Cycle touring with a baby has new constraints when it comes to route choice so I am putting a bit more time into our route than I normally would. In Asia we were very flexible and would just make the route up as we went along, basically doing anything to stay off main roads, even if it meant man-sized potholes and steep climbs. We still want to stay off main roads not just because its nicer, but we also have to keep Tobias safe and be able to stop if we need to. But our alternative routes need a bit of pre-screening - we can't really ride through man-sized potholes if Tobias is asleep in his trailer, and we are carrying a bunch more weight and aren't really that fit (yet).

We have to keep an eye on access to amenities too. If it was just us, having to bike an extra 20km to find food after we start getting hungry is uncomfortable, but fine. Having to bike an extra 20km to after Tobias is hungry is torture for all 3 of us and not really fair on him. So if we are going to be getting isolated, we need to know that in advance. There are also normal parent worries - what if he gets sick? What if he gets cold and wet? What if there are snakes or landmines? - that steer us towards civilization rather than away from it.

The other consideration is where we are going to sleep. Previously we could ride 20km or 120km so that we could find somewhere to sleep. Now we think we're looking at a max of 40km per day which might get a bit tricky in places. We will try to camp as much as possible because otherwise we'd never afford this trip, but we've never been particularly good at wild camping or asking to camp on farms. We're always so indecisive about where to even stop for a coffee so I'm curious how this will go, especially with a kid who probably doesn't want to be on the bike anymore at the end of the day.

When we were trying to decide where to start our main constraints were: 1) somewhere warmer than the Netherlands in April and 2) somewhere we can directly fly to. We could have gone south to Spain, but we've always wanted to visit the Balkan countries and we couldn't combine the two, so we decided on Albania. We've become a bit chicken in traffic after 6 years of wonderful cycling infrastructure so I'm a bit nervous about riding out of Tirana, but I'm sure we'll figure it out (or we'll change it up somehow).

We would have loved to head up into the mountains, but given that it will still be April and we don't really know what a 1000m climb feels like anymore, we're playing it safe(r) and heading north along the coast of Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia until around Dubrovnik where we will head inland to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From there the plan is to head towards Ljubljana then down to Italy. We haven't spent nearly as much time as we wanted to in Italy, but its too big to bike to all the places we want to go, so we plan to have a wee interlude in a rental car here. Then its South towards Marseille, up to Lyon and then across to the Alps to meet some friends and watch the Tour de France in the mountain stages. Depending how fast we are we might need to use the trains a bit in this region to cover some ground. From the Alps we will head down into Switzerland then across France and back up to Belgium for our friends wedding in mid-August. Then its just a small 300km back to Utrecht via Zeeland, following a similar route to when we first moved to Utrecht in 2017.

At least, that's the plan for now.