Hello! I’m Ben Page, a mid-twenties guy from the rolling hills of West Yorkshire, UK. Back in 2014, aged 22, I set off from the southernmost point of South America to undertake a very long bike ride back home. Over three years the journey will take me across five continents, passing through desert heat and arctic chill, across snow capped mountains and through dense forests. I’ve started the Another Horizon website to chart my journey, bringing together the photos that I take, videos that I make and the stories that unravel.
I’ve been fortunate enough in the past to have been able to travel widely which has fuelled my appetite for further adventure, and what better time than straight from university when supposedly the world is at my fingertips! Through three student years of scrimping, saving and mine-sweeping I’ve managed to save up £9,000 to fund this adventure, yet, little enough to ensure that I have no chance of succumbing to a few luxuries along the way. I love bike touring for its pure simplicity – one can wake up in the morning, put all their earthly belongings on the back of their bike and away they cycle into yet another horizon. Its a truly nomadic existence. I firmly believe that there is no better way to explore, feel and immerse yourself in a landscape and culture than through bike touring. Vistas really do look all the brighter through sweat covered eyes and panting of breath. Not only do the landscapes become enhanced but bike touring acts as a perfect social leveller and the opportunities and invitations that develop through this are priceless.
Perhaps the words of Ernest Hemingway can better portray what I’m trying to say:
“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are.”
