Waimanalo family plans to bike across United States

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer

WAIMANALO — A family vacation wouldn't be much fun for the Dinsmores without pedaling thousands of miles across the United States, camping in the open air and wrestling with critters.

Jon Dinsmore, 12-year-old son Laird, 17-year-old daughter Danika and wife Bambi log some time at a gym in preparation for their cross-country bike trip. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

While many Americans spend thousands of dollars on a annual two-week summer vacation, the Dinsmores, of Waimanalo, have evolved their lifestyle to include trips that last from two months to three and a half years on bicycles and sailboats — and a low budget.

Their regimen is simple: They save, they quit their jobs, they travel, and they don't get caught up in maintaining an affluent lifestyle. In Hawai'i, they've also learned some real estate tricks, like buying fixer-uppers, repairing them and renting them out. They have purchased three townhouses here in three years.

Jon Dinsmore is an educator-turned-entrepreneur and stay-at-home dad. Bambi Dinsmore is a nurse and the family breadwinner. They don't travel every year, and sometimes they'll move as a way to travel. For instance, after eight years in New Zealand, they moved to Venezuela for a year and then came to Hawai'i three years ago. They also have lived in Guam, the Caribbean, Florida and Washington.

Cutting back on daily needs and traveling frugally helps build the money for these extended trips, they said.

"On the three-and-a-half-year sailing trip from Florida to New Zealand, I started with $11,000 and I ended up with $6,000," said Jon Dinsmore.

The sailing trip, with his wife and then 6-month-old daughter, included stopovers in the Virgin Islands, Panama, Tahiti, Bora Bora and Tonga, Dinsmore said.

More recently the family turned to bicycling. Bambi and Jon had biked across the United States when they were younger, but they took the children across the country for the first time in 1999 on a 3,280-mile trip from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Diego, Calif., that lasted two and a half months.

"I think kids pick up more life education on these trips than they do at school," he said. "It's a good bonding experience as well."

The sale of a townhouse will finance this summer's trip, but Dinsmore said he doesn't expect to spend the $15,000 he has set aside. The big expenses will include new bikes for everyone, the plane trips to and from the Mainland and meals. Most of the money, he said, will probably be spent on promoting a new sports drink he has developed, called D' Sports Drink.

From Astoria, Ore., northwest of Portland, they'll travel with daughter Danika, 17, and son Laird, 12, up the Columbia River and make their way to Salt Lake City, Utah; spin through Black Hills, S.D.; bee-line to Niagara Falls and end in Portland, Maine. They chose this route because his daughter wanted to see Niagara Falls, and they tell people they are going "from Portland to Portland."

Danika, who is home schooled, said she she'll do some things differently for this trip like keeping a dairy, not bringing along 11 books that she would have to carry in a backpack and getting ready by exercising regularly at the gym.

"When we did the first bike trip, I had hardly ridden a bike," Danika said. "After two days my knees got stuck. They wouldn't bend."

The knee problem subsided, and she said she enjoyed the solitude of the bike rides, the many animals, the scenery and the friendly people along the way on the trip through the South and Southwest. She recalled the family scurrying to save turtles that were crossing a road, avoiding hundreds of tarantulas in one county, and seeing snakes, alligators and armadillos, she said.

The worst part of the ride was sleeping on gravel when there was no other choice and drinking Herbalife shakes, a family mainstay. But she didn't have to put up with the drink through the whole trip.

"A skunk got into it," she said, laughing. "I was so happy. We had to throw it all away."

Laird, who attends Kailua Elementary School, said he's looking forward to taking pet ferrets on the bike ride. "It might be fun," he said.

Although each member of the family focused on the fun they'll have, Bambi admitted that on a couple of occasions the family has felt threatened. Instinct and gut feeling made them decide to stay in a motel when they thought some men were following them, she said.

But such incidents are few and are outweighed by the number of people who were kind to them, like the man who let them stay in his Texas home and the people who owned a crawfish restaurant in Louisiana and wouldn't let them pay for their food, she said.

"They said they admired our spirit," said Bambi, who will quit her job at Tripler Army Medical Center to take the trip.

When it's all over, they'll return to live in Hawai'i. Until next time.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.

Correction: Jon Dinsmore's name was misspelled in the caption in a previous version of this story.