand the people and cultures around the world epitomizes the adventurous spirit that we all should embrace – regardless of identity.

GUEST LINKS
– Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/andrew-mortensen-biking-across-the-world-for-trevor/
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew_mort/
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.mortensen.16
– 1st Adventures Less Traveled Podcast with Andrew (Ep. 12): https://youtu.be/tOEgnJeHvNA

PODCAST INFO
– Podcast Website: https://adventures-less-traveled.com
– Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3LpB7vI
– Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventures-less-traveled/id1681357393

OUTLINE
00:00 – Introduction
02:30 – Demystifying Andrew’s adventure
07:45 – The Trevor Project
09:45 – LGBTQ acceptance around the world – Expectations vs Reality
14:20 – Traversing the Middle East
17:35 – 1st trip (North to South America) vs 2nd trip (Europe, Middle East, Asia)
18:55 – What connects us
21:10 – Why does it (being gay) matter?
26:30 – Logistics
29:20 – Biggest misconception
32:15 – World record standards
35:30 – EFI (Every F***in Inch)
38:00 – Reflections
40:25 – Overview Effect
43:30 – Advice for future adventurers
45:20 – Changing your perspective
47:10 – Defining adventure

PODCAST SOCIAL
– Instagram: https://instagram.com/adventures.less.traveled
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_ALT_podcast
– Facebook: https://facebook.com/AdventuresLessTraveled

the question I get a lot is why does it matter what like why does it matter that you’re gay and did this and my response is it matters for visibility it matters that that a gay person can do this right it matters for all the people that I met on the trip that were afraid to share who they were and who are so afraid to even tell their closest family members that they’re they’re they’re gay it matters for the death threats that I got when I came back and shared with the world that I was a gay person that done this it matters for optimism in the world and that maybe our world is is a little bit better than what’s portrayed in the media right and so it really matters and most importantly it matters because it’s possible when you travel by bicycle you view the world from a completely different lens you pick up on all the granular details that you would otherwise gloss over if you’re traveling by car or plane you start to notice all the intricacies of each of these different C cultes that you pass through what’s the food like what are the people like what sort of plants and Wildlife are there you pick up on the day-to-day minua the the social fabric of what’s considered acceptable what’s not what motivates people what upsets people what is proper what’s taboo and most importantly you’ll notice that we’re all connected together we all share values regardless of our location and regardless of our politics there’s something that we can all find in common you may recognize today’s guest Andrew mortson from a previous episode when he talked about his cycling Adventure from neay Washington in the United States all the way down to Patagonia during Co which was over 177,000 miles and this was back in 2020 here we are four years later in 2024 and he’s done it again this time he’s gone from Spain to Singapore bringing his grand total to over 27,000 cycling miles across 37 countries officially recognizing him as circumnavigated the world what makes story different than others who have accomplished similar Feats well he’s the first openly gay man to do so I’ve been friends with Andrew since high school and I’m very proud of the journey that he’s undertaken both literally around the world on a bicycle as well as his journey as a gay man his curiosity to better understand people and cultures around the world epitomizes The Adventurous spirit that we all should embrace regardless of identity when you look someone in the eye you see the universe welcome to the adventures list travel podcast so the last time we spoke you had road 177,000 miles from Nia Bay Washington to the tip of Patagonia and this was in 2020 right yep it is 2024 and now you have biked all the way across the world as the first known openly gay man to cycle around the world so there’s a bit of haziness around around the trip as you were doing it you would post on Instagram a little bit but you wouldn’t really tell anyone what was going on so maybe let’s start there what was the trip and why uh how did it come to be after you already did this Monumental trip four years ago during Co yeah well it’s it’s awesome to be here first off I had a lot of fun the first time we chatted so I immediately said yes when in person too we are in Austin Texas keep it weird we had the to connect here especially all places I was I was down um I biked from as you mentioned North America to South America and from Europe to Asia and officially mostly and we’ll go into that qualifying for like around the world and how it came to be I before uh starting grad school I had some time off and decided to do this big you know North to South America bike trip and then did grad school and was supposed to start working in in October um and then some softness in the economy a lot of employers like started to push people back and and I was included in that so they said um you know we have this opportunity for you to start now in February instead of September uh and I was like you know what why not take a little bit of extra time right and well uh so I had this this uh plane ticket book to go ride in the Alps for a few weeks uh for two weeks and then come back but as soon as I had the opportunity to start later my job later I canel the return ticket and uh I knew the trip was about to get longer yeah so I I I flew out to to Spain I started in Pamplona and the goal was to see the running of the bulls but uh I because of this the job uncertainty I ended up pushing my trip by two weeks and but when I did eventually get out there I started at the plaza de Toros uh in right out in ponus so it was a really