Folding Bicycle and Inflatable Boat: the Ultimate Vagabond Set Up?

For me, freedom is a bicycle. Adventure begins at a front wheel and ends at a rear one with a set of peddles, a seat, and a set of handlebars in between. From the time I was a young boy exploration and bicycles were always inseparable. Now that I’m all grown up, I have to say that I feel no different. As soon as I kick down on a pedal, hear a sprocket turn a chain which ticks through a set of gears and spin the wheels, my eyes brighten, my body relaxes, and the world becomes as new and as fresh to me as it was when I was 12 years old getting in trouble around the farm country of Upstate New York.

Feeling the lactic acid build up in your thighs as you pedal through a landscape that is ever-new and always changing with the knowledge that you can go in any direction you please at your own pace is modern exploration in its finest rendition. Add in the need to make rapid decisions, the occasional feeling of danger, the speed, and the need to be continuously alert makes bicycle travel an adventure by definition.

But the natural highways of the world are called rivers. By choosing to ride a bicycle is to commit to remaining on the highways of man. I want to travel on both as I move through this world. I have an idea:

I’m going to try something new here in China. I’m going to test traveling on a folding bicycle and an inflatable boat. When on the bike, the boat will be deflated and carried on the gear rack; when on the boat, the bicycle will be folded up and stored in the cockpit with me. I want to be able to transfer from road to waterway/ waterway to road seamlessly, and this is actually a way to do it.

Look at all that blue

To travel by boat is to get on the highways of nature. It is to get away from the cars, the exhaust fumes, and the city. The bulk of the world’s population has access to roadways, but how many people freely access waterways? Very few. I  look at a map of China and I see huge lakes, rivers, and canals everywhere. My excitement rises as I look a little closer and see islands strewn through those lakes and rivers cutting through what appears to be areas removed from the rest of the country. The inflatable boat will allow me to access the watery parts of the world: lakes, streams, ponds, rivers, canals will quickly shift from being off-limits to fully accessible. What’s out there? I will now be able to find out.

By using a bicycle I can position myself in optimal positions to launch water explorations.  The great thing here is that if I ever feel that I’m in an arduous stretch of water travel all I would need to do is row over to the nearest shore, hop out, deflate my boat, unfold my bicycle, and make for the nearest road. Versatility of options is key to vagabond travel, and the folding bicycle/ inflatable boat combo will truly be clutch in my mission to move through the world on my own volition and under my own power. Access is what travel is about. With this setup I can access the planet’s back roads and waterways.

What traveler could ask for anything more?

There is far too much of the world out there to rely on public transport and tourism to discover. I want to access the vast stretches of this planet that lie between “places,” I want to get to those no-man’s lands in between destinations. I am the weirdo hanging out in the places where 99% of travelers fly right by in buses, trains, cars, and planes. It is my impression that accessing these no-name locales is the surest path to becoming the wealthy 1% of travelers. I know that highways are modern rivers and rivers are ancient highways. To really get a taste of this planet I have to travel them both.

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