Family on a bike

The Family Adventure Project is the work of Stuart Wickes and Kirstie Pelling.

Kirstie is a writer, producer and freelance journalist; Stuart is a training and development consultant. We share an adventurous spirit, a passion for independent travel and three young children. We live in a small Cumbrian village between the Yorkshire Dales and The Lake District in England's scenic North West.

We see life as full of opportunity for adventure, if you're open to it. To celebrate our wedding, we packed in our jobs for a six month honeymoon cycle tour of South America. On our return we packed up our house to swap the madness of city life for the peace of the country . The village scene proved anything but quiet when our three children introduced us to the endless adventures of family life. And now as parents we're helping them develop their own adventurous spirit.

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Stuart and Matthew touring the Lakes

Kirstie and Cameron off the beaten track

We're helping them grow to love the great outdoors. They've already grown attached to our bikes, having been trailered around after us from the moment they could hold their heads up. Our children's enjoyment of travel and the outdoors has steadily grown over their short lives. You can read about our earliest Cycle Toddling adventures here. And in 2005 we completed a ten month family adventure cycling, sailing, road tripping and railroad riding around New Zealand, Independent Samoa, USA and Canada on our 'In Search of Families In Search of Adventure' Tour.

Since then we've been touring more locally, in our own backyard in Cumbria (2006) , across the North Sea in Western Sweden (2006) and riding from end to end in the UK, from Lands End to John O Groats (2007) . For 2008, we turned ourselves into Pedalling Pilgrims to tackle the ancient pilgrim's route to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. In 2009 we managed to get another three year old on a tandem for an experimental trip to Holland. In 2010 we explored the Baltics on a ride to celebrate the Moomins 65th birthday. 2011 saw us ride from Munich to Krakow via the Danube and the Slovakian High Tatras. And for 2012 we spent six weeks exploring Iceland and The Faroes. Who knows what's next?

The Family on a Bike at the end of a 4000km tour of New Zealand, May 2005

We believe environmentally sensitive family adventures are good for your health, education, relationships and the planet. The Family Adventure Project aims to inspire others to get out there and start or keep on adventuring by showcasing inspiring stories from families around the world who adventure together. If you're interested in getting involved then please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.