Tim Mathis's Blog, page 5

84 of the world’s best long distance pilgrimage and adventure routes.

File under: GAP Month inspiration.

We’re serving 1997 Angelfire realness around here, so I made this unwieldy in-no-particular-order list, for proud display here on my personal page on the World Wide Web.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good start to get you thinking about GAP Month possibilities: places where you might put together a trip that’s a month long (or more), which primarily involves human powered travel.

If you want to do one of these trips, and make it a life-changing experience, check out the rest of the articles on how to organize a GAP month .

The world's best long distance hiking and walking routes ,El Camino de Santiago and associated routes, Europe, Spain ,West Highland Way and ,The Cape Wrath Trail, Scotland ,Colorado Trail, USA ,Shikoku pilgrimage, Japan ,Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage, Taiwan ,Classic Himalayas circuits, Nepal ,John Muir Trail, USA ,Coast to Coast/E8, Ireland ,Beara-Breifne Way, Ireland ,Long Trail (Vermont), USA ,Superior Hiking Trail, USA Pilgrim's Way , UK ,Lycian Way, Turkey ,DIY Local urban thru hike, Anywhere ,The Way of St. Francis, Italy ,Kumano Kodo, Japan ,Via Francigena, Italy ,St. Olav's Way, Norway ,Patagonia Treks, Chile/Argentina ,Hadrian's Wall Path, UK ,South West Coast Path, UK ,The Pennine Way, UK ,The Inca Trail and treks near Cusco, Peru ,The Larapinta Trail, Australia ,The Bibbulmun Track, Australia ,The Grand Enchantment Trail, USA ,The Pacific Crest Trail, USA ,The Appalachian Trail, USA ,The Continental Divide Trail, USA ,The GR20, Corsica ,The Pacific Northwest Trail, USA ,Oregon Desert Trail, USA ,The Haute Route, France/SwitzerlandThe world's best bike touring and bike packing routes ,The Silk Road, Asia ,The Pacific Coast Highway, USA ,The EuroVelo 6, Europe ,The Munda Biddi Trail, Australia ,The Carretera Austral, Chile/Argentina ,The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, Canada/USA ,The North Sea Cycle Route, Europe ,Baja Divide, Mexico ,The East Coast Greenway, USA ,The Camino de Santiago, Spain ,The TransAmerica Trail, USA ,Trans Canada Trail, Canada ,Tour de Aotearoa, New Zealand ,Trans Mexico Sur, Mexico ,Trans Mexico Norte, Mexico ,Taiwan Cycle Route 1, Taiwan ,Land’s End to John O’Groats, UK ,Cycle Touring (infinite options), Europe ,The Ring Road, IcelandThe world's best long distance paddling and rafting routes ,The Grand Canyon, USA ,The Boundary Waters, USA ,The Sea of Cortez, Mexico ,The Allagash Wilderness Waterway, USA ,The Race to Alaska/The Inside Passage, USA/Canada ,Lake Erie to NYC via the Erie Canal and Hudson River, USA ,Mississippi River Paddle, USA ,Missouri River Paddle, USA ,Floating The Yukon, Canada and USA ,The Danube, Germany ,The Murray, AustraliaMiscellaneous Pilgrimage Destination and Circuit Ideas ,Stonehenge, UK ,Glastonbury Tor, UK ,Lalibela, Ethiopia ,Petra, Jordan ,Sedona, USA ,Taos Pueblo, USA ,The Jesus Trail, Israel ,The Source of the Ganges, India ,The Serpent Mound, USA ,The Oracle at Delphi, Greece ,Mt. Olympus, Greece ,The Temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. ,Bodh Gaya, India ,The Hajj, Saudi Arabia ,The Banana Pancake Trail, SE Asia ,The Pilgrimage to Mt. Hiei, Japan ,Golden Temple, Amritsar, India ,Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico ,Vaishno Devi Temple, India ,Lourdes, France ,St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City

That's it, but also...

More, more, more! Give me more! What other ideas do you have? Go to the About page and send me a message with your ideas!

Back to GAP Month home

83 of the world’s best long distance pilgrimage and adventure routes.

File under: GAP Month inspiration.

We’re serving 1997 Angelfire realness around here, so I made this unwieldy in-no-particular-order list, for proud display here on my personal page on the World Wide Web.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good start to get you thinking about GAP Month possibilities: places where you might put together a trip that’s a month long (or more), which primarily involves human powered travel.

If you want to do one of these trips, and make it a life-changing experience, check out the rest of the articles on how to organize a GAP month .

The world's best long distance hiking and walking routes ,El Camino de Santiago and associated routes, Europe, Spain ,West Highland Way and ,The Cape Wrath Trail, Scotland ,Colorado Trail, USA ,Shikoku pilgrimage, Japan ,Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage, Taiwan ,Classic Himalayas circuits, Nepal ,John Muir Trail, USA ,Coast to Coast/E8, Ireland ,Beara-Breifne Way, Ireland ,Long Trail (Vermont), USA ,Superior Hiking Trail, USA ,Lycian Way, Turkey ,DIY Local urban thru hike, Anywhere ,The Way of St. Francis, Italy ,Kumano Kodo, Japan ,Via Francigena, Italy ,St. Olav's Way, Norway ,Patagonia Treks, Chile/Argentina ,Hadrian's Wall Path, UK ,South West Coast Path, UK ,The Pennine Way, UK ,The Inca Trail and treks near Cusco, Peru ,The Larapinta Trail, Australia ,The Bibbulmun Track, Australia ,The Grand Enchantment Trail, USA ,The Pacific Crest Trail, USA ,The Appalachian Trail, USA ,The Continental Divide Trail, USA ,The GR20, Corsica ,The Pacific Northwest Trail, USA ,Oregon Desert Trail, USA ,The Haute Route, France/SwitzerlandThe world's best bike touring and bike packing routes ,The Silk Road, Asia ,The Pacific Coast Highway, USA ,The EuroVelo 6, Europe ,The Munda Biddi Trail, Australia ,The Carretera Austral, Chile/Argentina ,The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, Canada/USA ,The North Sea Cycle Route, Europe ,Baja Divide, Mexico ,The East Coast Greenway, USA ,The Camino de Santiago, Spain ,The TransAmerica Trail, USA ,Trans Canada Trail, Canada ,Tour de Aotearoa, New Zealand ,Trans Mexico Sur, Mexico ,Trans Mexico Norte, Mexico ,Taiwan Cycle Route 1, Taiwan ,Land’s End to John O’Groats, UK ,Cycle Touring (infinite options), Europe ,The Ring Road, IcelandThe world's best long distance paddling and rafting routes ,The Grand Canyon, USA ,The Boundary Waters, USA ,The Sea of Cortez, Mexico ,The Allagash Wilderness Waterway, USA ,The Race to Alaska/The Inside Passage, USA/Canada ,Lake Erie to NYC via the Erie Canal and Hudson River, USA ,Mississippi River Paddle, USA ,Missouri River Paddle, USA ,Floating The Yukon, Canada and USA ,The Danube, Germany ,The Murray, AustraliaMiscellaneous Pilgrimage Destination and Circuit Ideas ,Stonehenge, UK ,Glastonbury Tor, UK ,Lalibela, Ethiopia ,Petra, Jordan ,Sedona, USA ,Taos Pueblo, USA ,The Jesus Trail, Israel ,The Source of the Ganges, India ,The Serpent Mound, USA ,The Oracle at Delphi, Greece ,Mt. Olympus, Greece ,The Temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. ,Bodh Gaya, India ,The Hajj, Saudi Arabia ,The Banana Pancake Trail, SE Asia ,The Pilgrimage to Mt. Hiei, Japan ,Golden Temple, Amritsar, India ,Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico ,Vaishno Devi Temple, India ,Lourdes, France ,St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City

That's it, but also...

More, more, more! Give me more! What other ideas do you have? Go to the About page and send me a message with your ideas!

Back to GAP Month home

The GAP Month: How do you make travel life-changing?

Travel is one of the few things capable of actually, properly transforming adult human beings for the better.

It can be a tool to overcome prejudice, learn a new language, decide to follow a different life path, change political beliefs, or break out of the drudgery of life’s stupid, stupid routines.

It’s more fun (and probably cheaper) than therapy or university education.

But it’s also not all created equal. Not all trips lead to dramatic growth.

I’ve put together the concept of a GAP Month as a framework to explain the type of travel that is likely to facilitate real change. Think of it as a checklist for transformational travel - a tool you can use it to plan trips that will shape your own life.

I'll explain later, but GAP stands for Goal-directed Adventure or Pilgrimage. Or just Goals, Adventure, Pilgrimage if that's easier to remember.

I came up with the idea, sort of, but really I just stole a bunch of concepts from people who’ve been doing this stuff for centuries. It’s time tested. There are solid principles. You can use travel to change your life. Call me Goldilocks or a televangelist but it’s true.

To get you there, I’d like to introduce you to the idea of a GAP Month.

When you travel, you realize that it messes you up.

For a bit of background, here’s my travel story, in (very) brief.

I got sucked in by travel in my teens and early 20s for the same reasons that people at that age make most decisions: it was exciting and it made me feel good. Flying across the world without adult supervision - that’s a pure hands-trembling rush in the years after you leave your parents’ nest.

It didn’t take long though to figure out that travel was also a major shock to the system. During my first big, adult trip - a month busing around Australia with Angel (my wife now, fiance at the time) - I had experiences that eventually led to both a change in my religion and a move across the world. At various stages in life, significant trips have helped facilitate career shifts (the Camino and the PCT), another religious transition (Hawaii), and significant changes to my politics, values and prejudices (New Zealand, Guatemala and Mexico).

None of those upheavals were intentional, exactly. Traveling, I’d meet people living lives that I didn’t know were possible: backpackers who spent years drifting around the planet with no money, or people from different religious backgrounds who were better humans than I was. I encountered countries that were much more functional than my own Greatest Country in the World™, and nationalities that were vilified at home who were, it turns out, nice and normal. That sort of thing just chips away at you, and expands your sense of reality.

As I’ve gotten older, I have naturally drifted towards the kinds of travel experiences that give you a real shot at improving your life. Travel isn’t just exciting anymore. (Sometimes it’s not exciting at all.) The goal’s shifted, and for my middle-aged self, travel is very frequently intended “,To Shake the Sleeping Self” to quote the title of Jedediah Jenkins’ book about cycle touring.

Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. Across the years, my first trip to Guatemala changed me more than (for instance), my second trip to Mexico. My month in Australia changed me more than three weeks in New Zealand in 2014. The Camino de Santiago had more of. an impact on my life than any other trip - until Angel and I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail.

After a couple of decades of this, you start to ask questions. Why do some trips dramatically reshape your life, when others are just vacations?

Some travel is pilgrimage

As with most things, I wasn’t the first person to notice this. People have been traveling in search of transformation for millennia.

The extent to which this was true started dawning on me consciously while I was writing an as yet unpublished guide to the Camino de Santiago, the very popular medieval pilgrimage route across northern Spain. People have been walking the Camino for centuries seeking (and finding) transformation.

While researching for that book, I started looking into other pilgrimages too. It turns out that there are a lot.

Seriously, it’s an almost universal feature of human society today, and it has been for a very long time. 10 million people travel to the Buddhist temple at Nanputuo in Xiamen, China every year. 2000 people a day make the pilgrimage to the Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya in India where the Buddha was said to have achieved enlightenment. All Muslims are expected to complete the Hajj to Mecca at some point in life, and more than a million people do so annually. Jews visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Japanese circle the 88 Temples PIlgrimage on Shikoku, and millions of visitors seek blessings from Mary every year at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. For a whole lot of people, the idea of using travel for transformation is very familiar.

Pilgrimage wasn’t a new concept for me, and I’m guessing it’s not for you either. But until I started looking into the broad facts, I’d always subconsciously cordoned off pilgrimage from other forms of travel - even after walking the Camino myself.

Specifically, I’d always seen pilgrimage as an experience that was more about religion than travel. As if it were the faith that made it work - not the travel itself.

(To be fair, religious pilgrims frequently make it seem like that’s the case - like you have to hold a specific type of faith in order for pilgrimage to work.)

When you look at the trends broadly though, the thing that becomes obvious is that no one has a monopoly on pilgrimage. Christians communing with St. James’ bones on the Camino are not seeking the same thing as Buddhists looking for enlightenment at the Bodhi Tree in India, but they both go on trips looking for transformation, as do Jews, Muslims, Taoists and more.

It makes you think, maybe it’s not the religion that makes it powerful? Maybe it’s the travel process itself?

For me, it’s only recently that it’s all clicked together. I’ve mostly traveled with thoroughly agnostic intentions but I’ve still experienced the transformative elements of travel. Even on the ostensibly religious Camino, I traveled at a time shortly after leaving my faith. In fact, it cemented my irreligion in mostly enjoyable ways.

Duh. it’s possible for travel to be life-changing even if you’re not religious.

Duh, it’s the travel bit of pilgrimage that matters, not the specific set of beliefs.

Take a month off and travel, and it’ll change your life

In the midst of all of my reading about pilgrimage, I was talking with Angel about my problems while we were out on a hike. Specifically, I was whining about the fact that I like to write but sometimes I lack direction.

She’s infinitely more self-directed than I am, so to try to help, she asked, “What could you teach people, specifically? What do you know that’s valuable or practical?”

Then, seemingly off the top of her head, she said, “What about that idea we’ve talked about, where if you want to change your life, you should just take a month off from work and travel? Do you think you could do anything with that?”

Easy, right? You just have to ask the right person.

Things started to click together in my mind.

The building blocks were that I’d found travel transformative myself - some types more than others.

I knew that dozens of different religions have pilgrimage traditions focused on using travel for personal or community transformation.

And I figured that there have be some specific reasons that pilgrimage works.

That’d be useful for people to know, right? The things that I’ve sorted out from experience? The stuff that people have gleaned across centuries about how to make travel transformative?

If you knew that, you could intentionally shape your own trips so they’ll be incredible and life-changing and profound, right?

And you’d be able to sort out when maybe you need to plan a trip when life’s giving you problems? Or when you just need a shake up?

That’s the ticket.

—

From there, I started getting practical in my reading and writing. I started pulling out the things that people need to know.

What are the consistent themes that pop up in pilgrimage and adventure literature about what’s essential? What are the principles that make travel impactful?

I figured with all of the pilgrimages in the world, someone has to know something about that, right?

And I figured that if you knew that (you personally - not some theoretical collective “you”), then you’d be able to apply the knowledge in your own situation.

The good news is that people do have thoughts about what makes pilgrimage work. There are whole academic disciplines about it.

,Father Frank Fahey wrote an influential article about the topic.

The University of York put together a ,nice publicly accessible and pleasantly ‘90s website about it.

,And Dave Whitson, who’s written a bunch of guides to various Caminos, just wrote a book about the subject.

There’s a lot more out there too. There’s a lot of interesting literature. There’s also a lot of boring literature. There’s also a lot of ,spiritualized mumbo jumbo.

When you separate the wheat from the chaff, happily enough a formula emerges that is concrete - practical even - and directly applicable for people interested in creating meaningful travel experiences. People like you, I hope.

That’s what I’ve tried to congeal with the GAP Month concept.

GAP Month Definition: Goals, Adventure, Pilgrimage

What exactly is a GAP Month?

It’s a Goal-Directed, Adventure or Pilgrimage Month

It’s the distilled essence of transformative travel, based on principles taken from literature about pilgrimage and adventure, filtered through my own brain, which has been shaped by years of travel myself.

It’s a set of simple principles that are valuable independently but are most powerful when taken as a package.

It’s a simplified checklist to follow if you want a reliable formula for transformative travel.

What is it?

Stated directly after all of that elusiveness, a GAP Month happens when you do the following:

Take at least one month away from home Move towards a specific destination, or along a specific circuit - preferably using a human-powered means of travel. Involve some non-trivial level of adventure, where there's a real question about whether or not you’ll be able to accomplish your goal. Set a personal goal or expectation (which doesn’t have to be that specific). Integrate some form of ritual (which doesn’t necessarily mean religion). Work in the community so you aren’t just going alone.

If you do those things, time and history testify that you’ll come away significantly changed in some way or another.

It won't just be a vacation. It'll be a rite of passage or a life transition or a pilgrimage.

That’s easy enough. Where do we go from here?

You’re creative people - just knowing those principles I’m sure that you could have a think and come up with amazing experiences. You don’t need me to define anything for you further.

That’s no fun though.

Instead, watch this space (or even better, subscribe to the mailing list) because from here:

I’ll write a series of articles about each of the six principles. I’ll share stories about travel that fit the GAP Month template. I’ll put together a list of ideas for GAP Month destinations and activities. I’ll provide a thorough checklist for how to construct a GAP Month yourself. I’ll keep posts chock full of links to other resources if you’re interested in further reading. I’ll also write other stuff - my brain is hopelessly scattered.

