Bicycle Touring Pro: Living Like A Millionaire - EP. #190

So it's about 9 a.m. right now, which is super early for me, but like I'm the last person practically leaving the campsite. God, these people wake up early. I slept so bad in that campsite last night. It was terrible. Um, I have a lot of people that come to me and they say like, I went camping once and it was horrible, and I wonder where they went camping because every time I camp in a campground like that, I sleep horrible, too. I can't, I don't enjoy it. It's noisy, there's people around. Everyone wakes up at 3 in the morning and starts leaving the campsite. I could not sleep at all last night. People walking past my tent, six inches past my head, driving past at 2 in the morning, talking, laughing. Couldn't get to sleep. The good thing about staying at that campground was that one, I had internet access, so I was able to download a bunch of new podcasts to listen to, and two, I was able to charge all of my camera batteries, so I should be able to document my trip north to the North Cape now. Yesterday when I pulled into camp, I had no battery left whatsoever, so yeah, mission accomplished, I guess. I didn't get much sleep, but I got my camera batteries charged. The next thing I want to do is go into town and try to find some fuel for my camp stove and load up on food for the next two days or so, because the area I'm going through for the next 250 kilometers is pretty remote, I think. So, fuel and food. First stop, Remo 1000. Yeah, well, tell me who you are and where you're from and what you're doing. My name is Tyrgve. I'm 40 years old, and I decided a few years ago to go from North to South. I turned 40 earlier this year, so this is the start of my trip. And where are you going? What is the trip exactly? The trip is Norge Pålaks, from the North Cape to Lindesnes. I haven't figured out the route yet. Just take one day by day. Yeah, and so this is your third day on the road? Third day. Yeah, and what do you think so far? It's been great. The weather has been really nice to me. All the people I meet are great. That's cool. And where are we right now? Alta, I guess. Alta, Norway. Alta. But where are we right now? We're outside the supermarket. You just spotted me or something? Yeah, I did. I saw another long-distance cyclist, so I stopped. I met a true legend. Living legend. That's so cool. He's treating me to some Norwegian school bread. What's it called? Skullebrød. Skullebrød and a cappuccino. Thank you very much. All right, signing off. Here we go. Goodbye. He's going south and I'm going north. Yay, all right. It was great meeting you. Same to you. All right, see you. Bye. So I'm going into this mall, trying to find some fuel for my camp stove. There. This is what I'm looking for. So I managed to find some Primus fuel, propane-butane mix, at this mall that you see behind me. And I have nowhere to store it on my bike right now. My bike is just so loaded down with food. But anyways, I'm going to find a place for it and then continue up the road. Got to get out of town now. Always afraid I'm going to drop the camera whenever I'm on a bridge. Don't want to drop the camera. The city of Alta here is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. Alta, the city, sits on the end of the Alta River, which is a 200 kilometer long river that flows northward. Here, basically, out into the sea. So I'm leaving Alta and the Alta River, which I was following for the last several days, and heading north now. Kind of northeast a little bit, actually. And yeah, the North Cape is about 235 kilometers away from here. So it's getting really close. There's the sign for the North Cape, 229. Yeehaw! It has definitely gotten a lot hillier here in Norway. This is like the biggest hill I've gone up on the entire trip. I'm in my second to lowest gear. Hey. Yep. Yeah. Hey, I'm Darren. Yeah, that's right. Hello. Darren. Hi. Oh, really? I'm slow, I guess. Just press the button? Yeah. Okay. Ready? One, two, three. One more. Just for good luck. Okay. Someone's always got their eyes closed or something. Okay. So how is the new bike? Yeah, I like it a lot. It's got that pinion gearing system. It's really cool. All right. Yeah, it was great meeting you. Yeah, nice meeting you. You too. All right. Good luck. Enjoy the rest of your ride. See you. Enjoy your trip. Send me a picture or something. Yeah, okay. All right. Ciao. Well, it's so cool when I run into people who follow me on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or on my website. Oftentimes, you know, I'm just sitting at home alone on the computer uploading this stuff, working on it all, not knowing if it's reaching anyone. And so it's cool to see that there are people out here who not only consume the content but actually go and do their own bike trips for themselves. That's my goal in the first place. So it's pretty awesome. I think that's the top of the hill there. I think. I hope. All of the trees have suddenly disappeared. There's almost no plant life whatsoever. Howdy. You making me lunch? Are you making me lunch? That was Sven from Frankfurt, Germany. And it looks like there are two other bike tourists up here up the road. There are bike tourists all over the place up here. Hello. How are you? I just want to stop and say hi. Hi. Hey. There's a German guy up here. He said there's two ladies behind me or something like that. Oh, yeah. Did you start? Where? Yes. In Umeå, Sweden. Okay. Yeah, Umeå. How far is it? Like 1,000 kilometers or something like that. Okay. Not so far. So now it's up to Norway? And then back to Umeå. Okay. Yeah? Yeah. Should be good. Yes. As long as the weather holds. Yeah. It'll be good. Now it's spring, they say. Yeah. Now spring starts. It's nice, though. Yeah. Have you done a trip like this before in Norway? I did. Oh, okay. It's the same way. Yeah. The same thing. Yes. Oh. And you recruited the sister. That's very cool. So that was cool. Those two Norwegian sisters who flew to the North Cape and then they're biking down to the Lofoten Islands here in Norway. The one sister has done this