What about cycling it?

Max Hogg has the ultimate ethical travel experience: cycling 4,000km across South America.

''We were able to discover the far more interesting in-between bits, which were more stunning and rewarding than usual because of the effort we had made to get to them.'' ''The pace of our trip was slower than that of a more conventional traveller, but it’s exactly this pace that made for some enormously rewarding experiences.''

“What about cycling it?”
“What?”
“There’s an account on the internet of some guy who did the whole thing by bike…”
“What an awesome idea!”

This was the innocuous conversation that somehow morphed into a 4,000km cycling trip through South America with two of my friends from university.

I love travelling and I think the opportunity to experience and learn about different cultures is an enormously valuable one, but typical trips abroad play on my conscience. This is partly due to excessive use of resources in the countries I visit, with long journeys and comfortable living often at odds with the lifestyles of the locals.

However, my concern is also due to the type of tourism that I undertake once I’m in a foreign country – I often feel like I’m experiencing a perverted, tourist-friendly form of the country’s culture and by paying to experience this I’m helping to perpetuate this perversion. For example, to me there is something extremely unethical and degrading about Masai people living in a fake ethnic village in Kenya in order for tourists to visit and marvel at them.

A cycling trip seemed a great idea for an ethical holiday because it would mean that we would have much less impact on the countries we visited. Clearly there is less of an environmental impact because of our pedal-power, as opposed to buses or flights around the continent but for me the more important aspect was the social impact of our trip.

Travelling by bike made us more vulnerable and dependent on the local population - especially with respect to food, water and shelter. While this posed some serious challenges, it also forced us into situations where we absorbed the local culture, rather than imposing on it by choosing air-conditioned buses, English-speaking hostels and package tours.

These are comforts precisely because they are ways to import western lifestyles into a country that does things differently, to the detriment of the local culture. To me that’s unethical and I feel uncomfortable encouraging it with the money I spend as a tourist.

A bike trip therefore suits my conscience but I think it’s also by far the best way to travel. The pace of our trip was slower than that of a more conventional traveller, but it’s exactly this pace that made for some enormously rewarding experiences. Rather than limiting ourselves to bussing or jetting between the guidebook’s must sees, we were able to discover the far more interesting in-between bits, which were more stunning and rewarding than usual because of the effort we had made to get to them. This has an ethical dimension to it as well, because it has meant we didn’t pour all of our money into distorted and bloated tourist hubs.

I would totally recommend a bike trip to anyone considering it, and would definitely do it again. I’ve never felt so healthy, and to look at a map of South America now gives us a great sense of achievement.