These days it’s easy to get cynical and depressed and prejudiced, and it’s easy to develop bad ideas and get stuck in your ways. Call me grandiose, but I think that the GAP month concept will give you the wisdom of the ancients that you need in order to unleash travel’s power in your own life.

I feel like I should have some kind of inspiring quote to close this out, but I don't. Whatever. Let's get going.

And don't forget to check out my books while you're at it. They tie in well with this sort of thing.

Taiwan Cycle Route 1: What English-speakers need to know to bike around Taiwan.

11 things you need to know to have a great time on Taiwan Cycle Route 1.

This article is a “Part 2” of a series on Taiwan Cycle Route 1. For the first article, click here .

Taiwan is a very hospitable place to cycle, with genuinely remarkable infrastructure.

There are a few things worth reviewing though if you’re an English-speaker and thinking about biking around Taiwan on Cycle Route 1. Here’s the nitty gritty “must know” information, in no particular order.

1. A link for the day to day guide

First, let me rudely explain how I’m not going to help. I’m not providing a map or a day to day breakdown of the trip, primarily because we veered off of Cycle Route 1 when we felt like it, and there are existing guides to the exact route available already. ,A good official rundown is available as a PDF here. Mathewbike also has the trip broken down into 9 stages.

I give an overview of the route we took in the first post in this series if you're curious.

2. Bike shops along Taiwan Cycle Route 1

I mentioned in the previous article that we rented our bikes and gear through ,Mathewbike in Taipei, and they were great. They spoke English. They oriented us to the route beforehand, then provided good support through the trip and were responsive to questions.

You can also rent from any of the Giant shops around the country, but contact them ahead two weeks to a month because they don’t necessarily keep an excess stock in store so likely won't have a bike for you if you just turn up (the same is true with Mathewbike). If you rent from Giant you can also return to a different store, which is a huge bonus. Here’s a ,helpful rundown if you want to rent from them.

I can’t speak to the rental experience with Giant, but we did have a few bike issues, so we did use them for basic repairs and supplies. They tuned up our transmission and balanced our tire for free. We consistently had really great service. There was a language barrier and because you’re trying to speak in technical terms it’s particularly challenging to navigate. We worked with Mathewbike who helped translate over the phone and they reimbursed us for the repairs. Everyone involved was awesome.

Giant shops are plentiful on the West Coast. On the East you’ll only find them in the bigger towns and around the Central Rift Valley which is a popular cycle tourism destination.

3. Traffic in Taiwan

To summarize the on-road experience, Taiwan’s infrastructure and roads are genuinely incredible. They’re some of the best I’ve ever seen, personally. There were literally no potholes. There were often separated bike lanes. There were dozens of marked cycling routes all over the country. The cities have great bike trails - miles of them. Taiwan has clearly invested in cycling and it’s common to see locals on bikes for transport. The east is in fact a cycle touring paradise, with multiple beautiful options along the coast, through the mountains and down the Central Rift Valley between Taitung and Hualien.

Mostly cycling in Taiwanese traffic is manageable and not that terrifying. People generally follow traffic laws. You don’t see a lot of red lights run, for instance, and most people stick to their lanes. Important signs are in English as well as Chinese, and things are generally well-marked and orderly. Roundabouts and major intersections can be nerve-wracking, but people tend to behave in predictable ways. There’s a bit of chaos, but it’s generally not too overwhelming. You’ll notice that I’ve hedged a lot in this paragraph. On the ground you’ll probably see why. On the East Coast it’s fine. In the western megacity it’s mostly generally not that bad.

Seriously though: Traffic is busy in the west. All of it. These are major cities you’re passing through and it’s basically one large urban area from Taipei to Kaohsiung with an occasional rural break. The east is quite a bit less stressful.

A tip for navigating cities: watch the scooters. If they’re doing it, you likely can as well.

Cycle Route 1 itself is mostly a marked lane on the edge of busy streets. That can be stressful. Scooters share the lane frequently. In the cities people park in it, forcing you into the flow of traffic. It follows busy highways with big vehicles. Drivers are generally mindful of cyclists but it’s not exactly the ideal biking environment. Think more a highway than a pleasant trail.

Outside of the central cities (where the 1 was usually a decent option), side routes were very frequently less stressful.

My opinion is that the best way to use the 1 is as a guideline. You’ll enjoy it more if you find alternates along the way and get off the main route when possible because it’ll give you a break from the traffic. Think of an interstate in the US. It’s convenient and direct, and is nice to have as a reliable option, but it’s often not the most enjoyable path.

4. Accommodation along Taiwan Cycle Route 1

Going into the trip, we expected to camp a fair number of nights. In the end, we didn’t even take the tent out of our panniers. Why? Two reasons.

1) While we did pass the occasional campsite, we were never anywhere that felt anything like wilderness.

There are actually a lot of possible places to put up your tent. I’ve heard most temples will allow camping on their property, as will rural police departments. “Bandit camping” on public land seems to be widely tolerated though technically illegal, and even our bike rental told us it would be fine to put up our tent in public parks if we want. However, on the West Coast there were almost zero options to camp that looked like they would’ve made for a pleasant night’s sleep. Think the side of the highway or the middle of urban sprawl. On the East Coast, the settings were rural and it would’ve been easier to make a tent work, definitely, but you were still following the highway and by then we had our routine down anyway. Which gets to my second point:

2) Guest houses are affordable, pleasant, and everywhere.

There are a lot of accommodation options the entire route. Hotels and hostels are common, but we found the sweet spot were guest houses/homestays. In general, these weren’t Airbnb type experiences. They were more like small hotels where the owners lived on site. They were typically listed on Booking.com and Hotels.com, and they were almost always better value than hotels. Plus, you get a bit of interaction with the locals worked in. The only hangup is that you have to arrange a specific time for check in and (often) navigate a language barrier, but they were always accommodating and this was never a real issue for us. If you download their apps, you can message directly via Booking or Hotels and specify that you don’t speak the language. That in combination with Google Translate worked well for us. Online ratings on Google or Booking will guide you reliably. In general we paid around $30 - 50 US per night for very high standard accommodation and occasionally breakfast and coffee included. By our third or fourth night, we had figured out that these were our preference.

Reading other reports on cycling in Taiwan, you’ll hear stories about ,love motels - roadside accommodations that are traditionally used for a discreet night away with your lover of choice. They are very common, and some cyclists basically hop between these and 7-Elevens the whole way around the island. I’m not sure that’s the best way to experience Taiwanese culture, but they are convenient and budget friendly. Bikers like them because you can ride in to your private garage, close the door, and be in for the night. Perfect for discreet trysts. Perfect for peace of mind that your bike’s locked away. Most of these are cleaner and less seedy than you might imagine, from what I hear. We only went to one - our first night on route. It had a crumbling Roman aesthetic, lots of neon, nice free snacks and breakfast included, and a bedside catalog where we could order sex toys to the room just in case. But, it was very clean and quiet. I’ve stayed in plenty of worse places.

As with most places in the world, you can also just pull up to roadside motels. There are a lot of them, and on a cyclist’s pace you will normally have lots of options throughout the day, even on the less populated East Coast. We used Google Maps and reviews to plan ahead so we wouldn’t end up in a dive.

5. Taiwanese Food Culture

Food is a major X-Factor when traveling in Taiwan. There were a lot of great things about the country but this is one of the first things that stands out in my memory when I think back on the trip.

You’re going to like it, I’m sure of it. Taiwan is one of the best food countries I’ve ever visited. Bubble tea was invented there, and they’ve exported their dumplings to the world through Din Tai Fung restaurants. There’s a fantastic restaurant culture, along with great tea houses and bakeries, and delicious and varied street food. Because of its colonial history, there are strong Japanese and Chinese influences, with Dan Dan noodles and Hot Pot and Ramen and Bao widely available. After being there for almost a month, I can count the number of meals that weren’t good on one hand. Along with the local stuff, we found amazing fried chicken, Mexican, bbq, and coffee. Taiwanese people know how to make food taste good.

Even 7-Eleven and it’s competitor Family Mart sell passable meals. For cycle tourists, it’s inevitable that you’ll end up there - probably at least once a day. They’re everywhere, and they’re quick, cheap, convenient and don’t require mental or emotional energy. Their sweet potatoes make great endurance fuel, or you can buy a meal and a beer and have it there. They have ATMs and coffee. If they rented beds, they’d have everything you need. It’s great, in a functional sort of way.

Street food options are endless but the quintessential experience is to go to the night market, which exist in every city and many smaller towns. For me there’s a sort of carnival atmosphere to a lot of them, with games and stalls selling varied fried foods, crowds of people and a general festive vibe. They’re great places to go if you don’t want to deal with selecting from a menu because most stalls only sell one or two things. You’ll hear talk of stinky tofu, which does in fact smell like feces. At some point I’ll tell you our story about chicken ass. Don’t let those things put you off. You’re bound to find good stuff. ,Taiwan is full of amazing street food, and the vast majority of it isn’t too unfamiliar for the Western palate. Night markets are so good. The sausages are great, as are the donuts and bao and scallion pancakes.

There’s a big language barrier issue in most restaurants, especially outside of the major cities. Occasionally you’ll encounter a picture menu, where pointing works, but generally the best strategy we found was to use Google Translate’s photo option, take a photo of the menu, and select from there. Many restaurants will give you a paper menu and pencil, which you can use to mark what you want, which really helps. Prices are all in Western numbers, which also helps.

6. Drinking Water in Taiwan

The summary story about drinking water in Taiwan is that most people drink either bottled or filtered water, but you probably won’t die drinking out of most taps.

My understanding is that Taiwan’s municipal supply is great - totally fit for drinking. The issue is that in a lot of older buildings, corrupted pipes are a problem and can lead to tainted water. So, you can’t always trust what comes out of the tap.

Nobody wants giardia on their bike tour, and it’s easy enough to take the cautious approach and avoid tap water. We never carried more than 2 liters each, and didn’t have problems finding water. Hotels all provided bottles or filtered options, convenience stores are everywhere with multitudes of tasty drink options, and most temples have clean water available (seriously - there are a lot of temples). Our trip was in February so we drank less than you would in the warmer months, but clean water access was never an issue.

7. Communication and language barriers in Taiwan

The language barrier is significant. Chinese is very difficult to read or speak for a non-native, and while English is relatively widespread and is now being taught universally in school, most people aren’t confident speakers - especially the older generation.

It is navigable though. People were remarkably patient and hospitable. Transit and road signs tend to have both Chinese and English characters. ,Google Translate is a complete travel game changer, and locals often use it themselves, particularly if they work in hospitality. Tourist attractions almost always have some amount of English signage.

For booking accommodations, we found that pre-arranging things online was helpful because both sides could use translation features to send messages. Booking.com and Hotels.com are in widespread use so they were a great resource. In a pinch, we never had any real issues when we just showed up at hotels. It was just a bit awkward with the Google translation back and forth.

For train tickets, I also never had an issue just showing up at the desk. Most people working in these types of roles have some English language skill, but they are also used to navigating the language barrier.

The biggest challenges for us came when we had bike issues that we needed to explain. There are Giant shops everywhere, but the intricacies of bicycle wheel alignment are hard to explain through gestures and short translations. Plug for Mathewbike because we were able to call them via WhatsApp, explain our situation, and allow them to translate for us with the local mechanics.

I should say again that I genuinely cannot believe how patient and helpful people were despite our bumbling inability to understand even the most basic Chinese.

8. Money in Taiwan

While credit or debit cards can be used a lot of places, especially in the city, enough of Taiwan operates primarily on a cash economy that we defaulted to paper money. Many restaurants and the majority of street stalls didn’t take cards. A lot of the guest houses we stayed in also strongly preferred cash. The good news is that there are ATMs in every convenience store, and there are an unbelievable number of those in Taiwan, so it was no problem staying cashed up.

In general Taiwan is a place that you can travel cheaply. Beer, wine and coffee were similar prices to the States but everything else was cheaper. A very nice hotel room cost about $100, but nice guest houses were in the range of $30 - 50/night. Street food was very cheap - you could fill yourself up for $5. Restaurants were a bit more expensive but it was still normal for Angel and me to both eat for around $20. The most we spent on a meal was around $70 US but that was a downtown Taipei place where we also bought multiple drinks.

Transit was always a bargain and you could cover huge distances for $10 on their national rail system. Pro tip: For transit payments, Taiwan has a nice integrated system where you can purchase an ,EasyCard and use it for metro trains, buses, bike shares, ferries, and even some taxis and vending machines. Get one at the airport, train station or any convenience store.

Our bike rental shook out to around $20/day each so with that a budget of $75/day was possible if we were careful.

9. Technology tips

Cell service and data coverage was solid, and as far as I remember it was literally everywhere with the exception of a small gap in the mountains when we crossed from West to East. Wifi is common but we bought SIM cards at the airport and it was totally worth the ~30$ for the month for unlimited data. We used navigation and ,Google Translate and Maps multiple times a day, and it made booking hotels and sorting out trains ahead much easier. ,This site has a nice rundown of the SIM options.

Other apps that came in handy included Booking.com, Hotels.com, Uber, WhatsApp, Yr (for weather forecasts) and Windy (for wind forecasts).

10. Navigation along Taiwan Cycle Route 1

For navigation, I ,downloaded the GPX for Cycle Route 1 to ,Maps.Me. We also used Google Maps and the ,Gaia App at times to identify local cycle trails. I downloaded the whole of Taiwan for offline use on both Google and Maps.Me before we left but cell coverage was really good and almost always available.

Cycle Route 1 was very well-marked but it was possible to get off track at times, particularly in the city, and I consulted the GPX a lot. I wouldn’t want to do this trip without it. It’s easy to miss turns in busy traffic, and the GPX gives you the confidence and information you need to follow alternates when it’s an option.

[Pro-tip: When we were trying to navigate around a busy or unpleasant section of highway, we plugged our destination into Maps.Me and selected the “walking” option. That tended to identify the calmer routes for bikes while the cycling option would often send us onto busy streets. This trick worked on Google Maps as well.]

11. Alternate forms of transportation

Having bikes answered most of our transport questions, but it did mean that we had to sort out how to use transit to transport our bikes as well as ourselves at times.

A couple bits of orientation: Taiwan has a ,high speed rail network, but you can’t take your bike on it unless you break it down and bag it up.

That’s fine though, because you can take your bike on the standard rail system (the TRA), which is easy to navigate.

The key thing to know is that not all trains allow bikes, so you have to sort out which ones do. The two easiest ways to do this are to 1) just ask at a desk at a train station (if you have time to spare) or 2) check the English language version of the ,Taiwan Railways Website.

Checking on the website is relatively straightforward. You go to the site and enter your starting point and destination. It’ll give you a list of trains. If the train has a green bicycle symbol next to it, it means you can take your bike along. If not, you can’t. It’s possible to book online (a little confusing) or just walk up and purchase at the station. You have to purchase separate tickets for your bike, which are half the price of a passenger.

Trains in the city operate according to a different system - the MRT. You can’t take bikes on most of these trains, although ,some routes in Taipei do allow cycles. Don’t forget to buy an ,EasyCard at the airport, MRT station or convenience stores, especially if you’re going to be in Taipei for any amount of time.

Buses typically do not allow bikes unless they’re deconstructed and bagged up, although there’s reportedly some discretion on the driver’s part.

,Here’s a more thorough run down of the ins and outs of bikes on transit in Taiwan.

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That’s it. That’s what I think you need to know.

What haven’t I covered ? What are you still wondering? Send me a message ! I’ll answer you and add it to the article!

Want more about Taiwan Cycle Route 1? Go to Part 1 of this article: Why our month of biking in Taiwan was a virtually perfect trip .

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Why biking Taiwan Cycle Route 1 was the virtually perfect trip.

If you’re going to devote time and money to a trip, you want it to be good. Life-changing if possible.

A lot of places in the world have that potential, but using Cycle Route 1 as a backbone, biking around Taiwan can make for a virtually perfect travel experience.

After Covid decimated our 40th birthdays in 2020, my wife Angel and I had to postpone or midlife crises. This year - turning 43 - we decided to make it happen. We scheduled the time off work and got out the world map. We share a birthday month (February), and spending it in Southeast Asia sounded about right. However, when we pulled up Google flights, we found that tickets to Taiwan were dramatically cheaper than anywhere in that region.

We didn’t know much about Taiwan, but we’d heard good things. We bought tickets straightaway.

What does the perfect trip even mean? What turns travel into pilgrimage?