epic place to start with the Statue of the bull and um I still remember like the very vividly just like getting on my bike and being like all right like let’s see how far I can go yeah yeah yeah so was that a part of the reason why you kind of kept this a little bit close to the breast like you didn’t want was it the fear of not finishing or was it because people knew that you were doing this as a gay man and you were going into someone certain territory a little bit of everything that’s a great question it was it was those two factors for sure um the first one was was like I just planned to do a bike ride from Spain to Croatia and I wanted to go through the Alps and the Pyrenees and just really just dig into a place in the world that I had never visited before and but it had always been on my bucket list and so I decided that I would just do this small section and then you know share my experience after I wanted to like focus on just the day to day riding like the experience of just being there and so I was loving it like every minute and then when I got to Croatia I had a list of other things I wanted to do during my you know six months of sabatical and everything else on the list was like oh wait this is like this this biking is really fun uh I don’t know that anything on else on that list would give me as much enjoyment and like satisfaction so I decided that I would continue and so I never really like had a plan to really share on social media like I wasn’t saying I’m going to bike from Spain to Singapore that was never like my idea starting I I I got on the bike expecting to ride Croatia and I found myself in Singapore 6 months later so that’s kind of just kind of sprawled into this monster this Beast across prir Highway and all these other crazy places and to your point about like not sharing the trip so it was really like uncertain to be about where I was eventually going to go and then secondly as I got into more Eastern countries it was about like Safety and Security as as a gay man and so uh in that vein I didn’t I posted on on social media on Instagram one single time when I was in Croatia about the the trip thus far to Croatia I made like a a reel or something that was my first reel and like uh but beyond that I didn’t post a single story a single post like I I I really only told like several of my close friends my boyfriend um who’s who’s here today and uh but yeah and that was like the only people I told about my trip because I just uh I had done a lot of like advocacy work for the lgbtq community before and my name’s out there if you Google it it’s uh the first line is like openly gay man raises money for a Trevor Project right um so it was it was hard to hide it was really hard to hide so I kept it close to my chest and and that’s how I read most of the way and the for those who didn’t watch the last time he was on the show uh just refresh everyone’s memory of what exactly is the Trevor Project because this has been something close to your heart yeah and it does have to do with the lgbtq community so yeah no Trevor Project is an LGBT Q youth uh Suicide Prevention nonprofit and so they operate uh a number of services to help youth who are uh in crisis and and especially targeted towards the lgbtq community so um I I feel like they’re really important to our community especially knowing folks who uh who’ve like died by Suicide right or like have had a really tough time a tough going um and who were close to that and so I believe strongly in like the mission of of what they’re doing and so as I started my first journey from North to South America I decided to to dedicate my ride to the Trevor Project sure and um the difference between the two trips the first one as you just mentioned was very focused on the Trevor Project but this one because it didn’t really have an endpoint yeah it didn’t even really have a destination so how did that factor in as you progress through the trip yeah yeah no it was it was really like the uncertainty that kind of like uh I I didn’t know what I was doing to be honest so like I thought a two week trip in the Alps like I was like I’m just going to do this right and then like as I as I went on I was like I I can fundraise again um and then I looked at where I was in in the world and I was like maybe that’s not the best idea to to actually do that and so towards the end of my trip I did make like a post and say hey this is what I’ve done so far um and I fundraising and so that was nice just to have like once I was in like you know more uh maybe accepting or Progressive territory I I did start to like fundraise again and and that was nice to to have that like that in my mind that like sometime down the road I would I would have this to like to do again so right did you notice along the way when you were going through some of the less lgbtq friendly areas that when you BR if if the Trevor Project came into conversation at any point along the way did you notice that people were generally receptive to it because I feel there’s a discrepancy between what people think about a certain country and what the actual people of that country believe it’s a it’s a great question I think that there is a big discrepancy between expectation versus reality and a couple of like maybe colorful examples of that I was in a Middle Eastern country and I I added as I do a lot of the times share my Instagram and my social media like I I didn’t I didn’t make it private I didn’t hide it or anything um that was just me saying like I’m not going to hide who I am but if someone finds out then I’m I’ll address it in the moment and so this person added me on Instagram and we were in a cafe and they say oh like you’re you’re gay and I was expecting like backlash right um but then they said well I am too and in fact the other person who’s at this table that doesn’t speak English and that’s asking for your Instagram you shouldn’t give your Instagram to him um and so it was moments like that where it was it was like yeah it’s okay but like maybe let’s not talk to that