Hi! I’m Tom, originally from England, but the island was too small.
For 20 years I’ve been exploring the world by bike at every chance I get.
Why? Simply put: because it’s the closest thing you’ll find to pure freedom!
Here at TomsBikeTrip.com I share hard-earned lessons about cycle touring and bikepacking, tell original stories, and road-test new ideas.
A love of adventure has powered my 100% AI-free blog since 2006, when I first decided to travel the world by bicycle and write about it.
Welcome!
The blog: over half a million words of hard-earned, hand-written cycle touring & bikepacking advice.
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My 2011 Round-Up: 1,000 Miles, 87,000 Words & 78 Minutes
2011 kicked off with a spur-of-the-moment winter adventure. I threw my bike and kit on a bus to Oslo and set off on an ill-advised thousand-mile bike trip through northern Scandinavia to the Arctic Circle. Running a daily blog from my tent added generously to the challenge. Temperatures dropped to ‑33°C. People thought I was nuts. But it stands out as one of my favourite experiences of all time. The blog story picked up interest, and by the end of the month, thousands of readers — more than ever before — were vicariously enjoying the adventure. Continue reading →
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Are Book-Writing And Film-Making The Same Thing?
Subjects are nouns, their actions are verbs, their appearances adjectives. A sentence is a single shot, while a paragraph is a sequence of them. Paragraphs are built into chapters, and sequences are built into stories. Then chapters are assembled into books; stories into films. The viewfinder is my vocabulary. The focus ring and exposure dial are my spelling and grammar. These are basic things that I’d better get right. And I need a good mixture of context and detail, otherwise my tale will become muddled and hard to understand. Continue reading →
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30,000 Miles Around The World In (Not Just) A Wheelchair
I’m really excited to have put together this new website for extreme athlete Andy Campbell, who’s planning a 30,000-mile round-the world expedition beginning next year. The difference? Andy’s been paralysed from the waist down since a climbing accident in 2004. Continue reading →
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Film Blog: Publicising Janapar (Rant Alert)
We respect and engage with transparency and honesty. Storytelling has become a huge focus after these last few years of travel — of generating stories to tell. So transparency and honesty will be a cornerstone. There’s nothing I hate more than corporate bullshit or self-aggrandisement. But we’re so numb with it that we’ve almost forgotten anything else exists. Here are some facts: Continue reading →
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And For My Next Trip…
It’s announcement time! In a few short months I’m planning to take a bike trip through a nation that’s permanently in the headlines, but which I — like most of us here in the U.K. — know absolutely nothing about. That nation, of course, is Continue reading →
Books, eBooks & Guides
I’ve written a range of guidebooks and travelogues to read at your leisure, whether you’re preparing for a bike trip, living life on the road, or home and dreaming of the next big ride.
How To Hit The Road: A Beginner’s Guide To Cycle Touring & Bikepacking
First published in 2017 and updated in 2021, this book is my comprehensive newcomers’ introduction to the art of the bicycle-mounted adventure.
Every aspect of a cycle tour or bikepacking trip is covered in 34 chapters, split over three parts: pre-trip planning, initial execution, and adapting to the long haul.
As well as broad, practical advice, I’ve woven inspiring and reassuring anecdotes throughout the book – because getting away from the starting line isn’t about knowing everything, but having the confidence to begin.
Drawing on my personal experience of almost two decades of adventure cycling, more than 50 veteran riders from diverse backgrounds have also contributed to this guide, making it one of the most well-rounded introductions you’ll find to this radically liberating form of independent travel.
Whatever you’re planning and wherever you’re going, if it involves a bicycle and the spirit of adventure, How To Hit The Road has got you covered.
Janapar: Love, on a Bike
My first travelogue, originally published in 2013 and the subject of a successful crowdfunding campaign, telling the true story of my first 3½ years on the road.
This was far from your typical long-distance bike tour, however. From the cover blurb:
When twenty-three-year-old Tom Allen and his friends set off from their English village to cycle around the world, they were expecting physical hardship, extreme conditions and a serious case of culture shock. But the hours spent poring over maps could never have prepared them for the experience of life on the road: the petty squabbles, the extreme hospitality, the unexpected joys and dangers.
And then Tom meets Tenny, a feisty Iranian-Armenian girl with dreams of her own, and hits a crossroad. Should he give up his grand plan for the girl he loves, or cycle off and risk missing out on the greatest adventure of them all?
Temporarily out of print (except in the USA), Janapar is still available as a Kindle ebook from all Amazon portals worldwide.