Jetting off to a mysterious foreign country is fine and all, but this was our midlife crisis, so we wanted this trip to be genuinely special. What makes for a travel experience worthy of the event? I set about figuring it out.

I consulted the oracle, er, completed a few Google searches. Then, utilizing the ancient wisdom I gathered about ,pilgrimage and ,adventure, I put together the key elements of a life-changing journey:

Set aside an extended period of time - roughly a month, give or take. Pick a physical destination or circuit. Plan a journey, preferably human powered. Make sure it involves some non-trivial level of adventure and a realistic possibility of failure. Decide on your personal goals or expectations Figure out how to work in some form of ritual Involve the community.

Do that, the congealed wisdom of all humanity suggested, and you’ll come away with a trip that’ll change your life.

Why wouldn’t you cycle tour in Taiwan?

We decided on Taiwan hastily, but we were lucky. We didn’t have to put in much effort to make a journey like that happen. In fact, most of it fell into place naturally because of the type of place that Taiwan is.

When we started researching active things to do in Taiwan for a month, articles about ,Taiwan Cycle Route 1 popped up straight away. I read about great cycling infrastructure and a designated route that circumnavigated the entire island. The country has committed to establishing itself as a cycle tourist destination, so they make it easy. Long-term rentals are available all over the island through ,Giant shops (the brand is Taiwanese and their stores are ubiquitous), or through ,Mathewbike in Taipei which has developed a little cottage industry around Cycle Route 1 riders.

We obviously had to do it.

I contacted Mathewbike because they got great reviews, they’re a local operation, and they have good English-language support. They made it super easy - the rental package included panniers, lights, helmets, locks and tools, so it was very much plug and play. We emailed them our size and intentions and we were set.

We flew into Taipei, picked up our bikes a day later, and were on our way.

Pilgrimage principle 1: Set aside an extended period of time

We took the entirety of February for the trip, which it turns out is the ideal time to cycle in Taiwan, especially in the lowlands where Cycle Route 1 lives. Taiwan is shaped like an oval, and its geography consists of massive mountains down the center that stretch to a rift valley in the east, and flat plains along the West Coast. While the mountains can be very rainy, Cycle Route 1 follows the plains all the way around, and during February and March the weather is relatively dry and cool. The Tropic of Cancer runs right through the center of Taiwan, so it’s normally a balmy climate, but the weather was virtually perfect for us. We had a couple of hot days and a couple of wet days. Overall though, it was pleasantly mild. ,That’s not the case in Taiwan a lot of the year.

We rented the bikes for 16 days which left us with a chunk of time in and around Taipei at the end of the trip.

Pilgrimage principle 2: Pick a physical destination or circuit.

From ,reading the promotional material on Cycle Route 1, prior to the trip it seemed like we’d unintentionally happened upon biker paradise. The infrastructure is in place to cycle all the way around the island (minus a small section in the northeast that requires a short train ride). We read about 970 km of designated, well-signed cycle lanes, regular rest stops, and beautiful countryside. Most people take between 9 - 15 days, so it seemed like a no-brainer in the timeframe we had.

The thing was, a lot of the literature is in Traditional Chinese (which is how most people identify the language there, vs. Mandarin) or roughly translated English, and finding detailed information was a challenge. Never having been to Taiwan, we didn’t have a great handle on what the experience would look like, but it seemed like it would be manageable. It seemed like the right amount of uncertainty heading in. Adventure, right?

Plus, the train system in Taiwan is extensive around the coast, so we figured we could adjust plans if we needed to.

Pilgrimage principle 3: Plan a journey, preferably human powered.

What did our plan involve? We thought we’d keep it straightforward and just follow Cycle Route 1 in a counterclockwise direction around the island. Taipei to Taipei. That would require an average of around 80 km/day factoring in a few planned rest days in Taichung and Hualien.

How’d it shake out?

Not exactly as planned.

In the end we cycled from Taipei to Chaiyi (about ⅔ of the way down the West Coast) and stuck closely to Cycle Route 1, except to veer off into Taichung to meet friends and experience the very cool central city.

Then, from Chaiyi we took a train to the old city of Tainan, which we explored by cycle.

From Tainan we took another train through Kaohsiung to a pretty coastal town called Fangliao. We deviated from the 1 shortly after, and cycled from Fangliao to the gorgeous ,Kenting National Park in the far south. We cycled a loop around the edges of the park and back to Checheng.

Instead of following the 1 on a busy highway across the central mountain range, from Checheng we took the sleepy Highway 199 to the East Coast.

When we reached the East Coast, we got back on Cycle Route 1 to Taitung about a third of the way up the island. From Taitung north we mostly cycled alternates through Taiwan’s East Rift Valley, and for the rest of our trip used the 1 as a backbone rather than our main route, following Highway 193, Taiwan Cycle route 1 - 14, and random roads through rice paddies until we got to Hualien.

We finished our cycling in Hualien, essentially. We did a day trip to the Taroko Gorge from there, then took a train back to Songshan station in Taipei where we followed a beautiful riverside trail along the Tamsui back to Mathewbike.

If you’re interested in more nitty gritty details about how to replicate the trip, read Part 2: What you need to know as an English-speaker to bike around Taiwan. Don't worry - I'll share the link again at the end of this article.

Pilgrimage principle 4: Make sure it involves some non-trivial level of adventure and a realistic possibility of failure

If you want to grow in life, you have to push yourself and try things that you aren’t sure you’re capable of, right?

This trip was our first real cycle tour. Neither of us have any expertise in bike mechanics, beyond changing a flat tire. It was my first time in Asia. Neither of us spoke even a word of Chinese. Our knowledge of the route was limited. Our training to ride 80 km a day was subpar.

In short, at the start it was not clear at all whether we’d be successful on this journey.

In other words, it was an adventure.

And in some ways, we failed in our goals.

First and foremost, we didn’t do anything like the full distance. ⅓ of the way in, we abandoned our plans and used a train to skip ahead. I’m not sure that we ever actually biked 80 km in a day. We probably averaged more like 55 - 60. We had repeated bike issues and underestimated the degree to which Taiwanese stop lights would slow us down on the West Coast. (They added literal hours to every day’s ride.) We skipped the entire northeastern portion of the island, and missed what likely would’ve been some cool cycling to finish out the trip.

The upside, though, is that we failed upwards, and made adjustments along the way that made the trip better than it would’ve been had we stuck to the original plan.

When we skipped a big chunk of West Coast city riding in favor of Kenting National Park and Highway 199 in the south, we found beautiful coastal scenery, then jungle, mountains and monkeys. The 199 was an almost empty road, and one of my personal favorite days of cycling even though it involved the biggest climb and the rainiest weather of the entire trip.

We didn’t do the full distance, but that was ultimately because we figured out that we didn't want to. The route was relatively flat by Taiwanese standards. We just realized that Cycle Route 1, on the West Coast anyway, isn’t really an ideal place to spend a week of cycling. You’re constantly grunting through city outskirts and tracking along busy highway. That did have some advantages because we happened on festivals and temples and a Taiwanese opera we would have missed otherwise, but given the timeframe, the going was super slow and often unpleasant. After a few days of constant urban sprawl you’re ready for a change.

Cycle Route 1 on the East Coast - at least as far as Hualien - is pleasant by comparison but still follows a busy highway. The decision to abandon it at Chaiyi in the west made it emotionally easier to choose alternates on the East Coast too, which worked out to our advantage. We followed the 1 to Taitung but then defaulted to alternates where we could as we rode to Hualien through the East Rift Valley.

At Taitung, I was experiencing a bit of FOMO because we chose to ride the rift valley rather than following the coast, ,which is meant to make for a beautiful alternate. However, the valley was without a doubt worth experiencing - the highlight of the trip. It was all glistening rice paddies, mountains, small towns, street vendors, great food, and easily accessible side routes off the main highway. Despite consistent headwinds, it was ideal cycle touring.

We concluded our trip in Hualien and took a day trip to the ,Taroko Gorge, which was again something we didn’t want to miss. We could’ve carried on and tried to make it back to Taipei, but the Gorge is one of the more memorable landscapes in the world, so it was worth missing more urban cycling to see it.

If I had to do it again with the same amount of time, I’d probably just cycle on the eastern side of the country and loop in Kenting National Park. Or, I’d take at least an additional week on the west to have time to explore the very cool cities to make the grind through the sprawl worth it. I don’t regret the way we did it but felt that there’s so much on both coasts that you need more time to do them full justice. You can get around the island in a few weeks, but a full month would’ve been better.

In the end, we probably did about 150 km less than we’d planned, but that meant that we spent plenty of time in temples, coffee shops, restaurants, and markets. It gave us the chance to visit Taichung and Tainan properly, as well as Kenting National Park and the Taroko Gorge.

We failed, but I don’t regret it.

Pilgrimage principle 5: Decide on your personal goals or expectations

Travel that really means something - it’s an internal journey as much as external, right?

We set out on this trip after a rough couple of years. Most of us are battered and beat up these days, but my personal problems relate to working in healthcare, getting older, feeling like I’m not fit like used to be, and struggling with the never ending quest to figure out the point of it all. While I’m not the type to write out a formal list, I did have a set of personal goals in the back of my mind. I was hoping the trip would help me re-develop a sense of progress in life. I wanted to recommit to physical fitness, and to get back the sense of adventure that had been core to my identity for a long time. I wanted to test whether I’ve still got it at any level, and I wanted to learn a new skill - cycle touring - in a new part of the world.

Taiwan Cycle Route 1 made for a perfect option given our situation.

I really do think there’s something magical about this sort of trip. When life feels stale or crappy, it just works. An extended period of time on a human-powered journey reliably shifts something in you. It helps you see possibilities, remember what’s important, and expand your sense of what you’re capable of.

But Taiwan was a particularly good place to go for this sort of pilgrimage.

For cycle touring, it’s a great place to learn. The infrastructure is there. The route is well marked. There are plenty of easy bail points if you need them. The basic logistics are simple: Rent a bike. Follow the signs. Stay in hotels. Buy food at 7-Eleven. Keep the ocean on your right until you get back to where you started. As foreign a place as Taiwan can feel, it’s remarkably easy to sort out a process that will get you all the way around the island.

Taiwan is also a very comfortable place to visit. It’s incredibly safe and the people are consistently patient and helpful. The food is amazing. The transit system is extensive, the technology is cutting edge, and the society is orderly. As different as it is, in many ways it’s entry level when it comes to travel.

Regardless of how much you’ve done this sort of thing, Taiwan does present a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the Asia-naive cycle tourist. There’s the constant question of how to prioritize your time to maximize the experience. There’s the daily decision about setting your route and pace. There’s a significant language barrier to navigate. There’s the daily attempt to understand the culture and learn as much as you can. Regardless of how fit you are, on a trip like this you always have the option to push yourself to physical exhaustion. And the experience can be as rich as you want it to be. There’s so much good food to try, so many beautiful places to see, and so much interesting culture to experience. It’d take years to feel like you had a handle on it all.

The experience had its emotional ups and downs. There’s a lot of confusion, exhaustion, anxiety and boredom. There’s also a lot of cultural discovery, human connection, personal growth and awe-inspiring natural beauty .

A month in a foreign environment doing something like this - it leaves you with a lot to process and it’s impossible to gauge the real impact until well after you’re done with the trip.

But my initial impressions are that on this cycle tour, I felt like myself for the first time in a long time. I remembered what it feels like to move long distances every day. We were gone long enough to forget what it’s like to work, and to start to feel like this is what life is about. When you’re exposed to a world that you didn’t know exists, it produces a huge sense of possibility. Taiwan, ah, I fell in love with it a little bit. The combination of food, landscape, culture and kindness there is really intoxicating, and cycling was the perfect way to absorb it.

Pilgrimage principle 6: Figure out how to work in some form of ritual

I’m not sure why, but it’s true that human beings are ritualistic creatures. We like to take internal experiences and act them out to make them stick. Or put another way, we do physical actions to make ourselves feel a certain way emotionally.

Pilgrimage itself is a time honored ritual, and while we weren’t formally on a pilgrimage ourselves, this sort of cycle tour approximates the experience. There’s a natural rhythm to it that produces an emotional response. Moving towards your goal produces a sense of progress in life and the physicality of it all produces positive emotions naturally.

While this trip was only a “pilgrimage” for us, we rolled into an actual pilgrimage on our third day of cycling when we passed through Maioli County. This area north of Taichung is the starting place of Taiwan’s largest pilgrimage - the annual Mazu procession. A Taoist tradition, every year hundreds of thousands of people progress some percentage of 400 km between Baishatun and Beigang in the south to honor Mazu, a traditional goddess of the sea.

When we arrived, the festivities were just getting started and we passed through crowds of pilgrims dressed in matching orange high visibility hats and jackets. Near the town gate in a small town on the highway near Baishatun, people had set up dozens of food stalls, handing out free food and drinks to everyone who passed, including us. It was a consistent theme throughout the ride that locals would see us, give a thumbs up and shout “Jiayou!” which is something like a combination of “good job,” “keep going,” and “woohoo.” Through the pilgrimage crowd the shouts were constant.

Our route followed closely along the pilgrimage path, so we passed a series of Mazu sites as well as other Taoist and Buddhist temples. There are 10,000 temples in Taiwan, and they function as de-facto cycling rest stops, so they just as unavoidable as 7-Elevens. They’re beautiful, intricate, gaudy things. They’re also open to the public and we’d stop in at least one daily. The idea is that you light some incense, say a prayer, offer respect to the gods and ancestors and request good luck and blessings, It’s a simple, active bit of religious practice, and it’s still very much a part of Taiwanese culture.

For me, it was all totally foreign. Even so, wandering through pushes you into reflection and a sense of the big, beautiful expanse of human history and tradition. Maybe the strangeness was good for producing a sense of transcendence? Even without understanding the ins and outs, visiting the temples made you think about your place in the world. It made you think about your ancestors and your dependence on nature. It made you think about the scope of the world’s cultures and the number of societies that exist that you have no real concept of. It made you think about the fact that we’re all at the mercy of chance and fortune.

Taiwan is a religious place. More than 75% of people are either Taoist or Buddhist, and practice is clearly alive. Absorbing a bit of the Mazu pilgrimage at the beginning of the trip served as a reminder that in this physical journey - travel - there’s something sacred and transformative about it whether you intend it that way or not. Even though our own experience was almost entirely passive, consistently and frequently dipping our toes in Taiwan’s ritual life added an element of transcendence to the experience. The local spirituality - even though it was almost entirely foreign - colored the trip with a sense of pilgrimage almost by default.

Pilgrimage principle 7: Involve a community

Humans are communal creatures, and for travel to be transformative it has to involve some level of human connection.

The problem? Taiwan doesn’t give itself up easily.

It’s not that it’s not friendly. It’s the opposite in fact. It’s just that it’s hard to get to know people when you are completely hopeless at using their language.

People in Taiwan were directly and assertively helpful. When we stopped on the streets, people would ask us if we needed directions, normally through broken English. When we were ignorant about how or what to order in restaurants, someone would consistently volunteer to help us.

The country is also remarkably safe. In our month there I don’t recall witnessing any obvious public drunkenness, and the crime rate is on par with Switzerland by some measures. A lot of people don’t even lock their bikes overnight in the cities. It’s shocking.

Culturally, it’s considered shameful to express anger in public, and people are very considerate. In a month, we were only asked for money once, very politely. People didn’t stare at us despite the fact that I was sure that I was the tallest person in Taiwan for the first two weeks we were there. In coffee shops, the staff would bring us extra little gifts - pastries or samples of local blends. Within days I’d started feeling self-conscious that people might find me rude or aggressive as an American because it was so clearly a country full of pleasant, friendly people.

The problem was that we didn’t know what was going on, ever. The culture is entirely different from home and the language is very difficult. I tried learning a few basics but nothing seemed to stick. I came away understanding three words and zero written characters. English was common enough in Taipei, but outside of the cities, I’ve never been anywhere that the language barrier was higher. That makes it difficult to get to know a place.

For the first part of the trip, we had to settle for non-verbal aspects of the culture. Like food.

Taiwan is one of the best food countries in the world, no doubt. Bubble tea was invented there, and they’ve exported their dumplings to the world through ,Din Tai Fung restaurants. There’s a fantastic restaurant culture, along with great tea houses and bakeries, and amazingly varied street food. Because of its colonial history, there are strong Japanese and Chinese influences, with dan dan noodles and hot pot and ramen and bao are widely available. After being there for almost a month, I can count the number of meals that weren’t good on one hand. Along with the local stuff, we found amazing fried chicken, Mexican, bbq, and coffee. Taiwanese people know how to make food taste good.

