3 Day SOLO BIKE TRIP and WILD CAMPING
So I'm out here I'm in the archipelago in Sweden just outside of Voxholm. I'm packing my bag because I'm finally going on the bike trip! I found this awesome little rental place here 'Skärsgardens'. I'm really excited this is happening, a little bit nervous but excited. It's really good to try these new things and everybody's so helpful and super understanding that I'm a noob! I'm Natasha and seven years ago I left the life that I thought I was supposed to live. Whoa! I started travelling to find a place that felt like home. it's brought me to experience adventure on five continents and live in some incredible countries. It's what makes me feel alive.
But since the pandemic hit this feeling for home has gotten stronger and it's what's pushed me to go to Sweden. A place that for some reason makes me feel at home! So subscribe and let's get exploring! All ready to go! Thank you so much Yulia! Bye! Yulia helped me with everything. Yeah. You're an absolute gem! Have a good journey. Thank you so much! All right, it's go time! Oh my god I'm so excited! I did not fall - great success! Now because I didn't know if I was going to be kayaking or biking I really don't have anything planned. But Yulia promised me that it's pretty easy to get around so I'm going to go explore! Oh, this is ultimate freedom I'm only five minutes in and already loving it! Maybe I have a new hobby. Long distance biking let's see! I'll let you know in three days.
Okay so here's the thing, I haven't been biking very much, I'm just kind of getting used to it, really enjoying the scenery. It's only been a few hours and it's going to start to get dark soon. And I don't want to have to put up the tent in the dark so I need to find a place to stay. And I think I found a pretty good area in these woods here but I think the trouble will be - there's no question it will fit..
But whether I can do it because it's about 10-12 kilos... so let's find out. oh my god I mean maybe somebody really expert could cycle this but I cannot. Yeah I definitely need two hands for this... oh look at these mushrooms. ow f#!king rose bush. Okay cool, there's a path. Ah oh. How do I get up there? Oh my god. The bag is off. Oh there's so many pokey places. And it's slippery. This could end very badly. okay. Uhhh. I don't want to do this.
No that's not going to work either. Do it. Just do it. When you want to do something, just f#!&ing do it! oh my god oh my god.. I did it.
Ooo berries! Okay hold my bike! All right one so one of the reasons why I want to go this way is because I saw a clearing! And why do I want to go to a clearing well because I would like to be in nature like fully in nature. The is clearing is just the easiest way to set up a tent. Oh! You know, I'm going to have to do that tomorrow. I did it. Well a super easy first day and I think I found myself a really nice area to stay in.
There's tons of mosquitoes I'm so glad last minute I grabbed my mosquito repellant. So i'm all right. I'm not feeling that hungry. I mean I didn't do that much biking today. I don't know, I might just have a light snack and then plan out tomorrow. Tomorrow I want to be cycling for most of the day. And it's supposed to be good weather I feel like the Swedish nature gods are in my favour! I was a little bit worried about some of the trees because there are some leaning here. But it looks like the ones that I'm surrounded by are pretty sturdy pretty safe so I should be fine. I know I always bring up the safety thing but it's funny because I think I've had a lot of experience going to places that aren't safe and living in places that may be a little bit questionable.
I'm not talking about Barcelona. No but seriously here I feel good. So while it's still light out, let's see what the potential plan is. I'm thinking that maybe tomorrow, I do what Yulia suggested and go around this island. She said it's probably very quick. I could just stay on this but I don't think that's many kilometres. I mean my goal is not to have a bunch of kilometers.
But the goal is to try and bike, I'd say a nice 20k would be nice. So for tonight's dinner we have some rice crackers. Uh. Arugula! actually look - rucola it's the same in Spanish almost. Some cherry tomatoes. We have faux meat. We've got a nice little seasoning. And beetroot hummus and maybe a side of ants. It's protein. There's a lot of countries that eat insects, you know maybe it's actually in our future to be a more sustainable planet and eat insects. I hear that people drink cockroach milk sometimes.
I mean it's not like a popular thing but people are doing it. I can't even imagine it like does it is it creamy? The things you wonder... All right there it is. The beauty. It's not bad. I think I'm going to call it a night. I'm going to read a little bit and then I'll see you tomorrow morning. We've got a big day ahead of us! I hope you're ready. Good morning! I'm struggling massively hard this morning.
All right yeah I've been awake for about three hours now and I'm still at the campsite. Why? Because for some reason my brain is not functioning today. I don't know where my bike lock key is... It was last seen with my GoPro. Ah, I found them! After cycling for a while I felt like I was getting the hang of it. I crossed two islands, then ran into a castle and then got a real appreciation for what it's like to cycle with my first big hill. I think I can I think I can, I know I can, I know I can ooooh! It doesn't look like much on the GoPro but trust me it was really testing me.
Luckily what goes up must come down and those stretches were exhilarating. Yeaaaaaah buddy! Today has been just unreal. Like this is exactly what I came for! To get back to doing stuff like this, to play, to have fun, to live life. oh my gosh. I feel like I trap myself. I make my own excuses, like oh I can't afford to do this I can't do this because I have to do x, y or z, whatever. But at the end of the day, these are all excuses. We really just have this one shot to live. So when we have the opportunity, I think we should really take it and we should really owe it to ourselves to make something out of ourselves and when we can and to share in whatever way possible.
The first time that I came to Sweden was actually because of the whole pandemic situation. We had just moved to Barcelona, I didn't have any friends, I felt like I was trapped because there were so many restrictions. I think because that trip gave me something that I had been missing just like getting back to who i was basically. I think that's why I came back this time for another solo trip.
