Solo Bikepacking - 7 things I've learned in 1,5 years

[Music] hello and welcome to this video of seven things I learned while traveling solo I'm giant Cheerio a bicycle Traveler I've been on the road for quite a while now and yeah I want to share seven things I've learned number one you are not alone and I don't mean that in a creepy way it's just the fact that people often fear of going on a trip by themselves because they're afraid of being alone all the time or Yeah just they don't know how to handle some alone time by themselves and one thing I've learned is that wherever you are you will meet people you will meet like-minded people on the road you will meet people in villages in small towns in cities and you're not the only one out there on the road and there are many many like-minded people and the good thing is whenever you meet somebody you can still decide whether you want to travel by yourself whether you want to be alone or whether you you want to enjoy the company number two you can do it by yourself I gotta be honest before going on my backpacking trip I always thought I wasn't capable of doing stuff properly and I yeah I always did the stuff that had to be done in kind of like a messy way and I always botched up my work I did stuff in a careless manner because it just it wasn't important to me and so yeah I thought of myself as being a cheater or that I couldn't I couldn't trust myself when doing something that changed completely when I started backpacking because I had to rely on myself flat tire I had to patch the tire very carefully because I wanted to keep on moving the brake doesn't work properly I had to inform myself and I had to know how to fix this problem in order to keep on going safely I learned that I'm capable of learning and that I'm capable of doing stuff very very carefully today I can trust myself and I know when I do some repair work work and I don't know how to do it I inform myself I know how to get things done then I do it and I trust myself I trust my skills and I know that I will keep on writing safely next one go with the flow and by that I mean don't over plan don't worry too much just trust your intuition and go just give it a go and instead of worrying or thinking about tomorrow or next week or next month just go with the flow don't think too much I really learned to enjoy the moment and whenever I had a problem I just told myself that there will be a solution waiting around the corner and most of the time the problem was not even a real problem because one thing comes to another end you meet people or people find you and there will always be a solution so I learned to go with the flow the fourth thing I learned is people are willing to help and people are willing to support you my entire life I always wanted to do things on my own I didn't want to ask for help I didn't want to get help I just wanted to get things done by myself because I thought getting help meant being weak while living my life on the road I just realized that support and help connects people people want to help and people want to support each other I learned that it has nothing to do with being weak or not being strong enough if you if you ask for help and so I learned that whenever I'm in need of support or help I just ask somebody I learned that the world is not as bad as most people say there are so many kind people out there and you just gotta open your heart and ask ask for help ask for support just try to say yes and that brings me to the next point I learned to say yes I don't know if that's part of my upbringing or if that's a cultural thing but whenever people offered me something I tend to say no no thank you thank you very much oh no that's not necessary thank you people offered me food a place to sleep a shower and I just said no because they didn't want to I didn't want to make any inconveniences which is so stupid I mean what the heck you want that second piece of cake just say yes people want to invite you for a coffee yes sure thank you very much just say yes be thankful and accept the fact that people are offering stuff because they want to do it and of course if you don't want something because you just don't want to or you have a weird gut feeling then just say no and that's all right but please don't just say no because of being too shy or you don't want to disturb or you don't want to make any inconveniences if people offer something they are willing to give they're willing to spend time with you and they're willing to support you so please say yes next one let's talk about fear fear often only exists in your head so let me let me make one thing clear fear can be a good thing it's like an alarm and our mind and body or both of them are telling us there is something going on and we might in danger so fear in general is not a bad thing but sometimes I tend to fear about stuff that is just ridiculous so what I have here I ask myself is this fear Justified and is it necessary to have fear right now in this moment because most of the time the fear is just inside my head and there is no no reason to have fear I'd say a ridiculous type of fear is like the fear of talking to people when they're talking not in your mother tongue or the fear of asking people for help or for me it's the fear of sleeping alone outside to be honest I've been sleeping outside for more than one year in my tent still from time to time I have fear that there might be somebody sneaking around my tent but within all the time I was traveling that never happened of course you got to be careful and especially when traveling solo as a woman you've got to be careful and you gotta watch out and you have to make yourself feel comfortable that but when I lay in my tent and that fear starts crawling up from my gut to my chest to my head then I just ask myself is it necessary right now to have fear because nobody saw me cycling this path nobody saw me setting up my camp and there was nobody so who the heck should be here in the middle of nowhere waiting for a Backpacker to I don't know set up the tent in the middle of nowhere like the chance of that happening is really really low of course there are risks and of course there are bad things happening in this world but panicking doesn't help so yeah I just made myself clear that most of my fears only exist in my head and the last thing I realized while traveling solo is you are stronger than you think you are most of my life I was impressed by people I was impressed by people doing stuff like going on a journey running a marathon conquering a mountain or working self-employed and I was always like oh I could never this I could never ever survive out there I'm too weak my fitness level isn't good enough I could never ever do it alone and blah blah blah blah blah but while being on the road I ended up in so many the situations and I just had to continue I had to do something I couldn't just stop in the middle of the road and say you know I can't do this anymore I'm too weak I'm too I just can't no that's that's not an option so a couple of times I went beyond my limits because I had to there was no other choice today I know that I am way stronger than I thought I was I can trust myself I'm so powerful and I know the next situation might come and I'm prepared because I know who I am and I know that I'm stronger than I think I am and these were the seven things I learned while traveling solo stay tuned and hit the Subscribe button and to stay up to date you can follow me on Instagram if you have any questions regarding the backpacking traveling solo or whatever it might be just let me know in the comments and hopefully I can answer some of your questions in an upcoming video Cheerio goodbye salute and adios foreign

Channel: Giant Cheerio

Views: 70,734

Keywords: bikepacking, cycling, traveling, cycling adventure, Giant cheerio, bike, bikelife, Radreise, bikepacking set up, bikepacking Europe, bikepacking Deutschland, cycling motivation, cycling documentary, gravel bike, gravel bike bikepacking, gravel bikes 2023, Rundreise Europa, travel camping living, outdoor, gravel cycling, travel solo, solo travel female, traveling alone, solo traveling, solo travel Europe, travel motivation, woman empowerment, travel documentary, allein reisen

Id: ZvlcllSVeLY

Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 29 2023