456 miles over 11 days with 60,000ft of elevation.

Leave it to the Kehmeiers to find, quite possibly, the hardest route in Vietnam. I’d like to blame it on Chris but I’m the guilty one that came up with this adventure that’s our reintroduction to traveling by bike. I actually got the idea from an old Lonely Planet book that’s now out of print.

Below is our planned route for the Vietnam bikepacking (new name, same way to travel) adventure. We’ll starting Hanoi, heading east and then north into the highlands. Hopefully the amazing scenery distracts us from the huge chunks of elevation we’ll have to pedal up.

Over the course of ten days we’ll make our way to Sapa, an iconic hill station town near the Chinese border. Then it’s back to Hanoi on an overnight train from the Chinese border town of Lao Cai. From there we’ll rest and re-pack our bikes to fly to Cambodia to hang out at Temples of Angkor.

We’re both excited and a little nervous for this adventure. In recent years, we’ve been going on guided trips or adventures that friends have planned. It will be fun (and definitely funny) to get back into the self-supported routine. Among other things, I guess that means we better brush up on our non-verbal communication skills!

Check back on April 1 when we hop on a plane and get this adventure started.