There's just something about this place that makes me feel so free The whole reason this trip is even possible is because of allemänsratten which is the freedom to roam under Sweden's constitution. Which gives everyone access to walk cycle, camp, on any land. As long as you're not destroying, disturbing or camping in someone's garden. So even if I get terribly lost, I can eat my food and stay in my tent until I find my way. For some reason a drunken sailor popped into my head... Never underestimate the power of a good meal. I've got that delicious Indian food in my belly.
And I'm ready, I could probably do another 20k... no big deal. I'm gonna go that way... And camp up... hopefully... wish me luck. Once I'd crossed a few more islands I'd realized the sun was going down fast so I needed to find my next spot for the evening and quick. Just when I thought I was out of luck, I kept thinking to myself I'll find something, I'll find something. And I did.
Just a little bit of a trek up. Okay so now, pretty sure I'm the only one crazy enough to actually do this right now. I'm going to leave my bike there and see if I can scout out a really lush spot. Eventually it happened but it was a mad sequence of events. I didn't have time to record anything, just this. I want to tell you a little breakfast story. Last night I definitely stopped vlogging once I started biking because it was about 7:40pm.
I have less than an hour to get myself to a spot where I feel comfortable, I feel like it's going to be quiet for the night. I'm cycling along beautiful roads, I look at the map where the clearings are you can see where the forests are And you can even see some of these trails here. So I'm biking along and I have a rough idea of where I want to be, in this area. So, I'm biking, biking, biking and I can't find any trail heads. So I keep just thinking to myself: it's going to work out, everything's going to be okay, something will come up, something will pop up. Like literally, I look right and there is the freaking path. So I looked at my Google Maps quick and I was like, alright cool.
So I follow this along it looks promising so I pushed my bike up the hill over there. Then I quickly, like a bunny rabbit hopped through the bushes here. Respectfully of course. And then I found this place just over there and it looks perfect. I was like oh this is exactly what I was looking for it's under a nice tree, there's a lot of space, I only have to clear out some dead twigs, and then I've got a nice space to put the tent up.
So I started putting the tent up and then all of a sudden all of these ants start coming up. And they're all over my legs. They're all over my hands or all over the tent, they're all over my gear that's on the ground.
It was so like you know, creepy like, creepy crawly because they're all right there. Anyways so I'm like, crap, crap, crap, I can't sleep in a bed of ants. These things could be biters! I don't know. I quickly went running down and I found this path and then I found the spot that I stayed in last night. And I was like, oh, this is perfect.
So then like a literal mad woman, I pick up the tent because I had already put the poles in, so I'm like a woman running through the freaking forest at like eight o'clock at night. And I ran through here with the tent over my head. Oh my gosh. And then I like skimmied my way through there, put the tent down.
And I went back and I got all my stuff because if it gets dark and I can't find my stuff, that is bad news. I went back, got my stuff brought it over here and then as quickly as I could, I set up the tent. It's just so lucky, but also just so hilarious. I do silly things. Like I could have just gone to a campsite but the thing with going to a campsite is that's just like going anywhere else, you know? Here in Sweden you are allowed to do what I'm doing and it's amazing. It's incredible.
Barcelona has 'la Sagrada Familia', yeah sure. Paris has got the Eiffel Tower but what does Sweden have? Sweden has the freaking outdoors. I love this country. I love it. Everything's cool, I'm just so tired at this point. I think yesterday I did like maybe 30 to 40k . All of a sudden I hear this dogs bark but it's not like a 'bark, bark', you know?Like it's different. And so of course my brain, the way it works, is it just starts thinking... I thought all the animals, all the dangerous animals were in the north of Sweden.
Bears, wolves, yeah but I looked and there aren't really any here they're all in the north. And I thought, oh my gosh, maybe I overlooked something. Maybe I forgot something. I'm like, oh it could be a wild boar! It sounds like it could be a wild boar. No it's just the dog's bark. This is just the power of the mind.
Your mind can manifest something like a trail to this magical forest where you're going to camp for the night. Or it can manifest a wild boar that sounds like a dog's bark. Seriously. At the end of the day, I'm having an awesome time. Just a lone kitten in a big, big Sweden. All right so day three means, I have to return the bike today but that's okay. It also means one more night of camping. I've got to work tomorrow.
So I'm going to go set up my camp in this nature reserve behind me and then drop off my bike and hopefully relax for the rest of the day. I've dropped off the bike. I'm super sad that it's over. Doing a bike trip is incredible. I did not expect that it was going to be so much fun. Sorry... I just said sorry to stick.
I did not expect it to be that fun or that difficult with that much weight on the back. Not just like getting up hills but also just trying to stabilize you know. But I've chosen my last spot and I think I found probably one of the best spots.
I mean there's probably hundreds but again, it's a sign. The sun is shining down on this spot. There's not a herd of ants and just a few twigs to clear up and I've got a nice comfy bed to lie on. Yeah let's get to it so I can go for a little plunge. Finally I also found access to the water. Let's go Always check for rocks or pine cones. You might have been wondering how I even find these camp spots. So with all our beautiful technology nowadays, I just go on Google Maps and I see if there are any forests that look uninhabited.
They will actually have signs if you cannot camp somewhere or if there are specific rules or time limits. There are some places you can only go to designated places and if it doesn't say anything and it just says welcome then you are that, you are very welcome. So it's pretty easy to do. This is so cold.
Oh my gosh, if you've made it this far thank you for watching, please subscribe. I'm going to go all the way in. That wasn't so bad. See you next time. Happy adventuring friends. Thanks for having me Sweden. It's been a blast.
2021-10-15 14:53