other person or sharing like a really intimate and like close moment with someone who’s like opening up to you and saying like yeah I’m I’m gay too um and this like matters what you’re doing so yeah I think that it highlights a really decent part of humanity where if you look at someone individually then you see that like you have to judge them on their character on a case-by Case basis you know so like when in that in that example that you gave the other guy who wouldn’t have been receptive to it that’s just his character that’s the way he is right but this guy who is very open to it you know you’d never know until you talk to to someone like on a personal level and I feel like a lot of a lot of the stereotypes and a lot of like the um animosity towards people of every background gets washed away in the media absolutely absolutely I think that’s a really important point that you highlight yeah it was always this like dist tenseness and like bracing for a an issue right if someone found out that I was gay um and there was that a number of examples sort of like the one that happened in that one country where it was just like oh like just like that’s interesting that you are you’re gay um but I wouldn’t talk to my parents about that if I was staying in a family’s house or um they would they would see it on my Instagram and acknowledge it but they would still invite me in for dinner or to stay the night um and so it was it was like again this like tense bracing and like fear and anxiety but then the actual experience the lived experience that I had uh was was totally fine was totally fine for sure um and I I will say like I have to I’ll acknowledge like there’s some privilege with doing a trip like this um you know I’m white I am like cisgender I am like maybe more like masculine presenting um and just the the privilege of like having the time and the resources to do a trip like this and so um my experience is reassuring right for that it’s possible um and So eventually one day I would love to see that experience mirror in other people too yeah and and not just cycling too but like there’s other ways that I’ve hope I’ve demonstrated on this podcast there other ways that you can go on adventure even if it seems like you’re dealt a bad hand you know and um yeah everything what you’re saying it just understand where your background is and understand that there’s always a path forward and like no matter how dire your situation is no matter how unlikely you think you are to dig out like there’s history is written but the future is an open book so exactly always think that there there’s a way to live life to its fullest I love that um now naturally you be we’re talking about all these stereotypes and one of the stereotypes is that the Middle East is a very dangerous country M so maybe break that down in your experience I mean you are like the most vulnerable Target right you’re on a bike with no weapons and you’re a white guy in the Middle East like I’m sure by all standards you’re you’re kind of a Target so did you actually face a lot of um dangerous situations or did you feel like you were at risk or was it is that something that’s more just a perception in people’s heads I for the most part my experience was fantastic and everyone that I met was incredible I had one incident where I had to cross a border um and there was a group of of people and when I said I was from the US I two of the people in the crowd of about 40 started to yell at me and say in no uncertain terms that you’re killing people you’re a terrorist your country is is committing genocide um as the events in uh Palestine and Gaza unfolded and so um I didn’t really know what to say I was speechless really in the moment um but there were 38 other people there who said he’s not his government right and they told the other two people that were yelling at me that like you know leave him alone like he he he’s visiting our country like we want to give him like this the best experience possible um in my mind I’m thinking like I’ve heard so much about this this place in the media I’m already worried I’m a gay man in a country where you can be stoned to death for being gay and now on top of this I have to deal with u the fact that I’m I’m from the US and so like in that moment I thought okay I think I’m I’m going to take a bus and through this country and and just skip it sure um and so as I I kind of went about like crossing the border getting stamped in I just kept meeting people who who were like just so interested right like who are you and asking questions and and so as more and more people came up to me and and as I I walked through the the customs check I felt like okay maybe I should put this in perspective there were two out of 38 people in that group right a group of 40 maybe 45 who were who were angry but the other 38 the other 40 you know three people were were totally amazing right like some of the nicest kindest people I’ve ever met and so maybe that’s like an analogy for the rest of the world where it’s like yeah there’s some like most people are rotten apples but yeah like most people pretty good and that was like my lived experience in this bike trip is that like I only met like the nicest most genuine people because the people who do interact with you while you’re on a bike and when you are when you are V vulnerable are the people who care most and so it was this incredible experience where I I I have a lot more confidence and optimism about our world that’s good yeah see in a world that’s all uh Doom and Gloom that’s why we have Andrew for it I’ve seen the world I I can I can canest it yeah you’ve seen the world more than all the people on the news who are reporting on it yeah um between the trip the first trip that you did from neab Bay Washington down to Patagonia and this most recent trip was there anything that shifted in your perspective about the world or just like was there anything specifically that the second trip either added or took away from some pre preconceived notions that you had about the world around you I’ll use an an analogy about like colors when I went from North to South America I was exploring different shades of the same color when I went from Spain to Singapore I was exploring a lot of different colors and I realized like in the world there’s just so much like variety and different people and even in different neighborhoods there is just like so much to absorb and I thought that going on a bike trip like this would would answer questions about the world for me but like instead I have infinitely more questions now about like wait what and like it’s just there’s so much so many interesting things out there so many like interesting cultures and people and I think that that that’s one thing that probably V different from from one trip to the other um and that yeah okay that’s a very unique way to think about it yeah cool you said once at somewhere in some post or some article there’s more that connects us than divides us I think that speaks to everything you’re saying but maybe you could elaborate on that between not just the Middle East but the fact that you have now traveled around the entire world like what how does that quote resonate with you it really hits hard in like the lgbtq community and when I was in the US and North America I would tell people about my friend raising efforts for the tror project and despite what whatever you know presidential or political sign they had outside their house there’s some like level where everyone can agree and it may not be like lgbtq rights it may not be uh you know trans right like any any of these these things like or even gun rights right or like uh immigration it might not like you might not agree on that but like at a higher level there are things that you can agree on and a lot of people that I met agreed that no one should should kill themsel no one should die by Suicide no one should feel so isolated and uncomfortable with themselves that they don’t feel like they have a spot in this world right and that is what I mean by there’s a lot more that connects us than divides us because there are like Universal things that that unite us and if we can just get up to that level it like it’s a much richer experience and get rid of all the noise and just focus on like what’s really important about kind of sharing this sense of unity I feel like yeah and I felt like I felt that right in this trip when I met people who invited me into their home despite whatever reservations they had or didn’t even know who I was like this random stranger and still like invited me for meals or gave me directions or dropped food on the side of the road it’s it’s it’s really validating and and like you like anybody can empathize with the need to like eat or to like find shelter when it’s raining or have a place to sleep for the night and so yeah there’s just like way more then we realize that like that totally like unites us we focus a lot on like the maybe like 5% things that are different about you and I and and everyone here so right and I’ve gotten a lot of questions about like being the first openly known gay person to do this and the answer or the question I get a lot is is why does it matter what like why does it matter that you’re gay and did this and my response is it matters for visibility it matters that that a gay person can do this right it matters for all the people that I met on the trip that were afraid to share who they were and who are so afraid to even tell their closest family members that they’re they’re they gay it matters for the death threats that I got when I came back and shared with the world that I was a gay person that had done this it matters for maybe like optimism in the world that maybe our world is is a little bit better than then that’s what’s portrayed the media right and so it really matters and most importantly it matters because it’s possible so I think that to to people who are wondering you know why why does it matter that’s the answer that I have for them and I think to off that point if you think about every iconic clastic figure throughout history who has made an impact and really pushed progress forward from a societal and a social Justice standpoint whether it’s Harvey Milk or whether it’s Martin Luther King they all had to take that step they had to take the plunge into the unknown of like I have no idea how this is going to be received but I have to do it and I’m going to go 110% balls the wall until I’m done yeah and so it’s it’s honestly my perspective of it is that you are the one who’s like okay I’m if people can’t appreciate the fact that like you’re open about it but you’re not pushing it on people when you go through these countries like you’re like we were saying like you view the person on a case-by Case basis and so I respect you if you respect me and if you happen to find out that I’m gay and that changes your perspective that’s on you yeah but at least people can understand that like I’m a I’m a human being the same way that you’re a human being so let’s all just wash away all of these like um stereotypes and all these things that divide us and let’s just kind of come together as one absolutely no absolutely and I think like with that too some uh people like there there were two other things that I kind of realized and and that when I was in the the Middle East like I didn’t really share who I was I didn’t say hey I’m Andrew I’m gay um and and like I think that I had to like kind of hide that that part of me right in that in that that portion of the trip and but for for me like it didn’t matter because if you you know Google my name right that’s the first thing that comes up and I went through police checkpoints you know every day multiple times and and all it took was somebody on a smartphone to like so there there was like you know anxiety around that right or there’s there’s worry about that but every time that I met people like you’re saying on a case-by casee basis like it turned out to be okay right it it was just like these things like don’t tell my my parents about it