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"I do not ride to add years to my life. I bike to add life to my years." —Unknown

The bike in my basement is red, one of my favorite colors for its boldness and energy, qualities I admire but must work to embody.

For a long time, I rode my bike to the local farmer's market on the weekend, the post office on the other side of town, and a salon a couple of miles away. I even rode the bike twice to doctors’ appointments during the pandemic, which I never attempted before due to distance, traffic, and a lack of bike lanes. 

I also rode for exercise and stress relief during the pandemic, when my bike became a lifeline. I wore tracks in the concrete and pavement across our city's 4.7 square miles.

Mostly, though, I rode for joy.

I rode to festivals like Porchfest, where musicians perform on porches and neighbors from far and wide sit in front yards, soaking up the sound of the community. With different bands on each block, you can follow the lure of the music for hours past other bikers, walkers, and little red wagons carrying picnic supplies to share.

During an Atlanta Streets Alive event that temporarily transformed a roadway into a park prohibiting cars, I rode around six miles to downtown Atlanta and back. I felt free, taking up space usually occupied by cars, my soul stretching wide, not just hugging the shoulder for dear life. 

A few times, my partner Ed and I biked from our home to Stone Mountain, a 16-mile trip, and only once took a wrong turn that almost sent us down an interstate entrance ramp. We eventually made it back to the PATH Foundation’s Stone Mountain Trail after walking our bikes up the grassy shoulder of a steep hill next to bumper-to-bumper traffic — and yes, I still count this as a joyful ride.

Again and again, I’d return to my bike for convenience, exercise, and fun. The sky would beckon, and I’d jump on my bike for another adventure without much hesitation, just a quick check on the weather and my tire pressure.

That is until I fell in Paris.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” —Albert Einstein

In late June 2023, two years ago, I fell while cycling through the cobblestone streets of the Latin Quarter.

Not many people know about the fall, except for Ed. I did not tell my family and friends back home because I did not want them to worry and perhaps because it ran counter to the adventurous spirit I longed to embody. 

In hindsight, I should have never gone on this particular tour. I am petite, and the bike was too big for me. I knew it did not fit well, but I thought I could make do until I couldn't. Bikes, cars, and tourists all competed for space on a narrow medieval street as the group transitioned from the cobblestones to a sidewalk. I hit a curb and went down hard. While I did not break any bones, my leg made contact with the pedal, and the pedal won. The guide had no first aid kit, so I waited with water and tissues while Ed ran to the closest pharmacy and successfully mimed blood and bandages.

As you might expect, we decided to cut the tour short. We took an Uber back to the hotel, where I thoroughly cleaned the wound and iced my bruises, pride included. I probably should have gone to a clinic or a hospital, but my mind, warped by the cost of the US medical system, quickly dismissed that idea.

Fortunately, the fall did not confine me to a hotel room or ruin our trip. We continued our journey to Lyon and Nice, and I logged numerous miles on foot and public transit exploring. We enjoyed our time and left each city wanting to return.

Even our last evening in Paris, right after the fall, turned out to be beautiful in a way. I remember sitting on our balcony, overlooking the rooftops with my leg iced and elevated, followed by a delicious dinner at a nearby restaurant. I slowly began to heal. 

While the wound never got infected and barely left a scar, I have carried the experience with me. I am now overly cautious about biking. For two years after the fall, my bike stood ready but unridden in my basement; weather, traffic, and a lack of time were common excuses I offered for not riding.

"Riding a bike is the closest you can get to flying." —Robin Williams

In many ways, my relationship with my bike is a metaphor for my relationship with writing. My quest for ideal biking conditions is not unrelated to my desire to find the perfect words to convey my thoughts and emotions. They both stem from an attempt to avoid falls at all costs.

I should bike only on days with nice weather, along bike paths on weekend mornings, while most people remain tucked in their beds at home. I should write only when I have the perfect topic that is not too vulnerable, something a large number of people can relate to while unique enough that others might find it interesting, and, most importantly, when I have conjured the words that will be meaningful and true to not just who I am but who I want to be.

