"Free, Fearless, Independent": 66-Year-Old Woman Cycles Across The World

A 66-year-old woman from China is defying all odds by travelling the world solo on a bicycle. She has already peddled around 12 countries across three continents and is now planning for her next trip to Kazakhstan and the UAE.

Li Dongju, a resident of Zhengzhou in China's central Henan province, said that her goal was to visit at least 100 countries. "Travel is like a drug. Once you taste it, you just can't stop," she told CNN.

A former textile worker, Ms Dongju, has biked across Southeast Asia, Europe, and Oceania and explored Cambodia, France, and Australia on her journeys. She started biking in her 50s and said that it helped her overcome the depression she experienced after her divorce in 2005.

Since she could only speak Mandarin, she relied on translation apps to interact with locals to stay on budget. She camped in parks, gas stations and even cemeteries.

Her passion for cycling began in 2013 when she saw a group of cyclists speed past her. Ms Dongju, who was living on her pension after she was laid off from a state-owned factory in 2002, said the group's energy sparked "a surge of envy" in her. 

Due to budget constraints, she just bought a bicycle helmet and later her son gifted her a folding mountain bike. To start her adventure, she worked as a house cleaner for a year to save enough money and went on a trip with two seasoned cyclists to Vietnam.

She faced difficulties in her first trip and decided to spend time biking around China to get more comfortable. In 2015, she biked across 20 Chinese cities, from southeastern Hainan to far-western Xinjiang. 

Ms Dongju managed to continue funding her vacation by taking odd jobs such as dishwashing in a posh hotel and cleaning in a spa.

In 2017, she planned to revisit Southeast Asia with her two teammates. They called it quits after about three weeks but Ms Dongju continued her journey solo through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.

In 2019, she peddled across six European countries where she met an elderly solo hiker in Croatia, used Google Translate to chat with bartenders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even followed local grannies in France to find supermarket discounts.

In November, she flew to Australia where wildfires were raging. She saw smoke while riding her bike along the Pacific Highway and alerted the authorities. After visiting New Zealand, she returned home in March 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic spread and since then she hasn't been on a trip.

"Before cycling, I was heavily dependent on others ... and felt like a frog in a well. Now, I'm a wild wolf - free, fearless and independent," she said.