I Will Never Own a Vehicle

Photo taken in Madrid. A large group going for a night ride along the Gran Via.

I've never had an answer whenever I've been asked what my dream car would be, nor have I cared to put much thought in to it. Luxury cars never really impressed me, no matter what features it included or the price tag attached to it. I've never felt a bit of jealousy or envy toward others because they had cars and I didn't. To be honest, I never really had any interest in cars in general and driving with other passengers has always made me anxious. I mean sure, in high school I got my license as soon as I was able to because that's one of he first milestones toward reaching adulthood. Driving gives you that first taste of independence. No more asking for rides or being held at the mercy of the bus and its schedule. You can just get in your car and go where you want whenever you want to. That's freedom. 

Now don't get me wrong. Back in high school, I had fun borrowing my parent's cars, going out on dates or picking up my friends and doing what foolish 16 year olds do. And there was nothing more enjoyable than picking the right music to play whenever I got the opportunity to be behind the wheel. But back in those days, I only drove on occasion. My primary mode of travel was public transportation.

To put it as nicely as possible, public transportation in San Diego is shit. Unless you're traveling solely on trolley lines, it's going to take you about two hours to get anywhere, not to mention how unreliable the bus schedules are. Perhaps partly due to those reasons and the fact that public transit is the primary mode of travel among homeless people, there tends to be this general belief in San Diego that if you ride the bus, you're poor. Like if you don't have your own car, you must be struggling. Your money isn't in order. Simply put, you're a BROKE BOY. Riding the bus could be used as ammo against you if someone wanted to clown you ("Shut up, you ride the bus"). It wasn't until I explored the world a bit and traveled to other countries that I realized how ridiculous this notion really was. Cities like Tokyo, London or Melbourne, to name a few, where it makes more sense and is easier to take the rail or subway rather than deal with traffic and parking. 

During my college years, I went to school in Long Beach. It's a small city and it was easy to ride the bus to get around, not to mention my university had a deal with the public transportation company to make travel free for students. But there was still the worry of being late or missing your bus, or having to leave extra early to guarantee arriving on time. My senior year, I met this girl who I ended up liking and she was into bike riding so I naturally bought a bike so I could go on rides with her. Even though she placed me in a permanent seat in the friendzone, one of the many takeaways I got from that relationship was just how much I loved riding bikes. It was something I hadn't done since I was a child and this reunion opened my mind up to a whole different meaning of freedom. I can't really put it in to words what I feel when I'm on a bike. It is just something that you have to experience for yourself. No longer did bus schedules and traffic control my destiny. I could hop on my bike and get where I needed to go any time of the day. 

At this point, I knew that bike riding would be something that I wanted to incorporate into the rest of my life, but the real revelation happened in the summer of 2013, during my first solo backpacking trip. I had actually been saving up to buy a motorcycle but my desire to see the Giza pyramids persuaded me to spend my money differently. I figured since I was going to that side of the world, I might as well check out a few cities in Europe, too. So my month long excursion consisted of visiting Cairo, London, Prague, Amsterdam, and some city called Copenhagen that I had never even heard of at the time, but had read some interesting things that convinced me I should check it out.

My favorite city in the world: Copenhagen.

I can only describe my initial reaction to Copenhagen as love at first sight. There were bikes everywhere! Bike racks were overflowing with locked bikes. Bikes sat propped up in front of apartment buildings. No matter where I was, I didn't have to go very far to pass the nearest bike shop. It seemed as if there were more bikes on the road than cars. I vividly remember taking a break from exploring the city to rest and people watch on the Dronning Louises Bro bridge. Countless bikes strolled by with every type of cyclists imaginable, from fancy dressed business men in suits to parents with their children. People rode by carrying their groceries. I saw bikes with trailers attached transporting bigger items. Styles of bikes that I didn't even know existed zoomed by me. I had never witnessed a way of living like this before. It was at that point that I realized that I wanted to be a part of this movement. I didn't need to have a car to get by. I could do it all by bike.

Nyhavn in Copenhagen.

