Support This
How are you going to support the trip? How much are you going to spend?
Those are the two questions 90% of people asked immediately after hearing about my dream of making this trip a reality.
Putting together the right gear in a very short amount of time turned out to be more expensive than I budgeted in all honesty. This has eaten into the savings I made for the adventure.
Corporate sponsorship is easier said than done. Pretty much all the companies, making bikes or clothing or camping gear or anything else needed for the trip, get bombarded by requests for sponsorship and free stuff. If you don’t have a proven track record of adventures and/or long distance bike touring your chances to be considered are slim to none. Another important factor is timing; most companies can’t shift marketing expenditure at a short notice and they work on yearly plans – I’ve been organizing the trip in a two months’ time frame. For example, some bike manufactures didn’t have bikes available not just to give away for free but not even at discount rates as in June/July they are mostly out of stock on current year’s catalogue and they won’t receive next year’s catalogue stock until mid-September.
On the other hand a good friend suggested that he was well keen on donating 20 Euro for the chance to see me suffering for 15/18months. I did think about individual donations, but I’ve been a bit shy in actually pursuing it. I’m becoming a less and less shy and am starting to solicit close friends and family to make a donation – desperate times call for desperate measures!
I’m humbled by the donations of any amount for the support I received and that I will receive. Even if you’d just buy me a cup of coffee through a PayPal donation of a few euros/bucks you will make a big impact on the successful completion of this touring trip.
I will pledge to donate 20% of every individual donation I will receive to the two charity organizations I’m working with as fundraiser. As well (if your donation is equal or higher than 50€/50$) I will send you a post card with personalised thank you note and signature directly from one of the amazing places I will be cycling through.
If you don’t intend to make a donation to me, please consider checking out the charity page and making a donation directly to them.
Direct donations to myself can be done either by PayPal or bank account transfer (less fees involved). If you wish wire the donation straight to my bank account please contact me and I will provide IBAN and BIC/SWIFT codes necessary to complete the transaction.
I will also use affiliation links for gear reviews, books and similar, please use those links as they won’t cost you anything more but might send a few cents this way. A few cents here and there will hopefully add up to something meaningful.
Lastly check out my partners’ page with a list of the kind companies that provided me with either funding, free or discounted products: ‘The Believers’ as I refer to them.
And don’t forget: every little helps!
Donate any amount you want even just to “buy me coffee” with PayPal or ask me my bank details to make a transfer directly/wire. If you wish to use PayPal or any of your credit cards you can do it safely at this link/page: https://www.paypal.me/davidetravelli or using the buttons below:
Or else you can also “buy me coffee” or a “meal” once a month with PayPal: