Cycle Touring Through Spain with Kids
The first of a two-part series, we’re following Rachel Bertsch and her family on a multi-continent, multi-month cycle tour. This part of the trip? Three months in Spain, from Seville to Barcelona. No big deal.
All photographs by Rachel Bertsch.
On first meeting Rachel Bertsch, it was from a snapshot on Instagram— a young dad pulling a bike trailer through an alleyway of whitewashed cafes set into a massive cliff overhang, his blond-haired daughter in a pink jacket strapped to the front of his bike.
It was unmistakably Sentinel de las Bodegas in Spain’s Andalusia region— an entire city built into the face of the gorge of the Río Trejo, originally cave dwellings that evolved into an ingenious natural refrigerator for the wine and chorizo the area’s known for. I’d recently road-tripped here with my own family, and immediately felt a kindred connection to them.
The difference? We were in a rental car, and they were doing it by bike.
Rachel and her family were in the middle of a multi-continent, multi-month cycle tour, which to both the fairweather traveler and the most intrepid adventurer it was— there’s no way to sugarcoat it— an epic undertaking with two kids under five.
Fresh off cycling and camping down the 1,200 kilometers of Chilean Patagonia’s Carretera Austral (we’ll publish that part of their journey later this summer), they decided to change it up for the clusters of white villages and ample playgrounds of Spanish Andalusia, winding up the eastern coast to Barcelona.
A deeper scroll through Rachel’s feed, greatly titled Meander the World, brings us into her family’s ultra-inspiring, nature-centered and adventurous lives. A long time tour guide in British Colombia, Yukon and Alberta, Rachel shares her gift for translating the outdoors (both the peaks and the valleys!) in multiple mediums— sailing around Victoria in their sailboat-home, candid moments on the trails (her daughter likes to rock princess dresses , just like mine does), parenting while propelling in forward motion. How exhausting even it must be at certain points, how enriching, too. We all see it, and we see how precious these moments are for them.
As a family on bikes, they are reframing what sustainable family travel really can mean— exploring a region carbon-free, supporting the lesser-visited communities by nature of the route, going at a slower pace, creating memories and bonds with their kids who— and every parent knows it— will never be this small again.
We love Rachel’s field-notes style journaling as an intimate glimpse into her process— as mother, adventurer, writer, photographer— in one of our favorite regions in Europe. We’ve curated some of her entries, from camera gear to sentiments about long term travel with her littles— along with some valuable tips when you decide to plan your own cycle tour with your family. Our favorite? “Just start cycling. It's way easier than you'd think.”
The Route
~1200km— Seville to Carmona, Moron de Frontera, Coripe, Olvera, Setinel de las Bogedas, Ronda, Marabella along the Costa del Sol to Almuncar to Granada to Almeria, following the coast along Cabo de Gata to Aguilas to Cartagena, Elche, Alicante, Valencia, to Tarragona to Sitges, and finishing in Barcelona.
We started in Seville and followed the backroads or disused rail trails in Andalusia to see as many of the White Villages as we could. Once we reached the coast, we only diverted once inland to make it to Granada, but mostly followed the low traffic highways, sea side promenades or gravel mix use trails along the coastline all the way to Barcelona. We thought Spain would have a much better network of trails considering much of what we followed was on the Eurovelo network, however, found many trails were not as ideal for cycle touring in general but family cycle touring specifically. Mostly due to trail surfaces on gravel being not as good quality for fully loaded bikes, or some highways being busier than preferred which didn’t allow us to relax as much as hoped.
On Gear
“Once in Spain, we decided we needed the kids to get exercise more and added two plastic scooters to our gear. Since grocery stores were more plentiful, we saved a lot of weight simply not having 5 days of food for four people on us. Made the difference to add the extra 3kg of fun for the kids. We also didn’t need all our camping gear for Spain, since we ended up staying in apartments mostly and utilized a service for people doing long distance cycling or walking by the post office Correos where we forwarded on a bag to Barcelona to be held for us for 45 days for a very reasonable rate.”
On Cameras
My camera set up was the hardest thing to decide on. Because of the bouncing nature of the trail, thousands of kms on gravel, I worried by camera would break in the process. It’s something that has happened to us in the past on a long distance backpacking trip, and lugging the dead weight of a broken camera was not ideal. Also, the weight of multiple lens was a factor I needed to consider. In the end I thought hard about what was more important to me, scenery shots or portraits of my kids. I brought a 50mm lens with me attached to my Sony Alpha aiii (which was already having issues) so that if my camera gear failed, I wouldn’t be crushed or too broke to replace it. My phone, a Google Pixel, was used to capture video. Should I have brought my Gopro? Yes. A better lens? Yes. Do I wish we had the drone? Yes. The amount of photo opportunities I missed slightly haunts me.
