For many reasonably fit cycle tourists, 40–60 miles (65–100 km) a day is a useful broad range. If you need a single figure while sketching an itinerary, begin with 50 miles or 80 kilometres a day—then adjust it for the route, the surface, the weather, the load you will carry and the kind of journey you want.
A large typhoon is forecast to reach Tokyo on the holiday Monday; an independent review is ordered into Britain’s air traffic control failure; the US ESTA fee story going round is a year out of date; and Australia moves to cap second-year backpacker visas.
Britain’s air traffic control system failed on Tuesday, and UK airports are still catching up — this week that is the likeliest thing to touch your journey, wherever you are going. Record rain has flooded Nagoya and brought warnings to Tokyo. Schengen borders quietly lost the flexibility that kept queues moving. China’s new entry rules start on Tuesday. And two Italian strike dates are worth knowing if you connect through Rome.
There is a contradiction at the heart of modern travel. We go somewhere because we want to experience it. Then we often organise our days so tightly that experiencing the place becomes difficult. There are trains to catch, timed tickets, lunch reservations, six saved places on Google Maps and several things we have been told are “unmissable”. By the end of the day we may have seen a great deal.
Planning a long distance cycling journey? This first article in the series provides overview of the main questions you should think through including timing, fitness, daily distances, the bike, the load and accommodation. More on each of these issues over the next few weeks.
Tropical Storm Krovanh loops around southern Japan; India’s monsoon moves to the Himalayan foothills; Schengen border flexibility ends; and British Columbia lifts its wildfire emergency early.
Typhoon Saudel has put Japan, China and Hong Kong on the same warning map in a single week. Barcelona’s baggage strike is worsening, British Columbia’s state of emergency expires Saturday, southern Kyushu still has no through train, and Norwich Airport closes on Friday. What actually changes your plans.
There is a moment that happens to every traveller, usually somewhere unglamorous — a bus stop, a courtyard, a queue for bread — when the postcard version of a place falls away and something more ordinary, more alive, takes its place. You stop seeing the destination and start feeling the location: the particular weight of the air, the rhythm of a language you don’t speak, the way locals cross a square that was never built with you in mind.
Two big stories, both weather. Typhoon Dolphin slammed eastern China on 9 August, grounding well over a thousand flights at Shanghai, and Asia’s storm season is at its fierce peak around Hong Kong and Japan too. Meanwhile fast-moving wildfires in British Columbia have forced more than 20,000 people from their homes and put the province under a state of emergency. Spain’s airport strikes rumble on into a second week, and — a reminder for travellers everywhere — measles is rising worldwide.