The Accidental Bicycle Tourist

Jacqui Webster and Joe McNamara are a middle-aged Australian couple who in 2023 paused their sensible careers for one year to hop on heavily laden bicycles and pedal from England to Singapore. Except things didn’t go as planned and they ended up riding across Europe and Africa instead. Prior to this episode, I got a chance to read Jacqui’s entertaining book about the journey, Two Bugs on Bikes. I laughed out loud at Joe’s genius packing strategy, which left them stranded in Rwanda with two right shoes and two right pedals, and his questionable camp-stove paella. I marveled at their accidental, highly discounted “unofficial” gorilla trek in the jungles of Uganda and their encounters with other wild animals. From spontaneously deciding to conquer Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to surviving swarms of protein-packed lake flies in Malawi to securing a glorious finish-line escort from wild ostriches, the stories that Jacqui and Joe tell contrast the gritty, exhausting physical reality of pedaling across two continents (the "sweat") with their relentlessly upbeat attitude, generosity, and genuine joy in each other's company (the "smiles").Two Bugs on Bikes can be ordered from most bookshops or online from Amazon Australia or Dymocks.The organization where you can sponsor a teacher or support a child through school in Uganda is called Sheka Africa, a registered Australian charity. Sponsorship fees are fully tax deductible in Australia.Another organization mentioned was Overflow Mission Zimba, Zambia.Jacqui and Joe's routes can be found in their Komoot collections.For links to podcast platforms, feedback via email, the podcast website, and Instagram:https://linktr.ee/accidental_bicycle_tourist