I Survived My First Solo 5-Day Bikepacking Trip

First-time bikepacking solo across Poland — on a 13-year-old bike! 🚴‍♀️
From muddy trails to sleepless nights, this is the raw, honest story of my adventure through Mazury. Perfect for anyone curious about bike touring, solo travel, or cycling Poland.

My route:
https://www.bikemap.net/en/r/17247221/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=route_details&utm_campaign=share_route

Zanocuj w lesie (Sleep in the forest) Map: https://mapa.wirtualneszlaki.pl/obszary-bushcraft#7/51.454/19.935/OSM_Mapnik:100-Obszary_bushcraft:100

👉 Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:40 Day 1: Where it all begins
3:24 Day 2: Lost in the corn field
13:13 Day 3: I try to wildcamp for the first time
19:55 Day 4: I want to quit
28:17 Day 5: Chased by thunders

📍 Location: Poland
🎥 Filmed and narrated by me in Poland (2025)
My gear: https://lighterpack.com/r/uoo1vx

Thematic Music by:
Subtle Triumph – Set In Stone – https://thmatc.co/?l=43296ECE
Dave Smith – Tribute to a Thunderstorm – https://thmatc.co/?l=07F40A35
Subtle Triumph – Hope – https://thmatc.co/?l=43886F4F
Fried.Mix – Alone At Last – https://thmatc.co/?l=7BC9462A
Fried.Mix – Chosen – https://thmatc.co/?l=99DC4C9B
Subtle Triumph – Meditation in C#m – https://thmatc.co/?l=7286158D
Fried.Mix – Solemn – https://thmatc.co/?l=D5AB062D
Wild Whispers – Purple Mountains – https://thmatc.co/?l=C30476DD
Subtle Triumph – Big Mess – https://thmatc.co/?l=16586E43

