Great reads authored by the Warmshowers Community!
A Ride Across America: a 4,000 Mile Adventure Through the Small Towns and Big Issues of the USA by Simon Parker
A Ride Across America follows award-winning travel writer Simon Parker’s 10-week, 10mph journey, cycling 4,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. In the leadup to the 2024 US presidential election – arguably the most divisive in the country’s history – Simon meets hundreds of ordinary Americans in Democrat, Republican, and swing states via cities and small towns, rainforests and deserts, prairies and mountains. He has just one aim: to find the real America. Get your copy HERE.
Her Courage Compass: Young woman’s memoir solo cycling across Europe – led by intuition, fed on kindness by Katalina Maridi
Sometimes, your next best move is to go on the wildest and most daring adventure imaginable. When the weight of her parents’ cancer diagnoses and an uncertain future loom large, 23-year-old Katalina finds an unexpected compass – her bicycle. Little does she know, this amateur urban cyclist is about to embark on a 4,300 km sprint across Europe. In this memoir, Katalina pedals for 67 days through rural, off-the-beaten paths, from small village to village. She starts in Barcelona and moves through the rolling hills of Provence in France, the rustic beauty of Italy, and crosses Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria, to arrive in Istanbul, Turkey. Her journey is a charity fundraiser for literacy, yes, but it’s also a bold challenge to the Universe: Is it safe to trust again? Where will intuition lead you, if you choose to follow? Get your copy HERE.
Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey from Alaska to Argentina by Ville & Kristen Jokinen
Explorers Kristen and Ville Jokinen met and fell in love while scuba diving in Vietnam. Ville then left his native Finland to join Kristen in Oregon, and together they embarked on a life-changing two-year cycling adventure covering 18,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina. Despite never having cycled further than around the block, they persevered unrelenting, punishing rain and wind, altitude sickness, dog attacks, bike accidents, and countless flat tires to cycle between the ends of the earth. Kristen and Ville believe that kindness connects us to our shared humanity. They held babies, attended quinceaneras, drank pulque, played soccer, and visited schools. People in Mexico, Central America, and South America invited them into their hearts and homes, allowed them to camp in their fields and farms, and acted as personal tour guides. Kristen and Ville are love on wheels, and who doesn’t need a little more love in their lives? The book is available online and at bookstores across the country. The Jokinen’s encourage you to shop local and have included their local book seller HERE.
Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race by Meaghan Hackinen
SHIFTING GEARS (NeWest Press) is Meaghan Hackinen’s follow-up to her award-nominated debut SOUTH AWAY: THE PACIFIC COAST ON TWO WHEELS, charting her unforgettable, twenty-five-day journey on the Trans Am Bike Race: a coast-to-coast ride across the entire North American continent from Oregon to Virginia. Without the aid of a support crew, Hackinen must rely entirely on her wits, ingenuity, and sheer determination to finish this extremely challenging feat. A sports story with a unique theme, Hackinen writes about the Trans Am Bike Race as a cultural whole as she encounters the consequences and unforeseen repercussions of an underground, unregulated athletic endeavor. SHIFTING GEARS is another expertly delivered travelogue and a thrilling glimpse into a world of athletes driven to impossible lengths. Get your copy HERE.
Part-Time Nomads by Anne M. Breedlove
“The ad in the back of Bicycling magazine read: Selfguided bicycling tours in rural France.” Eight days of furnished bikes in pre-arranged lodging opened our eyes to the possibilities of bicycle travel. PART-TIME NOMADS tells how we metamorphosed from middle-aged, suburban working parents to international bicycle travelers. For ten years, we stole time from work and parenting to bicycle 10,000 miles in seven states and three countries. Starting in Northern California with “credit card cycling,” gradually, our trips became more ambitious, and our gear got good enough so we could be fully loaded and self-contained. Along the way, “Can we?” morphed into a gleeful “We can do it!” Get your copy HERE.
