BIKE TOURING NETHERLANDS & BELGIUM : Day 3 | bikepacking | solo female travel | adventure travel

Bike Touring Netherlands & Belgium Day 3: I discuss helmets, reflect on this being my favorite trip, and fail at trying to buy strawberries from an automat.

✏️ For a written account of the trip: https://www.whereintheworldissara.com/bike-touring-netherlands-belgium
🎥 Bike Touring Netherlands & Belgium Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
🎥 Bike Touring Netherlands & Belgium: Day 4–https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGvXLx4sd_Y
🌎 My Website: https://www.whereintheworldissara.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saratidewalker/
✅ Subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Camera: GoPro Hero5 Black & Panasonic Lumix
#biketouring #solofemaletraveler #adventuretravel

[Music] it’s a three [Music] I left the Airbnb this morning about 9:30 they gave me a breakfast which was really great the first Airbnb that ever gave me a breakfast and that’s probably because this is a real better breakfast could have slept a little bit longer I’m not really getting enough sleep we stayed up late watching the World Cup games and not going to bed till about 1:00 in the morning so not getting as much sleep as I would like so I was really tired this morning when I got up at 8:00 so today I’m going about 36 miles – I’m gonna butcher the name Sol Sol Sol Sol in Belgium so I’m gonna finally cross over into Belgium today in that town and just a little outside of man’s work it was going to be a big day because hands hurt do that so yesterday when I was going over the bike stuff I wondered if I remembered later that I was missing something and I wonder if y’all noticed if I was missing something so I’ll wait for you two to guess if you guess the helmet you would be right ding ding ding that was one of the biggest surprises I had here then Amsterdam is nobody wears helmets and I looked into like bike regulations and stuff and it’s not required surprisingly you would think in a place that had so many bikes you know people that bike so much they would wear helmets but they don’t and honestly the one time I saw someone in Amsterdam wearing a helmet I was like that’s weird because you never see it now leaving Amsterdam you get you see your road bikers you know going out to do long distances and they’re wearing helmets you know they’re going much faster you know and I’m a big proponent of wearing helmets like definitely wear helmets but I can kind of see now why it’s not maybe as important because the bike lanes are usually separated from the roads they’re not always on the roads they’ve got their separate lane got a barrier in between so you’re not really interacting too much with the cars I feel safe and I feel comfortable but I’d say normally in definitely in the states where drivers aren’t used to seeing bicyclists here like when I go across like intersection or something they always look for bikes because that’s what they’re conditioned to do because it’s the Netherlands that’s everybody rides bikes here and I like that that’s awesome so definitely wear helmets in the States and all the time oh I also was thinking while I was biking yesterday how this might be my favorite trip luck does I hope one of jinx it I don’t want to you know when people ask me what’s your favorite place you’ve been what’s your favorite trip what’s the favorite part of hiking Appalachian Trail whatever it’s so hard for me because I guess I just tend to love everything I mean something like the 80 obviously kind of have standouts but for places I’ve been I just feel like I love every place I’m in at that time so it’s really hard for me to compare [Music] so for this though like I do feel it’s been one of my favorite trips you know and I’ve been hiking in the Himalayas you know hiking across Spain like this isn’t like the grand vistas of that you know it’s not super like amazing scenery but it’s just like kind of the simpleness and just the fact that this trip has just kind of flowed so well and just how it’s come together has been really special and beautiful to me and I’ve just been like loving it so much and a little side note it’s super flat here but the only times you kind of go uphill is to go over bridges if you’re crossing train tracks or highway or like a river so that’s really the only climbs I have and having no gears kind of sucks for that so you just kind of have to crank it out but what I really love now is that I just kind of coast down and I’ll stand up on the bike and just like cruise down and that’s one of my favorite things to do but going back to it’d be my favorite trip just like I’m usually when I’m hiking and very much focused on getting some to the point where I don’t take breaks really and I just push to get somewhere and it’s not that enjoyable and for this trip I don’t know what it is maybe it’s just because I’m not having to do so many miles I’m giving myself all day to do it that I’m allowing myself to just stop like whatever I want and just like take a break because I don’t feel rushed and that might sound like duh to people but for me like like I said I’m just so used to pushing to get somewhere that I don’t really let myself pitch or eat it it’s all about getting somewhere so this has all just been about the trip for me and then just the fact how everything has worked out so well I’ve been saying that these really cute Arabi like getting to see these small towns that I never would have seen and being a solo traveler I not interacting that much with people and so being able to say these air boobies are letting me interact with locals which I really like to do and meeting people and like the first Airbnb I was asking him all sorts of questions that I had about the Netherlands like where are the windmills where are the tulip farms does it snow here random things I’m interested in and you know I get a local person to tell me and you know last night I’ll watch the World Cup game with my host and so that was really cool so I’ve just really been having a great time and I hope it continues so we’ll see if this little bike can take it so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so I’m here in Belgium and with strawberries so like vending machines with bread and strawberries this was gonna be a thing because I read a blog about a guy who biked from Paris to Amsterdam and he mentioned the automats so I was already on the lookout and I’ve seen about three so far I stopped earlier and just got a soda but then this time I’m gonna get a thing of strawberries it’s so hot so I’m just taking another break and just going to eat some strawberries they’re about so I’m gonna see how to do this [Music] well my Maps failed me for the first time it took me to dead end so now I gotta go roundabout way to get to my Airbnb which I’m just so tired I want to be there already and sometimes you walk the mic my Maps application keeps sending me to the wrong place I had to look at Google Maps instead and [Music] you