We happened randomly on traditional Taiwanese operas and puppet shows and the Mazu pilgrimage and the lantern festival in Taichung, an endless string of night markets, and we visited museums in Tainan. Still, it is true that cycle touring doesn’t always lend itself to getting to know a culture intimately. A lot of your energy has to focus on physical movement and navigation and the intricacies of culture and language can take a backseat in your consciousness.

We got a bit of a cultural orientation from a couple of friends who’ve moved to Taichung from Seattle, and a few coffee shop owners chatted with us when there were no other customers in their shops, but for most of the trip I felt like my relationship was with Taiwanese sausages more than Taiwanese people.

So even though there was a lot more we could’ve done on our bikes, I was glad that we had a week in Taipei after we finished our ride. There were more English speakers around, and more opportunities to try to understand the complexity of modern Taiwan.

In Taipei, I felt like I developed at least an introductory sense of some of the major factors that shape modern Taiwanese life.

The city itself is clearly a product of Taiwan. It’s big, clean, friendly and neighborhoody. It’s full of nice parks, night markets and street food. It’s obviously tech-forward and there’s great transit. There seems to be a lot of new money around, with Maseratis and Teslas seeming as common as Toyotas. It feels futuristic with big shiny buildings - most prominently Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building on the planet - but you’ll also find people living a traditional lifestyle with gardens and chickens on the outskirts. It is a great city to visit and seems like it would be a fantastic place to live.

You do get a sense of the tension in Taiwan when you visit the museums. Taipei has a lot of them, and the official messages about history and culture read as measured because of the complicated politics of the place. Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule until WWII, and shortly after achieving autonomy, martial law was implemented by the nationalist government. It took until 1987 for authoritarianism to break down, but they’ve been building an effective, modern state ever since. They’ve transitioned to a well-functioning constitutional democracy. They have the 22nd highest GDP in the world and a very equitable distribution of wealth. They have a huge manufacturing sector, and are the world’s most important producer of semiconductors, making them essential for every country that uses computers of any kind. By all measures they’re a major political success story.

Despite all of that, when outsiders think of Taiwan, they usually wonder about their relationship with China, who view Taiwan as a territory even though they’ve been operating independently for decades. In short, that relationship is really complicated. If you’re interested, a great way to get a sense of the history is to ,read up on Chiang Kai-Shek. Or, there’s a rundown of the modern situation ,here.

Locals genuinely aren’t in agreement about what that relationship should look like politically, but the general population is clearly wary of the threat of non-democratic leadership, having only recently emerged from a brutal sort of authoritarianism.

February was perfect time to get a sense of this because of 2/28 events in Taipei.

What was significance of 2/28? In short, in 1947 there was a small anti-government uprising which led to violent crackdown and the declaration of martial law and authoritarian leadership that lasted for 38 years. Now, February 28th is seen as a critical date in Taiwanese history and is commemorated by pro-democracy and pro-independence activists annually.

On the 27th and 28th, we visited a freedom of speech exhibit at the ,Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial in the center of the city, along with ,228 Memorial Museum, and attended a 2/28 concert organized by local university students. My impression was of a mixed sense of anxiety about the fragility of democracy after only emerging from an authoritarian past 25 years ago, caution about the Taiwanese relationship to China, and a real sense of pride and defiance about the effective democracy and open society they’ve been able to build in relatively quick fashion.

I’d be lying if I said I’d developed any sort of nuanced understanding of the local politics, but being there for 2/28 gave me the sense that Taiwan is an island of independently minded people who’ve put together a very functional society despite constant outside interference, and would prefer to be left to manage themselves. Which is understandable.

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Did I feel connected to Taiwan in the end? A lot of times when you travel, you integrate your own story into the story of a place. You feel like you become a part of it in some way or another. In Taiwan, because of the language barrier and the cultural differences, it was hard to feel like anything but a visitor. But despite that Taiwan was memorably kind, safe, and welcoming. The culture is impressive, vibrant and complex. The food is among the best in the world. The landscape is beautiful and varied. The cities are safe, clean and fun. The history is tragic but hopeful and you can’t help but sympathize with its plight. Personally, I felt like it was really nice to us and I would place it near the top of the list of favorite places I’ve traveled. So yeah, despite the barriers, in a month in Taiwan you fall in love with it.

In the end, was biking around Taiwan the perfect trip?

We set out for Taiwan looking for a trip worthy of a mid-life crisis.

Did we have specific goals? Well, sort of. We booked our tickets on a whim but we went at a time when life feels complicated. Personally, I was hoping to get some direction and some mojo back. I was hoping to use an adventure to get back in shape. I wanted to learn a new skill and learn about a new part of the world. I was hoping to experience a bit of that transcendence that you get from travel. And I was hoping to experience a relatively new cycling circuit that sounded like it could be on par with the world’s great long-distance travel experiences.

It didn’t go as expected, because we scuttled our plans to follow Cycle Route 1 directly around the island, but the overall experience exceeded expectations.

As a destination for pilgrimage - intentional or not - cycle touring in Taiwan works effortlessly. The route is intuitive: you work your way around the coast. The culture is rich and casually spiritual. There’s no formality to the cyclist/temple relationship, but the network of beautiful Taoist and Buddhist temples functions as a built in series of welcoming rest stops that naturally trigger reflection and a sense of awe. The experience demands an extended period of time and a slow approach, but the transit network and cycling infrastructure make it infinitely customizable. For a non-Chinese speaker, the language barrier is high so the sense of being somewhere exotic is constant, but people are incredibly welcoming and supportive. The crime rate is remarkably low, and travel feels comfortable even when you clearly stand out as a foreigner. Costs are low and it’s possible to be austere if you choose, but there are also as many options for comfort as you could possibly need. And there is so much good food.

It’s always difficult to gauge the personal impact of a travel experience immediately afterwards, but personally this had the hallmarks of something that’ll stand as a marker in our now 43 year old lives. It did help me remember why prioritizing activity and adventure are so important. As an entry point into Asia, Taiwan opened up a complex, beautiful world that now I really want to learn more about. The day to day spirituality of the place left me feeling reflective about my place in history and the larger universe. The encounter with local pilgrimage lent an air of significance to the trip. And the process of re-orienting our plans and coming away with a fantastic experience left me with that pleasant sensation of having successfully overcome a challenge.

I read somewhere that one of the key markers of true pilgrimage is that it persists long after the experience. It’s too early to say what that’ll mean, but ahh, it really did feel like this trip meant something.

If you’re interested in more of the nitty gritty details about how to replicate the trip, read Part

2 here: Taiwan Cycle Route 1: What English-speakers need to know to bike around Taiwan .

home

Why our month of biking in Taiwan was the virtually perfect trip.

If you’re going to devote time and money to a trip, you want it to be good. Life-changing if possible.

A lot of places in the world have that potential, but using Cycle Route 1 as a backbone, biking around Taiwan can make for a virtually perfect travel experience.

After Covid decimated our 40th birthdays in 2020, my wife Angel and I had to postpone or midlife crises. This year - turning 43 - we decided to make it happen. We scheduled the time off work and got out the world map. We share a birthday month (February), and spending it in Southeast Asia sounded about right. However, when we pulled up Google flights, we found that tickets to Taiwan were dramatically cheaper than anywhere in that region.

We didn’t know much about Taiwan, but we’d heard good things. We bought tickets straightaway.

What does the perfect trip even mean? What turns travel into pilgrimage?

Jetting off to a mysterious foreign country is fine and all, but this was our midlife crisis, so we wanted this trip to be genuinely special. What makes for a travel experience worthy of the event? I set about figuring it out.

I consulted the oracle, er, completed a few Google searches. Then, utilizing the ancient wisdom I gathered about ,pilgrimage and ,adventure, I put together the key elements of a life-changing journey:

Set aside an extended period of time - roughly a month, give or take. Pick a physical destination or circuit. Plan a journey, preferably human powered. Make sure it involves some non-trivial level of adventure and a realistic possibility of failure. Decide on your personal goals or expectations Figure out how to work in some form of ritual Involve the community.

Do that, the congealed wisdom of all humanity suggested, and you’ll come away with a trip that’ll change your life.

Why wouldn’t you cycle tour in Taiwan?

We decided on Taiwan hastily, but we were lucky. We didn’t have to put in much effort to make a journey like that happen. In fact, most of it fell into place naturally because of the type of place that Taiwan is.

When we started researching active things to do in Taiwan for a month, articles about ,Taiwan Cycle Route 1 popped up straight away. I read about great cycling infrastructure and a designated route that circumnavigated the entire island. The country has committed to establishing itself as a cycle tourist destination, so they make it easy. Long-term rentals are available all over the island through ,Giant shops (the brand is Taiwanese and their stores are ubiquitous), or through ,Mathewbike in Taipei which has developed a little cottage industry around Cycle Route 1 riders.

We obviously had to do it.

I contacted Mathewbike because they got great reviews, they’re a local operation, and they have good English-language support. They made it super easy - the rental package included panniers, lights, helmets, locks and tools, so it was very much plug and play. We emailed them our size and intentions and we were set.

We flew into Taipei, picked up our bikes a day later, and were on our way.

Pilgrimage principle 1: Set aside an extended period of time

We took the entirety of February for the trip, which it turns out is the ideal time to cycle in Taiwan, especially in the lowlands where Cycle Route 1 lives. Taiwan is shaped like an oval, and its geography consists of massive mountains down the center that stretch to a rift valley in the east, and flat plains along the West Coast. While the mountains can be very rainy, Cycle Route 1 follows the plains all the way around, and during February and March the weather is relatively dry and cool. The Tropic of Cancer runs right through the center of Taiwan, so it’s normally a balmy climate, but the weather was virtually perfect for us. We had a couple of hot days and a couple of wet days. Overall though, it was pleasantly mild. ,That’s not the case in Taiwan a lot of the year.

We rented the bikes for 16 days which left us with a chunk of time in and around Taipei at the end of the trip.

Pilgrimage principle 2: Pick a physical destination or circuit.

From ,reading the promotional material on Cycle Route 1, prior to the trip it seemed like we’d unintentionally happened upon biker paradise. The infrastructure is in place to cycle all the way around the island (minus a small section in the northeast that requires a short train ride). We read about 970 km of designated, well-signed cycle lanes, regular rest stops, and beautiful countryside. Most people take between 9 - 15 days, so it seemed like a no-brainer in the timeframe we had.

The thing was, a lot of the literature is in Traditional Chinese (which is how most people identify the language there, vs. Mandarin) or roughly translated English, and finding detailed information was a challenge. Never having been to Taiwan, we didn’t have a great handle on what the experience would look like, but it seemed like it would be manageable. It seemed like the right amount of uncertainty heading in. Adventure, right?

Plus, the train system in Taiwan is extensive around the coast, so we figured we could adjust plans if we needed to.

Pilgrimage principle 3: Plan a journey, preferably human powered.

What did our plan involve? We thought we’d keep it straightforward and just follow Cycle Route 1 in a counterclockwise direction around the island. Taipei to Taipei. That would require an average of around 80 km/day factoring in a few planned rest days in Taichung and Hualien.

How’d it shake out?

Not exactly as planned.

In the end we cycled from Taipei to Chaiyi (about ⅔ of the way down the West Coast) and stuck closely to Cycle Route 1, except to veer off into Taichung to meet friends and experience the very cool central city.

Then, from Chaiyi we took a train to the old city of Tainan, which we explored by cycle.

From Tainan we took another train through Kaohsiung to a pretty coastal town called Fangliao. We deviated from the 1 shortly after, and cycled from Fangliao to the gorgeous ,Kenting National Park in the far south. We cycled a loop around the edges of the park and back to Checheng.

Instead of following the 1 on a busy highway across the central mountain range, from Checheng we took the sleepy Highway 199 to the East Coast.

When we reached the East Coast, we got back on Cycle Route 1 to Taitung about a third of the way up the island. From Taitung north we mostly cycled alternates through Taiwan’s Central Rift Valley, and for the rest of our trip used the 1 as a backbone rather than our main route, following Highway 193, Taiwan Cycle route 1 - 14, and random roads through rice paddies until we got to Hualien.

We finished our cycling in Hualien, essentially. We did a day trip to the Taroko Gorge from there, then took a train back to Songshan station in Taipei where we followed a beautiful riverside trail along the Tamsui back to Mathewbike.

If you’re interested in more nitty gritty details about how to replicate the trip, read Part 2: What you need to know as an English-speaker to bike around Taiwan. Don't worry - I'll share the link again at the end of this article.

Pilgrimage principle 4: Make sure it involves some non-trivial level of adventure and a realistic possibility of failure

If you want to grow in life, you have to push yourself and try things that you aren’t sure you’re capable of, right?

This trip was our first real cycle tour. Neither of us have any expertise in bike mechanics, beyond changing a flat tire. It was my first time in Asia. Neither of us spoke even a word of Chinese. Our knowledge of the route was limited. Our training to ride 80 km a day was subpar.

In short, at the start it was not clear at all whether we’d be successful on this journey.

In other words, it was an adventure.

And in some ways, we failed in our goals.

First and foremost, we didn’t do anything like the full distance. ⅓ of the way in, we abandoned our plans and used a train to skip ahead. I’m not sure that we ever actually biked 80 km in a day. We probably averaged more like 55 - 60. We had repeated bike issues and underestimated the degree to which Taiwanese stop lights would slow us down on the West Coast. (They added literal hours to every day’s ride.) We skipped the entire northeastern portion of the island, and missed what likely would’ve been some cool cycling to finish out the trip.

The upside, though, is that we failed upwards, and made adjustments along the way that made the trip better than it would’ve been had we stuck to the original plan.

When we skipped a big chunk of West Coast city riding in favor of Kenting National Park and Highway 199 in the south, we found beautiful coastal scenery, then jungle, mountains and monkeys. The 199 was an almost empty road, and one of my personal favorite days of cycling even though it involved the biggest climb and the rainiest weather of the entire trip.

We didn’t do the full distance, but that was ultimately because we figured out that we didn't want to. The route was relatively flat by Taiwanese standards. We just realized that Cycle Route 1, on the West Coast anyway, isn’t really an ideal place to spend a week of cycling. You’re constantly grunting through city outskirts and tracking along busy highway. That did have some advantages because we happened on festivals and temples and a Taiwanese opera we would have missed otherwise, but given the timeframe, the going was super slow and often unpleasant. After a few days of constant urban sprawl you’re ready for a change.

Cycle Route 1 on the East Coast - at least as far as Hualien - is pleasant by comparison but still follows a busy highway. The decision to abandon it at Chaiyi in the west made it emotionally easier to choose alternates on the East Coast too, which worked out to our advantage. We followed the 1 to Taitung but then defaulted to alternates where we could as we rode to Hualien through the Central Rift Valley.

At Taitung, I was experiencing a bit of FOMO because we chose to ride the Central Valley rather than following the coast, ,which is meant to make for a beautiful alternate. However, the valley was without a doubt worth experiencing - the highlight of the trip. It was all glistening rice paddies, mountains, small towns, street vendors, great food, and easily accessible side routes off the main highway. Despite consistent headwinds, it was ideal cycle touring.

We concluded our trip in Hualien and took a day trip to the ,Taroko Gorge, which was again something we didn’t want to miss. We could’ve carried on and tried to make it back to Taipei, but the Gorge is one of the more memorable landscapes in the world, so it was worth missing more urban cycling to see it.

If I had to do it again with the same amount of time, I’d probably just cycle on the eastern side of the country and loop in Kenting National Park. Or, I’d take at least an additional week on the west to have time to explore the very cool cities to make the grind through the sprawl worth it. I don’t regret the way we did it but felt that there’s so much on both coasts that you need more time to do them full justice. You can get around the island in a few weeks, but a full month would’ve been better.

In the end, we probably did about 150 km less than we’d planned, but that meant that we spent plenty of time in temples, coffee shops, restaurants, and markets. It gave us the chance to visit Taichung and Tainan properly, as well as Kenting National Park and the Taroko Gorge.

We failed, but I don’t regret it.

Pilgrimage principle 5: Decide on your personal goals or expectations

Travel that really means something - it’s an internal journey as much as external, right?

We set out on this trip after a rough couple of years. Most of us are battered and beat up these days, but my personal problems relate to working in healthcare, getting older, feeling like I’m not fit like used to be, and struggling with the never ending quest to figure out the point of it all. While I’m not the type to write out a formal list, I did have a set of personal goals in the back of my mind. I was hoping the trip would help me re-develop a sense of progress in life. I wanted to recommit to physical fitness, and to get back the sense of adventure that had been core to my identity for a long time. I wanted to test whether I’ve still got it at any level, and I wanted to learn a new skill - cycle touring - in a new part of the world.

Taiwan Cycle Route 1 made for a perfect option given our situation.