I have sometimes wished I had made a different choice about my last bike tour in Paris; wandering those cobblestone streets would have been better than riding through them on that day, using that bike. 

I need to remember, however, to be grateful for both the joyful moments and bumps in the road. A life without bumps is boring, filled with standard run-of-the-mill cookie-cutter experiences. Our bumps matter. The story would not be a story that matters without the moments when the story does not go as planned, without the moments that change us in some way. 

Part of the adventure of life is deciding when and how to explore the streets we travel, as well as when and how we share our stories.

Before the fall, I took two other bike tours in Paris with a different company that were wonderful. I biked around the gardens of Versailles, and I enjoyed the trip so much that I booked a second tour around many major sites in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower. During both tours, I remember admiring the views, noticing expansive blue skies, creating a breeze in the summer heat, and feeling alive from the exercise and the experience.

It's time for me to bike and to write, to let go of my fears and explore, to push myself to grow and improve, and to allow myself to fall and get back up.

My advice: start biking and writing again, whatever that means for you. While I need to be willing to walk away when the bike doesn't fit, I don't want to abandon a way of moving through the world that has brought me joy. I want to remember the reasons why I bike and why I write whenever I find myself struggling for willpower or words. 

As a kid, I loved to put my feet on the pedals and ride. A dear friend and I would fly up and down our neighborhood’s streets on our bikes. What appears now as a few blocks on a map felt then like our kingdom. We had no cell phones. Our parents could not track us with GPS. Our moms would call each other and occasionally open the door and holler, but, mostly, we knew to come home when the street lights turned on. While biking, I felt free.

Writing has reminded me that my bike is red, and I miss the feeling of flying.

Thank you for traveling with me on these busy streets. Subscribe to join me on this year-long quest as I tell stories about my Car-Free-Full-Life — and like, comment, or share if you enjoyed the post.

Until next time, I will be riding and writing,

Karyl

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I chose the topic of my car-free life for the storytelling workshop to document the ways giving up the car had improved my life. While I intended to explore how a car-free lifestyle had changed my routines, I found myself instead focused on how my emotional reaction to car-free living had shifted.

When we faced the decision to fix, replace, or sell our car, questions raced through my mind about doctor appointments, family visits, and emergencies. Thoughts of no car sparked anxiety, increasing my heart rate — already too high on the best days — and challenging my subpar attempts at stoicism. I struggled with the decision in large part because my vehicle had provided a sense of safety and control.

Fortunately, a sense of freedom eventually replaced a feeling of fear. We originally planned for the car-free experiment to last three months, and eight years later, it is still going strong. I have learned to move through the world without armor, with more confidence and joy.

I have also learned to value experiments. When I created this video, we were six months into our car-free journey, and I had never produced a personal digital story. I signed up for the workshop to learn, grow, and have some fun.

In The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again (2021), Catherine Price argues that “True Fun is the confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow” (32). I will further explore Price’s insights in a future post, but for now, her introduction of True Fun provides an apt description of what I seek from writing and other creative endeavors: 

True Fun…is the feeling of being fully present and engaged, free from self-criticism and judgment. It is the thrill of losing ourselves in what we’re doing and not caring about the outcome. It is laughter. It is playful rebellion. It is euphoric connection. It is the bliss that comes from letting go. (13)

As I embark on a new chapter of storytelling in this Car-Free-Full-Life, I want to continue learning, growing, and having True Fun. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and try new forms of expression. While the written word will remain my primary medium, I am intrigued by how photos, video, sound, and other media can convey powerful stories. From time to time, I plan to explore different storytelling formats, like I did when I created this video.

How are you embracing a spirit of experimentation in your life right now?

Please subscribe, share, or comment, and let me know if you have questions about car-free living. If you are curious to learn how a vacation to Montreal helped me find the courage to say yes to a car-free life, please also check out my first post, The Montreal Vacation When I Began My Car-Free-Full-Life.

I look forward to connecting with you on our virtual sidewalk.

