Embracing the magic of life - Whitney Washington
Whitney Washington is an adventure film maker, bike tourer, kind-hearted soul, and expert at conceiving big adventures. Her creative work is about seizing the moment of being alive, of discovering her capabilities, and inspiring others to lean into their fear and find their own story in the world. She undertook her first bike tour in 2021 and pedaled solo cross-country along the Great American Rail-Trail. In 2022, she embarked upon a bike tour from Alaska to South America that was cut short.
During our conversation, Whitney was at home in Florida where she recovered from the health matters (high stress and asthma aggravated by wildfires) that curtailed her north to south bike tour.
I hoped to understand how our experiences touring on bicycles were similar and different. I pedaled solo cross country in 2010 along Adventure Cycling Association’s TransAmerica Trail.
HB: You mentioned finding your own story in the world as a motivator to ride across the country. How did you settle on a bike tour?
WW: As someone who’s been overweight my entire life, I was told the story that someone my size can’t be an adventurer. On social media, I saw lots of different people are out there doing lots of different things. There was a guy who walked the length of Africa. His adventure got me thinking, ‘What do I want to do, and why haven’t I done it?’ I wanted to see what I was capable of and rewrite the story about what someone like me can do.
I thought about kayaking across the country, but water is unpredictable. Then, skateboarding across the country. I found out about rail trails – where they convert an old railroad into a path for biking, walking and running – and the Great American Rail-Trail. Not being on the road with cars made a cross country adventure seem realistic to me. I thought a bike would be the best way to go.
HB: What on your trip was unexpected, or what did you learn about America?
WW: People are more caring than the world wants to allow. My first day out, I didn’t get further than three miles. I had way too much stuff with me. The next day was my first day on the trail. I had run out of water and some people invited me to their home. They helped me sort my gear and send stuff home. That was really helpful. Someone else encouraged me to start a GoFundMe, and that wound up being how I funded my trip.
So many obstacles at the beginning of Whitney’s 2021 tour.
I started out with a Walmart tent, and the first time it rained, like the first night of my trip, it rained inside my tent. I received a much better sponsored tent while I was out on the trail courtesy of the people who helped me out my first day on the trail.
What was something extra you had with you on your first tour you sent home?
A camping toilet!
Oh how the rain came down! Thunder + lightning.
During a really hot day in Iowa, I was pushing my bike up a hill to the campground. Everyone said Iowa would be flat. It’s not flat. A police officer stopped and asked me if I needed help. I said I was just trying to get up the hill. He didn’t have room for my bike in his car, so he pushed my bike up the hill, and I drove.
HB: That’s crazy! You drove the police car.
WW: [chuckles] Right? I didn’t expect people would be so nice.
Midway through her 2021 trip, Whitney’s bike and gear weighed 93 pounds.
HB: I agree that people were surprisingly and unexpectedly nice when I was out bike touring. Still, there were a few times when I was uncomfortable. One evening on my way to an RV campground someone in a truck swerved toward me as I pedaled. It scared the shit out of me.
WW: Who does that?
HB: I know. It’s hard to imagine.
Where there any fears or concerns you had related to other people that affected your tour?
“I’m not a bugs person.”
WW: Part of why I went alone was because I was afraid of being a woman outdoors by myself and being Black outdoors by myself. Those were stories I wanted to rewrite.
HB: Was there ever a time you felt unsafe? And if so, how did you deal with it?
WW: I pay attention to my inner voice when a situation is bad and let it guide me. There was one time with a Warmshowers homestay that seemed sketchy. The guy said I could sleep inside an abandoned house. The way he talked about it and some other things…it didn’t sound quite right. I wound up telling him ‘no thanks’ and stayed at a B&B that night. The next night, I stayed behind someone’s barn, and it was fine. It was Covid, and I’d camped in similar places with other hosts. It was just that one time it didn’t feel safe. But that’s where the GoFundMe was important. The contributions made it possible for me to stay at places like the B&B when I needed to.
HB: Sounds like you have a wise inner voice. Did you ever improvise a campsite?
WW: You mean stealth camping?
“Fears: bears, spiders, how I’m perceived, not being accepted.”
HB: Yeah. The second night into my tour, I couldn’t find a place to sleep. The town I stopped in didn’t have any motel rooms available because there was a rodeo on. I went looking for a campsite, but it got dark. I wound up throwing my sleeping gear down in the landscaping at a ranger station. I was afraid I’d be found – that someone would take my stuff or tell me to move. I didn’t put my tarp shelter up, which is bright yellow, so I’d be less obvious. Then the sprinklers came on. I scrambled to find a place close to the building where the water didn’t reach. Then the eave I was under dripped on me. It wasn’t a restful night.
WW: I never did stealth camping. I always asked permission to stay somewhere or camped in designated places. I did sort of stealth camp on my recent tour when I was in Alaska. I camped at a construction site, but I’d met the people earlier and talked to them. In Alaska, I was afraid of bears and people. The bears stressed me out more because some people made them out to be terrifying. But then other people said bears leave you alone. It was all overwhelming. The construction site seemed the safer place to camp.
Whitney’s guidelines for staying safe:
Don’t ride at night
Don’t underestimate people
Be in a campsite or lodging before dark
Whitney’s 2022 tour - camp and bicycle in Alaska. Someone gifted this silver bike to Whitney during her first tour when she was in Indiana (her third bike that trip).
HB: Bears are not an animal I’d want to encounter in camp either. I found that in bear and cougar country, there were lots of signs describing how to protect myself from them. One night when I was camped on an unused road, I dreamed a bear snuffled my tarp, but that was my closest encounter with either – that I know of.
Smaller creatures seemed the real concern, and there were no signs for guidance. I went through this place in Montana where the air was swarming with mosquitoes. I didn’t realize it until I stopped to take a picture. They feasted on my backside. My butt was dimpled with welts and itchy for days after that.
