Bike, eat, sleep. Life is simple: ride a bike, eat, sleep. And you can really believe it if it’s said by a girl who has chosen solo adventure 365 days a year and makes anyone’s world appear tiny, at whatever latitude you live and whatever you do. She who – at 33 years old, who doesn’t look even a little despite living camped in a sleeping bag practically every night among Alpine passes, city parks and the garden of anyone who offers space for her small tent – began traveling in 2016 and since then it hasn’t stopped: over 70 thousand kilometers traveled crossing – literally – 46 countries.
Mina with the shirt given to her by Fausto Coppi at Colle della Maddalena, between Cuneo and France, Friday 25 May 2024
But the numbers are nothing for someone who has renamed her bike after a Peanutbuttercup and just wants to explore new places, taking seasonal jobs here and there to support herself, almost always sleeping under the stars to demonstrate that, simply, “if you want you can do it”. Even with pedals, without any comfort, on an old-fashioned mountain bike – 18 kilos without counting the luggage, made in Germany like her – chosen as your “home, boyfriend, best friend ever”. The notes on a small moleskine, some outings on social media to update the now innumerable friends from time to time, the photos on an economical micro-camera to avoid consuming the memory of the phone which remains switched off in the backpack most of the time: «Despite my age, I don’t live connected. At home they know where I am and what I do and respect my choice. Every now and then my parents and my sister join me somewhere and we spend a few days together. What’s happening in the world? I know something, I find out a lot after it happened. Yesterday I saw a lady snorting while reading the newspaper, she was really worried, why get so upset? One day a shocked friend calls me to tell me that, weeks earlier, Queen Elizabeth had died. Obviously, I didn’t know.”
Under the porticoes of Demonte, in the Stura valley
Obviously, he has an Instagram profile. Which updates with her times: the last photo of her is from April and shows her bundled up in an orange duvet, her hands wrapping a can of hot tea under a makeshift shelter in the snow of a small village in Spain ( !?). Spring can wait, Mina can’t. From North Africa, where she left in January for a “crazy month, in Morocco, full of emotions”, she returned to Europe and from there crossed the Pyrenees, the south of France, cycled in Liguria on the Aurelia up to Genoa from where, by train, he reached Fossano, the Granda province, the last stop before tackling the Alps on Saturday: the Colle della Maddalena between two wings of snow heading towards Haute-Savoie in Chamonix.
In Cuneo, a city of bicycles, his stop did not go unnoticed. On Friday, she spent a few hours in the library, a stop in the sun in Viale Angeli, then off to Festiona: “I’m amazed at how many people stopped to talk to me and noticed me.” And the cyclists could not miss the push to return, perhaps on the weekend of June 30th when the city will be all for bicycles for one of the most beautiful and historic Italian granfondos, the Fausto Coppi. The organizers officially invited her by giving her the 2023 race shirt. Proudly, Mina wore it to climb the Stura valley. In mid-June he plans to return to Turin. Who knows, maybe he could actually accept to write a new chapter in his story, which he has meanwhile summarized on the site where it is possible to follow his pedaling adventures (https://minatravelstheworld.wordpress.com).
A compelling story, clear ideas, impressive fortitude: «I finished school in 2010 and didn’t start university until October 2011. I used the gap year to work full time for a few months earning some money and then travel to Canada for five months where I did some “wwoofing” (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization that is changing the perspective of volunteering and world travel through the concept of free exchange). I have worked on many farms traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast. It was an incredible experience.”
After finishing his three-year studies in October 2014 he worked for about a year and a half. Doing what? «The policeman – he laughs almost to justify himself -, but it wasn’t me». «I was wearing a costume», she hisses in vivid English without inflections, opening up a profound reflection: she was wearing a costume, a uniform, a mask that she abandoned to chase her dream on the road. So just at the beginning: «For my trip around the world I was granted an unpaid holiday for two years. The idea of the bicycle was born little by little while I was planning the itinerary: I always liked doing sports, I loved cycling and I didn’t want to depend on public transport and its routes.”
And so, in the saddle. Like not many, but not even a few women – just scroll through the internet to come across dozens of “solo female cycling” stories – who have chosen two wheels to explore the world, at least for a while. And how to do it: «You ask for hospitality or you camp wherever you can. Better in nature, better in silence.” And sleep? «I sleep very well. My tent doesn’t need much space and I have a very heavy sleeping bag, I’m fine even in sub-zero temperatures”: Have you ever been afraid? «Once of a stray dog, never of people». We notice a small knife, a green opinel, cutting our bread. “I just use it for that, I would never dream of trying to defend myself by drawing a weapon: someone could take it and use it against me.” Explorer’s wisdom or police training legacy? Better to have pepper spray, always in your bag, if needed. But it won’t help: if you’ve spent hundreds of nights in a tent sleeping in the garden or in the house of complete strangers, the baggage you’re carrying with you isn’t just that on your bicycle. And Mina knows it.
The story is fascinating: «I returned home from my first trip in 2018, only two years had passed but I had changed». Two years of adventures, new experiences, special knowledge and wonderful places. All live, without filters. A dish offered, water to be appreciated even where it is available (9-10 liters a day necessary for drinking, washing, “doing the laundry” and spreading it on the bike tube and making do to find it if it is missing (“A limited resource, we must all become more aware”). Life without predictions or protections: icy or hot air beyond the handlebars that you hold in your hands, 100%.
Have you ever thought about returning to everyday life, the one that many people live out there? «It would be difficult for me, today I don’t have that thought, it’s not the time yet. My mother said it well once: with everything you’ve seen and experienced, every place will always be small for you.”
So Mina, at the end of 2018, definitively leaves her job and starts touring again. It starts again in April 2019. «In my two year trip around the world I met many people and most of them had seen more European countries than me, it made me think. Europe has a lot to offer so this time I decided to start cycling from home. On my last trip I took a lot of flights. This time I intend to travel in a slightly more environmentally friendly way: no planes, just trains, buses, boats and some car rides.”
If the starting point is always Hanover, northern Germany, this time the terminus is Georgia (crossing Italy again in the next few months to embark in Ancona towards Croatia and travel back down Europe to Turkey). The motto has never changed: «Don’t dream your life, live your dream!» (Do not dream your life live your dream!). «Why always postpone the idea, why be afraid that something will happen, why wait until you get old and maybe no longer be able to travel? Get inspired and start exploring your planet. I want to see something special every day.” To ultimately discover that, perhaps, “something special” is really you.
The list of countries visited by Mina during her trip:
Italy, Denmark, Austria, Croatia, Spain, France, Norway, Iceland, Czech Republic, Ireland, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Holland, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand , Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, Morocco.
The web page to support your journey: https://minatravelstheworld.wordpress.com/sponsors