Cycling to the Sun by Terri Jockerst
What if you had the courage to follow your dreams? Having almost reached her sixties, Terri decided to fulfill a long-held dream and set off to ride from the North Cape of Norway to Malta, a distance of some seven thousand kilometers. The ride took 193 days, spread over three trips in three years. During her travels, Terri came face to face with reindeer, researched Viking runestones, dealt with flat tires, tackled nudist bathing, dined in the Alps with other intrepid female solo cyclists, was awed by the Byzantine art of Italy, and eventually reached the sun-drenched island of Malta. The first question Terri was always asked was: “Are you alone?” The second question, “Aren’t you afraid?” came straight after. Terri admits to fear but learnt to overcome that fear by finding the inner strength to go on, regardless. As she has said to anyone who has asked, and many who haven’t: “If I can do it, you can too!” Read this book, get inspired, and follow your dreams! Get your copy HERE.
Barely Maps: The Book by Peter Gorman
Originally inspired by a one-year, 11,000-mile, solo bicycle trip around the U.S. and Canada, Barely Maps is a collection of 100 minimalist maps. It’s also a story about the bike trip, the designs themselves, and all of the other stuff—before and after. Get your copy HERE.
Highway Cello Book by Kenneth Wilson
Kenneth Wilson bikes with his cello from Hadrian’s Wall to Rome, performing every day en route. Highway Cello is about the 1800-mile journey through England and France, over the Alps and into Italy, and the music and the mishaps along the way. But it’s about more than that too. Through the medium of travel and cello, of encounter and exhaustion, of people and places, Kenneth unpacks the real questions of what Life is really all about. Get your copy HERE.
The Emily & Hilda Trilogy (fiction) by JT Hine
Emily & Hilda; Book One, first in a trilogy of coming-of-age crime novels featuring a teenage bicycling phenom Emily Hampstead and her best friend, Hilda Paisley, racing and touring across North America and Europe. Book Two; Rule Number One, and Book Three; Emily is Hard to Kill, round out the trilogy. Get your copy by emailing JT directly at jt@jthine.com (he will send you a discount code to purchase the books).
TRAVELLED, PURSUED, MARRIED. An adventurous bike tour through Morocco by Melanie Nadja Steinigen
“Chased by the police in the Atlas Mountains, suddenly married in a clay village, swallowed up by a sandstorm in the desert, a fatal accident and robbed in Marrakech – Melli & Dani experience all this and much more on their world tour by bicycle. They started their trip in 2019 in Germany to reach Morocco, where Melli wants to say goodbye to her grandmother, who passed away in Casablanca.
The book will show you Morocco from a completely different, unknown, and more intense side. Together the couple come to their own limits but also get to know the incredible hospitality of the Moroccans. This bike trip is truly the adventure of a lifetime, which will take Melli and Dani more than 50.000km to Japan.” Get your copy HERE.
Mike on a Bike. Across the US in 83 days byMike Di Blasi
With more determination than experience, I started my ride in the summer of 2022, traveling from Astoria, Oregon, to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. During that time, I stayed with many wonderful and amazing Warmshowers hosts. Get your copy Here.
Unhinged in Ethiopia: Two Thousand Kilometers of Hell and Heaven on a Bicycle by George Balarezo
After confrontations with AK-47-armed policemen while camping in Xinjiang, China, and being thrown off his bicycle by gusts of wind in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, George Balarezo cycles across Ethiopia—Africa’s most mountainous country and, as it happens, a repository for the continent’s richest cultural legacy.
He’s assaulted daily by stone-hurling children, crashes a wedding party, scales a cliff with Ethiopian Orthodox monks, and sweats it out in the Afar Triangle—with the world’s highest average temperature, it’s earned its nickname of “hell on earth”—and witnesses the miracles of Ethiopian spirituality alongside murderers, cancer patients, and the mentally ill. It is a soul-stirring adventure that tests the limits of his sanity and gifts him invaluable life lessons that he is eager to share. Get your copy HERE.