Day two alone, lost, storm coming. This is my first ever bikepacking trip, 
and I might already be in trouble. 5 days across Poland on a 13-year-old 
bike that was never meant for this. Would I make it to the end, or would my 
bike file for retirement before I did? I had no experience, but I had curiosity, stubbornness, and apparently 
a love for poor decisions. What’s the point of doing it, right? This is the story of how I pushed through 
mud, rain, sleepless nights, and panic. But I found an actual road. And why 
I can’t wait to do it all over again. There’s always been something about bike packing.
About conquering long distances with the power of my own legs while carrying 
everything I need on my bike. I’m already on the train and my bike is behind me. This gentleman helped me hang the 
bike because it’s quite heavy. I mean, I detached the bags, but 
maybe I overpacked a little bit. I wanted to be prepared for any 
kind of weather, especially rain. And now I need to sit back and relax. I am riding to a place I 
have never been to before. It’s called Masurian Lake 
District, Mazury in Polish. I’m going to a town called Ełk, So, I just stocked up on some food, 
some snacks, and I even found a keto bread, which makes me excited.
And now I’m finally ready to cycle. Today, it’s 15 km to my nearest campsite.
Let’s go. I’ve been watching bike packing 
expeditions videos on YouTube for a while. It’s always felt like something I wanted to try 
as an act of courage, a test of my abilities. There’s no other feeling quite like it.
Setting out on the 200 km journey, that’s 125 miles, pushing my bike for those very first 
meters, knowing that everything I need to survive, to sleep, to eat, to drink, I am carrying with me.
There’s something truly primal about it. Hear the thunder far off beyond the trees.
Earthly spirits riding upon the breeze. Hi, it’s the food time. It was actually a pretty good day.
I’m at this campsite and the owners are so nice. I actually got a little snack from 
a couple traveling from Finland. I helped them translate at the reception from English to Polish, and backwards 
and I got chocolate from them. But I can’t eat milk or dairy products. I had to say thank you and 
pass it to someone else. Someone told me a few days ago that it would be 
very hard to do this bike packing trip with a minimum sugar intake and with no caffeine at all.
Let’s see in a few days. Think food tastes the best 
when I’m very very hungry. Good morning.
It rained all night and it’s raining now as well. Drizzling.
But I wonder how is my bike and the bags. So, it’s not that bad.
I mean, it’s not soaked, but it’s also not great. This is definitely waterproof.
This is also water repellent. But these ones, they were just too cheap. All the food in the plastic bag 
was soaked when I took it out. I’m going to show you a real disgusting thing.
I find it disgusting. I don’t know if you will, but there are just 
so many snails that come out after the rain. Yeah, I don’t like them. I don’t like snails for some reason. I’m just praying for more warm days. You know, where I can actually 
take a bath on a hot day. But this is actually pretty good, too. So rainy. It’s still raining. I already folded my tent and I packed all my bags.
I think I’m not going to wait any longer. I’m not really discouraged because 
this is my first day of rain. I really hope the first and the last one. Actually, I forgot to make a quick warm up.
A thunderstorm is coming. How did it go?
Okay. What was the next exercise?
Think, think, think, think, think. My arms are so heavy after yesterday. What I didn’t see coming, a huge 
thunderstorm and relentless rain. Today, I’ve got 32 km to ride.
No warm up could have prepared me for that. You see, I didn’t really plan 
long distances for each day. I knew I couldn’t. But riding 30 km in pouring rain, that’s a completely different experience 
from doing it in the sunshine. I’ve been traveling on this road.
I think it’s gravel. I don’t know because I don’t 
know almost anything about bikes. It’s been so hard. This bike is as old as my 
adulthood, which is 13 years. I have decided to take it because I don’t 
really know what I like in bike packing. I’ve decided to give it a try, to 
do this trial bike packing trip to find out before I buy an actual 
gravel bike for bike packing. And also I wanted to find out 
if bike packing is for me. If I like it, if I enjoy it.
I do enjoy it. However, I am definitely underprepared.
Like this bike, even though I changed tires, it doesn’t have much grip on wet gravel. Something I didn’t see coming 
because I would ride this bike on dry gravel and there wasn’t much of a problem.
But wet gravel, that’s a whole different story. Still, it’s going just very, very slow and I 
have to be careful not to lose the balance. Oh, the absolute pleasure of hitting smooth 
asphalt after miles of rough terrain. It’s like a reward. It was also a beautiful way 
to reconnect with my country. I have been away from Poland 
during the summer for 7 years. Endless fields, happy cows 
under a sky scattered with rain. This is the essence of Poland. For every downhill, there is one uphill.
Always. Piesio (Doggie in Polish).
I think this dog is deaf. Hey. Oh my god.
You can’t even hear me. Can you even see me?
What’s up with your life? But then the asphalt turned to gravel.
Then sand. And finally, wilderness. How did I end up in the middle of a corn field?
