Make Your Daily Life More Like a Trip — Making Every Day Feel Like Travel, and Travel Feel More Like Travel

Make Your Daily Life More Like a Trip — Making Every Day Feel like Travel, and Travel Feel More Like Travel

Sometimes it’s the daily commute, sometimes a long-distance journey. Kim Sia uses cycling to widen her travels, and she captures the feelings of each passing moment in photographs. Through her photos, taken freely from an e-Bike along Pangyo’s Tancheon stream and on Jeju Island, share in the rich emotions of travel.

Words & Photos Kim Sia
Kim Sia has loved taking photos for as long as she can remember, so once she started cycling, she began preserving her memories in pictures. Now she can’t imagine a life without either photography or cycling. Hills used to be what she hated most, but riding a Specialized e-Bike this time set her free.

I got into cycling when my husband surprised me with a bike one day. My first touring ride was to Paldang. Though I call it a “first tour,” it might be better described as “the biggest crisis in my cycling history.” My husband suggested eating fried chicken with a coworker by the Han River, so I happily rode out to the river for the first time. After we finished eating and were about to say goodbye, his coworker suddenly proposed that we all ride to Paldang together. I didn’t want to dampen the mood, and everyone reassured me that it would be fine, so I set off thinking, “Well, it’s not like it’s going to kill me.” But a ride I hadn’t prepared for was brutal. The wind was so strong I could barely keep my eyes open, and I couldn’t pick up any speed. My whole body seemed to be screaming for mercy. When we finally arrived, I felt so miserable and exhausted that I sat down and cried by myself. Of course, if the day hadn’t ended well, I wouldn’t be looking back on it like this, would I?

Because I love taking photos while I ride, I plan my touring routes around beautiful scenery and pretty flowers. To see a variety of landscapes, I try to make loops rather than out-and-back routes whenever possible. There’s the beauty I never see in everyday life, the wind brushing past me, the sunlight scattering, the conversations with people who sweat alongside me, the sense of accomplishment after finishing, the camaraderie of having done it together, even the relief. The feelings of each moment fill me up and become the drive to head somewhere new again.

My annual cycling trip to Jeju is already in its fifth year. Every time, I rack my brain to ride roads I haven’t taken before. This time, while riding through the charming lanes of Seogwipo, I came across a hill so steep it left me speechless. In the end, my husband and I began pushing our bikes up a slope that seemed to have no end. The scenery was truly beautiful, like the jungle of a tropical island. After wandering around for quite a while, we happened to meet a local who showed us the way. We thanked them and were about to set off again when they asked us to wait a moment and pressed three hallabong (Jeju’s large, sweet citrus fruit) into each of our hands. It was so comforting, and I was so grateful. I thought, I’m really glad we came down this rough road.

In fact, cycling trips often turn into training camps rather than journeys spent enjoying the scenery, more often than you’d think. But riding an e-Bike for the first time up Seongpanak and the 1100 Highlands on Jeju was completely different. I realized for the first time how beautiful every single tree can be. Even the blades of grass and the moss growing thickly on the trees seemed to glitter. I thought, “I don’t have to fear mountains anymore.” It meant I could travel more freely, in a way that felt more like real travel. For riders like me who have hit a “jatae-gi” (a slump in one’s love of cycling), an e-Bike will give you the confidence that you can go anywhere, along with a new energy for daily life. Next time, I’d like to take an e-Bike to Jian Jae in Hamyang and shoot some stunning landscape photos.

Commuting by bike with a camera in hand is my daily ritual. I take photos whenever I have a moment to spare during a ride. I’ve been riding along Pangyo’s Tancheon for years, yet it feels new every time I shoot. I also enjoy photographing the flowers that bloom with each season. My commute is a round trip of 20 kilometers, about an hour by bike, a relatively short distance that I can ride with a light heart. On the way to work, I start the day in a good mood, and on the way home, I recall what happened and sort out my thoughts. I believe what makes you feel travel in daily life is having the mental space to look around. Even if you ride exactly the same way, a commute where you’re chasing the clock won’t feel like travel. In that sense, an e-Bike sets the rider free. The e-Bike I tried has a top speed of 25 kilometers per hour. Even if I’m worried about being late, I don’t need to pedal at an exhausting pace, because the bike helps me.

If commuting rides help me live each day more lightly, long-distance rides are hard but recharge my life. Every year at the end of May, I go to Geoje Island to see the hydrangeas. The hydrangea road is all hills, so it’s so tough that I can’t count how many times I’ve vowed, “I’m never coming back.” But the scenery of hydrangeas blooming in every color is so lovely that I just can’t give it up. I went every year, but last year I couldn’t. If I could go on an e-Bike this year, it would be wonderful.