Southern Tier Journey by Jim Elicker
A daily travel diary with photos of my 64-day ride from San Diego to St. Augustine. Two guys in their 70s who never met face-to-face until flying with bikes to San Diego! All of the highs and lows of our journey, staying in motels, camping, and Warmshowers. A wonderful adventure! Get your FREE copy HERE.
Pedalling the Planet by Linda Beilig
Over the course of two years, Linda Beilig and Tim Walton cycled over 40,000 kilometers around the world, passing through more than thirty countries on their way. By choosing bicycles as their means of transport, their pace of travel was slow, which not only allowed them to witness the gradual change of landscapes and faces with every passing kilometer but also to interact with the local cultures and lands on a more intimate level. Through the stories in this book, you are invited to join them on their journey and meet some of the incredible people they met along the way. Get your English copy HERE and your German copy HERE.
Until The Road Ends byJacob Ashton
Follow the adventures of Jacob Ashton as he sets off to travel the world by bicycle even though he’d never really cycle toured or even traveled much beforehand. As if just cycling around the world wasn’t enough, he kicks off his journey by riding the Pan-American Highway southbound from his parent’s house in Idaho, USA, in the dead of winter! Not only tackling severe weather, Jacob has to battle through language barriers, the loss of a finger, and his own general ignorance along the way. How far will he make it? Will he quit in the first few days? Well, he wrote a book, so he must have done okay. Get your copy HERE.
The World Spins By byJerry Kopack
In three months, Jerry thought he lost everything-his meaningful career, the woman he was supposed to grow old with, and a close friend to a terminal illness-but he soon realized that he was given a gift. Jerry had worked in corporate America for 10 soulless years, following a laminated road map to happiness handed to him at graduation from business school. Then he founded a hospice with his mother. Serving patients at the end of life, Jerry learned his greatest lesson, one not found in any textbook or cubicle-the value of time. The World Spins By is an intimate journey of loss, curiosity, and love-recounted one pedal stroke at a time along Jerry’s two-year bicycle journey back to himself. Over mountains in Tibet, across deserts in Israel, and even a clinic to treat worms in India, Jerry discovered that although you may have a map, real life is unscripted. It goes beyond the borders and occurs at the intersection of fear and control. Throughout the book he shares tales of comical and harrowing adventures on the road and lessons learned from his hospice career, while continually pondering the question, am I using my time well? Get your copy HERE.
Great Rides Across America by Ken Francis
Welcome to the world of cross-country bicycle touring in the 1980’s. The Los Angeles Olympics made the news, Lycra gained popularity, and some of the best music, ever, played on the airwaves. An organization named Bikecentennial mapped the first official bicycle route across the United States. Many bicyclists didn’t wear helmets but used them to protect bread from getting smashed. Paper maps and word-of-mouth guided the journey. More than a story of miles, this journey’s narrative unfolds how the seemingly endless road, and an invisible guiding light, transformed a young man. He searched for a hero until he became the person he had been seeking. Ken Francis, MS, is a California licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, speaker, and social media influencer. He has been working with individuals, families, and groups since 1988, specializing in substance abuse, codependency, and trauma reprocessing. He has also helped develop an international bicyclist hospitality community. This is his story. Get your copy HERE.
Conversations Across America by Kari Loya
Conversations Across America is about a father-son journey of a lifetime: a 73-day, 4,600-mile cross-country bike trip Kari took in 2015 with his 75-year-old dad, Merv, who had early-stage Alzheimer’s. Their adventure reminds us of the power of perseverance and adaptability in the face of uncertainty. It’s also a heartwarming example of listening and discovery, including 300 short conversations with people who approached them along the way, providing a rich snapshot of America, especially rural America. Conversations is a mix of Blue Highways, Tuesdays with Morrie, and Humans of New York… on a bike. As you read, you can’t help but reflect on your relationship with your own father and children, while gaining perspective on Alzheimer’s—which now afflicts more than six million Americans—and getting a sense of the TransAmerica Bike Trail and America itself. Above all, you will be inspired to seize-the-day with someone you love—whatever that means to you. Get your copy HERE.
