📅 February 14, 2026 – Valentine's Day
Pre-trip nerves and why I'm more excited than scared
We've been planning this for so long that it started to feel abstract – just a spreadsheet, a dream, a list of gear. But today something shifted. We laid everything out on the living room floor – panniers, tools, camping kit, clothes – and it became real. We're actually doing this.
I keep having the same thought loop: what if the bikes break down? What if we can't find camping spots? What if we just... can't do it? But then I look across the room and see them just as excited, just as terrified, and I think: this is exactly the kind of thing you do with someone you trust completely.
😊 Happy
📅 January 28, 2026
The great gear debate, resolved (mostly)
Three weeks of arguments about what to bring and what to leave behind. The tent won. The extra camera lens lost. We found a compromise on cooking equipment – one small stove, one pot, one pan. Enough to make pasta, not enough to make excuses to stay indoors.
Weighed both bikes loaded: 22kg each. That felt heavy until I remembered that a loaded touring bike in Morocco weighs 30kg+. We're lightweight adventurers, apparently.
🤔 Reflective
📅 January 10, 2026
Why London to Istanbul? The honest answer.
Everyone asks why we chose this route. The easy answer is "it's iconic, it's achievable, it's beautiful." The honest answer is messier: we both needed something big. Something that would make us too busy surviving to worry about everything else.
There's a specific quality to physical exhaustion after a long day in the saddle – your brain just... quiets. You fall asleep in a tent listening to rain and you feel, for once, like you're exactly where you're supposed to be.
🤩 Amazing