>>1979903Cheers, yeah it's a unique position you must be in to do this.
I can explain mine:
>tl:dr: I was in between jobs, I had money and I could do it. Full story:
So I spent the better part of my 20s studying, working, moving countries. In my early 30s I started to feel burnt out, but it wasn't until my mid 30s that I was completely fucked with work. I was depressed and just dreamed to finally do something about it.
I already did some tours, and had a bike, but I needed to upgrade. A friend built me some crazy strong wheels with a dynamo to let me charge my shit.
I spent countless hours at work building and prepping my tour, I spent weeks on Komoot planning my route.
I am a bit autistic so I listed every detail during the route. Distance, checkpoints, potential campsites/hotels, down to the probability of temperature/weather, and wind direction.
When I quit, I told people what I was going to do, everyone lost their shit. "wHaTaBouT yOuR cArEer, etc etc", they would say. I shrugged. I had a feeling that it wouldn't be hard to find a job again.
I started almost a year ago, and it was both terrifying and one of the best things I've ever done. I met so many cool people, some shit people, but above all, everyday was different. Towards the 100th day, I was starting to get sick of sleeping out of my tent and wearing sweaty clothes. So I was looking forward to getting home and sleeping my own bed. During my tour I did interviews and I had a job lined up after the tour.
One of the hardest things was keeping things good with my gf. She came to visit me 3 times, and it was a huge moral boost and made city stops that much nicer.
In the future I would do short weekend/weekday trips. Train + bike = good bike tour.
