The online travel magazine for travelers, artists, and vagabonds alike. For those who live outside the box; those who refuse to accept mediocrity as the norm; those who know that life is what you make it; those who want to experience it all.

June 13-July 5, 2026—Georgia

We arrived to Tbilisi in the late evening after a long day of pedaling and several flat tires from Santi's bike. So many that we exhausted our supply of spare inner tubes and patches and had to walk the last seven kilometers to the guesthouse in Marjashvili.

With sweat beading down our backs and hands covered in dirt and grime from bicycle maintenance, we somehow enjoyed our three-hour walk, hauling bikes and bags across the busy streets of the capital. The whole situation felt right on point for our last day before settling down for a while. We could already tell that we would love this city.

By 11 p.m., we finally arrived at our rental. The host greeted us warmly and, after giving us a quick tour of the place, mentioned that there was an issue with the water and it would be off for a couple of hours. A couple of hours turned into a couple of days until on day two, early in the wee hours, I heard the glorious sound of liquid rushing through pipes and the toilet basin filling up. I stripped down and ran to the shower. My skin's microbiome thanking me for the rejuvenation.

Our apartment wasn't the best, but I loved it there. I would wake up around 9 a.m., sit in the kitchen area engulfed in sunlight, read and make tea in this borrowed resemblance of the ordinary. We spent a lot of time outside, the whole of Tbilisi—or at least what we enjoyed of it—was right at the building's front door: fruit and vegetable vendors on the sidewalks, second-hand shops every few meters, cafés, grocery shops, and interesting makeshift buildings, all in our neighborhood. We often wandered around, fascinated by the wonky constructions and how they had ever passed inspection, or were even still standing.

We intentionally rented the place on Marjashvili only for seven days so that we could explore other parts of the city. By week two, we were on the right bank of the river. We didn't like it much. The area felt commercial, with wide avenues and little character. But Santi was happy because from our apartment window he could see the football pitches and when he saw players, he would join them. Language barriers and unfamiliar surroundings didn't seem to matter much. Football is always his comfort zone.

For our third and last week, we returned to the neighborhood we loved and focused on getting ready for our journey towards Russia. We stocked up on spare bike parts, organized our setup, and got rid of unused items.

Saturday came and we set off after a long morning of shenanigans. A few pedal strokes later, we were off the bikes again, tinkering with my setup. I had padded the space between my handlebar and basket with a block of styrofoam I'd picked up from the trash to prevent them from clanging together over bumps. It fixed one problem and created a new one. Now I had a deafening screeching sound when I turned my handlebar either way. 

After some adjustments, we were finally on our way. We managed about twenty-five kilometers or so before renting a room in a quiet villa. We ate on the balcony and called it a day. 

April 6-April 12, 2026—Turkey

Morning arrived crisp and alive. After packing, we rolled into town for some bread, labneh, and steaming hot çays, then set off. As we were pedaling along a dirt road through kilometers of agricultural land with rows of shiny red strawberries stretching beside us, we met a young family who handed us a bag of freshly picked fruit. We sat with them for a while, enjoying juicy berries and soft conversation. With stained and sticky fingers, we carried on a few more kilometers and set up camp at another olive grove, this one near a highway just before Aydin. I fell asleep to the tune of Strawberry Fields Forever in my head.

The next day, we made it to the city tired and dusty, rented a place, and let laziness take over until morning.

We got on our bikes late and stopped for a quick bite to eat at a café in the city’s main park. Santi noticed that the family at the next table was staring at us, at our bikes, at our trip Instagram page. He was right. The lady came over with her phone’s translation app, asking: “Do you need anything? Be our guest." I thought the “Be our guest” part meant something like “Welcome to our country." I replied with: “Thank you, we are fine." She looked at her phone, a little annoyed and sat back down. We ate our cheese and tomato toasties and continued to communicate with them. The older woman finally said: “I want you to be my guests at my home."

We spent the next three days with them. They fed us like royalty, took us around the city, brought us coffee while we worked online, and shared çay around an evening fire in their yard. We tried to help out with small things around the house and I helped Esra open an online shop to sell her beautiful art.

By April 11, it was time to carry on our journey. As we packed our bikes, the whole family joined in. Toprak passed us our panniers, Çinar wiped dry mud off our rims, Esra picked fruit from her fruit trees for us, and grandma stuffed our bikes with food she had prepared. We hugged grandma tightly and pedaled off with Esra and the boys joining us for the first few meters.