Ask Kamoot. I’m in the middle of nowhere on a meadow 
next to someone else’s corn field. And I’m kind of pissed at myself 
cause my intuition was telling me that there’s something wrong with this road. I don’t even know where I am.
I mean, I’m going to get out of here somehow. I might as well camp here.
I have everything, you know, but I don’t want to camp here. I still have at least 20 km to ride.
So, when you accidentally end up in a corn field and can’t find your way out, 
that’s when your survival instincts kick in. You panic. You check Google satellite 
view and try to spot a road. Then you push through sand and mud. Even if you lose things along 
the way, you don’t go back. You just keep going.
And that’s what I did. So I found this road for sure is 
leading to someone else’s property. I’m just gonna ask them if I can pass through. Shouldn’t be a problem, but well, I’ll let you know.
Can’t ride my bike anymore. It’s just mud everywhere.
In the back as well. I just wanted to use a selfie stick and 
I realized that I had lost it somewhere along the road in the mud.
I was super stressed and just before I reached a proper road, a 
surprise was waiting for me obviously. Yeah, I knew that this road would be private 
road, but now I don’t know if that’s electric fence or not.
Found it. There’s like 20 cows staring at 
me, but I found an actual road. Oh my god. I have decided to take a little break to cook. I need to make an actual meal because 
I feel like I am running out of energy. So, I stopped by at this bus stop to cook. Sure, I could have packed instant 
ramen and called it a day. But real food, that’s comfort.
That’s passion. Even if I’ve got only one pot, I’ll carry a damn 
carrot and a potato for dozens of miles just to cook them when the day is gone to hell.
That’s my kind of therapy. It’s been one hell of a day, to be honest.
Probably I will laugh at it in some weeks. But as of now, I am just 
feeling so sorry for myself. I can feel it in my legs. They’re going to hurt tomorrow.
I’m reaching my campsite. I am so happy I won’t have to cycle.
Just arrived at the campsite. Oh my god.
I’m so tired. I slept so bad.
I was so tired, but I slept so bad. There were people partying until 2 or 3. I think the next night I’m 
going to spend wild camping. I have never done that in Poland, 
but in certain areas it’s legal. So, I will try to fuel myself with a hot soup. And some food that I bought 
yesterday and try to hit the road. But even my voice is not ready yet. Gosh, it was such a bad night. It’s started raining. Please, no, not another day.
One I can endure, but not two. People often ask me, “Where do 
you find a will to travel alone?” But how could I not travel? When I get moments like this, I wake up 
at a campsite, walk down to the beach in the early morning.
Did I sleep well? Well, no.
But I don’t care. I have the entire beach to myself.
I get to see Poland’s largest lake (Śniardwy) stretching for miles like the sea. My drone finally fixed.
Can’t even capture the whole horizon. If you’re enjoying this video so far, 
give it a like so more people can find it. Thank you. For this trip, I’ve invested in a few 
items that would help me survive this and also to make this trip a little bit easier. One of them is this solar panel and 
it’s actually charging my watch now. I’m so happy it’s doing so well. And another thing that makes my day-to-day life 
here much easier are padded cycling shorts. Something that I had no idea prior to this trip.
How my butt doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s like a miracle.
Like I’ve cycled my whole life. I’ve only now discovered how 
helpful cycling shorts are. I’m going to go along the lake 
to the nearest town to Mikołajki. So I constructed this for charging my drone 
batteries and I think it’s actually working. Wow. So, it’s 8K in and I’ve stopped for some 
snacks I bought along the way and some water. By this point, I already knew I wasn’t going 
to make it through this mileage without sugar. I’m not used to eating frequently, 
but for this kind of trip, I had to switch systems to eat 
preventively, to fuel the ride. I also knew this would mess 
with my eating patterns. Once home, I would crave food all the 
time and I would have to undo that. Going through this beautiful forest 
for the past five kilometers. Weather is delightful today. I can see some other cyclists and I 
know that I’m on the right path today. I’m going to try to find a wild camping spot. And there’s this program called Zanocuj 
w lesie, which means sleep in a forest. They included a lot of forested areas around the entire country for people to 
sleep in tents and in a hammock. Tonight I’m going to use 
it for the first time ever. The plan was never to stick to towns, just pass 
through them to grab food and charge my gear. I followed the MPR trail, Mazurska 
Pętla Rowerowa, the Mazurian bike loop. It’s cleverly marked through 
the Mazurian Lake District. I’ve been traveling through this forest for the 
past half an hour trying to find a place to camp. Like there’s no meadow or a place 
where I could pitch the tent. And I want to be kind of 
hidden so I can feel safe. And the only way for me to be hidden 
is to go deep into the forest. I know that my tent will not endure this. And that’s when I realized I’m not that fierce.
I’m not that wild solo cyclist I follow online. Not yet.
