Travelling by bike has one particular quality: it forces you through a large portion of every country you cross without needing to make grand plans.
Sometimes you roll into wildly touristy places without knowing anything about them in advance. Other times you end up somewhere utterly unknown but absolutely extraordinary — a hidden gem you'd have never found any other way.
Here are some of those destinations that, despite knowing nothing about them beforehand, blew us away:
1. The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro
Riding through the Balkans we arrived in Montenegro, a country we knew little about beyond the fact that it was booming with tourism and had beaches and mountains.
What we didn't expect was to spend such a paradise of a first night pitching our tent on the beaches of the Kotor Bay inlets.
2. The Sumela Monastery in Turkey
A Christian monastery in the mountains of northern Turkey? Yes, exactly.
Near the coastal city of Trabzon sits a Greek Orthodox monastery at roughly 1,200 metres above sea level, founded by Emperor Theodosius I in the fourth century.
3. The Hell's Canyon in Armenia
A ravine area completely off the tourist radar, occasionally visited by groups who use its walls for rock climbing.
We went there with a bunch of people we'd just met, who spent the afternoon climbing while we hiked the surrounding mountains.
4. The trails alongside Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan
Lake Issyk-Kul is a hugely popular destination for Russian tourists, who pack into the resorts along the northern shore of this enormous alpine lake.
We cycled it along the southern side on small dirt tracks.
5. The mountain road to Lake Sayram in Xinjiang, China
When we entered China we had absolutely no idea what kind of terrain and roads we'd encounter.
On the second day we had to begin a climb along a motorway that turned out to be surprisingly quiet and pleasant — stunning views, wild nature and countless spots to camp.
6. The route from Danba to Tagong in Sichuan, China
When I left Chengdu for the Tibetan Plateau, friends who knew the area kept recommending villages I should visit. But in the end, if anything stood out, it was the mountain roads, canyons and rivers.
The stretch of road between Danba and Tagong was absolutely spectacular.
7. The Kumano Kodo trails in Japan
During the year and a bit we spent in China we took the opportunity to escape to Japan for a couple of months.
We didn't want to spend all our time in cities, especially given our plan to wild camp and urban camp whenever needed.
We'd heard about the Kumano Kodo trails — something like a Japanese Camino de Santiago, where people pay tribute to nature.
The stone paths winding through mountains and forests stole our hearts completely.
8. The Jelawang waterfall in Malaysia
Almost by chance, a Russian girl we met in Langkawi told us about what is supposedly the tallest waterfall in Southeast Asia.
When we looked at the map we realised it wasn't too much of a detour from our route to cross to the east coast of the country, so we spent a few days camped in the nature reserve where it's found.