Why explore on two wheels
Post COVID, travel is back in a big way baby.
There's an old cliché employed by travel writers; It's not so much the destination as the journey. True indeed.
Traveller vs Tourist
Most travellers don't want to be a "tourist", they want to be an explorer. The art of exploring and discovering new lands is a time old tradition and human desire. With the rise of there social and digital world people are seeing out authentic experiential experiences for good reason. You can watch a YouTube video about a famous city but nothing can replace immersing yourself in a place. The sights, sounds and smells all build an authentic experience and memories for life.
Travel as Adventure
What are the best travel stories and memories generally? Why is it that often the most interesting tales of a trip are where things did not go to plan and surprises were part of the experience. Overcoming obstacles in life and in travel is key to a truly rewarding journey through life. Travel has always been a path to self discovery but increasingly it's become a tired old treadmill and worn path that offers little in the way of adventure and personal growth. Too many cities offer their famous sights in very predictable ways via lacklustre ticket bundles and short organised packaged tours that make the participant feel like a cog in a touristic machine that sucks you in and spits you out feeling no different than when you landed in a place.
Perhaps in times part the lack of connection to the rest of the world through our smart phones resulted in a rougher and more challenging travel experiences. The spontaneous itineraries have been replaced for many with weeks of preparation, hotel booking and pre packaged tours booked at a set time with a very set offering. It's organised no doubt, but is it exciting? Is it life changing?
Journey vs Destination
We is the Wheel Explorer. It's all about the journey over the destination. In fact all our self guided tours are designed with the journey in mind. There is no starting point or destination, rather a circular loop that the bike or scooter rider can join at any point and time of their choosing. It might sound a bit like a hop on and hop off bus tour but it couldn't be further from that tired old format.
Hop on and off bus tours can be found in early all popular city tourist destinations. They offer a lazy, passive way of seeing a city. Sure they have commentary and allow the tourist to get off and view the sights but in a way which is not at all conducive to adventure or exploration. Looking at the Sydney Opera house pass by from a noisy moving bus is not our idea of fun. Surely there is a better way?
What about a walking tour? That sounds more like it. Yes and no. There is no doubt you will be immersed in your surroundings and will get an intimate connection with the locations around you but a walking pace is not only slow but very taxing on your energy levels, already low from air travel, jet lag and all the anticipation. Combine that with a few museum visits and we all known that travel exhaustion.
There is only so much you can see on for and so most walking tours are relatively short, about 1 to 5km at best. They also tend to focus on the most touristed areas and often in the centre of the city, often the very place that is the most congested and urbanised. Not always where you will find the true spirit of a city.
So if the bus and walking options are limited, what form of transport may there be that ticks the boxes? wE like to think you've thought of that already.
The answer is TWO WHEELS. The humble bicycle has already be proven as the most efficient form of transport ever invented and 99% of us know how to ride one so it's accessible to everyone. With the electrification of the bicycle and the introduction of the electric scooter, travellers now have the ultimate way to explore their chosen destinations.
Bike tours and now ebike tours are available in most popular cities nowadays which is great. On a bicycle you can see a lot in a short amount of time and you are immersed in the location in a fare more exciting way than a vehicle. However the guided bike tour does have some drawbacks.
Firstly it's an experience that is fixed in place and time. The organised tour is well, just that, organised. The route is generally short, often focused on the most touristy hotspots and involves constant stopping to gather as a group and try to listen to the guide. Bike riding in a foreign land can be daunting so riding in a group offers some extra confidence but it's still a chaotic experience. Wouldn't it be great if you could hear the guide at all times and they could give you both directions and information about the incredible places you visit?
That is where wE come in. wE offer an entirely new way of exploring a city. wE is all about creating the most flexible and efficient tour possible for the adventurous traveller. Whether you are a solo traveller or in a group, our tours leverage the convenience of renting an ebike or scooter from the myriad of share companies that have rolled out thousands of two wheeled dream machines worldwide.
Our tours can be taken at any time of the day that suits you, they last forever and they cover distances usually from 15 to 50km. No other tour offers that kind of coverage and is packed with a much information. Not only have wE ridden every km of the tour ourselves and provide you with every turn and direction on the way, we have also researched the places you will visit and written voiceover scripts that will get you up to speed on the city you have been so excited to discover.
Organised tours don’t offer options to stop and visit Museums, galleries or shops. On our tours it’s easy. Depending on your plan for the day and your energy levels at the time, you have the freedom to make the call.