I really do think there’s something magical about this sort of trip. When life feels stale or crappy, it just works. An extended period of time on a human-powered journey reliably shifts something in you. It helps you see possibilities, remember what’s important, and expand your sense of what you’re capable of.

But Taiwan was a particularly good place to go for this sort of pilgrimage.

For cycle touring, it’s a great place to learn. The infrastructure is there. The route is well marked. There are plenty of easy bail points if you need them. The basic logistics are simple: Rent a bike. Follow the signs. Stay in hotels. Buy food at 7-Eleven. Keep the ocean on your right until you get back to where you started. As foreign a place as Taiwan can feel, it’s remarkably easy to sort out a process that will get you all the way around the island.

Taiwan is also a very comfortable place to visit. It’s incredibly safe and the people are consistently patient and helpful. The food is amazing. The transit system is extensive, the technology is cutting edge, and the society is orderly. As different as it is, in many ways it’s entry level when it comes to travel.

Regardless of how much you’ve done this sort of thing, Taiwan does present a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the Asia-naive cycle tourist. There’s the constant question of how to prioritize your time to maximize the experience. There’s the daily decision about setting your route and pace. There’s a significant language barrier to navigate. There’s the daily attempt to understand the culture and learn as much as you can. Regardless of how fit you are, on a trip like this you always have the option to push yourself to physical exhaustion. And the experience can be as rich as you want it to be. There’s so much good food to try, so many beautiful places to see, and so much interesting culture to experience. It’d take years to feel like you had a handle on it all.

The experience had its emotional ups and downs. There’s a lot of confusion, exhaustion, anxiety and boredom. There’s also a lot of cultural discovery, human connection, personal growth and awe-inspiring natural beauty .

A month in a foreign environment doing something like this - it leaves you with a lot to process and it’s impossible to gauge the real impact until well after you’re done with the trip.

But my initial impressions are that on this cycle tour, I felt like myself for the first time in a long time. I remembered what it feels like to move long distances every day. We were gone long enough to forget what it’s like to work, and to start to feel like this is what life is about. When you’re exposed to a world that you didn’t know exists, it produces a huge sense of possibility. Taiwan, ah, I fell in love with it a little bit. The combination of food, landscape, culture and kindness there is really intoxicating, and cycling was the perfect way to absorb it.

Pilgrimage principle 6: Figure out how to work in some form of ritual

I’m not sure why, but it’s true that human beings are ritualistic creatures. We like to take internal experiences and act them out to make them stick. Or put another way, we do physical actions to make ourselves feel a certain way emotionally.

Pilgrimage itself is a time honored ritual, and while we weren’t formally on a pilgrimage ourselves, this sort of cycle tour approximates the experience. There’s a natural rhythm to it that produces an emotional response. Moving towards your goal produces a sense of progress in life and the physicality of it all produces positive emotions naturally.

While this trip was only a “pilgrimage” for us, we rolled into an actual pilgrimage on our third day of cycling when we passed through Maioli County. This area north of Taichung is the starting place of Taiwan’s largest pilgrimage - the annual Mazu procession. A Taoist tradition, every year hundreds of thousands of people progress some percentage of 400 km between Baishatun and Beigang in the south to honor Mazu, a traditional goddess of the sea.

When we arrived, the festivities were just getting started and we passed through crowds of pilgrims dressed in matching orange high visibility hats and jackets. Near the town gate in a small town on the highway near Baishatun, people had set up dozens of food stalls, handing out free food and drinks to everyone who passed, including us. It was a consistent theme throughout the ride that locals would see us, give a thumbs up and shout “Jiayou!” which is something like a combination of “good job,” “keep going,” and “woohoo.” Through the pilgrimage crowd the shouts were constant.

Our route followed closely along the pilgrimage path, so we passed a series of Mazu sites as well as other Taoist and Buddhist temples. There are 10,000 temples in Taiwan, and they function as de-facto cycling rest stops, so they just as unavoidable as 7-Elevens. They’re beautiful, intricate, gaudy things. They’re also open to the public and we’d stop in at least one daily. The idea is that you light some incense, say a prayer, offer respect to the gods and ancestors and request good luck and blessings, It’s a simple, active bit of religious practice, and it’s still very much a part of Taiwanese culture.

For me, it was all totally foreign. Even so, wandering through pushes you into reflection and a sense of the big, beautiful expanse of human history and tradition. Maybe the strangeness was good for producing a sense of transcendence? Even without understanding the ins and outs, visiting the temples made you think about your place in the world. It made you think about your ancestors and your dependence on nature. It made you think about the scope of the world’s cultures and the number of societies that exist that you have no real concept of. It made you think about the fact that we’re all at the mercy of chance and fortune.

Taiwan is a religious place. More than 75% of people are either Taoist or Buddhist, and practice is clearly alive. Absorbing a bit of the Mazu pilgrimage at the beginning of the trip served as a reminder that in this physical journey - travel - there’s something sacred and transformative about it whether you intend it that way or not. Even though our own experience was almost entirely passive, consistently and frequently dipping our toes in Taiwan’s ritual life added an element of transcendence to the experience. The local spirituality - even though it was almost entirely foreign - colored the trip with a sense of pilgrimage almost by default.

Pilgrimage principle 7: Involve a community

Humans are communal creatures, and for travel to be transformative it has to involve some level of human connection.

The problem? Taiwan doesn’t give itself up easily.

It’s not that it’s not friendly. It’s the opposite in fact. It’s just that it’s hard to get to know people when you are completely hopeless at using their language.

People in Taiwan were directly and assertively helpful. When we stopped on the streets, people would ask us if we needed directions, normally through broken English. When we were ignorant about how or what to order in restaurants, someone would consistently volunteer to help us.

The country is also remarkably safe. In our month there I don’t recall witnessing any obvious public drunkenness, and the crime rate is on par with Switzerland by some measures. A lot of people don’t even lock their bikes overnight in the cities. It’s shocking.

Culturally, it’s considered shameful to express anger in public, and people are very considerate. In a month, we were only asked for money once, very politely. People didn’t stare at us despite the fact that I was sure that I was the tallest person in Taiwan for the first two weeks we were there. In coffee shops, the staff would bring us extra little gifts - pastries or samples of local blends. Within days I’d started feeling self-conscious that people might find me rude or aggressive as an American because it was so clearly a country full of pleasant, friendly people.

The problem was that we didn’t know what was going on, ever. The culture is entirely different from home and the language is very difficult. I tried learning a few basics but nothing seemed to stick. I came away understanding three words and zero written characters. English was common enough in Taipei, but outside of the cities, I’ve never been anywhere that the language barrier was higher. That makes it difficult to get to know a place.

For the first part of the trip, we had to settle for non-verbal aspects of the culture. Like food.

Taiwan is one of the best food countries in the world, no doubt. Bubble tea was invented there, and they’ve exported their dumplings to the world through ,Din Tai Fung restaurants. There’s a fantastic restaurant culture, along with great tea houses and bakeries, and amazingly varied street food. Because of its colonial history, there are strong Japanese and Chinese influences, with dan dan noodles and hot pot and ramen and bao are widely available. After being there for almost a month, I can count the number of meals that weren’t good on one hand. Along with the local stuff, we found amazing fried chicken, Mexican, bbq, and coffee. Taiwanese people know how to make food taste good.

We happened randomly on traditional Taiwanese operas and puppet shows and the Mazu pilgrimage and the lantern festival in Taichung, an endless string of night markets, and we visited museums in Tainan. Still, it is true that cycle touring doesn’t always lend itself to getting to know a culture intimately. A lot of your energy has to focus on physical movement and navigation and the intricacies of culture and language can take a backseat in your consciousness.

We got a bit of a cultural orientation from a couple of friends who’ve moved to Taichung from Seattle, and a few coffee shop owners chatted with us when there were no other customers in their shops, but for most of the trip I felt like my relationship was with Taiwanese sausages more than Taiwanese people.

So even though there was a lot more we could’ve done on our bikes, I was glad that we had a week in Taipei after we finished our ride. There were more English speakers around, and more opportunities to try to understand the complexity of modern Taiwan.

In Taipei, I felt like I developed at least an introductory sense of some of the major factors that shape modern Taiwanese life.

The city itself is clearly a product of Taiwan. It’s big, clean, friendly and neighborhoody. It’s full of nice parks, night markets and street food. It’s obviously tech-forward and there’s great transit. There seems to be a lot of new money around, with Maseratis and Teslas seeming as common as Toyotas. It feels futuristic with big shiny buildings - most prominently Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building on the planet - but you’ll also find people living a traditional lifestyle with gardens and chickens on the outskirts. It is a great city to visit and seems like it would be a fantastic place to live.

You do get a sense of the tension in Taiwan when you visit the museums. Taipei has a lot of them, and the official messages about history and culture read as measured because of the complicated politics of the place. Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule until WWII, and shortly after achieving autonomy, martial law was implemented by the nationalist government. It took until 1987 for authoritarianism to break down, but they’ve been building an effective, modern state ever since. They’ve transitioned to a well-functioning constitutional democracy. They have the 22nd highest GDP in the world and a very equitable distribution of wealth. They have a huge manufacturing sector, and are the world’s most important producer of semiconductors, making them essential for every country that uses computers of any kind. By all measures they’re a major political success story.

Despite all of that, when outsiders think of Taiwan, they usually wonder about their relationship with China, who view Taiwan as a territory even though they’ve been operating independently for decades. In short, that relationship is really complicated. If you’re interested, a great way to get a sense of the history is to ,read up on Chiang Kai-Shek. Or, there’s a rundown of the modern situation ,here.

Locals genuinely aren’t in agreement about what that relationship should look like politically, but the general population is clearly wary of the threat of non-democratic leadership, having only recently emerged from a brutal sort of authoritarianism.

February was perfect time to get a sense of this because of 2/28 events in Taipei.

What was significance of 2/28? In short, in 1947 there was a small anti-government uprising which led to violent crackdown and the declaration of martial law and authoritarian leadership that lasted for 38 years. Now, February 28th is seen as a critical date in Taiwanese history and is commemorated by pro-democracy and pro-independence activists annually.

On the 27th and 28th, we visited a freedom of speech exhibit at the ,Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial in the center of the city, along with ,228 Memorial Museum, and attended a 2/28 concert organized by local university students. My impression was of a mixed sense of anxiety about the fragility of democracy after only emerging from an authoritarian past 25 years ago, caution about the Taiwanese relationship to China, and a real sense of pride and defiance about the effective democracy and open society they’ve been able to build in relatively quick fashion.

I’d be lying if I said I’d developed any sort of nuanced understanding of the local politics, but being there for 2/28 gave me the sense that Taiwan is an island of independently minded people who’ve put together a very functional society despite constant outside interference, and would prefer to be left to manage themselves. Which is understandable.

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Did I feel connected to Taiwan in the end? A lot of times when you travel, you integrate your own story into the story of a place. You feel like you become a part of it in some way or another. In Taiwan, because of the language barrier and the cultural differences, it was hard to feel like anything but a visitor. But despite that Taiwan was memorably kind, safe, and welcoming. The culture is impressive, vibrant and complex. The food is among the best in the world. The landscape is beautiful and varied. The cities are safe, clean and fun. The history is tragic but hopeful and you can’t help but sympathize with its plight. Personally, I felt like it was really nice to us and I would place it near the top of the list of favorite places I’ve traveled. So yeah, despite the barriers, in a month in Taiwan you fall in love with it.

In the end, was biking around Taiwan the perfect trip?

We set out for Taiwan looking for a trip worthy of a mid-life crisis.

Did we have specific goals? Well, sort of. We booked our tickets on a whim but we went at a time when life feels complicated. Personally, I was hoping to get some direction and some mojo back. I was hoping to use an adventure to get back in shape. I wanted to learn a new skill and learn about a new part of the world. I was hoping to experience a bit of that transcendence that you get from travel. And I was hoping to experience a relatively new cycling circuit that sounded like it could be on par with the world’s great long-distance travel experiences.

It didn’t go as expected, because we scuttled our plans to follow Cycle Route 1 directly around the island, but the overall experience exceeded expectations.

As a destination for pilgrimage - intentional or not - cycle touring in Taiwan works effortlessly. The route is intuitive: you work your way around the coast. The culture is rich and casually spiritual. There’s no formality to the cyclist/temple relationship, but the network of beautiful Taoist and Buddhist temples functions as a built in series of welcoming rest stops that naturally trigger reflection and a sense of awe. The experience demands an extended period of time and a slow approach, but the transit network and cycling infrastructure make it infinitely customizable. For a non-Chinese speaker, the language barrier is high so the sense of being somewhere exotic is constant, but people are incredibly welcoming and supportive. The crime rate is remarkably low, and travel feels comfortable even when you clearly stand out as a foreigner. Costs are low and it’s possible to be austere if you choose, but there are also as many options for comfort as you could possibly need. And there is so much good food.

It’s always difficult to gauge the personal impact of a travel experience immediately afterwards, but personally this had the hallmarks of something that’ll stand as a marker in our now 43 year old lives. It did help me remember why prioritizing activity and adventure are so important. As an entry point into Asia, Taiwan opened up a complex, beautiful world that now I really want to learn more about. The day to day spirituality of the place left me feeling reflective about my place in history and the larger universe. The encounter with local pilgrimage lent an air of significance to the trip. And the process of re-orienting our plans and coming away with a fantastic experience left me with that pleasant sensation of having successfully overcome a challenge.

I read somewhere that one of the key markers of true pilgrimage is that it persists long after the experience. It’s too early to say what that’ll mean, but ahh, it really did feel like this trip meant something.

If you’re interested in more of the nitty gritty details about how to replicate the trip, read Part

2 here: Taiwan Cycle Route 1: What English-speakers need to know to bike around Taiwan .

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12 Books that Define Dirtbag Culture (and a few more that should)

I just finished a book that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time - The Beach by Alex Garland. My responses are “Whoa,” “That was intense,” and also “That was really dirtbaggy.”

What do I mean by dirtbaggy? Well, it was a full on exposition and critique of the sort of escapism that defines dirtbag, outdoor adventure, and backpacker culture (which I’m going to lump together for better or worse).

The Beach is a very popular book. It was made into a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Alex Garland went on to write and/or direct a bunch of other Hollywood stuff. Even if The Beach is primarily a takedown of dirtbag culture, it’s also one of its most well-known representations.

The book’s got to be included in the pantheon of dirtbaggy books, I thought.

That also made me think, well, what else is in the pantheon of books that define dirtbag culture? Where did the guiding ideas come from? How did the ideas behind dirtbaggery form, and how have they been codified in print?

I thought about it for a bit.

Then I made a list. (You know me. I just want to help.)

First off, what do you mean, dirtbag?

To paraphrase Yvon Chouinard, what I’m talking about are people who, like juvenile delinquents or entrepreneurs, look at life’s options and say, “This sucks, I’m doing my own thing.” Then, they decide to focus their lives on adventure: climbing, traveling, skiing, trail running, hiking, whatever.

It’s a counterculture.

Second off, what do you mean, “define dirtbag culture?”

This is a little bit more complicated. Outdoor and adventure culture is diffuse and diverse enough that it’s hard to say what it is, so it’s hard to say what defines it.

So, let’s just admit up front that this list is entirely subjective. It’s mostly focused on the communities that I’m most familiar with - hiking, travel and trail running. It’s also exclusively books that I’ve read, personally. (Although I include a supplementary list of books at the end, a few of which I haven't read yet.)

Is that equitable or accurate? No. But to be fair, this website is called “Tim Mathis Writes,” not “The absolute and universal truth.” My thoughts are all I have to offer.

Inclusion doesn't necessarily imply endorsement here. I didn’t even like some of these books, and some are full of ideas I don’t agree with, but all have had an undeniable influence.

To try to demonstrate some level of objectivity, I won’t include my own book, ,The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life, even though it is the only book-length attempt to define dirtbag culture that I’m aware of, and it brings together a whole bunch of the core concepts you'll find in these other books.

It’s not on the list.

(See what I did there though?)

Here we go, in no particular order.

Books that have defined dirtbag culture.1. The Beach by Alex Garland

Let’s just start here, because it’s the book that inspired the list. It’s a real page turner and a cautionary tale, definitely, about utopianism and the excesses of escapism and exoticism that run through dirtbag and backpacker culture. It’s backpacker romanticism illustrated and dissected and condemned in dramatic and bloody fashion. Yikes.

The movie’s mediocre. The book’s way better.

2. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart and The Sunset Route by Carrot Quinn

I’m going to be doing some lumping on this list, so get ready for it. Quinn is a quintessential dirtbag. The Sunset Route tells her story of growing up in the chaos of life with a severely mentally ill mother. She left home and built a life of train-hopping, drifting, thru-hiking and verbal artistry. She’s a real dirtbag, and from the outside it looks like she’s followed her own path to carve out a decent existence despite the obstacles. She’s quintessentially what this is all about.

