We moved out of our Burnaby townhouse today and are on the road in our very full car for two weeks of day rides and relaxing in Penticton. There’s a rainfall warning today and it’s a good day to be headed to the Okanagan. We will spend the month of October in Victoria doing lots more cycling and then, well, we don’t know. We just received the first construction update from the developer of our new place and learnt that move-in won’t be until the latter part of January. 

Thus we have a couple of months with no plans and nowhere to live. They happen to be the worst months weather-wise, too early for skiing and too cold and wet for much else.   Where would you suggest for 3-6 weeks of touring?  Somewhere not too cold, open to fully-vaccinated Canadians, and reasonably safe to visit. Ideas?

Assuming you can come south across the border by then, I’d go down to Tucson - especially if you’ve never seen this part of the country before.  There’s plenty of riding you can do right from town, and you could put together a pretty decent longer tour. For example, in November 2016 we biked from Tucson to Silver City, arriving there just in time to be crushed by having dinner at a bar and watching Trump be elected.  

We stayed in Tucson for two months last winter and didn’t really get tired of it.  With that much time though I’d consider renting a car for at least part of the time and check out other places within a day’s drive, or looking at more than one base.  You might even consider starting at Saint George (in SW Utah, near Zion).  There’s wonderful cycling there, and hiking too, but it’s higher elevation and might get too cold and white by November.

Hi Scott

I thought about that, but we're not sure we want to visit the USA at this time.  Plus, it would be silly to fly there and rent a car when, if the land border were open, we could make a road trip in our own car.  That one's saved for a future trip.

At present, we are considering Spain, specifically Mallorca.  We know people who have gone there for a week of road cycling and I'm presently reading Eva Walters' journal (Mallorca in April) on this site.  According to the climate charts on Wikipedia, the weather there in November is quite fine.

Now, however, I am rereading your Iberia journals for other ideas.  It seems like an ideal time to try Andalucia, somewhere I've long wanted to visit but consider way too hot most of the year.

Hi Jacquie,

We thoroughly enjoyed our cycling tour in Mallorca.  The season there seems to start in early April. During the winter many hotels are closed, but of course apartment rentals are always available. Adele Arthur and her partner travelled there in February, and I'd recommend her journal for off-season accommodation suggestions http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/mallorca. Also her journal gave us the idea of cycling around the island instead of just taking a shuttle from the airport to the Port Alcudia area, and I'm so glad we did that.

Good luck with your planning. It will be interesting to see where you decide to go for the winter.

Jacquie it depends how far you want to venture. As always I’m keen to put in a plug for the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a beautiful spring here in SE Australia, and the weather forecast is promising for a decent summer. I assume it’ll be even better across the The Tasman Sea in New Zealand.

That said, our international borders are current firmly closed due to covid travel restrictions, however our government is making noises about ‘opening up’ to fully vaccinated travellers by Christmas. So it’s a Watch this Space situation with travelling to the antipodes. As vaccination numbers improve, I think it increasingly likely Australia and New Zealand travel will again be available.

A sample of our local scenery spotted by bicycle and car over the past week or so.

Hi Graham

New Zealand and Australia are potential destinations but I didn’t consider either for this trip because I knew we couldn’t get in and also—that’s a very long way to spend less than 6 weeks. Someday, though!

Hi Eva

Yes, Mallorca is on the short list. But right now, it’s second to Andalusia. 

Oh.  Well, yes - of course you should go to Andalucia, and maybe southern Portugal.    Not sure why it didn’t occur to me.  We’d go there this winter ourselves if we hadn’t already used up our Schengen budget by then.   And don’t forget about Valencia either, and Mallorca.  With more time available we would have included Mallorca in our last Iberian tour - it’s an easy ferry hop from the southern mainland coast.  I’m not sure you’d need to plan out your lodging in advance either at that time of year, other than for the start and end points.  I think you could just show up and see what’s happening with the weather.

Jacquie in Breaking News it appears that Australia’s international borders will open sooner (to fully vaccinated travellers) in November which is sooner than expected. The caveat is that 80% of Australians eligible to be vaccinated are vaccinated by then and this seems likely.  In our area it’s likely to exceed 90% in a month or so. The race is on between the Delta virus and the vaccination program. 

Some states e.g. Western Australia where covid infections have been mostly kept out by strict quarantine,  probably won’t open up until later than the eastern states where covid is currently active but (just) being contained.  

Outbound travel is already becoming easier, but we won’t be making any firm overseas travel plans for another couple of months. We have rels who have just had travel exemptions granted and will be going to the UK in a few weeks, and a good friend and cycle-touring colleague is moving to Italy in November for three years. So that’s where we’ll be heading in the next year with our bikes. 

The light at the end of the covid tunnel is becoming brighter.