You can be sure on your stay in a city you will tick off the bucket list of must see locations but wE will also offer you the opportunity to explore further afield. To discover location gems, natural landscapes close to town, and unique places that most tourists never experience.
One of the best ways to experience a city is to simply sit and watch it. People watching is an art form and one that always rewards the viewer. It's tempting to rush around a place to "download" it, but sometimes a city takes its time to reveal itself. Our tours offer you the freedom to stop and observe, lie in wait for unique photo opportunities or just to catch a slice of life. On a traditional tour you don't have that freedom. You are herded lie sheep in a small area and your group announces itself loudly to locals. It's unlikely you will witness authentic local moments when you are part of a crowd.
wE encourage all our tour participants to pick and choose what they want to see. You will often need multiple days to complete the tour and you can easily complete the tour in stages. Feeling suddenly hungry? No problem, park the ebike or scooter and sort yourself out. See something on the trip that interests you? Follow your inquisitive nose and venture off the beaten track and see where it takes you. If you ride past a cinema and there’s an interesting film on drop off the bike or scooter and go and see a film.
wE don't believe you have to follow a set path and you certainly don't have too follow a set timeframe. Choose your own adventure. wE offer the tour loop, you create a unique experience. Each explorer will discover the city in an original way based on what comes across their path, the time of year and time of day. A guided tour with a start time and place is never going to allow spontaneous exploration in the wE way. It's time too get Wheel!
Healthy
Our tours are also the healthy alternative to sitting on a bus. Why not come back from your holiday feeling fitter and happier than when you left.
wE Chat
Solo Travellers
Solo travel is growing in popularity. It's fun to travel with friends but solo travel can offer more rewarding challenges and personal development. With friends the traveller often sees a city as tribe and is less likely to reach out and meet other travellers or locals. Its human tribal nature and for some solo travel is a daunting. That's why we have also created a "wE Meet Up" so that solo or group travellers can easily connect and ride together. It's likely other riders have a similar outlook on travel and would be open to sharing the adventure. One of the advantages go organised tours is the social aspect so wE have made sure to offer that. Develop.
Families
Our Tours are always family friendly. We all know kids can have short attention spans, so organised tours can bore youngsters. They thrive on adventure and spontaneous experiences. wE make sure to add parks and playgrounds to our tours so you have a chance for a play and rest stop. If your kids see something of interest to them on the journey you have the flexibility to stop and explore. With a share bike you can park it almost anywhere and anytime. You just can't do that on an organised tour.
With our WhatsApp chat feature you can listen to the tour and chat with your co explorers. Rather than pulling up together and breaking the flow of your ride, audio chat through your headphones allows an entirely new way of sharing a ride together. You can discuss the places you see as you ride etc.
Hands free, stress free.
One of the reasons people and travellers don't ride bikes is fear. Fear or traffic and fear of the physical effort. Electric bikes and scooters take care of the physical challenges while wE look after the traffic fears. Our tours are designed to utilise a cities bike specific infrastructure and will always offer quieter side streets than main roads. If we do use busier roads, we will give you plenty of warning and suggestions how best to negotiate them. Exploring a city on two wheels is hands down the best way! wE just make it a hell of a lot easier.
wE build three-dimensional hands-free audio experiences. Hands-free is one of the main design elements of our tours. You can focus absorbing yourself in the environment, rather than having to stop regularly and interact with a two dimensional phone. We have seen so many travellers on bike share bike and scooters stopped on the side of the road trying to work out where they are or how to get somewhere. Google maps is limited for bike specific directions and using it creates a disjointed and stressful experience.
In a lot of old European cities many streets are one way so if you don’t have pre mapped ways of getting somewhere you will only get lost. wE just cut out all the frustration and dead ends. When you haven’t ridden somewhere before every corner is a surprise, you don't want a dangerous or time wasting surprise. You want the joy of discovery knowing wE have you covered.
Quotes
“When I went across, there were no satellite phones. It wasn’t a digital universe. I wanted to disappear. That was the point. Now, it’s almost that you’ll be thought badly of if you don’t share every second of your life with everyone on the planet. One day it’s going to be illegal to get lost.
Robyn Davidson, author of Tracks.
Einstein and Alan Watts
"I love the feeling of being out on a bike, on my own, or with friends. It's freedom, it's fun, it's exhilarating. It's the perfect way to clear your mind and challenge your body." - Diane Ackerman