St. Paul teen bikes 21,000 miles crisscrossing the globe

There really wasn't anything for Adam Swanson's parents to worry about.

During the two years the 19-year-old was pedaling around the world, he was hardly sick. Except for the time in Croatia when he likely had COVID. Or the food poisoning he got from eating bad fish in Nepal. And Kyrgyzstan.

And traffic on the other side of the world? No worries, if you don't count the couple times he was hit by cars in Bangkok. On the same day.

Crime was also no problem, besides the knife-wielding guy in Venice or the thief who stole his bag of dirty underwear at a hostel. Or the Russian truckers who picked him up hitchhiking, the ones Swanson feared planned to murder him.

"I blame Google Translate," he said.

The trip — two years and nearly 21,000 miles, pedaling mostly solo through Europe, central Asia, Patagonia and then returning to North America — "was amazing," Swanson said as he described climbing in the Himalayas, drinking water from glacial streams and sleeping in fields painted with wildflowers.

But if the trip was extraordinary, so too was the support of his parents. They not only encouraged his transformative trek, they nurtured it. For years, they've led Swanson and his younger sister Clare on bicycle tours, showing them that the world is a mostly beautiful, generous place.

Saying goodbye to her then-17-year-old son shortly after he graduated from St. Paul Central High School "wasn't easy," said Renee Swanson, a teacher. "But I know Adam. And he was as prepared for that as he could be."

Said Matt Swanson, a painting contractor: "There's been some scary moments. But we're trying to raise kids who are independent. Now, they're fiercely independent."

In fact, it was during a family bike tour down the Mississippi River when he was 10 that Adam Swanson said the idea of an around-the-world solo ride first came to him.

"And I wanted to do it then," he said. "My parents said, 'Let's start with some one- and two-day trips.'"

Short solo trips became longer, lasting two, three, four days. After he bought the bike he'd take across the globe, Swanson said, the family took a two-month ride from Seattle to St. Paul. The next summer, St. Paul to Massachusetts. Then, during Swanson's junior and senior years of high school, while COVID kept him home with online learning, he worked for his dad's painting company and at UPS and saved for the big trip.

"I had two bags on my front wheel, two bags on my back wheel, and a handlebar bag for my camera. That was all my stuff," Swanson said. "I had my tent in there, my stove, sleeping bag, a sleeping pad, a hammock, a couple changes of clothes and food."

They spent four months riding through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Croatia. After his friend, out of money, returned home, Swanson left the dark and cold of Europe and flew to Thailand.

For the next year, he rode through Thailand, India, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Turkey, before returning to Europe to ride through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.

He lived cheaply, $20 a day, camping on the side of the road or sleeping in fields. But there was no hard schedule to keep. Swanson would pedal for days, then set up in a hostel for weeks. He took detours with new friends. His parents even joined him for brief visits and rides. And the friend who'd started the ride with him rejoined him for a time.

"And then I flew to South America," Swanson said.

Swanson confirmed that his parents were calm, mostly.

"After a year of me going through countries that a lot of people don't even know exist, they became more comfortable with it," he said.

Matt Swanson said if anything worries him about Adam now, it might be that regular life will seem too routine.

Calling Adam "a true adventurer," Matt Swanson said, "I don't worry about my kid when he's gone ... He had to clothe himself. He had to feed himself. He had to negotiate war zones."

Renee Swanson said she was confident Adam had the right stuff to safely make the trip. That confidence is unwavering as he contemplates future rides in Japan, Africa or Australia.