trip before on her bicycle, and she recruited her other sister to go with her on this trip. So that was pretty cool. Very nice people. Well, it's a little after 6 p.m., almost 6.30. I've gone 76 and a half kilometers, and I'm going to start looking for a place to camp. It's getting pretty cold, and I'm pretty tired from not sleeping last night. So just got to find a place. Time for Darren's stealth camping lesson. So on this side of the road are a bunch of private cabins, and you basically just cannot camp on this side of the road. On this side of the road, on the other side of that hill, is a river. So between the road and the river is a small sliver of public land, essentially. And that's where I'm looking to camp. It is pretty barren out here. There are no trees, really. So what I'm looking for is a hump, a hump that I can hide behind overnight. And if you look right here behind me, this is a pretty good-sized hump. So my plan is to go, that's hard to point, okay, over there and around this hump on the back side, and I'm going to camp over there because the cars driving by on the road won't be able to see me. The people that live in the cabins up there won't be able to see me. And I'll have my own private view of the river on the other side. So that's what I'm thinking, and that's where I'm going. Alright, so I've got my camp all set up. Let me give you a quick tour of where I am right now. Here we are. I am essentially camped on the edge of a ledge overlooking a river in northern Norway, up above the Arctic Circle, only about 150 kilometers south of the North Cape, which is the highest point that you can essentially bike to or drive to in all of Europe. So here's my bike, obviously. There's the bike, and then over here, let me scoot back, is my tent. And look at the view here. So I have the front door looking out to that sort of a view, which is pretty spectacular. And it's really like a 180 degree view going all the way over here. Not too bad, huh? And I've got my solar panel out front, pointed towards the sun just to get some charge off of it. It's not super sunny right now, but it is actually charging. And inside the tent here, nothing too fancy. I've got my two front panniers stacked on top of each other. My two rear panniers are back here. Sleeping bag, sleeping mat, water, tripod, the handlebar bag. And that's about it. Like a lot of people, they always ask me, like, how do you afford these trips, you know? And one of the things that I like to think about is that you can live like a millionaire without actually being a millionaire. And today, I feel like a million bucks, you know? It was a good day. I ran into, like, a bunch of people that knew Bicycle Touring Pro, knew who I was from my videos or Instagram or blog or whatever. So that was really cool. I think I met nine total bike tourists, and five of them knew who I was. So that's pretty good. What else? And then today, the scenery was spectacular. And my campsite now is really spectacular. So I'm living like a millionaire on a minuscule budget. That's what's going on here. I am going to cook some burritos tonight. I got beans, lettuce, tomatoes, tortillas, that sort of a thing again. And I have new fuel for my camp stove, so I don't have to worry about running out of fuel. I'm going to set my stove up now and enjoy the view. So tonight for dinner, I've got tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, two different types of beans, and that's it. So I'm going to make campfire burritos. And I'm going to do it with this view from the front door of my tent. Oh, yeah. So there's this book called The 4-Hour Workweek, and if you haven't read it already, you should. I'll put a link to it down in the video description below. But that's the book that when everyone asks me, like, how do you make the money to do these bike tours all around the world? I say, read The 4-Hour Workweek because that book explains how I do it exactly. But there's a part in that book where Tim Ferriss, the author, says that, like, a lot of people want to be millionaires. But they don't actually want, like, a million dollars in their bank account. What they actually want is the lifestyle that a million dollars can afford you, basically. But then he goes on to say that, like, a lot of the things that people want to do, like traveling the world, for example, don't actually cost a million dollars. So in reality, you don't want to be a millionaire. You just want to have enough money to travel the world or do whatever you want, right? And so, yeah, that's something that I try to keep in mind, especially when I'm in a place like this. It's like, I am not a millionaire, but tonight at least I have a million-dollar view from my campsite, and it doesn't cost me a single cent. The only thing I had to pay for today was my food. So 15 U.S. dollars in food today. That's it. To live like a millionaire here in northern Norway, up above the Arctic Circle. So it might not look like it, but it's 9 o'clock at night right now. It's still very, very light out. It feels like 2 in the afternoon or something. But, yeah, I don't really want to go to bed, even though I'm totally exhausted. I did not get any sleep at that campground last night. I'm going to sleep so much better right here on the edge of this cliff overlooking this river than I did last night in that parking lot. That was a really nice campground, by the way. All the amenities, super nice people, blah, blah, blah. It was just too many people around for me to relax at night. There were people walking past my tent, cars coming in, cars coming out. I just couldn't get to sleep. So, anyways, this is going to be much more relaxing. I got the river flowing down below me. You know people buy those noise machines and it's like whales calling and the beach sounds and stuff like that? Well, I have a natural Arctic Norwegian river rushing right down below me, 100 feet below me or something, with birds calling. It's going to be great to go to sleep to that. That's it for this video. Thanks so much for watching, guys. I will see you in the next one.