While their friends were busy building a predictable future for themselves and their families, Blagomyr and Olena Dovgan, a couple from Ukraine, gave up their jobs and sold all they had, except their bicycles and touring gear. Now everything they own fits on their bicycles. On 29th July 2017 they started from Kyiv on their journey around the globe. They plan to reach New Zealand in 3 years and hope to pedal back to Kyiv through the Americas and Europe in 2023, when their daughter will turn 6.
In the past Blagomyr and Olena had a very usual life of a manager and a lawyer and only dreamed of seeing the whole world with their own eyes. They rented a comfortable house in Kyiv and allowed themselves only short 2-5 days bike tours. Only twice in 8 years they went on extended 2-week trips. But after they became parents to their beautiful daughter Mia they understood that a dream will forever stay a dream if they don’t act now. The most important lesson a parent can give his or her children is how to make their dream come true.
From May to July 2017 they got to planning, made new passports for all three of them, set an approximate route, gathered all gear they had from their bike touring experience, made a trilingual website www.dreamup.life and started video blogs in English www.youtube.com and Russian www.youtube.com. Lucky for them since June 2017 Ukrainians with new biometric passports don’t need a visa to travel to the European Union states (more precisely the Schengen Area).
Having almost fulfilled their dream they frankly share their personal experience of leaving the life they dreamt of and inspire others to do the same. For this purpose they founded two more channels in Russian www.youtube.com and English www.youtube.com, where they share videos with people telling about their dearest dreams.
When people ask Olena and Blagomyr if it is hard to travel with a baby they only smile. “It is harder to stay at home with our Mia than to cycle! Back at home she sometimes whined and was bored. Now she is much more calm, seeing new places and meeting new people all the time.” Unlike most babies who have to part from her parents during their work hours Mia gets to stay together with her family and share their experiences 24 hours a day. She became a youtube star featuring in all the videos together with her parents and growing before the eyes of the channel viewers.
Other than cycling Blagomyr and Olena have other occupations and hobbies. Mastering human emotions is what they do for a living. Together they categorized 2000 human emotions and feelings and got the bottom of each of them. Having created a science of emotions and feelings with specific definitions and groups and subgroups. Blagomyr got so good at helping others to manage emotions that he consults people online in overcoming various painful emotions. With his help people quickly get rid of depression, insomnia, grief, binge eating disorder or anorexia, fear of public speaking in just one or two sessions. Unlike psychologists, clients pay Blagomyr only after they have reached a desired result. Blagomyr solicits his clients through his website in Russian www.chuvstva.info.
Some statistics on their trip so far:
• Now they are on the road for 1.5 months;
• covered approximately 1000 km (~620 miles).
• Since they started they shared 40 videos on their different youtube channels.
• They slept 18 out of 46 nights in their tent in the wild and the rest at the local’s houses.
• Mia felt great throughout the journey so far, and only had high temperature when she cut her first two teeth.
• They mostly stayed at friends’ places or found hosts through couchsurfing. Once they knocked in on a house door without making preliminary arrangements and asked for a permission to put their tent for a night. That day they were hosted by a wonderful Armenian family and very much enjoyed the experience.
Now Blagomyr and Olena started an IndieGogo campaign at www.indiegogo.com. They invite everybody who like their project to support them in the first stage of their trip around the world from Ukraine to New Zealand.
Blagomyr and Olena Dovgan are open for communication and cooperation. It is easy to reach them through www.facebook.com/