Coast to Coast on a Tandem by Tracy and Peter Flucke
In many respects, Tracy and Peter Flucke are like many other active couples. They work a business together, they enjoy long-distance bicycling for exercise and fun, and their shared interests play a key role in building a strong and loving family. What sets them apart is the length to which they will go in the name of scratching their adventuresome itch – 4,362 miles to be exact. Climb aboard and join the Fluckes on their tandem bicycle for their 2014 unsupported trip across the Northern Tier of the United States. Somehow, these determined personalities were able to endure the better part of seventy-two days within six inches of each other, surviving physical, logistical, and interpersonal challenges that made this an adventure of a lifetime. Get your copy HERE.
Wheels of Fortune by Chris Fieldsend
Wheels of Fortune is the hilariously frank account of a couple’s year-long adventure cycling around all ten Canadian provinces, and twenty-six US states. Chris Fieldsend and Ties Benguedda rode over 14,000 miles (23,000km) through every landscape imaginable; from the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, through the tumbleweed deserts of the Southern states, to the wild coasts of the Atlantic provinces. This book is packed full of stories about the remarkable hospitality and random acts of kindness the couple experienced, from the hundreds of wonderful people they met. It does not pull any punches, vividly portraying how the novice cycle-touring couple overcame numerous extreme weather events, tedious US visa bureaucracy, fervent dog chases and the populist politics of Brexit and Donald Trump. All profits donated to World Bicycle Relief. Get your copy HERE.
How to Cycle Canada the Wrong Way by Lorraine Lambert
What do you do as a nearly-forty-something woman when, sat in a traffic jam one morning on the way to work, you realise that this is it. You’re stuck on the slippery slope of middle age and heading downhill fast with no way out. The obvious answer of course to leave your job, home and family, buy a rusty second hand bike and a tent, fly to Canada and start cycling. The wrong way. You’ve never cycle-toured before and you hate camping but you’ve decided to do just that, to ride across a country, on your own, in a skirt. What could possibly go wrong?So this is a story about a bit of a long cycle ride across Canada. About the land and the people in it, as well as the highs and lows of one woman determined to travel on her own and have an adventure. It’s about feeling lost and uncertain whatever age you are but learning to embrace the unknown. From skinny dipping at sunrise in the great lakes to nearly freezing to death in the Rocky mountains; from in-tent tussles to wrestling with mechanical failures, from experiencing utter despair to the wonderful kindness of strangers and the love and support of family. The people, the places, the wind and many, many miles, this is an adventure laid bare. Fundamentally however this is a story about relationships. Diary entries and emails give a candid insight into both the author’s personal journey and the people she meets along the way. It also encapsulates the close, poignant and often hilarious relationship with her younger sister who is thousands of miles away and raising her first baby. The messages between the sisters beautifully highlight the ups and downs of taking on new challenges be it cycling solo for thousands of miles or bringing a new life in to the world. Underpinning everything are the incredible bonds of family and friendship which help us to achieve the things that matter most. Get your copy HERE.
50 Ways to Cycle the World by Tristan Bogaard and Belen Castello
50 Ways provides you with all the answers to your doubts and questions about traveling by bike. In it, you’ll find 50 unique ways to do so, with stories told by 75 cyclists from 23 countries from around the world. Get your copy HERE.
Bicycling with Butterflies by Sara Dykman
An extraordinary story in which Dykman seamlessly weaves together science, a real love of nature and the adventure and hazards of biking with butterflies from Mexico to Canada and back. They share an epic journey and encounter hardships, but they do not give up. The book is a lament for our thoughtless destruction of nature and at the same time a celebration of the beauty that remains. The migration of the monarch butterflies is one of the wonders of the world—we must save it for future generations.” —Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & U.N. Messenger of Peace. Get your copy HERE.
Cycles of a Traveler by Joe Diomede
This book is about a young man’s inspiring journey from a dedicated motorcyclist to becoming a world traveler on a bicycle for over 9 years. It is an autobiographical account of those 14 years and has lots of nice reviews. Get your copy HERE.