Thru-hiking Will Break Your Heart is an indie masterpiece, and to my mind it is the best way to learn what thru-hiking is like without doing it yourself.

3. On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

I don’t really like Kerouac. I wasn’t blown away by the book. Not sure if I just didn’t pick it up at the right time, but the experience was kind of “meh” to me, with lots of weird problematic elements. But you can’t deny that it has shaped the modern “Pack up the car and head out West” American ethic. A lot of people love it and see it as a key expression of the dirtbag spirit. It’d be hard to leave off the list.

4. Across Asia on the Cheap by Tony Wheeler

The original Lonely Planet Guide, self-published and sold along the road sharing personal learnings from years of travel. It’s here essentially because it emerged from the original Hippie Trail culture that was the start of modern international backpacking. It’s pretty useless as a travel guide today but that’s not the point. In good dirtbag spirit, it’s free to download if you’re keen to bask in nostalgia.

5. Thirst and Mud, Rocks, Blazes by Heather Anderson

Lovely memoirs about personal growth via very hard physical things - specifically, setting speed records on the Pacific Crest and Appalachian trails, coming from a non-athletic background. Also two of the best literary illustrations of the emotional experiences that accompany the decision to devote your life to things that people think are silly - which is what dirtbag culture is all about, eh?

6. Into the Wild by John Krakauer

If The Beach is a classic cautionary tale about international backpacker culture, this one’s a classic about the American impulse to run away into the wilderness. Krakauer seems more enchanted by the romanticism than Garland was though, so it’s a more complex (and frankly less traumatic) read emotionally. Some people think that Alexander Supertramp was a hero. Some people think that he was a madman. Maybe both were true?

7. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

In ultra running circles this book is so popular as to have become a cliche. Why are you running a hundred miler? I read Born to Run. It’s hagiography. It’s got a “Noble Savage” vibe at times. It espouses pseudoscience about barefoot running. It still convinces people that running in Vibram Five Fingers is a good idea. But it also captures a golden era of ultrarunning and a shit-ton of people still secretly draw on the story emotionally when they’re out on trail. It’s hard to be a pure hater of such a good read, even if it’s produced some silliness. I challenge you to find a book that’s been more influential on outdoor culture in the last 25 years.

8. Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Similar point. On the PCT, it’s almost a badge of honor to hate Wild. Why? Man, she didn’t even hike the whole trail! She didn’t know what she was doing! Why is she the most famous thru-hiker? That misses the point. Cheryl Strayed never claimed to be a thru-hiker anyway, so chill out. This book has shaped the “adventure as self-help” trend, and frankly I think that’s a positive thing. It’s driven thousands of people to get into hiking. It brought pilgrimage back en vogue in the United States (without calling it pilgrimage). Personally I think it’s a brilliant book, and so did Oprah, so shove off haters.

9. Desert Solitaire and The Monkeywrench Gang by Ed Abbey

Listen, here’s the thing. You get the impression that Ed Abbey didn’t like people. He was an iconoclast and an asshole. He was openly racist, sexist, and xenophobic. He was probably a narcissist of some flavor.

Also, he wrote beautifully about the Southwest and passionately about protecting it in a way that’s been spiritually crucial for modern environmentalism. Both of those books are classics of dirtbag and environmentalist literature. So what do you do? You put him on the list, reluctantly but undeniably because it’s hard to say that you can understand outdoor culture, at least in the States, if you don’t understand Abbey. People are complicated. So’s the outdoor community.

10. Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold

Honnold is another complex guy, but in a very different (and to my mind much more sympathetic) way than Abbey. He’s got his issues, but he’s not a bad person. I’m not sure if he’s been formally diagnosed, but he has self-identified as being on the Autism Spectrum, and he seems to have all of the traits, at least from a distance. There’s been a lot written about him, but his own book is the best entry point into the mind of a guy who is maybe the inevitable culmination of dirtbag climbing culture. He’s a super weird guy doing very dangerous things for reasons that almost no one else understands, but it’s impossible not to watch. The book’s a fascinating look into the mind of one of the most incredible athletes ever. This is a book that makes you feel like there’s a thin line between “disorder” and superpower. There’s something essential in there about the entire subculture, right?

11. Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Potts is a great writer (I also really loved his collection Marco Polo Didn’t Go There), but the philosophy is what’s important here. Travel is something to do when you’re in the prime of your life, and should be approached as an education, not a vacation. A classic exposition on how to make that happen.

12. The People’s Guide to Mexico by Carl Franz and Lorena Havens

Theoretically this is an offbeat travel guide to Mexico. More accurately it’s a treatise on slow travel philosophy with Mexico as the object lesson. It’s about travel as the path to a good life and enrichment, really. It’s deeply countercultural, and deeply DIY. “Living, traveling, and taking things as they come” is one of the book’s taglines. The book is a long treatise on how life will be better if you approach it with those goals in mind.

—

Read those books, and in my opinion, you’ll have a decent understanding of the dirtbag spirit as it’s developed.

You could critique this and say that it’s a very America-centric, and Caucasian-centric list.

You could make the same critique about dirtbag culture in general. Both are legitimate critiques, so I want to throw in some suggestions for further reading. These are books in the same spirit that could and should help shape the culture, but haven't exactly yet.

Don’t call them honorable mentions, but these books should be on the list.

I know I know I know what you might be thinking about the next two, but here’s the thing:

So far pretty much every book on the list has been about a white person going into the wilderness (literally or proverbially), and coming back as a low grade harmless revolutionary. The lessons are primarily about self-discovery or personal freedom or finding a connection to the universe, but there are parallel stories written by POC during the exact same period of time, with very similar travel experiences and goals that led them to very different conclusions. If you want to understand how travel and adventure shapes people, you need broader representation. So...

Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara is a Latin American road-trip classic about how travel exposed Che to a series of experiences that led him to believe that things had to change. Travel wasn’t freeing, because he saw people like himself who were getting eaten alive. He moved from medic to militant to revolutionary. You can see his story as a hero’s journey or a tragedy depending on your view of things, but in either case it’s very much a dirtbag adventure story.

,The Autobiography of Malcolm X is not usually treated in this way, but it is also very much a travel book. Malcolm’s whole worldview is shaped again and again by experiences he has when he’s traveling - around African-American communities the US, then to Mecca, then to Africa and the Middle East. He progressed, in a way, in the opposite direction from Che - from militancy to a much more pacifist and inclusive view. Again, this is very much a dirtbag revolutionary story sharing the impact of travel experiences from the Kerouac era. Not an outdoorsy guy, you say? So what. You wouldn't be either in his situation. Compare his stories about dancing in his formative years to Chouinard's stuff about surfing. Dude understood the relationship between the physical and the spiritual.

Both books are classic pictures of the way that exposure to the world can shape ideology, in line with many of the rest we’ve talked about. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

For something lighter, ,The Pilgrimage,, by Paulo Coelho should also be on this list. This is the best modern book on pilgrimage and the Camino, in my opinion. Written in the ‘80s, before the Camino really blew up again, there’s an origin story here about the modern version of the trail, and Coelho’s magical realist story was a big part of the resurgence. In my opinion it’s a better book, with sounder philosophy than ,The Alchemist, which you can see as a sort of sequel. Dirtbag culture is very much about pilgrimage, and if you’re looking for a classic expression of dirtbag spirituality, you could do worse than to look here.

And for shoots and googs, here are a few more recent books that should help shape things going forward:

,Braiding Sweetgrass,, by Robin Wall Kimmerer is not exactly about travel or adventure, but it is about reconceptualizing the human relationship to the outdoors using indigenous concepts. It’s a book that’s moving along the process of de-colonizing outdoor culture, broadly speaking. It’s a bestseller and it probably should be on the list because it’s been as influential as any of the other books above, but I haven’t read it. It’s in the queue.

,How the Word is Passed,, by Clint Smith. Well known as a story about African American history and experience in the US but equally a brilliant book about how travel can profoundly shape your worldview. It made me re-think the essential connection between travel and the sense of openness and adventure that I’ve always experienced as a white guy. Another book about travel as a crucial educator.

,The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham. A memoir about an African-American experience of the outdoors. Like Braiding Sweetgrass, I haven’t gotten to it yet, but if you’re going to read about Abbey’s thoughts on the desert Southwest, you should also absolutely balance it out with this poetic memoir about Lanham’s relationship with nature in the rural South.

Okay - that’s what I got. Love this? Great. Don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list to get more things like it. Hate it? Give the world more options. Drop your recommendations in the comments!

Ghost sighting: Crybaby Bridge, West Alexandria, Ohio. June 22, 2022.

It seems like there’s a Crybaby Bridge in every small town in the Midwestern United States.

I don’t normally go for that stuff, but I swear the one on Fudge Road in West Alexandria, Ohio is actually haunted.

The bridge sits on a back road on the route between Buckeye Jake’s Eatery in West Alexandria and Middletown, Ohio. West Alex is a small town, and Middletown feels like a veritable Rust Belt metropolis in comparison. It has a Cracker Barrel and an Olive Garden, and my dad grew up there during a time when it was an All American City. He died a few years ago, from brain cancer that I can’t help but attribute to the chemicals that Middletown’s steel and paper mills spewed into the air he breathed his entire life. That might not be fair, but who knows? My parents raised my brother, sister and me in a town nearby called Camden.

None of that is really important, other than to explain why I was driving country roads through Ohio at midnight in June.

I’d been at Buckeye Jake’s because my best friend from high school had moved to West Alexandria “to get away from the drama of Camden,” as he described it. The thing is, the towns are basically walking distance apart so it didn’t exactly seem like a grand escape to me. We had beers and wings and talked about high school. We ran out of common experiences when we got past that. He had to get home to his wife and kids. I had to go back to the hotel I’d rented in Middletown, near the interstate.

These sorts of interactions always make me feel sad. I don’t know why. It wasn’t because he wasn’t happy. I felt like maybe he’d missed an opportunity at a better life. He was always the smart one in our class. But I’m sure that was projection. I miss fried Midwestern junk food, and I miss these types of friendships - people who shared my upbringing. I haven’t had that kind of friendship in decades now. Those kinds of connection are his whole life.

I’d Google-mapped the route, but I was surprised to realize that I didn’t need the directions. I hadn’t thought about these roads in a decade but the turns seemed seared in, like the music you listen to when you’re a teenager. I had it on the radio - the Ohio playlist that I’d built in Seattle when I was feeling nostalgic: The Afghan Whigs, the Ass Ponies, Guided by Voices.

A song by Over the Rhine was playing - Poughkeepsie. It’s not about Ohio, but it feels like it should be to me. It’s melancholy, haunting like an old murder ballad. Karen Bergquist singing, her voice rich like Joni MItchell:

“I thought I'd go up Poughkeepsie

Look out over the Hudson

And I'd throw my body down on the river

And I'd know no more sorrow

I'd fly like the sparrow

And I'd ride on the backs of the angels tonight.”

It was good to be driving late at night there again in the Summer. The windows were down and the temperature was finally comfortable after a muggy, hot day. I’d forgotten how empty it all feels on the back roads and through the cornfields. When I was seventeen I’d push my Chevy Cavalier to 80 mph on these sorts of roads, bouncing over hills and skidding around corners, but that night I wasn’t in any hurry. My brights were on, which almost never happens in Seattle. My home was passing by, all cow fields and patches of scrubby woods that no one’s bothered to farm.

I’d forgotten about the bridge. I’d also forgotten to urinate before I left Buckeye Jake’s, and how long the drives take out there.

I pulled over at a side road with a graffiti'd, broken “Road Closed” sign across a rusted metal bridge crossing a creek.

I relieved myself under an oak tree. The air smelled like cow manure and cut grass and a vague waft of dead animal somewhere. It was familiar, and quiet. Someone’s dog was barking in the distance. Stars were bright. It’s subtle, but you forget these little bits of beauty when you’re away.

Looking to my right, the bridge was iron, industrial like a thousand others in the Midwest, but I felt a buzz of recognition.

This is Fudge Road. That’s Crybaby Bridge. I’m sure of it.

I laughed, then shivered.

I’d always heard the legend as a kid, but I’d totally forgotten about this place. I can’t remember the full deal but supposedly a mom threw her baby off the bridge in the 1800s and now it’s haunted. If you turn off your car, flash your lights and say “mama” three times you’ll hear a baby crying. Then you’ll die or something.

They say devil worshippers used to do rituals out here - burn dogs alive and that sort of thing. I’ve never met one, but it seemed like there were a lot of devil worshippers in the country when I was a kid.

I don’t like this sort of thing, but there were still a couple of Kentucky Bourbon Ales in my system from Buckeye Jake’s.

I decided to give it a shot. Why not? There was no chance I’d ever be in this situation again.

I got back in the car. Settled into the seat.

I flashed the lights.

“Mama. Mama. Mama.” You have to say it out loud. There was no one else around, but I didn’t shout, I was conversational. I remember smirking, but if I’m honest that was because I was anxious.

In a situation like this you expect suspense, but there was no suspense. As soon as I said “mama” for the third time, I heard it - screaming whines, sounding as distant as the dog that was barking earlier.

A light appeared across the bridge, like a spotlight, and progressed towards me, quickly and smoothly - a teenager’s car over country roads. It passed through, the seats and dashboard of my car briefly illuminated. Behind the light was a white cloud, a concentrated mist. The air stayed still but the temperature dropped and goosebumps broke out on my arms.

The mist congealed into a small figure in the dark. I turned my lights back on, and they lit up the face of a child, no older than two, standing alone in the center of the bridge. He was holding what appeared to be a soda can.

I don’t remember what I did, exactly. I’m sure I shouted. I’m sure I cursed. I remember feeling like my stomach was dropping. They say that happens because in the fight or flight response, your body shunts blood away from your digestive system towards the organs that are more relevant in that moment - your muscles, your nerves, your heart.

There’s a feeling you get during a nightmare, where something terrible is about to happen but your body won’t move. It won’t respond to your mental instructions.

Real panic isn’t like that. It’s like accelerated, intensified confusion.

I punched the glove box trying to open it. I’m not sure why. It was a rental. I guess i thought there were meant to be guns in country glove boxes. I spun my head searching the back for something that I could use to hit a baby. There was nothing. It’s a rental.

I pressed the ignition - it’s one of those new, stupid Hondas. Why don’t cars have keys anymore?!

At this point it was like the nightmare because the car didn’t start.

I could see the child approaching. Toddling.

I remember clutching the steering wheel. What else could I do?.

He stopped in front of my car. I could see the child more clearly. The can he was holding was a Miller Lite. My headlights illuminated tiny Levi’s, a faded black White Zombie T-shirt, and a fitted orange Bengals hat, backwards.

I was shouting involuntarily, “What are you??!! Oh my God!!”

His face was obscured but I imagined that he was staring at me with cold, dead eyes when he said, “Chill man. I’m just a baby.” His voice was gravelly and pinched, like Vern Troyer after ten years smoking a pack a day.

He sipped the beer, looking at me sideways like he knew what I was thinking. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and placed it in the corner of his mouth.

“I’m 184 years old. I can do what I want. Anyway, I don’t know why everyone gets so freaked out. You come out here and call me and then act all weird when I show up.”

There was alcohol in my system but my anxiety peaked over the buzz. My hands started to shake.

“What the hell is happening here?! What the hell are you?!”

“Calm down buddy. I told you, I’m a ghost baby. I live here. You obviously know that. I don’t actually murder people if that’s what you’ve heard. Bunch of rednecks with guns out here anyway are what you need to worry about. I saw one of them accidentally shoot his buddy once when they were goofing around. Every decade or two a kid’ll hang himself off the bridge but that’s not my fault.”

I remember thinking for some reason about how nobody actually believes this stuff is real.

He seemed to read my mind. He leaned against the railing.

“People claim every bridge in the Midwest is haunted. I’m not sure where those stories came from. Most of them actually aren’t though. Most ghosts left years ago.”

I tried the ignition on the car again. I pounded the button. I punched it.

Dammit!!

I opened the door and stepped out, prepared to run.

“Your car’s already on man. You probably can’t hear it. It’s one of those hippie hybrids. You’re going to get somebody killed.”

Shit, he’s right.

The lights switched off automatically, a safety feature engaged now that I was outside of the car.

Under the moonlight I could see that he didn’t have those vacant ghost eyes that you see in movies. His eyes looked young, glowing like the child that he was. I looked away.

“Who are you anyway? What’s with the flannel and skinny jeans? You from Dayton or something?”