or you might not want to tell this clerk next that’s standing next you right or like um yeah so just like on a Case by casee basis people are really are and it’s like the only way that you’re going to remove there’s either there’s two doors either you do no you open a door and do nothing and then everyone is stuck in their Prejudice and nothing’s going to change or you open the door and you try to do something amazing that people look up to you yeah and then they start to think oh you know that’s not that bad maybe I can think a little different exactly exactly and to all the people that I met there along the way that were that couldn’t tell their family members about who they were or even not like people who aren’t in the L BT Community right like it’s like if you can if you can like encourage or Inspire even if it’s just one or two people then that’s that makes the the journey all the worth it right you know I remember on my bike trip I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan rather um not a vegetarian I’m not a vegan but there was a guy who made vegan mac and cheese and I at first I was like I mean it’s okay just try it out to this day that was the greatest mac and cheese I’ve ever had in my entire life and he’s like I just just try it just I promise and it’s it’s things like that that you notice all the time when you’re on a bike trip because everyone’s super comfortable when they’re in their car so they see you out in the middle of the rain on a bike with nothing on on your bike and they’re like oh I I got to I got to help and like that yeah push to help other people and to show you something different that you haven’t seen before whether it’s vegan mac and cheese or whether it’s you know whatever then it just really like gives you a lot more peace of mind that like it’s not like a lot of people love feeding off that division but at the end of the day if you look at someone in the in the eyes you see the universe yeah like George Carl said so I love that I love that and you feel a lot more comfortable in the world when you know there’s people out there who are the same as you yeah for sure now when you did the trip the first time you did a lot of uh couch surfing warm showers things like that I don’t actually know if that exists elsewhere so maybe you could tell me like is warm showers or couch serving is that a thing did you do that what was kind of like your main way of from the logistics level on the yeah in the in the in the weeds here this this second portion of the around the world Journey was a little more free form in that like there is this site in called warm showers where you know you can send a request to a host and they’ll they’ll say like yeah you can stay at my house uh tonight and it’s very organized there’s emails and there’s ratings and reviews and uh so it’s it’s a cool system to have when you’re in probably more more traversed parts of the world uh in Central Asia and in the Middle East there’s really there’s not many of those like organized spots and so sleeping wise I camped a lot in Europe and in the Balkans and but when it started to get too cold I switched to like hostels and hotels and and as I went things got cheaper too so that that also helped uh and also as I mentioned like things were a little bit more free form so I would have a plan where I wanted to stay but often times I would arrive in a city and people would be like wait what are you doing here like there’s a hundred people that live in the city and we have never seen a foreigner before this small like and some of these places weren’t even on a map like if you in there’s there’s not even like acknowledgement that they exist right small spec in Kazakhstan in the desert way off the road there’s a there’s like a o a small oil town There’s 50 maybe 100 people that live there and when you show up there they’re like oh my gosh like this is insane and so that happened a lot in whether it was in Pakistan or India or some of these uh countries that have visitors but they’re they’re to like major you know major parts of of the country and so I I free formed it like people would just be like hey like come come stay with me you know you can you can sleep in our in our house or hey like come to my sister’s wedding or something or like uh our birthday party like I I went to all these like family events that are really like intimate that they were just so open to just having me in it’s it’s almost like am I the circus act here or do they genuinely want me to be here I don’t know like hey look at this guy look what I found yeah it’s literally like you feel like you feel like you’re you’re celebrity almost and then when I got to towards the end of my trip and into U like Thailand and Malaysia and Singapore I was just like a normal person again yeah like there’s tourists there right like yeah that was yeah um I asked this I’m pretty sure I asked this the last time you came on but now you have an expanded worldview so culturally across all of the places that you’ve gone is there anything that you think is worth sharing with the world to let them know that’s something that they probably don’t know already like was there a part of China that we went to where everyone has this misconception about China but really your perception was this or through Pakistan or the Middle East or even through Europe like any place that you went across everything and even North and South America that was like man I remember being there having one idea and it turned out to be completely wrong I think there were there was a lot of that like um maybe like expectations versus reality and also just being a part of the world like being at level zero you see you smell you hear the world every single inch at a time and you also learn about the world that way and that’s really powerful because when you go into a region there are s there are things happening around the world that don’t even bubble up into our like our media or our knowledge and I’ll give you like an example in in India there in the Northeast in monipur