Field notes:
Bikepacking the Eurovelo 11 route across Estonia
The Eurovelo cycling routes are one of Europe’s best kept secrets. Waymarked by blue signs with occasional directions to the next town, the routes criss-cross European countries.
The entire Eurovelo 11 route is c.6500 kilometres, starts at Nordkapp (the most northerly point in Europe) and finishes at the southern tip of Greece, covering 11 countries on the route. It’s apparently referred to as ‘the Beast of the East’ (according to the official website) and completing it in stages is quickly becoming a personal goal.
Bikepacking expedition 3: first multi-day test ride for the Eurovelo 11 attempt
My third bikepacking trip is a test ride for a big multi-day trip I want to do later in summer that would see me riding all the way across Estonia following the Eurovelo 11 cycling route towards the end of summer when the weather has got a little cooler. It would be 500 kilometres (c.300 miles) so I will need to be used to spending multiple days out on the road.
How slow adventures can be good for your career and mental health.
When you’re so intensely focussed on your career or family, your attention to where you are in life can go unchecked. For some people, this lack of checking-in with yourself can last years or even decades. For others, they check in too often and it stops progression forward and upwards. I think this ‘analysis paralysis’ can be a cause of unhappiness for some.
Taking a sabbatical to row across an ocean, cycle across a country (or continent), or run across a desert, might seem like unhelpful to some, but I think it can be useful in ways we don’t really consider.
My advice on career transition
At some point in our lives, we decide that what we are doing as a job or career at the moment, isn’t the best for us in the future.
In 2015, after some 12 years in the military – itself a spur of the moment decision that I made when I saw how much friends were really thriving in it - I decided that I should try something new to support causes that I’m passionate about. I’d reached a waypoint in my career, although not achieved the things I’d wanted to – but realised that I had stalled and momentum in a new direction would help me regain the initiative.
This article came about as I regularly get asked by friends leaving the military, how transition works from someone who’s undergone many of them and how it can be more successful.
This is a simplified version of how I transferred from the Royal Marines into the BBC, an international media charity, going freelance, and then starting my own creative agency (Haus of Hiatus).