20-year-old student documents bike trip from Scotland to Greece to get home to his family during pandemic

In May, college student Kleon Papadimitriou said he was feeling the effects of the coronavirus lockdowns. Trapped at his school in Aberdeen, Scotland, the 20-year-old said he wanted to return home to see his family. 

But at the time, flights across Europe were canceled. Instead, Papadimitriou said he decided to bike over 2,500 miles to get home. 

On May 10, he set off for his 48-day trip home to Greece. Papadimitriou documented the five-country journey on the Instagram account “kleon.vs.lockdown.”

“Lockdown makes you think out of the box and I just had the most crazy idea…” Papadimitriou wrote in his first Instagram post in May. 

Papadimitriou said he traveled light. According to his posts, he packed little more than his phone, chargers, some bike tools, a few changes of clothes, basic toiletries, a tent, a sleeping bag and a bit of food. 

“It’s 3:00 a.m. and the moon is above my right shoulder casting a long shadow over the undulating snow,” Papadimitriou wrote at the start of his trek. “Riding my bike, with my buff pulled up and my hands freezing, my shadow looks like some sort of half animal, half machine creature. Liberated from the trail, picking any line through the forests and meadows. 4.100 kms to go.”

Papadimitriou posted daily updates at the start of his journey, telling readers about riding dozens of miles each day through snow, rain and hail in Scotland, battling several flat tires and tough terrain. 

He told The New York Times that his very first day on the road was trying.

“My parents did not know where I was, I started crying,” he said. “I didn’t know where I’d stay for the night.”

A pizza delivery man gave him directions, he said, and he eventually relaxed, ate some food and called his parents. 

“I learned a lot of things about myself, about handling myself in difficult situations, when I have a low morale, and how important some relationships are,” he said.

Most days, Papadimitriou slept in his tent, but he occasionally stayed with friends, he said. On May 19, he said he reached a boat “with only minutes to spare” that took him to the Netherlands.

Papadimitriou told the Times that reaching Stuttgart, Germany, was an important milestone: His grandma, who he hasn’t seen in years, lives there. He stayed with her for a week to rest and eat some homemade food before moving on, he said — a change from the peanut butter, bread, sardines and raisins he said he ate during his trip.

“It was very important to me, it was like a checkpoint,” he said. “I hadn’t seen my grandma for so many years, and the only thing I cared about was, if something were to happen to me, I didn’t want it to happen before I got to Stuttgart.”

As Papadimitriou trekked across Italy, he said he stopped to see some sites in the Alps and Venice. He then boarded a ferry that took him across the Adriatic Sea to Patras, Greece. According to the Times, Papadimitriou’s parents met him in Patras, where he tested negative for COVID-19. 

The three of them cycled to Athens together. They finally made it home on June 27, 48 days after Papadimitriou’s journey began, he said.

“I think that if I had not already done it, and if someone were to tell me I could do it, I wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “I had no idea that I had the patience and the willpower.”