Hokkaido: The Preparation

After many, many years of travelling—primarily backpacking, staying in hotels and apartments, and getting around by trains, buses and planes—we decided it was time to do something rather different from our usual style of travel.

We’d already experimented a little. We’d spent a month in Malaysia doing something of a staycation, renting an apartment and settling into one place rather than constantly moving around. But we wanted something more challenging. Something that would completely change the way we travelled.

Over the previous couple of years, we’d also reignited our passion for cycling while living in China. Our new bikes—Asclepius for Will and Athena for Sam—had already clocked up hundreds and hundreds of kilometres, eventually reaching thousands. At one point, we knew that one of the bikes had already passed the 5,000-kilometre mark.

We’d also experimented with a few short bikepacking trips around China. We’d load up the panniers, head off for a night or two, and explore the countryside by bike. And we quickly discovered something we hadn’t really appreciated before: cycling lets you see places in a completely different way.

Instead of flying over the countryside, or travelling through it at high speed on a train or bus, we were actually in it. We saw tiny villages, back roads, farms, rivers, forests and all the little bits of everyday life that you’d normally sail straight past. It felt much more immersive than our usual travels.

So naturally, we decided that the sensible next step was to take everything we’d learned from a couple of short trips and do a proper international bikepacking adventure. Because apparently we have no concept of moderation.

The choice of destination was actually fairly easy. Living in Nanchang, China, means that summer can be… unpleasant. And by unpleasant, we mean temperatures well over 40°C, humidity around 90%, and weather that sometimes feels barely survivable. We’d also experienced similar heat problems during previous summer trips in Eastern Europe and Vietnam, so we really didn’t fancy spending another holiday cycling through an oven.

Instead, we decided to return to one of our favourite countries: Japan. More specifically, Hokkaido.

Hokkaido is famous for having relatively cool summers by Asian standards, along with huge amounts of countryside, mountains, forests, lakes and—crucially for us—plenty of opportunities for cycling and camping.

Perfect.

So began The Planning.

We decided on a six-week journey around Hokkaido, taking our trusty bikes with us and camping our way around the island. And once we’d committed to that idea, we realised exactly what we’d signed ourselves up for.

We weren’t just taking a couple of bikes and a change of clothes.

We needed tents. Sleeping bags. Pillows. Camping mattresses. Cooking equipment. Chairs. Tarps. Clothing. Spare clothes. Wet-weather gear. Tools. Puncture-repair equipment. Electronics. Food. And approximately seventeen million other small things that somehow become essential when your entire home has to fit onto a bicycle.

Then came the panniers, bags, racks and the endless process of working out where the hell everything was going to go.

There was a lot of preparation.

Over the course of the next year, we researched routes, bought equipment, tested packing systems, planned campsites, worked out logistics, and generally tried to make ourselves as prepared as possible for something we’d never actually done before.

And after a year of planning, preparation and booking, the day finally arrived.

We were heading to Hokkaido.

We had our bikes. We had our camping gear. We had far too much stuff. We had a rough plan.

And absolutely no idea what six weeks of cycling, camping and carrying our entire lives around on two bicycles was actually going to be like.

It was a completely new adventure for us.

And we couldn’t wait to find out how it would go.