On Children and Nature
We didn't come to Spain for a nature fix, instead we came for the villages and cities with histories dating back millennia.
For most of their lives, these two have been in fairly remote communities or wilderness settings. Before we landed, I worried that the crowds and concrete would not be fun as it was out of our comfort zone. However, they adapted like champs. But for the first time in a month in Spain, we found a park that felt unspoilt and tempting enough to explore.
Sure, it wasn't truly wild as there were a few paved roads, lighthouses, water towers, restaurants, hotels and villages every few kms, and plenty of signage to keep us in the right direction, but it also had enough space to feel that freedom that comes from wild spaces.
Happy that these two felt right at home in the dirt and bushes.
On Off-Season Travel
After peddling almost all the way across Andulcia, I think Cabo de Gata was my favourite section to cycle. Countless beaches (with no one on them in January!) and an arid desert landscape that was more picturesque than my photos show.
We loved peddling above volcanic cliffs that dropped into turquoise water. The first day out of Almeria took us over sand dunes that were pretty but brutal with the bikes. We had only left Almeria at 1pm and it took us til 6 and sunset to reach the salt flat town of Almadraba, a mere 30km away.
Cycling the Vela Blanca after climbing out of the lighthouse meant we peddled was a beautiful clifftop gravel trail where paying attention to the road was hard as the scenery was just too good. We followed that up with the hard part of picking which beach to stop at.
Each town was quaint, quiet, almost abandoned feeling except for the abundance of vanlifers. I could not imagine this spot in summer, where it is a tourist hot spot, and while we couldn't swim in January, we certainly had no problem spending all day from dawn til dusk exploring the endless hiking trails and beaches.
Anyway, worth a stop if you're road tripping or peddling the coast of Spain.
On Memories
Years from now, we will tell the kids how we lived in Spain for 3 months traveling by bicycle. How we had ice cream for dinner on more than a few occasions when the route proved less ideal than we expected. How we never missed an opportunity to dip our toes in the Mediterranean.
How we never got lost in those medieval towns, despite letting the kids decide if we should go right or left at every turn we encountered.
How grand our time was there, mostly because it was a simple life of just hanging out as a family in whichever destination we ended up at.
Maybe we will tell them that the bikes broke on a few occasions, much to our frustration. That we cycled on busy highways more than we would have preferred. Or that we grumbled about having to pack up our lives every other day, and had to continually look for a new place to call home almost 60 times in the span of a few months.
We might not.
We might just show them the photos of them and see what they remember.
I hope they remember they had a good time.
Travel family Meander the World cycle touring through Andalusia, Spain. Credit Rachel Bertsch.
Rachel’s Tips for Cycle Touring with Kids
For 5 months, we have been cycling with 2 kids across 3 continents. Starting with rail trails in Canada, onto a stunningly beautiful highway through Patagonia, and now the good and bad of making it up as we go in Spain. So, we've learned a bit about cycle touring with kids.
1. Take it slow and keep them entertained. The kids have barely any toys, and we don't really use screens BUT the kids never complain on cycle days. For every 2 hours of peddling, we take a long break to stretch, eat, or play before going further. Some days we take breaks at playgrounds, some days it's a gravel pit on the side of the road. Kids seem to enjoy both equally.
2. Keep them fed. Our snack bag is as big as our clothing bag, after a grocery run, it's 3x the size. When we have an obnoxious amount of food for the kids packed and an emergency treat (like a Nutella jar), everything goes better. Even though we are the ones peddling, their appetites have been as large as ours so, Always. Over. Pack. Food.
3. Mix it up. Our bike set up has both a bike seat up front to ride with us and a trailer for the kids to sit with themselves. We let them pick where they want to ride. Some days they are solely up front and some days not at all. I think having the choice has eliminated any pushback from not wanting to ride. As a bonus, I keep a padded handlebar bag that doubles as a pillow if my kid decides to nap up front, and my snack pack on the handlebars is used mostly to store rocks or treasures we find on the way / play with on the go.
Recently we bought scooters so they can ride beside us on the bike paths. Hopefully by fall we will have a bike set up with one of them riding tandem on the FollowMe system...
4. Give them tasks. Since we are packing and unpacking every other day, we have the same 20 things to do every day. In Patagonia, the kids helped set up/take down the tent and do dishes in the river. In Spain, they take the recycling out, fold the clothes, and push the grocery cart. Is it efficient? No. But getting them involved has made them feel like part of the team and perhaps happier to continue further.
5. Just start cycling. It's way easier than you'd think.
Meander More—
Keep up with Meander the World on IG and work with them in multiple formats.
Their family adventure blog with fantastic tips.
Read more of our inspiring female-driven features on the Heyterra journal.
