- Tristan Ridley is a “bikepacker” who has been traveling around the world for eight years.
- During his first year on the road, his living expenses were less than $10 a day.
- Ridley turned his passion into a business, offering coaching services to aspiring bikepackers.
A few days into his first long trip, Tristan Ridley encountered a life-threatening event.
He crossed the river on foot and was pulling his bike to shore when a group of men who had been drinking told him to stop. People he spoke to about Papua New Guinea warned him not to stop in situations like this.
“I quickly got back on my bike and passed them. I waved to them and as soon as they saw me they stood up. They ran towards me screaming. They started — most of them had machetes,” Ridley told Business Insider on a video call.
He managed to escape and continued his journey with the goal of cycling from Papua New Guinea back to the UK.
Living on $6 a day
Ridley, now 33, is a full-time “bikepacker” who has been traveling the world for eight years. He started using bicycles for his travels in 2015 and has since traveled throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and most of Oceania by bicycle.
His solo journey began by staying in hostels and traveling by bus and train. From there he moved on to hitchhiking and camping. He also started looking into cycling for more flexibility. It became his favorite vehicle after he made several painful journeys.
“I wanted to take this big trip, but I knew it would take me about a year. I had saved up enough money from a part-time job in Australia, so I was able to make ends meet on a very limited budget. I did it,'' he said of his first long-distance trip through Southeast Asia, China, Central Asia and Europe.
“You don't need much money to travel long distances by bike. For the first year I lived on about £5, or $6.30 a day, and it was slightly less even than that.” said Ridley. He budgeted 4,000 pounds, or $5,048, for a year's travels.
Ridley has done most of his travels alone. He said his dependence on himself due to traffic accidents and visa issues has made him mentally tough.
“Sometimes I'm so grateful to be alone,” Ridley said. “I think solo travel is very valuable for personal growth.”
He said traveling alone taught him how to improvise, be comfortable under pressure and deal with people. When it comes to safety, he believes personal skill and good judgment are his “first line of defense” and more useful than knives or pepper spray.
turning his passion into a business
As Ridley spent more time on the streets, more people started reaching out to him for advice.
“It got to the point where I felt like I really didn’t have enough time to respond to all these messages anymore,” he said.
He decided to start a coaching service and realized that clients were willing to pay for help planning routes and buying the right equipment.
Ridley's YouTube channel, where she shares short smartphone videos of her rides, began to grow in the wake of the pandemic. Currently, he has 19,000 subscribers on this channel, and his most popular video, a thumbnail titled “Pack for Bikepacking,” has been viewed 295,000 times.
Ridley declined to reveal the company's annual revenue, but said it works just to cover costs.
Ridley is part of a wave of people who have turned their lifestyle into an online business.
Sophie Darcy and her partner Ryan Ellison have been sailing around the world full-time for eight years. They set out on a voyage in her 2016, rented an apartment in Stockholm and can now take work calls from the boat thanks to her Starlink connection. Ms. Darcey turned her hobby of documenting her travels into a professional YouTube channel, which became her source of income.
Solo traveler turned influencer Gabby Beckford has amassed half a million followers on social media by posting about her adventures. She realized that people wanted to “see the country through the eyes of influencers,” and she now leads group trips for others. He previously told BI.
Cycling attracts people who want to explore the world in new ways. In 2022, Valtteri Heinila and his college roommate ride their bikes. Helsinki to Singapore Within 245 days. He told BI that the two plan to turn the videos of their trip into a documentary, and that Heinila also plans to write a book about her experiences.
The longer he traveled, the more Ridley thought about travel. “I'm not the same person I was when I started this trip eight years before him.”
Ridley has long had a goal of visiting 100 countries, but says that number doesn't actually mean much to him. He now prefers slower travel, cycling more rugged routes, and cycling with his buddies.
