Iām packing my bags and off to discover the world by bike. And no, I havenāt hit my head! Iāve been thinking about this for a long time, and now Iām going to make it a reality.
Content:
1. WTF??
I have a stable life, both personal and professional. Why would I then change everything to live day to day, without knowing where I will be the next day? At this point, one would expect that the changes in my life would be less radical and more oriented towards what is usually considered āsuccessfulā, such as a bigger house, a more buoyant bank account, or a better-paid job. In fact, for an engineer like me, you are almost socially pressured to follow that path: success means working for a big company and having a 6-figure salary. I have nothing against those goals and maybe one day they will attract my attention, but that is not the case yet. I am looking for time and freedom.
Although I am not one of those who work 80 hours a week (far from it), a job with a stable schedule and the obligations of daily life prevent us from having total freedom of our time. Even though in appearance you are free to do what you want, in practice you are pressured by multiple agents: bosses, clients, social conventions, etc. I know that part of life perfectly, like almost everyone else. Now I want to explore another path: to live my own adventure every day as I decide.
Why bikepacking? I am not discovering anything new here: itās fun, healthy, eco-friendly and lets you connect more deeply with the places you pass through. This is not the first time I do it, but by far the longest, most exciting and adventurous.
2. The plan
The plan is to plan as little as possible 
I will leave Europe (it is yet to be decided whether from Austria, Italy, or Slovenia) towards Asia with no fixed finish line. I have always been interested in Central Asia, of which I only know Uzbekistan, but we will see.
The departure date is March 1st, and the trip will last (in principleā¦) a full year. There is no predetermined distance, and the accommodation will always be with me in the form of a tent. By the way, thatās a tent I bought and used for the first time in Hawaii last year, and since then it has visited some other interesting places like Iceland. I hope it will get to know a few more countries!
No more FOSS hacking?
Are you joking? I love FOSS hacking! I am still figuring out how, but that has to be part of the journey. And I am definitely packing a SoC to play around! Although I will spend most of my time cycling, discovering places and meeting new people, I will often have some time after pitching the tent to read, write, and code. I would like to keep on contributing to the Linux kernel as well as writing articles, both technical and about the journey. Actually, I would love to post more regularly, now that a regular job is out of the equation.
Moreover, I would like to meet other Open Source enthusiasts in person to share ideas and talk about our common passion. I have already contacted (and been contacted by) some FOSS communities and individuals, and I am looking forward to meeting them. If you live somewhere around the places I will cycle through, stay tuned to take part or send me a message if you want to meet and geek around!
The ultimate success in that respect would be bringing new people to the FOSS community to continue what I have been doing as a blogger and as a co-mentor at the LKMP. If you know any groups that might be interested (e.g. cultural associations, schools, DIY clubs), please give me their contact, so I can meet them and āsellā them the FOSS culture I would do it with pleasure and 100% for free.
The following slide from my presentation at the Open Source Summit Europe 2024 in Vienna summarizes pretty well what I have in mind:
3. Can I help you?
Definitely! Depending on your situation and willingness, you can help me in multiple ways:
Locals
A big part of this adventure is about discovering new places, cultures, and ways of seeing life. And the best way to do that is, of course, by connecting with the people who live there. It would be wonderful if you could take some time to show me your world from your perspective! If you can also help with more practical matters, like suggesting which paths to take, what to visit, or offering me a roof, so my tent doesnāt get wet on a rainy day, I would be really grateful.
Advice from a similar experience
Although I would love to hear from any bikepacking experience, those who did some software development along the way (I know there have been some) or generated public content regularly could really help me: hardware/software tools, ways to better communicateā¦ whatever you found handy!
Reward my content
If my posts on this site or on social media helped you, and you would like to acknowledge my work, please consider contributing back. You will find a āBuy me a coffeeā button at the end of every article as well as in the new Support me section, where you can also support me via PayPal. What I say for your patches to FOSS projects is valid here too: any contribution, no matter its size, is always awesome.
Follow me and share my content
If none of the options above suits you, you can always help me by increasing the reach of my content. If you share it on social media, with your friends or colleagues, you are already helping me. Not reaching out is a very common cause of death among sources of digital content, and you could save this one.
4. Building site
If you regularly visit this page, you will have noticed that it looks slightly different. I am still working on it, but the idea is to keep a minimalistic design while improving the looks and navigation features. My apologies for any inconsistencies you might find, I am learning along the way 
Feel free to send me feedback from the things that are still off.
Now there are two separate sections for tech and bikepacking articles, as the audience for these two areas donāt necessarily overlap. If you are interested in both, the home site will list all the articles in chronological order.
Now that I will be publishing content more regularly, I would like to offer more options on social media. I have already added some links to my new profiles on Facebook and YouTube in preparation for the future. You will not find much yet, but you can click on āfollowā and move on, so you will be notified when I start publishing stuff.
There is also a new section to subscribe to my newsletter. So far, I have only used LinkedIn to tell my contacts that new articles were available. That is far from optimal, as not everyone uses that platform regularly. Now you can get it in a more reliable fashion via email. I will only use the newsletter for what the name hints: donāt worry about spam, promotions, or anything like that. Just notifications about new content 
Iāve also added some features to make navigating the site easier: links to previous and next posts, quick access to different sections, and a rapid search feature to help you find what youāre looking for in just a second.
Iāll keep improving the site whenever I can find some time to enhance the reader experience. Thatās it, I hope you enjoy reading my articles, and as always, any suggestions are more than welcome!