there’s a like there’s an ethnic conflict going on right now that was probably the most like shocking thing I’ve ever seen on a bike when I was riding into uh impal which is the capital of monore there were uh military guard like Army guards every sing every hundred yards just waiting for like conflict to erupt and there’s these two tribes of people who are adamant against each other and there were checkpoints as you cross between the different tribes so to say and like it was just so like crazy to me because I I hadn’t really learned or like heard about this before but here I was in the middle of like this yeah this like conflict where where people die like every every week like there are like raids on each other’s uh areas yeah and it’s just blew my mind that like this is so this is such a big deal and like these people live with this but yet like I don’t I I didn’t really know about it until I got there so you you exper you like open up new parts of the world that you didn’t learn you didn’t know about before right especially because you only hear about like the big ones that we are that really the US is only involved in here right we’re only really financially interested in the Palestine Israel thing or the Ukraine Russia thing or whatever but like we don’t have a vested interest in those tribes in India right so makes you wonder it’s like you don’t have the access to information just because that’s not what you’re exposed to I guess but yeah um so on a much lighter note now that you have gone 27 mil 27,000 miles not 27 miles um according to world record standards for going around the world it’s 18,000 so you absolutely smash that record yep yep so what does that mean in terms of like do you can do you even like have you wrapped your head around that yet or is that just something that’s like oh yeah by the way fun fact guys you know I yeah happen to smash the record for going around the world yeah well let’s go through just some of the criteria because I think it’s important for for viewers and for folks to understand like what is around the world right I think that’s important then secondly um is just just like the perspective but the first thing is to go around the world according to like gu Booker world records and to the ultra Cycling Association which are pretty commonly uh like acknowledged places that have credibility with with all of this uh the first component is it has to be like west to east or east to west it has to go One Direction right the second component is it has to be at least 18,000 miles cycled and and then I think it’s at least or yeah I think at least 18,000 miles cycled the third component is you have to go through an antipode which is like two opposite points in the world and then the fourth component is that um you have to start and end in the same place and it has to be continuous and so the last two are where it gets like a little fuzzy for me because I took a a break for grad school so it wasn’t like necessarily continuous but and then the other one that like I didn’t technically meet was that it didn’t start and end in the the same place but like that was because I didn’t fly from Singapore to Seattle or and like you know I I flew from Singapore to New York when I went home cuz flying is included in this circum navigation circum navigation thing and so I’m like in my mind I don’t care about that component and nor do I care about like continuous because I wasn’t trying to break like a land speed record um so i’ I’ve met like the the core like components of going around the world it’s just like it wasn’t continuous and it wasn’t like starting and finishing at the same point which I understand like if I had missed miles or something like between Seattle and like Chicago like if I started in Chicago and like that whole Gap but like I covered every single inch that I could bike in that that time and like I just didn’t take a plane back to Seattle yeah it’s like yeah um but yeah no it it it’s a little bit like eye opening is like wow I I actually like cycled around the world and it like doesn’t really hit you until you think of it like that because each day I got out there it was just like another day on the bike it was I’m biking from here to here I’m going to enjoy what I see the sights The Sounds the people and when I get to the other side I’m going to have like a maybe a hot shower and maybe some like good food and then I’m going to plan out my next day like it was never oh my gosh like I’m want to bike around the world in the back of my mind like I had this idea maybe someday I’ll do it but yeah it’s wild to think of it’s like totally wild it and yeah at the end of the day like how many other people can say that they’ve covered 27,000 miles right um when you’re on your trip and you say you want to cover every inch there’s two kinds of people who do bike touring people who cover every inch and people who don’t cover every inch why is that important it matters to me I am an EFI like stands for Every curse word inch yeah and I I want to bike it all because at the end of the day I’m biking like around the world right and so I want to I wanted to cover every single inch and that was really important to me even when people were offered me rides or truck drivers stopped on the side of the road and say like get in like no I’m going up this mountain like I’m doing it right or in a tiger Reserve in Nepal when they told me I can’t ride there because there was uh one person per month on average has gotten killed the last two years I I like I I I made my case for why I should be able to bike there uh so yeah every effing inch is in my mind like a a like a metaphor for like for not not skipping anything not skipping out and and really focusing on on doing like a complete and full job yeah not cutting quarters not cutting quarters yeah yeah and so that’s why if someone out there is driving and you see one of these backpacking or bike packing Maniacs who are getting super pissed off that the you know construction workers aren’t let them through that’s why