Hello  – 

Here in the northern hemisphere, we welcome spring, a time of renewal and hope for the coming months. At Warmshowers.org Foundation, we are hopeful that the pandemic crisis is passing and restrictions are lifting. With this comes renewed opportunities to climb on our bikes again, feel the wind in our faces, and enjoy all the amazing experiences that touring and hosting brings to our community.

Happy Riding!

That’s right, this year we are going to allow the winner to select the bike of their choice for this year’s bike give-away. We know there are shortages of bikes and shipping times may vary, therefore this year’s winner will get to choose their own bike (up to USD 2,000)! As an added benefit, this will support the local economy and minimize shipping gas emissions.

Entering is easy, just make a donation to Warmshowers today! Any user donation made between now and May 15th will be automatically entered into the drawing for the bike of your choice! 

Why should I donate? 

Well, besides entering you for the chance to win the bike of your dreams, we rely in part, on the generous donations of our Warmshowers community to keep our technology operating smoothly while giving us the funds to continue to improve user accessibility, information security, mapping functionality, partnership and community development. When you make a request for help, post in our forums, or reach a host, we always have someone behind the scenes ready to help. Tahverlee and the team of volunteers work diligently to prioritize the needs of our 180,000 registered users, and we cannot do that without your help. 

How to enter: 

1. Make a donation: as you know, user donations are one of the primary ways we keep Warmshowers.org Foundation working. Without you riding, hosting and donating, our incredible community cannot make it. 

2. If you cannot donate today, you can enter the drawing by mailing a postcard with your username to the address at the bottom of this newsletter. Must be postmarked by May 15th to be entered. (A donation is not required to be entered into the drawing.)

Giveaway Rules: emails will not be considered an entry, use of the contact us form on our website will not be considered an entry, must be a current user (and yes, we will check) to be entered into the drawing. Maximum cost of the bike is $2,000.

We were very happy to have selected a winner in 2020 who resides in the UK.  It took us several months to get the bike to our lucky winner (the bike was sold out and the new customs procedures delayed the process) but alas we were able to deliver a brand new bike to her (with the help of Bike Flights).  She would prefer not to be featured.  We wish her many great journeys on her new bike!

Meet Josiah Skeets, a people-focused author whose 3 year journey taught him to be a slow traveler.

While studying law at university, Josiah came across an article about someone who had cycled around the world. The light bulb went off, and even though he was not a cyclist, he immediately started planning a solo trip. After graduation, he set out for his grand adventure to travel from England to Australia. Along the way, Josiah has fallen in love with bike touring, the experiences it brings, and mostly, with the people you meet.

Josiah didn’t do much training to prepare, but he did tons of planning. He wrote a list of every obstacle he thought he would encounter on the trip and then tried to solve it. He laughingly recalls that a week after he set off, all his carefully made plans were discarded, he decided to just wing it.

You can find Bike Life on any of your favorite listening apps or use the link below for Apple Podcasts.

Bike Life is now ranked in the top 75 podcasts in Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Thank you all!