Until next time,

Karyl

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Hi, I’m Karyl. I’m new to Substack and shared my first story about my Car-Free-Full-Life on the platform last week. Firsts give me butterflies — they are exciting but cause me to hold my breath when I should instead stop and breathe.

It has been many years since I wrote from a personal place. While I love to travel and journal about my experiences, I seldom share my journal entries beyond sending a few texts to friends and family back home. I am an introvert, and by the end of my workday, I often don’t have the energy left to put myself out there online. While I enjoy public speaking and meeting new people, I need time to recharge alone afterward — often reading, writing, or taking a walk outside — to recalibrate my social scales.

I am a former practicing attorney who now manages technology adoption for a large law firm. I focus on organizational communication and change management related to new hardware and software, information security, and technology-related policies, procedures, and best practices. I write frequently, but most of my writing is technical and for business purposes.

I want to rediscover what it feels like to write solely for the pleasure of writing, to reconnect with my writing roots. In school, I wrote poems, music, and a play. I majored in English and Communication Studies as an undergraduate and immersed myself in theater and forensics. As a graduate student, I wrote about the importance of personal narrative in scholarship, inspired by the power of words to change the way that people see the world.

Later, as a lawyer, personal writing took a back seat to my career. I enjoyed advocating for my clients and telling their stories, but I fell out of the habit of sharing my own.

Even when I stopped practicing law and could help clients with storytelling unburdened by a pending legal crisis, my focus remained on editing rather than writing. I found a niche as a consultant, encouraging lawyers, nonprofits, and other small businesses to differentiate themselves by incorporating personal narratives into their communications. Today, I continue to help others identify and communicate their stories in a large law firm setting. In addition to simplifying technical jargon so that audiences more easily understand essential messages, I incorporate context so the audience can see themselves as part of a larger narrative and, on the best days, as a hero on a mission for their clients.

While I find my current work meaningful, after I finish my workday, I want to write merely for the joy of writing. I want to stay up late chasing words, trying to pin them down before they fly from my mind. I want to wake up and immediately grab my pen or keyboard to capture an idea before my to-do list for the day crowds out my dreams. Then, I want to channel some of that creative energy, take a leap, and share my journey with this community of inspiring and skilled writers and artists pursuing their craft.

My goal is not perfection; it is vulnerable persistence. I am embarking on a year-long quest to write a few posts each month and to share posts from others that move me in between.

I chose a Car-Free-Full-Life as my muse because the decision to lead a car-free life back in May 2017 has shaped the person I am and want to become. I will write about challenges I’ve faced and fears I still struggle with, but I will also write about the joys I’ve discovered — the travel, the sunrises, the wind on my face as I ride my bike like I am 10 years old again, and the community I’ve found.

Over the next year, I want to continue expanding my community, one post at a time, with a few posts each month. To follow the story and join me on this journey, subscribe — it’s free.

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I would also love to get to know you and what prompted you to pause as our paths crossed. Are you curious about or already living a car-free life? Are you interested in reading stories about pursuing a full life? Are you on a joyful quest to rediscover your writing roots? Are you too breathing into a first?

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I enjoy meeting people while exploring the world around me. Consider this my hello as we pass each other along these virtual streets. I look forward to your reply — in whatever format is most comfortable for you — comment, message, like, or share.

For now, I’m wishing you joyful butterflies and taking one breath at a time.

Karyl

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“Ten years from now, we would like to search Google for a definition of constraint and see it include this: a limitation or defining parameter, often the stimulus to find a better way of doing something.”

—Adam Morgan and Mark Barden, A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business (p. 10).

Our only car died the day before we left for a vacation to Montreal in May 2017. As my partner Ed and I sat in a Montreal restaurant, having just ordered vegetarian poutine, my phone rang. I stepped outside to escape the noise of other diners and huddled under an overhang out of the rain. The mechanic's news was as grim as the weather: our six-year-old Volkswagen GTI needed a new engine to the tune of thousands of dollars. 