they’re not just being stubborn yeah yeah so I had I had a completely line uh totally unbroken line from North to South America I had to to to uh travel over the Daran Gap by by air because there’s no road so like there’s really no option otherwise um but then I had a a continuous line all the way North South America and then from Europe all the way to Pakistan and then or to China and then I unfortunately had to take a bus from China into Pakistan because there’s like a a 60 mile security Zone where you can’t can’t ride a bike so that was like the first time that I I had to break that line yeah and then unfortunately to there’s conflict going on in mianmar and so I I couldn’t go in in fact the day that I arrived in monipur in India there was there was like shelling going on in the border which was maybe 50 km like 30 miles away and so it was not a good good idea to go into that country at that at that point so I ended up having to pack my bike and fly over which you know it’ll be there for another day yeah yeah all right another question I have high level the 50,000 foot view more about your own reflection Looking Back Now having done all these amazing things having and not just the cycling but you’ve also managed to go to grad school you’ve also managed to work a very demanding job and be able to balance everything and have this what I what seems to me like a very fulfilled life so that’s how I see it how do you see yourself when you kind of take a step back and look from the outside looking in of everything you’ve accomplished it’s funny you asked that because when I got back here everyone was like oh what’s next for you and I was just like well I’m going to start working and it was like so plain and normal and like but to me that that was like important because I I feel like I’ve had a crazy amount of Adventure in my life that could probably suff ice for two or maybe more lifetimes and like I feel content about that and maybe there’ll be like more things in the future but like my adventure fix is like my adventure fix is satisfied for now right so when you when you when you ask that question uh I I’ll answer and and that I feel like okay for now uh but looking back I’m I’m really happy about about the perspective that I have it’s a perspective that matters in work it’s a perspective that matters in life in family um and it’s just grounding yourself especially when things can get like stressful or hard in your life it’s really just a reflection like well uh it might not be that like this thing might be trivial in comparison to what’s the rest of the world right right and the things and it’s almost like the uncertainty of the future is the next adventure right like you don’t it doesn’t necessarily have to be going and you know killing yourself out on the road every single day could very well be like throwing yourself into a mental challenge that like you didn’t think about or like a something even a corporate gig is definitely not what most people would consider Adventure but you know there are yeah aspects to it that are different I used I used my my legs for for many months and now I use my mind yeah yeah yeah in fact I have sitting in an office chair is tougher than than uh sitting on a bike seat that’s for sure it’s you know more lower back pain more more like you know ergonomics than on a bike you know you’re just you’re vibing all day so yeah yeah there’s a there’s I I I’ve mentioned this Elsewhere on the podcast with other guests but there’s a there’s an anecdote that um astronauts and I don’t know the validity of this and I don’t know what it’s called but there’s a a claim that when astronauts go to the Moon they come back because they’ve seen it all they’ve seen everything that they possibly could they’ve been to outer space the only thing left is to go even farther out into the universe but they know that’s never really possible so they have to come back to earth and come back to these what some people think as finalities does do have you ever had I I know this kind of contradicts what you just said but have there ever been any moments of either depression or or some sort of like mental instability in your reflections of life so far I think it’s it’s an interesting question because I know there’s like I think it’s the overview effect it’s like the the thing that the astronauts they experience when they go to space and they see like this blue dot against this you know backdrop of space and it can be it can like stir emotions right because they they see the Earth as like this faint Little Dot and that’s everything that they have ever known right um and I I think in some ways like when you cycle around the world you you experience some like level of that because you’re like you’ve seen the collective like Collective Humanity right if one inch at a time and I’m sitting at you know 5 feet or not 5T maybe 3et four feet above the ground and instead of like you know 200 mil above the Earth and I think that those experiences are so drastically different but also really similar because you’re seeing the world for what it is and you have this perspective now that uh that’s really hard to get and some people claim that like there are fewer people who have biked around the world than have gone to outer space and I I have no idea how to validate that but I do know that like in some ways the experiences are the same because you’re seeing the Earth in this really like I this perspective is like really Collective and and humanistic and and rounded right that the same perspective that you might have when you go to space and you look back and see that same blue bubble looking back at you yeah and it’s it’s also when you’re when you don’t go out of your comfort zone and you don’t expand your horizons and you don’t think about other cultures and other places and other perspectives you’re only everything is if you’re considering the Earth as this blue sphere this little Globe trotten around the Sun you’re only one little dot in that entire place a pixel but there’s so many ways to