I wanted to be, but I didn’t feel safe enough. I knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink at night.
I think I found a perfect spot to camp over there. It was full of ants.
They’re still walking on me. No.
So, once again, I picked a campsite 
which turned out to be crowded. Really crowded. What I hadn’t considered when choosing 
Mazury, it’s a family central. Whole families, kids, dogs for weeks. You see, this place is like Poland, Sweden. Idyllic.
Thousands of lakes with crystal clear water. People come here to swim, boat, unwind, and connect with nature.
And that’s beautiful. But after yet another poor night’s 
sleep, I felt drained, done. Everything looked idyllic, but I 
had zero motivation to keep going. I just wanted to go home.
And yes, that’s my bikini top drying on the bike. I lost my underwear the day 
before doing the same thing. This night was the worst. There was even more people partying, 
shouting, pitching tents at 1:00 a.m. I had to actually go to them 
and ask them to be quiet. And today I feel like I have absolutely no energy.
It’s like all the explosiveness that I had in my body, in my legs to cycle, that 
all is just dissolved into thin air. I don’t know where that is anymore. I actually last night thought about 
quitting and just going back home today. Because I love cycling and I love this.
I love this setup. When at the end of the day, I don’t have a safe 
space for me to rest, for my nervous system to calm down after the entire day of cycling, 
then what’s the point of doing it, right? Yeah.
Let’s see how this day is going. When I feel like absolute [__] I brush my hair.
No shower for 2 days, but brushing is essential. It’s my survival logic.
Don’t question it. I tried finding another lakeside campsite.
They were all packed. I’ve been cycling and cycling.
I bought some food because it’s Saturday. Which means that tomorrow is Sunday, and I won’t 
be able to buy anything in a big supermarket because Jesus is watching Polish government.
Yeah, I had to buy a lot of food for tomorrow. In case I don’t have any spot, any 
mini market to buy food along the way. Something unusual happened. I went to this restaurant and it’s 
called Zielona Gęś, the green goose. I asked the owner if he knows any place 
where I could camp but a quiet place. He told me that I should definitely do 
the wild camping but I need to know where. Then he actually mentioned that I could 
just camp in the restaurant when they close. So in a few hours they will close the restaurant.
I’m going to pitch my tent there. I’m excited because probably this is going to 
be the first night I’m gonna sleep like a baby. So, I waited for five hours reading a 
book about the next country I’ll visit. That’s bliss, isn’t it? I finally had a good night of sleep. I am so relieved because that changes 
how I feel about this trip a lot. I even have a bathroom here 
and I could charge my phone. I didn’t have to use a green noise 
on my earphones at night anymore. Ah, it’s such a privilege to be here. I had breakfast, returned the book to its 
free book box, a thing in Poland I love. And took one last look at this 
tiny place that saved my ass. And then I was off again into the unknown.
My favorite feeling. It’s time to go soon because 
the thunderstorms are coming. Have no idea where they 
are, but it’s Polish summer. They can come anytime. Okay, today I’m cycling to a small 
town or village that has come up in conversations with other people three times. So, I think it’s worth visiting.
It’s called Wejsuny. It’s a very, very strange name to be honest.
Doesn’t sound Polish at all. And yes, I got lost again.
Of course, this time I let intuition guide me. Mmm raspberries.
So good. Look what I found.
My favorite. I can’t stop eating. I’m trying to find one lake, very tiny lake. A person recommended to me, 
a person that is from here. Apparently, it’s a very clean lake. The colors came known by their 
shade, not by their name. But the day couldn’t be perfect.
Not in this story. At the most remote lake, my lighter gave up.
My matches soaked. I had all my food in the pot uncooked.
I almost laughed like a joker. Then a stranger appeared and gifted me a lighter.
Bless him. I cooked my potato. Look at the fish. They’re so fast.
What the hell? Oh, it’s so nice to put my feet into the 
cold water through the entire day of cycling. This little lake is called Jęgocin. I loved it.
It’s on the map, but for some reason, people don’t get here. I’m so glad that I tried backpacking. Also, I wanted to say for a very long 
time, but I haven’t had a chance. I don’t wear a helmet all 
my life, in case you wonder. Maybe if I was riding on a very, very busy 
highway or state road, probably I would take it. I do own one, but I just don’t like it.
Finally, as I approached the last stop, the train station in Pisz, a thunderstorm 
hit 3 km from the finish line. Classic.
Well, sort of the finish line. I still had to cross half the 
country by train, then cycle 24 more kilometers at sunset.
But would I do it again? Oh, yes, absolutely.
Now I know what I like and what I dislike. And I highly recommend trial 
bikepacking to anyone who loves cycling. Set your goal, plan it smart, and 
you don’t need a fancy bike to start. Mine was 13 years old, and 
it made it, and so did I. If you like this video, consider subscribing 
for more, and see you in the next one. Thank you for watching.
Bye.