I returned to the table without my appetite. The options, as I saw them, were to spend a lot of money fixing the car or spend a lot of money buying a new car. While we had saved for a rainy day, this was not the rainy day I had in mind. I did not want to invest in our Volkswagen, which was more of a money pit than an asset after replacing the transmission the year before. 

I had almost resigned myself to the expense when Ed suggested a third budget-friendly approach: "What if we try living without a car?"

The Challenge

In Decatur, GA, where we lived at the time and still live today, car-free households are not typical, and I struggled to see how it could work. From our residential neighborhood, how would we get groceries, go to the doctor, make it to work on time, and visit family and friends?

Decatur is a city of 25,000 people that is part of metropolitan Atlanta’s rapidly growing population of over 6 million, which is known for being a car-dependent region. Atlanta has a high rate of vehicle ownership (about 94%, based on a 2020 US Census Bureau survey), limited public transportation for a city of its size, and suburban sprawl. Most people who have lived in, traveled through, or visited Atlanta are all too familiar with the city's congested roadways.

While living car-free in our community is not common, Decatur is the most walkable city in Georgia and more walkable than many other cities nationwide, according to WalkScore.com, which identifies Decatur as a “Walker’s Paradise.” Decatur also received the designation “GOLD Level Walk Friendly Community” by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center and “Silver Level Bicycle Friendly Community” by the League of American Bicycles. All are relevant accolades to consider when contemplating a car-free lifestyle.

As we tried to imagine life without the car, Ed pointed out that Decatur is only 4.7 square miles, and we can both get to work on public transportation after a 15-minute walk to a MARTA station. We also shared one car for many years successfully. “Just for the summer,” he proposed, easing me into the idea. 

I love living in Decatur, where small-town charm meets big-city amenities. Some residents say Decatur is “where Mayberry meets Berkeley.” However, I did not know if the size of my local community and proximity to stores and restaurants would be enough to sustain a car-free life. Even Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bee eventually bought a convertible and learned to drive.

The Fear

Logically, the decision to live car free made sense. We could save money instead of spending it, and living without a car for a few months would provide time to find a replacement vehicle. We could research our options as opposed to rushing into a decision.

Still, my heart raced, making laps around my mind, as I thought of living without a car in the driveway. I was scared and anxious. I worried about being stuck and lacking transportation, unable to get where I needed to go, especially in emergencies.

My daily routine had long involved sitting behind the wheel of a car. I learned to drive as soon as possible at age 15 and in the process only made my seven-year-old sister cry in fear once, that I can remember. By age 16, I piloted my family’s Astro minivan in all types of weather while balancing school, theater rehearsals, a part-time job, and helping my mom shuttle my brother and sister to activities.

As I struggled to unpack my trepidation about daily life without a car, I realized that having a vehicle had helped me in my most vulnerable moments. I'm a planner — a former Girl Scout who adopted the organization’s "be prepared" motto as her own — and a car had too often been my safety net.

I was 16 when a date ignored me after I said no. Because we were in my family’s minivan at the time, I escaped to the driver's seat, but the emotional scars lingered. When I asked him out, I thought he was dreamy, but for weeks to follow, dreams of the evening woke me in a panic.

A few years later, I again used my car to abruptly end a date after a man insisted on making me more than dinner at his apartment. I did not have to wait on him to take me home or for someone to pick me up, and I did not have to walk in the cold and the dark along an unfamiliar road to escape. I drove away.

My car symbolized freedom and independence, but not in a romantic, rose-colored glasses way of adventuring out to explore and chart my own identity. My car was a form of armor for me, as a woman in what felt like a man's world.

The Opportunity

While sitting in a hot tub on a ferry boat turned floating spa in the St. Lawrence River, celebrating my 41st birthday, I knew I no longer needed a car like I did twenty years ago. With only my head exposed to the cold night air, my thoughts cleared. I named my emotions and weighed the options. Then, as I calmly looked out at the lights of the Old Montreal skyline, snow began to fall. It was snowing in May!