experience everything about that Earth right you can cycle around it you can go underwater you can dive you can you can do ad other sort of like Extreme Adventures there’s a whole bunch of different ways to experience this tiny little blue Globe yeah that astronauts are looking and it is really interesting how like everyone’s perspective is always different different so taking that and parlaying that into advice for other people knowing that there is going everyone has a different perspective so how do you what advice do you have for other people to go out of their comfort zone or I guess just in general like is there anything that you think people ought to know based off of what you’ve learned having this different perspective about the world I think it’s it’s a like bring a curiosity to to every that you do and like just question things that you might take for granted or that might already be around you and on the bike it’s it’s really interesting because when you when you experience time and place it’s it’s very smooth and it’s a gradient and so suddenly there are camels on the side of the road or like suddenly there are like uh Tuk Tu like trying to take you off the road right um and like it it it just like slowly unfolds right and so I think like always questioning your surroundings like being curious like an adventure could literally be walking down the street as long as like you approach it with the awe and the Curiosity of being in the desert in Kazakhstan and seeing camels right like you can still look at the world in this like like as an anthology almost and like look and see like oh my gosh that’s that’s super interesting like that person that I just saw is uh I I don’t know who they are but or like or this restaurant is is uh has some really interesting like characters in it like I’m going to just observe it like you you can you can go about your life and have like Adventures walking to work or like you know it doesn’t have to be as Extreme as like you know the the camels example I’ll go back to or yeah yeah so you and I grew up in the same Hometown and there was a time as you know my dad by now he has this crazy Camp thing that has all sorts of different inventions and little like it’s epic it’s it’s nuts but it from the same lens of what you’re saying how like just going and getting the mail and noticing oh that’s an interesting flower and like having that Curiosity having that that’s how he took what was just like a simple backyard with a you know super overgrown in the middle of the woods and he had the vision to like oh I can cut a trail here I can level it here I can put and so like most people wouldn’t think that’s in and of itself as adventurous just going in your backyard unless you see it a different way right if you change your perspective like how you view whatever it is that you’re undertak right now that I’m I’ve started a job too I of like I’m working with at a company right and and even that like looking at it every day upside down like this is so interesting like what goes on on at at this company and like the people that I meet and the experiences that I see like just like your dad has built like this amazing amazing like Fortress I have to say in in their back his backyard like as long as you approach and it’s all about perspective right you just have to like flip it on its head and be like wait why why is that person doing what they’re doing or like oh wait like that Forest behind my house is like actually a place where we could put a zipline and like have bonfires and it feels totally remote and isolated from the rest of the world and so it’s that’s fun in itself like you know just challenging like normal conventions I guess in your head yeah I always end this podcast with the same question how do you personally Define adventure that’s a good question uh I think and I’ll share a little story about that word because it means a lot when I was in usbekistan it’s very small town I went and as I often did there there’s not really form formal places to stay I would go to the mosque and ask if I could stay overnight and I did in the small town ask if I could stay overnight and sure enough they said absolutely let’s get you a shower and and we’ll we’ll get you connected and uh the English teacher the town’s English teacher showed up because he was the only person that could that could Bridge the communication gap and I ended up staying at at his house and and he he invited me to the class the next morning to like say hi to the students and it was it was a really interesting experience the children they all stood up when you walk in and and when they ask you questions they stand up and they have their heart hand over their their chest and it’s very Like official but anyway that’s story for another time I went in there and talked about my trip and into the the English students and the at the end I said I want to leave you with one word and it’s adventure and I want to Define that word for you for what it means to me and the way I defined it and the way I Define it is it’s going out in to a place that you’re unfamiliar with or even a place that you are familiar with but with the perspective of seeing it in a new way and I think that it could be like like we mentioned an adventure walking down the street it could be an adventure take going into the desert in Kazakhstan but it’s all about perspective and it’s all about like challenging yourself to do things that might not be so conventional for you so that’s beautiful man it’s great definition might be uh might be going up there for top uh top definition of the podcast so far but cool this is awesome man thank you so much really appreciate yeah yeah um you’re an inspiration to all people out there thank you whether they’re lgbtq youth who needs to hear a voice or reasion or whether you’re just a person walking down the street who reads your story it’s it’s incredible and I truly wish you the best in your future thank you thank you it’s been fun awesome all right thanks everyone this is great than go [Music]