WW: [Laughing] That was the same for me in Alaska.
When in Alaska, protect yourself from mosquitoes.
HB: Did you have any other scary animal interactions?
WW: There were some deer that freaked me out one time. I was going by some abandoned buildings, and it was dark. The deer were just standing there looking at me. The whole thing was spooky.
HB: What about weather?
WW: Yeah. In Ohio, there were tons of thunderstorms. My tent collapsed in a storm during one of them. I shouldn’t have been out there in that weather, but I didn’t have any other options. There was nothing I could do but wait it out. I got rained on a lot. As I mentioned, the tent I started with didn’t hold up in that weather. In Montana, it got cold at night. Early on, I’d sent my sleeping bag home. I didn’t think I’d need it in the hot summer. I wound up buying one in Montana. Fire was also a problem. A lot of the bridges on my route burned.
HB: It seemed like most of the West was on fire the summer of 2021. How did you deal with that?
WW: I took Amtrak to Washington state. I got on near Glacier National Park in Montana.
HB: Good call. It’s interesting how climate change affects the touring experience. There’s not really a good time to go on an extended tour without encountering some kind of extreme weather. I applaud you for not riding into it and for paying attention to how wildfire smoke affected you on your 2022 tour. I think the train is a great option for bike tourers. I got on a train to escape a heat wave in the middle of the country.
How did it feel to you to finish the trip by train?
Whitney gave away the bike she started with on her 2021 tour and bought this bike.
WW: I’m not a “completionist.” There are a lot of people out there who feel they have to pedal the whole way for the journey to be complete. That’s not me.
My first day was a struggle to go three miles. In Montana, I pedaled 87 miles in one day! To me, it’s that sense of accomplishment wherever I am on a given day that I’m after. It might seem like a little thing, but standing on my bike and pushing off was also an accomplishment worth celebrating. There’s a quote I think is inspiring, “The body is an instrument, not an ornament.” I like keeping that in mind. My body is doing amazing as it is.
I met a Warmshowers couple who go on tours all the time and mix it up with other transportation. They were inspiring. Plus, I’d rather be safe than risk hurting myself or worse trying to log every mile.
“I had to learn that people cared about me.”
HB: I love your perspective. I felt a lot of pressure to “complete” my tour even though I didn’t start out as a completionist. I agonized over my decision to take a break and use other transportation until I remembered I hadn’t set out to pedal every inch of the country.
Were there other times on your tour when you used other transportation?
WW: Yeah! It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Early on when I’d been talking to people at Rails-to-Trails (RTC) about the Great American Rail-Trail, they said it wasn’t done and suggested I take a different trail around Wyoming. They felt I wasn't experienced enough to bike through the state by myself yet. When I was in Nebraska on my way to Wyoming, I had an issue with broken spokes. I found a mechanic who was the only one for a few hundred miles, but because he was new to bike repair, he couldn’t fully fix the problem. I rented a car and drove to Bozeman, Montana.
That was my first time renting a car and my first road trip! I’d seen TikTok videos of people watching the geysers at the Yellowstone. I was so happy I got to experience them myself.
It’s wild to be in a steaming landscape.
HB: I love that. And I love that you have positive associations with Wyoming and the beauty you found there. Props to the folks at RTC for giving you a heads up about travel in the state, and good on you for adding some other firsts to your adventure!
One of the principles of slow travel is to allow for side trips or diversions, to be spontaneous and curious. What are a few highlights from your trip that were unexpected and delightful? And any specific places you’d encourage people to visit?
WW: Bison Range in Montana. It’s northwest of Bozeman. The landscape, the buffalo…I’ve never seen anything like it before. That whole road trip was amazing. Yellowstone National Park and the Tetons. They really do look like the pictures, but it’s really different seeing those places in person.
I enjoyed riding with some Warmshowers hosts for a good 100 miles.
On my recent tour, I was planning to meet up with a woman in California who said she would teach me to mountain bike. Even though I didn’t make it there yet, these little moments of being on an adventure make the whole thing exhilarating. It’s rewarding to put aside the timeline and allow for what’s spontaneous.
HB: What were your reflections after the trip, or what would you share with other people considering a similar adventure?
WW: I always liked adventure films, but I never saw myself in them. Biking across the country changed that for me. Our stories are more important than we give them credit for. I knew if I just got started, the rest would sort itself out. So that’s one piece of advice I’d offer – go and figure it out. I needed to discover what was possible for me at this size. I just needed to go. The adventure gave me the opportunity to learn what’s real about who I am. Slow travel opened the gates.
It’s important to not let the world define you. It’s not true that you can’t do this thing until you do this other thing. I let belief in that keep me from reaching for what I wanted for a long time, that I had to be a smaller person before I could be an adventurer. It’s not true.
“What’s real about yourself?”
[Laughs] There’s this guy on TikTok who skates and he’s probably as big as I am. He can fly! He’s doing the tricks any other body has the capacity to do. So I’m learning to skateboard. My big accomplishment recently is I figured how to not fall off the skateboard! Next up, I’m learning how to push on the skateboard.
HB: That sounds so fun!
WW: It is. There’s so much to learn about what is true and what is possible. Another inspiration for me is this woman riding her bike around the world with her dog and violin!
HB: I love that mix of art and adventure. Creatively, what are you working on?
WW: I have a web series laid out, plus film.
HB: What message would you like to share with the people out there?
WW: You’re doing great. You’re important just as you are.
For more information about Whitney, visit her website, RecapturingLife.com. Stay in touch by subscribing to Whitney’s YouTube channel, @RecapturingLife, and following her on TikTok @RecapturingLife. More bicycle travels are in the works plus other adventures.
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