We gave our last heartfelt goodbyes and tight hugs to the family, wishing to cross paths again and stay in touch. After a last wave back, we followed the road to Nazilli, an easy forty kilometers or so. 

On the way, we got offered more strawberries, a truck pulled over to give us bottles of water, and a gym owner invited us in for coffee.

We arrived in town and booked a cheap apartment in a pansiyon, made some food, and took it easy.

The next day started with some maintenance on our bicycles, tightening our handlebar baskets with some more zip ties we found on the road and recycled inner tubes. A man on a bicycle approached us, asking about our trip. We spoke for a while and he pedaled off. Just as we were heading out, he reappeared and offered us tea and breakfast. We sat at the restaurant terrace with him, eating menemen and bread, sipping çay, and talking through the translator app. He said that he dreams about one day doing a trip like ours but his circumstances won’t let him. "Or maybe I am just good at finding excuses," he confessed.

Just before we left, the curious waitress who had been lingering around our table, mesmerized by our lifestyle, gave me the blue-beaded necklace she was wearing. “For you to remember me,” she said.

Bellies and hearts full again, we continued east. The route unfolded along dirt paths and across shallow streams until we found camp in a dreamy olive field dotted with wild flowers. That night, lying awake beneath the stars, my mind kept trying to make sense of all the warm hospitality we had received in this country. I couldn't crack it.

March 31-April 5, 2026—Turkey

Morning came around in Athens, cold and moody, luring us to stay put a little longer. We packed anyway, trying to remember how all of our things once fit seamlessly into our dusty panniers, moving with quiet hesitation and dragging out every moment until departure. Our ferry from Piraeus to Çesme was only scheduled for 8 p.m. that evening.

Once the bikes all saddled up and out the door, we headed to a café with the tenants from our sublet for the past month and a half, who returned that morning. By 3 p.m., we finally took off and pedaled our way to the coast, half wondering how the hell we were able to cross the European continent this way, half eager to see what will come next.

* * *

Neither of us had ever been on such a grand ferry for a long crossing and in our cabin, we felt fancy for a while, then, nausea gradually crept in. We slept it off. By the time we docked at our transit island, light still tucked behind the horizon and air so crisp you could crunch it, we were good to go.

After a 30-minute ride on a much more modest vessel, we were in our promised land.

From the bike, everything looked the same: trees woody and green, pavement solid and worn, sky in its usual location, rain still pouring and cold. Only here, when we arrived to our destination for the night, strangers handed out free food and drinks, locals welcomed us with black tea and fried dough balls drenched in syrup, and their hospitality exceeded anything we had experienced so far.

After this festive welcome to Turkey, we pedaled a few more meters to Tolga’s place, his home overflowing with cats. In every corner something was unfolding: a cat drank from the leaky kitchen faucet, two wrestled across the living room carpet, one licked Tolga’s face as he spoke to us completely unfazed, another ran away with a fork in his mouth, ... Between the art-covered walls and the constant feline chaos, the place felt like a funhouse.

By candlelight, with Marcello curled on his lap, Tolga told us stories from his time as a geologist in Africa—stories that went from wild camping in remote land to the gold-mining misunderstanding that landed him in jail. Something about permits and sampling rights that escalated far beyond what he could have imagined. He spoke about it lightly, as if it belonged to another lifetime, while Marcello purred under his hand and the room flickered with warm light.

The following day, we were off toward our next WS hosts, a lovely family of four. Umut and Demet introduced us to raki, a Turkish anis-flavored spirit, and we spent the evening eating and chatting. They invited us to stay an extra day due to the relentless rain. We rested, played with little Çinar for hours, and helped finish a sewing project.

When morning came, the sky was still grey but good enough to carry on. It was an easy ride through scattered rain showers and by afternoon we rolled into our first Turkish city: Izmir. We wandered aimlessly for a while before booking a place in a mediocre hostel we paid too much for. With all our things crammed in the Barney-purple room, we enjoyed an evening walk before bed.

We woke around nine-ish to no water in the hostel. I complained to the receptionist, packed up and tried the water again, it was back. We showered and left. Outside, we joined an interminable line leading to a bakery and got some traditional baked goods and two çays before heading to the bazaar. Santi's motivation hadn't fully returned since we got back on the bikes, so when Umut had suggested taking a train past some long, uneventful stretches out of Izmir, he saw it as validation. We took a train to Selçuk and just outside town, found a camp spot among the olive trees. Our first night back in the tent after many months: unpleasantly cold yet delightfully homely.