Cycling vacations

May I recommend to you all that you take a cycling vacation? By which I mean, a vacation where you don't have a car and just ride a bike all day to see stuff. That's what we did for four days in Åland last week and it was the best. Here's what I liked about riding a bike as a means of vacation:

1. You see a lot, but not too much, because you're limited by how far you can ride in a day. So you're not overwhelmed by the sightseeing part of the trip.

2. You also get an excellent sense of the where and which way, something that can sometimes get lost when you're in a car or train. Every second on the road is spent paying attention to your surroundings and so you really get a feel for wherever you are.

3. You burn so many calories on the bike that you can eat whatever you want! Not gonna lie, this was my favorite.

4. You are so tired at the end of the day from all that biking that even in basic accommodation (bunk bed room and shared bathroom/showers is what we had) you sleep ok.

5. You spend time together with whoever is cycling with you, but you also get time on the bike where you can't really chat so you just get to sit (literally, on a bike seat) and contemplate things as the world goes by. It's a good balance.

On this particular trip, I prepped my music beforehand. I really wanted Evita to be the main playlist on my headphones as I rode, but I was worried about overwriting the memories of listening to Evita during the summer of 2009 when we were moving from Tucson to Ithaca and driving across the country. I loaded some assorted miscellaneous on my iPod just in case, but ended up going with Evita after all. It didn't erase my memories of summer 2009 so much as add another layer of complexity to them: nine years later, listening to the same music on a summer journey in a totally different part of the world!