Cyle Touring
Stories and information from other long-distance cyclists.
Heinz Stücke
Arguably the most travelled man that's ever lived. Heinz has been cycling around the world since 1960 on the same 3-speed bike, and he's never been home yet. Amazing story, whether you could care less about cycling or not.
Back in the World
A Canadian couple with some amazing cycling adventures, and some great photography to go with it.
Japan By Bike
Friend of mine who cycled across Japan last year. Roughly the same trip that I'm planning this year.
Japan Cycling Navigator
Great resourse on cycling in Japan.
Round the World by Bike
Story of an Englishman who's just finished cycling around the world solo for about 4 years. I just missed out on meeting him early last year.
Travelling on a Shoestring
If they won the lottery, many people say that they'd travel the world. Fact is, most world travellers do it on a shoe string. Here are some resources for travel on the cheap:
Global Freeloaders
Worldwide free accommodation network - you agree to let travellers freeload at your place (at your discretion of course), and you have a network of people all around the world that'll let you stay at theirs without any charge.
Hospitality Club
Same idea as Freeloaders. Currently around 140,000 members in 188 countries.
Let Me Stay For a Day
Ramon Stoppelenburg left his home in The Netherlands in 2001 and traveled the world for more than 2 years without spending ANY MONEY!
Round-the-World Travel Guide
The essential introduction to long-term travel.
WWOOF
Work on organic farms or similar projects in exchange for free room and board.
Photography
If you could either save a man from a flood, or take a Pulitzer prize winning
photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and aperture would you use?
The Snowsuit Effort
Portraits of Detroit's homeless by photographer Ryan Keberly. Updated daily.
35mm Lenses
Amusing overview of 35mm lenses. The rest of the site's pretty good too.
Blair Kitchener
Great photography by a kiwi mate of mine.
Strobist
Cool site all about the world of flash photography (on the cheap).
Notes from the Road
Travel writing with some great photography by creator Erik Gauger. Eric takes a large format camera that weighs forty pounds whenever he travels! Results definitely seem worth it.
Free Lens Hoods
PDF documents you can print out and make a paper lens hood (ie light and compact) for a variety of 35mm and digital SLR lenses. Wish I'd knew about this site before I paid $50 for a hood for one of my lenses.
My Photos
My photos are here on my smugmug page.
Inner Travel...
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes,
but in having new eyes." —Marcel Proust
For those interested in turning the journey inside out, here are a few places I can recommend:
Seoul International Zen Centre
Zen centre in Seoul I used to frequent. The guiding teacher is a rather charismatic American monk, Hyon Gak Sunim.
Mu Sang Sa
A few years ago I spent 2 months in a silent retreat at this temple in central Korea. They hold regular long retreats and the operating language is English (though you don't really need it that much).
Tekishinjuku
Small international zen centre in the outskirts of Kyoto. I used to go there regularly when I lived in Osaka. Good place to get a taste of Japanese Zen.
Antai-ji
Temple in Hyogo-ken, Japan. Actually I've never been to this one, but I like the sound of it and plan to stop by on my bike trip.