After several years of riding, I have come to believe that there is no better way to travel than by bike. Walking can be nice and relaxing, but it is far too slow and you can't really cover much ground. While driving can get you from point A to point B the quickest and easiest, I don't find the experience as rewarding as traveling by bike. When you're driving, the main focus is to arrive at your destination using the least amount of time and fuel as possible. The car ride is a means to an end. On the other hand, that sense of urgency completely dissolves when you're on a bike because your commute becomes a journey. Of course you still have places to be when you're on a bike, but when there's a nice breeze and the wind gently blows on a warm, sunny day, all while that song that you just can't get enough of is playing in your headphones, what's the rush? As populations in cities are on the rise, traffic isn't even a factor when you're on a bike. Finding a place to park, no problem.  

Traffic in Bangkok.

On one of my more recent visits to Denmark, I embarked on a wild camping cycle tour spanning from Aalborg, in the north, to Berlin, Germany, an adventure that took me seven days, covering about 500 miles. Exploring the world by bike is such a unique experience. You can look out the window of a bus or train and enjoy the scenery, but that doesn't even come close in comparison to how you take it all in on bike. The smells that you'd miss if you were boxed inside some moving vehicle. All the sights and tiny details that you wouldn't even notice because you were too busy trying to find a way to pass time reading a book or using the spotty wifi. Bike travel allows you to move at your own pace. If you see something interesting, you have the choice of stopping for as long as you want. When you travel by bike, you take non-typical routes. You may pass through unique towns or villages that you never would have thought of visiting otherwise, or the bike trail may lead you through a peaceful forest that meets up with a cliff that runs along the coast, providing you with a breathtaking view that you couldn't get anywhere else.

A family & I taking a ferry across a river in Denmark before we continue our tours.

Many people always want to know how I can afford to travel and think I either have a lot of money or that my parents are paying for my trips and both assumptions are incorrect. Here is one of the secrets right here: I ride a bike. When you don't own a car, there's no need to worry about, for one, the cost of purchasing a car or car payments, maintenance, car insurance, tickets, parking fees and of course gasoline. If you're trying to lose weight, cancel that gym membership. You can burn a lot of calories and improve your health cycling. That's a lot of expenses that I've eliminated, freeing up money to go toward other endeavors. With a bike, sure there are maintenance fees, but they total far less than what car owners are paying.

I currently live in Portland, Oregon, the biking capital of the United States. While this city is perfectly designed to get anywhere by bike, there are few drawbacks. For example, the weather has much more influence on you and this requires a bit more planning and preparation. You need to dress appropriately for the temperature. You don't want to walk into work drenched in sweat, nor do you want to freeze your ass off on a chilly night. Here in Portland, it rains A LOT. Biking in the rain can either be bad or really terrible, depending on if you are dressed appropriately with the right rain gear or not. So there's that. But after witnessing people in Copenhagen bike to work in the pouring rain day in and day out, I have used that as my motivation to man up and endure a little water.

And besides the weather, I've run into other problems. For example, I went furniture shopping at Ikea and bought a bed. I can't just throw that bed over my shoulder and pedal home. So I had to opt for delivery, which cost me an extra $50. But when you think about it, that's just a small price to be paid and in the grand scheme of things, situations like that don't arise too often. I have no problem coughing up the dough on those rare occasions. There are also companies like Zipcar or Car2Go that allow you to rent vehicles by the hour or day, if need be.

With the increasing concern of global warming and climate change, the alarming number of cars on the road can be pointed to as one of the leading contributors with all the greenhouse gases and chemical pollution emitted from exhaust fumes. Having less cars on the road is an obvious solution to this problem and the bike can be the substitute. I don't expect anyone to go as extreme as me and live without a car, but by reducing the number of occurrences that you drive, it can really help alleviate the problem. I don't think anyone purposely wants to contribute to the destruction of the environment, yet people don't seem to make any changes because the effects haven't appeared to alter our way of living in any significant way yet. I stand by the belief that you should live a life following your morals and staying true to who you are so I try to do my best in making the world a better place.