Standing, facing him, the adrenaline was draining. I felt…embarrassed? Defensive? “No! I mean - I grew up around here but I moved away 20 years ago. My best friend is in West Alex.”

The air seemed to warm back up. His own affect brightened. “Ah yeah?! Cool! That’s a relief. I get worried that people from out of town are going to hear about this place and keep me awake. It’s on the internet now. I’m surprised you’ve never called me before. Seems like every teenager in Preble County has been bugging me on the weekend for a century. What are you doing back in town?”

For a ghost, there was something disarming about this guy. He seemed friendly, earnest. Curled blond bangs were poking from underneath his Bengals cap, like he'd done it intentionally, the way we used to wear our hair in the '90s.

“I grew up in Camden so I didn’t get out this way that much. My mom is having her 65th in Middletown so we’re all back for a few weeks.”

“Ah? Nice. Family’s important. You having a good trip?”

I don’t want to say the wrong thing. He’s been here for almost 200 years.

“I mean, yeah, it’s home. It’s weird because I’ve been in the city for 20 years now and traveling around for the last five. It’s weird to be home.”

“Ah yeah? What do you mean?”

“I lived in Seattle, like right in the middle of a giant city for most of that time, and I have been all over the world. I lived in New Zealand for a bit. I spent a bunch of time in Mexico and South America. It’s kind of weird to come home and feel like things haven’t changed.”

I’d actually been feeling like all of the Trump flags that were everywhere now were directly intended to make people like me know we weren’t welcome. People who’d fled to the cities. People who’d left their religion and family to fraternize with immigrants and call people by their preferred pronouns.

“New Zealand? Is that like up around Boston and stuff?”

“No - that’s New England. This is in the Pacific Ocean - kind of between Hawaii and Australia.”

“Ah, wow, crazy. I’ve always wanted to see a kangaroo…” He stared off quietly.

I started to feel like he definitely wasn’t going to hurt me.

“Listen, I don’t want to talk about this stuff. I’m really sorry you died when you were a baby and got stuck here. I’m pretty privileged with the life I’ve lived.”

“Oh - what? No, I’m not stuck here! I could leave if I wanted to. I just never have. I went to Chicago once on the back of this guy’s truck and that was awesome. This homeless guy called me a freak baby. I just don’t like the city that much. This is home.”

I looked off the bridge, down at the water. An old piece of white Tyvek sheeting was caught on a branch in the stream, rippling along under the surface. The breeze picked up and I smelled manure again, fertilizer from the field across the creek, most likely.

“I’m not stuck here but I could never leave.”

“Why?”

“I’m a free spirit so I could go, but my mom can’t. She tossed me over the bridge and then hung herself so she’s condemned to haunt the place for eternity. It’s the rules. She mostly wanders around the corn fields - that’s where she is tonight, probably. We’ve had our issues but she’s still my mom. We talk every day.

I know it’s no New York City but there’s decent fishing. That’s what I care about. People leave beer on the weekends even if a lot of them are half-empties. It’s home, man.”

“Don’t you want to get out though? You’ve been here for hundreds of years.”

He struggled onto the hood of the car and leaned back. It was cute watching him wiggle his way up, feet dangling off the hood.

He offered me a Miller Lite. I clutched the lukewarm can to my chest and it triggered a memory - the anxiety of my first beer, pushed into my hand by an older friend just a few miles from here. I could remember the smell of that particular bonfire, on a summer night like this, lighter fluid on a dried pine that produced an impressive initial rage that settled to embers across the night.

“No, what’s the point?”, the crybaby said, “Plus, it’s not like it was when you left. They’re going to paint the bridge. They’re putting new railings up. They’re putting in a bike trail through to Dayton that is going to pass over. This place is really growing up. WIth Trump winning and then with the Bengals in the Super Bowl it really got some local pride going.”

Politics.

I changed the subject, gesturing at his shirt. Voice cracking a little. “You a White Zombie fan? My brother’s actually met Rob Zombie.”

“Whaaaat?! No! That’s so fucking cool man! I love Zombie. There’s this guy who comes and just sits here by the bridge most weekends. Listens to music. White Zombie. Been doing it for 20 years now so I hear them all the time. They’ve been my favorite band since “Thunder Kiss ‘65”.

Movies and music were all we talked about when I was a kid. What else was there to talk about in Ohio? I was glad it kept us away from politics.

“That’s awesome man. I actually saw them in like ‘95 or something in Dayton with The Ramones on their farewell tour. My brother works for this record label in New York that Rob Zombie is signed to so he’s been in meetings with him and stuff. He said he’s a funny guy.”

“Dude, that’s incredible. You’re famous! If they ever play back around here I’m totally going to figure out how to get there. We should go!”

He hopped off of the car and pulled another Miller from a box in the ditch. I sat quietly for a time, watching the creek running under the bridge. There was the rusted husk of a riding lawnmower that someone had dumped off the edge. I remember there were lightning bugs flashing in the field across the way.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure man, anything.”

“Why do you think she did it? I mean, tossed you over.”

He paused. Took a deep breath.

“You know, people ask me that. I still don’t know man. I think she wasn’t grounded. You know she wasn’t from here, right? She was a city girl. She drove over from Dayton. My dad was a business man. I think people in the city get caught up in stuff that doesn’t matter. They lose touch with their people and their roots. Lose their sense of meaning. That’s the only way you could end up doing something like that, killing your own kid.”

It hurt in a way, but I knew what he meant. Coming home reminds you that you’ve left your community. You can never really replace your home. And he was right that it’s hard to keep a handle on meaning in the city when connections almost never feel real.

It’s really hard sometimes.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. The city…”

He burst out laughing.

“I’m screwing with you city boy! She lived on the farm across the street her whole life. She’s always been off dude. She still tries to smother me in my sleep every once in a while and we’re ghosts! She thinks there’s a demon in me or something. Normal people don’t throw their babies off bridges, right?”

It’s embarrassing to get tricked by a toddler. “Yeah, right.”

“She’s still my mom though and you only get one of those, so I love her,” laughing.

We sat for a minute on the hood of the car. I could feel the heat from my engine starting to dissipate.

The crybaby broke the silence. “It’s really good to have you here man. You want to put on some Zombie? I have a bunch of beer. These kids left behind a half-rack last night ‘cause a cop showed up when they were drinking. ”

“Ahh…Well…”

“Or we could go for a drive or something?”

I did picture it for a moment.

But it seemed like, if I let this progress, I might end up stuck haunting this bridge in Ohio for eternity.

“I don’t know man. It’s after midnight. My family’s probably worried about me. Plus I shouldn’t drink any more if I’m going to drive home.

“Alright, well - You can do what you want but I’m drinking. My mom’s out for the evening so I’m going to live it up, listen to some Zombie. You sure you don’t want to join man?! I’d love to hang out!”

“I just… I really do need to go.”

—

Driving home, I thought about how I grew up 10 minutes away and spent my formative years on these back roads. The night was still comfortably warm, humid. I could still smell manure. We used to go swimming on these kinds of nights at my friend’s pool just a few miles away, the water warmed like a bath by 90 degree heat during the day.

Living in the city I’d forgotten how dark it is there at night.

With the light of the moon, you can see the corn rustling in the wind.

It’s easy to imagine that the ghosts in a place like this don’t really want to hurt you.

But it screws with your head, imagining the alternative timelines you can live. That baby’s never going to know anything but that bridge. And his mom, she’s always going to be mad and wandering in these same cornfields.

Home is always like this.

I have a hard time picturing myself listening to the same music, drinking the same beer, dealing with the same family problems and the same punk kids for all those years.

To be honest, the crybaby seemed fine though. Happy even.

—

Passing through Jacksonburg, a new sign proudly advertising “Population: 55,” I was startled by red and blue lights in my mirror.

Dammit.

The town is a speed trap and always has been. I got my first ticket there when I was 16. I was going 2 miles over the limit at the time. It's "Ohio's Smallest Incorporated Village."

I pulled to the shoulder, and when the cop stepped out of his car, I groaned. He was jowly now, waddling uncomfortably, but I knew him immediately. He was the linebacker on our football team. He’d pressed his bare ass against my face in a locker room once to make his friends laugh. He used to show off his pubic hair and brag about having sex with his girlfriend in the 8th grade when I was in 6th. I remember thinking she was beautiful and deserved better than that.

He shoved a Maglite in my eyes.

“Hey man!” Squinting, I tried to sound happy to see him.

He put his hand on his gun holster. I don’t know why cops do that sort of thing. “License and registration please. Where you from? These are Florida plates.”

It’s a rental. He didn’t seem to recognize me. I’m sure I hadn’t changed that much.

“Yeah - sorry officer. It’s a rental. I’m back visiting home from Seattle.”

“Seattle? Well I don’t know how you do things in Seattle but in Jacksonburg we drive the speed limit. I clocked you at 39 and the speed limit is 35. It’s clearly marked.”

“I’m sorry officer, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

I wondered about whether I should remind him who I was. About how we have history? Or if I should say anything about the ghost. About how the ghost was actually a pretty nice guy?

He wrote a ticket.

He tore it off.

He shoved it in my face.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

I turned the car back on and pulled out. He rode my bumper - brights in my rearview - until I passed beyond the corporation limits.

I hadn’t introduced myself, but he saw my ID. He knows my brother. I’m sure he recognized me.

The ghosts are one thing, but man - that sort of experience. It tips you over the edge. It makes you feel like a stranger in your own town. Even if your friends hung around, or your family, it makes you feel like you could never really come back.

Check out my books for some slightly less fictional stories.

This year I decided to become a writer

A lot of tragic creative stories go something like this:

“I always loved writing/painting/singing/sculpture but no one believed in me and they told me I’d never make a living at it, so I put it aside. Now I work as an office manager and I’ll never know what could have been.”

Mine isn’t like that.

I had hugely supportive parents - some of the most supportive I know. When I told them as a child that I wanted to be a writer, they were excited and believed that I could do it. By the time I was a teenager, they definitely would have helped me pay to go to college as an English major, and would have trusted me to figure it out. I had supportive teachers, including a really encouraging community college professor who told me she really hoped that I did something with my writing, and when I told guidance counsellors that I was thinking about journalism, they let me know that they thought it was a good idea.

Right up to a few months before high school graduation, it was the track I was on - figuring out how to become some sort of professional writer.

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.

At the last minute I decided to low key join a cult instead. Or, uh, go to a fundamentalist college and study to become an evangelical minister.

That decision derailed my writing path for at least a decade, and to this point has meant that I’ve never had formal writing training. (That’s right, all of this magnificent glory is self-taught.)

—

To be fair to my 17 year old self, I didn’t actually have any context for what it would mean to write professionally. I may be forgetting something, but as far as I remember I genuinely didn’t know anyone who wrote for a living. I’d never met an author, and I didn’t know any journalists. In life, you follow the survival strategies that you know, and in my small-town context, I had no model for writing as a means of survival. (And not inconsequentially, I knew a lot of ministers.)

Worse, as an adult I’ve gotten to know writers over the years, and it hasn’t exactly made me feel like it was a mistake to find other ways to make money. By the time I started university in 1998, journalism was beginning its transition from a relatively stable print-based middle-class occupation into an online, freelance subsistence hustle. I've realized that the vast majority of people who make a living wage from books already have some sort of public persona that drives sales. The rest write for passion or principle and figure out how to make the bulk of their living through other means. Magazine editors? Journalists with stable jobs? All of them that I know outside of major New York publications make less money than I do as a nurse (I retrained after I stopped being a fundie), and work longer hours for the privilige.

By the time I’d left the path towards ministry and was in a position to think about putting myself in a writer’s shoes again, it seemed potentially embarrassing. Setting aside a stable career to pursue writing seems something like selling the house to fund an album for your Huey Lewis cover band.

Maybe that’s a little unfair to writers. Also, screw you, there’s nothing wrong with Huey Lewis.

Anyway though, I wish the world wasn’t like this, but that’s the story with pretty much everything that sounds fun, right? Anything in the arts, working as a tour guide, dishing up popcorn in a movie theater your whole life: none are realistic. Every clear path to financial viability is unpleasant, boring or sociopathic, and the decision to pursue a career that actually sounds fun risks both public humiliation and financial failure.

When I retrained after ministry, I didn’t choose writing. I chose an unpleasant path and became a psychiatric nurse. It worked. It’s not publicly humiliating, and I have plenty of income.

—

The thing is though, from the time I was a teenager I never stopped writing. I’ve always had some type of outlet even if I was never, you know, a writer. Theses. Blogs. Copy for websites. A couple of self-published books. I just write things.

So, for a variety of reasons, this year I decided to become a writer.

That might seem weird, but what I mean is that I decided to stop being embarrassed to tell people that I’m a writer, and to start working on getting better at it intentionally instead of brushing it off as a hobby that I don’t really care about. Because the fact is that I do care about it, and I’m old enough to know that isn't going to change.

I could say that it was Covid that triggered that shift, and the whole existential crisis we’ve all just gone through. “If you want to do something, you need to do it now." There’s something to that.

But more honestly the thing that drove the decision was an ego boost and/or an address to my insecurity that happened in 2020, which was the result of my wife Angel’s labor. After writing The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life in 2019 for fun and Boldly Went (our previous business for the uninitiated), Angel spent a few months figuring out how to use Amazon ads to market it during the Covid lockdowns. She is really good at that sort of thing, and sales jumped from something like 15 organic sales a month to more than 400 during mid-2020. Those aren’t blockbuster numbers by any means, and I sell less now, but it was confirmation that the book had an audience and was marketable. For any entry level author that’s a holy grail.

Most books, self-published or otherwise, never achieve that.

It plants a seed. Maybe I actually am a writer?

Like you, probably, Covid killed most of my inspiration in life, but in 2021 I did manage to get through a rewrite of my first book, I Hope I Was Wrong About Eternal Damnation. In case I was a writer, I didn’t want to have this thing out there publicly that was too embarrassing. Or rather, I didn’t want to be embarassed for technical reason. It’s full of damning details about who I am as a person, but readers love that sort of thing. They’ll turn on you though if you repeat the word “very” too often or use dashes where you should’ve used commas. Those are the sorts of things I tried to clean up.

After that, facing down 2022, I decided that for better or worse this was the year that I was going to become a writer. I wasn’t going to try to make a living from it. I was just going to accept that it’s an important part of who I am, and was going to try to get better at it intentionally. I’d stop hiding it in the closet. I’d stop treating it like an ugly birthmark on my upper thigh. I’d accept the embarrassment that might come if I said it out loud.

I was going to start that proverbial Huey Lewis cover band.

How do you transition from not a writer to a writer?

Taking stock of my life at the beginning of the year, for someone who wasn’t a writer I did have a few pieces in place.

I had one moderately successful book with my name on it. I had a second book that hadn’t really sold, but that I at least liked pretty well. I had a few articles published here and there. I had almost 20 years of personal blogging experience and a small group of people who I was pretty sure would read what I wrote (i.e. you). I had a bit of experience with trying to write things optimized for search engines for Boldly Went. I had a fair number of incomplete projects in various stages of disarray in my Google Drive. I had a bit of knowledge about the types of things that people latch onto and the types of things that they don’t. And I had plenty of financial stability through my job as a nurse (and Angel’s) to fund some time focused on what to do next

I also didn’t have a lot of things though.

I didn’t have any formal training. Let’s be honest, I’m not the worst but I’m no prodigy when it comes to writing ability. I still do a lot of things that scream amateur, and I still leave very many “very’s” in my copy. I didn’t have any real plan for what I wanted to produce or how I could make writing financially viable in the long term. I didn’t have any significant “platform” or a clear plan for how to build one. I didn’t have many friends who were writers or who were trying to become them. And if I’m honest, I didn’t even have a clear sense of what I meant when I said “I want to be a writer.”

In that situation, there’s nothing to do really but get started.

But get started on what?

The first thing I needed to do was to define what I meant when I said that I wanted to be a writer. What was even important in all of this? If I was going to devote time to it, what would make it worth the sacrifice? We’re all hurtling towards death. What type of writing would be worth giving up the other productive things a person could do before it gets here?

Late last year, an entrepreneur friend named Amer was trialling a free, structured course for people who want to bootstrap a business, so I sat down with his tool to try to hone in on what to do with my writing. It was a good tool, and it helped me identify some important things:

I want to write books, stories and articles that people will find some combination of funny, useful and interesting. I want to build a few income streams from writing so it feels financially viable to keep working on it. I want to be more intentional about building a wider audience. I want to learn to write well and properly instead of continuing to flail around saying whatever comes to mind. I want to actually enjoy what I’m working on. I want to build up some degree of community with other authors.

That is still pretty broad, but it was a direction to start, and it allowed me to ask the next important question, which was “How can I get there?” I’m still feeling around in the dark a bit, but it gave me some principles to guide the concrete things that I wanted to work on.

