Four Months Into Our Bikepacking Journey Across Europe with a Baby
- reason2reisen
- Aug 6
- 4 min read
Calling him a "baby" doesn't quite feel right anymore when the little guy is running across the campsite on his own. Or when he climbs into his bike seat by himself in the morning, as if to say: I'm ready when you are, what's taking so long?
This trip started the day after his first birthday. Four months later, it's just our everyday life. We get up, have breakfast, pack the bikes. At most two hours after Loic wakes up, we set off, because by then he's getting restless and the first wave of tiredness is kicking in.
He often falls asleep the moment the wheels start rolling, and while he takes his first nap, we knock out the first 15 to 20 kilometers, with an audiobook or music in one ear, or just the sound of nature.
Once Loic wakes up or is awake but has had enough of sitting, we check our navigation app, Mapy, for a playground or just a picnic table, ideally near a supermarket, a water source, or a public toilet. We don't end up doing much sightseeing and are more interested in slides, shade, and a bench on which to make baguette sandwiches, or potentially in a place to swim.
After two or three hours of Loic running around and exploring, we push on. A second nap on the bike is pretty much guaranteed, and by late afternoon or early evening we roll up to a campsite, a Warmshowers host, or an Airbnb. We pitch the tent, cook, shower, collect all the toys, collapse onto the sleeping mat, plan the next day, and if we're lucky, squeeze in a bit of reading once Loic's asleep. The next morning, it all starts again.
In the first month of the trip we were still hesitant about camping, worried that we might get cold (oh, what are we missing those spring temperatures now!). We used to spend almost every night with Warmshowers hosts, who usually welcomed us warmly and fed us generously, or in Airbnbs, occasionally a hotel room - a splurge, but we reckoned the warmer months were coming, and we'd make up for it by camping more often once they did.
By the time we reached the Atlantic coast in France, there were finally campgrounds every few kilometers, and we could just set off in the morning without planning places to stay days in advance. Finally, less organizing stress!
At the beginning, we were still debating in the mornings whether Loic needed his rain suit on top of his fleece jacket. A few weeks later, we were desperately hoping for temperatures to drop below 35°C (or below 30, we'll happily take that too). We learned, or rather, we already knew this in theory, that we need regular breaks, and that housesitting or visits with family and friends, which usually means staying in one place longer, aren't interruptions to the trip but an important part of it. A holiday from traveling and our sometimes monotonous cycling routine.
After two months, I couldn't imagine wanting to go home anytime soon. After about three months, there were moments when the constant planning wore me down: where do we sleep tomorrow, is there a campsite the day after that, how much climbing is on this next stretch, which general direction do we even want to go? Usually, the best remedy is five days in one place - just stop moving for a while, time for a long breakfast, planning, reading, writing, calling home.
So far, every time it's gotten to be too much, there's been a way through. A teething child sleeps badly at home too. Sometimes it's exhausting no matter where you are. The difference is maybe that we go through them with a view of the sea, between vineyards, or in a pine forest. But the difference is also that on the road, we don't have the same support around us that we had for that first year at home. What we do have is each other. And a lot of time. 🧡
The people we meet might be the best part of all this. With a toddler, you rarely go unnoticed. Every day, people come up to us, wave at Loic, hand him a yogurt they just bought at the supermarket, tell us about their own kids and grandkids. Loic is very interested in the other kids at the playground (but just watches them for now with a serious expression), and lets out a delighted "wow!" whenever he spots any kind of animal.
Of course, he won't remember a particular campsite or coastline later on. But he gets to have both of us around basically all the time, strangers don't faze him, and things like sitting still through a meal are things he can just as easily learn later. Right now he learns to be flexible and versatile, is exposed to many different foods and languages and spends most of his time outside.
Our life feels exciting, but mostly it just feels normal to us. We ride bikes. We go grocery shopping. We look for playgrounds. We cook pasta. We do laundry.
Just with a different view at a different place every day. And we’re not quite done yet!
