Born in London, but grew up in a small village in the middle of England with fond memories of riding BMXs and MTBs. Sadly I was a bit too young for the heyday years of the Raleigh Chopper, but thought they were the coolest bikes that existed.

Looking back I probably had far more freedom than most kids do today. Roads were quiet and safe around where I lived and my parents certainly weren’t strict about enforcing rules or boundaries. My teenage years were mostly spent playing whatever sports were on offer, although cycling never featured as something competitive.

At university I studied geography, but had no real idea what to do when I finished. Various jobs that had kept me debt-free as a student (temporary work in factories, call centres, supermarkets) weren’t ones I wanted to do much longer, but neither did I have much interest in the kinds of graduate trainee programmes that other students might have been led towards.

An invite from a university friend to Zambia shortly after turned into eight months of travel through southern and east Africa. Travelling by bicycle hadn’t occurred to me at all, but the journey sparked a wanderlust to see more of the world.

Finding a job that allowed me to travel became the plan. Teaching English as a foreign language was the most obvious choice. The following year I moved to Japan. By this time I’d come across the inspiring stories and books of those who’d seen the world on two wheels. It sounded a much more adventurous and fulfilling way to travel than being a passenger on public transport, and a lot more exciting than being in a classroom.

In 2004 I spent several weeks cycling around the island of Kyushu, a trip that instantly fuelled thoughts of undertaking a bigger journey. There was something about the simplicity and sense of freedom associated with travelling by bicycle that had me hooked; to be immersed in my surroundings and feel a reward at the end of each day as I lay exhausted in my tent thinking what the next day might bring. I loved the unpredictability about what I would see, who I might meet and where I might sleep. The cycling itself was never about how far or how fast I could go in a day, and the bicycle I had wasn’t especially built for being loaded with bags for touring.

And so the next year, without a great deal of planning, I set off with a vague aim to cycle back to the UK. I had no idea how long it would take, but decided that as long as I maintained the motivation and funds to keep going I would. The Long Ride Home, as I called the journey, ended up covering almost 50,000km over three years.

Restless for more two-wheeled adventures, and fulfilling a wish to return to Africa, I left the UK by bicycle a year later in 2009. The Big Africa Cycle was another solo and mostly unplanned journey. I guessed I might be on the road for a year and a half, but it was almost three years later that I rolled into Cape Town, having covered 35,000km on a circuitous route across the continent.

In 2013 I returned to Africa and took up an English teaching post in northern Tanzania. I brought the bicycle and used my holidays to explore more of the continent on two wheels.

Two years later my teaching contract finished and I was back on the road, riding north through the Horn of Africa. A cargo boat loaded with cows transported me out of Africa to Oman and the Arabian Peninsula. That journey finished in the UAE.

The Gulf had never appealed as a place to live and teach, but there were plenty of jobs, and I’d enjoyed my time in Oman. In the end it was Saudi Arabia where I started work again in 2016. The plan had been to stay a few years, save some money and use my free time to study again. Adventurous cycle tours sadly featured far less frequently over the following years as I balanced full-time work with postgraduate studies (MA in Education and International Development).

When the studies were complete in 2019 I felt restless for another adventure, so set 2020 as a year to get back on the road. A global pandemic put a hold on that until 2021. Since then I’ve mostly been on the road, riding around the UK and Ireland, various parts of Europe, as well as the Caucasus, Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

The question many people might ask, and understandably so, is how have I been able to afford to travel for so long? A combination of saving hard, when I have worked, and spending little when not, is the simplest answer. And that goes all the way back to my first jobs while I was still a student. More recently, my job in Saudi Arabia paid far more than any other teaching job I’ve had, allowing me to save money to buy property and create a passive income through letting it out. No-one has ever gifted me money to travel. My trips have all been entirely self-financed.

One day I hope to finally get round to putting some of the pictures and stories in this website into a book….or two, but for the moment I’m happy to keep riding, exploring and documenting the world as seen from my saddle.