Thanks Amer.

What’s your lane?

If you want to create things that are funny, useful and interesting, and if you want to actually enjoy it, then you have to identify your pretentiously named “zone of genius.” That is, you have to figure out what you like and what you’re good at, and preferably have that be something that is relatively rare but useful.

For me, my natural interests are in travel, the outdoors and adventure. My professional training in both religion and psychiatric nursing, when I boil it down, has been focused on how to help people put together a meaningful life. I’m not the most adventurous or the most widely traveled person alive, but I do think about travel and adventure more philosophically than most. It’s one of the things that people like about the Dirtbag’s Guide. It’s stuff that I think about whether I want to or not. I’m a weird nerd who lives mostly in my head. So I started there.

I’ll write mainly about how to put together a meaningful life through travel, adventure, and the outdoors. That’s my zone of genius.

What will you write?

From there, the question became what exactly should I write?

My goals were building audience, practicing at getting better, writing things that are marketable, and enjoying it, so across the year my strategy coalesced around a few different things.

Platform

I’ve written a relatively popular book, and Angel and I had a decent following with Boldly Went, but at this stage I’m starting from baseline in a lot of ways with trying to build an audience. If I were smart I would’ve figured out a way to develop things like social media following and email lists from those two projects, but I didn’t really so here I am.

So, I spent the first part of the year putting together this website and thinking about how to start using it. I spent some time trying to learn a bit more about search engine optimization so when I post here it’ll be discoverable by randoms on the internet, and migrated and updated a bunch of old posts that were previously popular. I started this email list because it’s a reliable way to stay connected that won’t, hopefully, be impacted by the whims of tech billionaires and their capricious algorithms.

Speaking of that, I also started trying to use social media more intentionally. I admit that this is an area where my motivation and discipline are low, and my timing is bad. The algorithms on Facebook and Instagram this year shifted thoroughly and a lot of the old stuff stopped working. Instagram started heavily prioritizing video, so I’ve made some attempt at ,learning reels so Instagram won’t hurt my family.

Generally speaking, I’ve been unsuccessful at using either of those platforms for connecting with new people, although I did dink around a bit with sharing poetry and gimmicky little ideas, and a few of them went very mildly viral.

In both cases, the email list is small and my social media following isn’t much different from what it was at the start of the year. So far, I’ll admit that I don’t feel like I’ve been great about building a platform.

What’s internet social failure feel like?

You feel dumb sometimes, writing to a small group of mostly friends and family. Imposter syndrome is a constant companion and sabbateur.

But 70 - 80% of you do open my emails each time I send them out, which I hope indicates that you all at least are finding this worthwhile. Don’t tell anyone, but to make myself feel good, sometimes I go through and look at the names on my email list and think about each of you out there - us quietly connected. That makes writing feel more like the good parts of old school blogging. It feels personal, like we’re talking. It feels less like shouting into the void.

So shut up sabbateur. I’m just getting started. I’m sure I’ll get better at getting more people on board.

Becoming a better writer

Listen, I’m too old for more university. I’m not signing up for an MFA program any time soon. But I am okay at self-directed learning. This year I read a bunch of books about writing, and have tried to implement their good ideas. My seven favorites have been:

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr Marco Polo Didn’t Go There by Rolf Potts Good Prose by Tracy Kidder Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk

Across the year, these books have provided a foundation to start writing stories with more of an intentional structure and process - like this story, for instance, which is roughly following a Hero’s Journey structure. They’ve taught a few tricks here and there. They’ve given a lot of ideas and fodder for growth.

It’s hard to measure, but I do think I’ve gotten better at producing coherent writing across the year. I’ve definitely gotten faster. An MFA would probably help more. I'm still flawed.

I'll keep working

Practice

Ultimately, I guess, if you want to be a writer you have to write, so I’ve tried to get more consistent about just writing things.

I spent a lot of time writing short travel stories to work on some of the mechanics of storytelling, and to create things that are easily consumable. I’ve shared a few here, and I threw some of those in to writing contests - I didn’t win, but I was a runner up in a couple of them. I got a few stories published in the Intrepid Times, as well as a short blurb on The Trek. It’s not much but I wrote a couple of paid publications and something like 20 more stories that will probably contribute to future projects.

I’ve messed around a bit with fiction and poetry, neither of which I’ve ever really done in the past. It’s been fun - like learning a new instrument. I have a ghost story about a place called Crybaby Bridge near where I grew up in Ohio. I like it. I'll probably share it with you in a few weeks.

And I’ve also started formalizing larger projects. I finished a second draft on a guide to pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago focused on making the trip a transformative experience rather than just providing logistical details. (By the way, if you’re going on Camino or are interested in reading a rough guidebook, let me know - I’m at the stage where I’d love some feedback!) I have at least some general direction on a couple of other book length projects as well - one about Aotearoa/New Zealand and one about the Americas. I’ve been chipping away at both of those in small bits and pieces, and I plan to put some significant energy into the NZ book while I let the Camino book simmer.

A side benefit of hanging your sign out is that it’s at least theoretically possible that you’ll pick up random interest, and a few months ago an old colleague reached out and asked me to put together a training about using storytelling as a therapeutic/debriefing tool for healthcare staff. It was one of those unexpected things - I didn’t think about pulling over storytelling into psych work, but it makes a lot of sense. I don’t have any formal plans yet, but it’s got me thinking that there may be future direction there for useful projects for nurses and other healthcare providers. Stay tuned for CE nurses, and if you know anyone who wants to learn to use writing to process a life challenge…

So am I a writer now?

Concretely, I’ve made a grand total of around $3500 this year from writing. I don’t have an exact ledger (another thing to put on the list), but that’s a bit less than last year. It’s definitely less than 2020. That’s not money in the bank either. I’ve spent most of what I’ve made on ads, websites, and workshops.

By that financial measure, it’s hard to say I’m a writer, but in the grand scheme of things I’ve taken some significant aspects of the plunge. I’ve admitted I have a problem. I’ve started working on it intentionally. I’ve gotten a few publications. I’ve gotten paid for a few pieces. The Dirtbag’s Guide keeps selling. I’m intentionally working to get better, and I’m pretty consistently enjoying it. It was a foundation building year, but I do feel like I have some elements of author infrastructure in place now.

How do you know that you’re a writer?

I’m not sure that there’s been a key moment that things tipped over, but this has been the year where I’ve been more intentional about writing than any other, and when I looked it in the face and said “Right, here are your strengths. Here are your weaknesses. Let’s figure out what to do with them.”

More, the thing that seals it is that this year I started being able to say “I’m a writer” out loud without being worried that people would look at me like I do Huey Lewis covers. I’m not sure why that changed. Maybe I’m getting more secure in my old age. I'm old enough to accept my fate?

Whatever the case, the problem now is that realistically, I need to figure out how to create more things that you people will want to read, I need to figure out how to get it in front of you and all of your friends, and I need to figure out how to make it all financially viable.

So next year, along with creating new projects and continuing to hone my writing skills, I’ll keep working on marketing, audience building, and deciding on routes for publication.

In any case, thanks for being a part of it. Thanks for being in on the ground floor. Some of you have been reading things I write for years, so we have a weird secret sort of relationship, and I don’t want to forget how strange and meaningful that is. Thanks for joining me in this first year that I’ve been a writer.

As I always say in closing:

You don't need money, don't take fame

Don't need no credit card to ride this train

It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes

But it might just save your life

That's the power of love

If you'd like to read more, there's a lot in these ,books.

Kurangaituku: The case to make a surreal Maori myth the next book you read.

I promise that this is an article about a book called Kuragnaituku by Whiti Hereaka.

You’ve almost definitely never heard of it, but it’s a retelling of a myth about a bird lady that you’ve also probably never heard of. I just finished reading it and I really want to tell you about it.

Before we get to that though, imagine for a moment that they tore down the Statue of Liberty and made it illegal to talk about the United States as a nation of immigrants.

Imagine if they disassembled Jerusalem and tried to stamp out the thousands of years of religious stories associated with the place.

Imagine if they tore down the Colosseum and took Caesar out of the history books.

Or - let’s be seasonally relevant - imagine if they made it illegal to talk about the myth of Santa Claus or the Christian stories of Christmas.

It’d change the world in significant ways, right? It’d erase core bits of meaning for a whole lot of people. It’d make it much less interesting to visit New York or Israel or Rome, and make December 25th tragic for those of us with a memory of what it used to be.

My white ass is not the one to speak for colonized people, but one of the undeniably bad things about colonialism is that it does that sort of thing. It steals that sort of meaning from the world because it erases the cultural stories that provide a sense of purpose and identity for huge numbers of people across hundreds or thousands of years.

Imagine the stories that existed about Tikal or Machu Picchu or Serpent Mound or Tahoma/Mt Rainier. Imagine how widespread and pervasive and life shaping they must have been in the cultures where they developed. Imagine the void left once they were gone, and how that’s affected the way that people who relied on those stories think about themselves. Imagine what it would be like to go to those places if you had a good understanding of what they used to mean.

Preserving those old stories isn’t just an academic interest. It’s tied to the baseline human need to experience life as meaningful. It’s tied to our collective human identity, our connection to history and our sense of the importance of places. All of that depends on keeping cultural stories alive.

The good news is that the world may actually be making some progress in that regard. While the world is a mess, and it’s easy to get down these days, everything is not actually terrible on the story front. The recent movement towards indigenous ,decolonization has produced some amazing bits of progress for human culture and meaning as colonized people have been re-asserting their identity by re-telling old or almost lost stories.

,That’s a literary trend in a lot of places, but one of the most remarkable indigenous resurgences is happening in Aotearoa. It’s been significant enough that you might even be aware that Aotearoa is the Te Reo name for New Zealand, and that Te Reo is the name of the original language spoken on those beautiful little islands in the Pacific by the original settlers, the Maori.

The Maori people have been pulling off some next level shit for centuries. They figured out how to navigate the Pacific and found Aotearoa without the use of compasses or maps two hundred years before Europeans managed to bumble their way across the Atlantic. Their story continues to be fascinating and brilliant, and there’s been a complex, successful and multifaceted movement to re-establish Maori culture as a co-equal in Aotearoa across the last half-century. I’d encourage you to read up on the Maori cultural resurgence if you have any interest in decolonization because it’s one of the most hopeful examples in the modern world.

The question of how Maori have pulled this off is interesting, but really I came here to introduce you to one of the concrete products of this process. I want to point you towards the what of the modern Maori cultural resurgence as much as the how, because that’s what’s achieving the goal we talked about at the beginning - re-introducing indigenous stories that make meaning.

So, now that I’ve gotten us all lost in the weeds thinking about grand myths and scary images of banning Santa, I should get to my point. And that point is…

You need to figure out how to find and read Kurangaituku, by Whiti Hereaka

If you’re anywhere besides Australia or New Zealand, you’re probably going to have to work to find it (or, you know, just click the link above and get the ebook from Amazon), but seriously, it’s worth it. It’s a book that, from what I can tell, has received almost no attention or distribution outside of its own small corner of the Antipodes. Just wait though - it’s ,winning the highest awards there (which is how I heard about it originally) and it will eventually develop at least a cult following internationally.

Before I tell you what it is, I want you to know that Kurangaituku is seriously one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever read. As I was reading, the comparisons that came to mind were allegories like Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist, allegorical fantasies like The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, and myth rewrites like The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. It’s hard to come up with any comparison that isn’t in the range of a classic. In Aotearoa literature, ,Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera or ,The Bone People by Keri Hulme are the most obvious ancestors. Whale Rider is the most widely translated book by a New Zealand author and The Bone People won the Booker Prize in 1985 as the best English language novel written that year. I’m no literary critic, but in my opinion, Kuragnaituku is on par with those types of books.

Now that I’ve given you my raves, here’s what the book is objectively, from the ,the official website:

“Kurangaituku is the story of Hatupatu told from the perspective of the traditional ‘monster’, Kurangaituku, the bird woman. In the traditional story, told from the view of Hatupatu, he is out hunting and is captured by a creature that is part bird and part woman. The bird woman imprisons him in her cave in the mountains. Hatupatu eventually escapes and is pursued by Kurangaituku. He evades her when he leaps over hot springs, but Kurangaituku goes into them and dies.

In this version of the story, Kurangaituku takes us on the journey of her extraordinary life – from the birds who sang her into being, to the arrival of the Song Makers and the change they brought to her world, and her life with Hatupatu and her death. Through the eyes of Kurangaituku, we come to see how being with Hatupatu changed Kurangaituku, emotionally and in her thoughts and actions, and how devastating his betrayal of her was.”

That description, I have to say, doesn’t come anywhere near communicating the complexity of what this book does. Unfortunately I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do so either. It’s hard to write a review that feels worthy of the book. I’ve read multiple professional reviewers who’ve said the same.

It’s real art, man.

Here goes though. Here’s my attempt at a Kurangaituku review.

The book is going to mean different things to different people, but here’s the problem if you’re reading this.

You probably don’t understand Maori myth or care about it.

Worse, a book about a bird lady isn’t easy to relate to. The storyline is simple, and not obviously compelling: a bird monster kidnaps a guy and keeps him in her cave. The guy runs away and tricks her into jumping into a boiling mud pit. She dies, and he escapes. Weird, right? It’s not easy to see why that’s relevant to your day to day life, living in the big city modern world as you do.

The thing is, the book is really good at solving that problem.

It’s an interestingly and non-traditionally structured novel, written beautifully in poetic prose whose effect is to make you feel like you’re experiencing a bit of magic. ,In reviewer Ariana Tikau’s words,

“The structure is much like Māori oratory – not linear, but existing in different times, cycles, and spaces all at once, then looping back on itself. This challenges us to see stories as more complex, to read in different ways, and from multiple viewpoints and directions.”

That is less confusing in practice than it sounds, but it’s hard to describe. It’s enough to know that it takes some amount of work to get your head into the flow in the beginning but once you’re immersed, you’ll feel like you’re living in a parallel universe. It’s mesmerizing.

Once you make it through the beginning, and you’re acclimated to both the style and the universe, Hereaka draws out the traditional monster story into a complex allegory about so many themes. It’s about sexuality, gender, culture, race, colonization, violence and a whole lot more.

The device is clever and effective. Imagine in Frankenstein when Mary Shelley veered into the monster’s perspective, if you’ve read that. It becomes a complex sort of trauma narrative.

It makes you think repeatedly and from multiple angles about what happens when cultures (and genders) collide and the consequences of that process for everyone involved.

Along with the Hatupatu/Kuragnaituku story, the book integrates and re-imagines multiple other traditional Maori myths spanning from creation to the afterlife in a way that’s funny, sexy, and compelling. It keeps the narrative moving and draws you into a wider Maori cosmos of monsters, gods and supernatural figures.

Hereaka grounds the stories in the places where they were said to have occurred - Taupo and Cape Reinga, notably. This connects the myth with reality and makes your feel like you’re immersed in the universe that Aotearoa was before Europeans arrived and supplanted the old stories. She connects meaning to real places by way of the stories about them.

Kurangaituku integrates Te Reo words and concepts in a way that causes you to feel like you’ve been immersed in the culture and picked up some of the themes and lingo. By the time you’ve finished the book, you feel like you’ve lived in that mythological world for a bit and it’s seeped into your consciousness.

Hereaka also integrates allegorical messages about the importance of the loss of the old stories, which is very meta and warmed my writer heart. That message subtly underscores the value of what’s she’s doing in the book, as an indigenous writer re-claiming her territory, letting indigenous mythology and ideas shape the modern world and give it meaning.

So, with all of that, Kurangaituku really solves the problem well, about why you should care about a Maori myth about a bird lady.

And it leaves you feeling like you want to read and support more of what it is - literary decolonization and a revival of indigenous stories and storytelling models. It makes you want to check out other books published by ,Huia Press, who are on the cutting edge of the Maori literary renaissance. It makes you want to read The Bone People and Whale Rider and ,Purakau, a book of re-imagined Maori mythology edited by Hereaka and Witi Ihimaera that people also love.

I probably haven’t done Kurangaituku much justice.

Also, it’s embarrassing to gush like this.

But it really is one of the most complex and beautiful bits of literature that I’ve ever come across, and it does so many important things in the context of a really important global indigenous cultural movement.

I won’t lie, the book's not always easy, but if you’re the kind of person who likes truth, beauty, meaning or justice, I really think you’ll love it.

You used to be able to order Kurangaituku through the ,University of Hawaii Press but I’m not sure that you can anymore. For the full experience order directly from ,Huia Press in Aotearoa/New Zealand, or for the straightforward option, ,download the ebook.

And I’ll just leave this link to my books here too, mostly for SEO purposes.