The sight reminded me that joy can come from the unexpected, and slowing down enables us to notice beauty in our surroundings. Even moments when our best-laid plans fail or we push ourselves to do something outside our comfort zone can be opportunities to experience the world in a new and better way. 

One cold afternoon during our visit to Montreal, Ed and I walked along Saint Laurent Boulevard from the Mile End neighborhood towards downtown. I had read about the city's street art scene and was curious to check it out. I expected to detour towards public transit quickly due to the unseasonably cold temperature, but we slowly walked the whole four miles back. The street art beckoned us forward. Giant paintings covered the exterior walls of buildings, beautiful works that captured our imagination and deserved our focus. We paused, admired, and took photos. Part of the fun was not knowing what lay ahead, crossing a street to discover another unique piece with its own story, often larger than life.

During our travels, street art has become something we seek out and document, and Montreal still has one of the most extensive collections we have seen so far — thousands of works of art line the city's long streets, as described in StreetArtBio’s helpful guide to Street Art City Walks: Montreal. We hope to return in June one day to experience MURAL Festival and watch talented artists create new murals in real-time.

I would also love to return to Restaurant Jérôme Ferrer Europa. During our 2017 visit, we savored a delicious and playful vegetarian tasting menu at Europa's original location on de la Montagne Street. The restaurant (now in a new location and rebranded as Restaurant Jérôme Ferrer: Europea) has earned many awards since it opened in 2002. Recently, on May 15, 2025, the restaurant added a Michelin star to its resume as part of the inaugural Michelin Guide Quebec, and the chef’s emotional reaction in this article made me tear up.

The trip to Montreal included another vivid travel memory I would like to repeat. We spent one evening at the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal immersed in the AURA Experience, which had recently opened. The music and light show began in 2017 as part of the city's 375th anniversary celebration. The lights, sounds, and other multimedia effects highlighted the architecture, making me appreciate nuances I would have missed. Because of that show, I seek out evening performing arts events in historic landmarks when I visit new cities.

Travel for me is a time to learn about a city’s art, food, and history, but it is also a time to push myself physically and mentally. Travel inspires me to take measured risks and imagine new possibilities for my life, making Montreal a fitting setting to debate the value of car ownership with Ed. As we walked and talked about the drawbacks and benefits of a car-free life, it helped that none of these memorable Montreal experiences required me to own a vehicle.

The Decision

When we returned from vacation, we agreed to sell our horseless carriage (which would have been more useful at that point if it still had horsepower) and committed to the car-free experiment for the summer. A few car-free months have turned into eight car-free years — and counting.

We've saved money, which has helped fund our travels, but that's not why I've remained car-free. I've remained car-free because of benefits like built-in exercise and less stress. Walking outside and looking up at the sky brings me peace.

Sometimes we gain more by letting go than by holding on. I let go of the car, my armor, to live a meaningful, healthy, and happy life.

My purpose in writing on Car-Free-Full-Life is to create a record, a map, of why I continue to choose car-free living in the hopes that it may help someone else embrace "a limitation or defining parameter" and view it as "the stimulus to find a better way of doing something," as Morgan and Barden wish in A Beautiful Constraint (pg. 10). The decision to live car free can be a beautiful constraint that results in a life full of art, nature, community, and travel.

More than a lifestyle, Car-Free-Full-Life is a mantra, a guidepost to help me face challenges, overcome fears, and embrace adventure. I will write about making my way without a car and the joy I find on the journey. I will also talk about how I apply the lesson of letting go in other areas of my life so I can live to the fullest. 

I am on a year-long quest to share several stories each month from the sidewalks and to amplify the stories of others that move me in between. Stories help us understand ourselves and the world around us, and sharing stories can help bridge our differences and build connections.

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I hope you will join me on this journey — subscribe or follow — it’s free.

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I would also love to get to know you and what prompted you to pause as our paths crossed. Are you curious about or already living a car-free life? Are you interested in reading stories focused on pursuing a full life? Do you love art and travel? Do you see storytelling as a method for creating community?

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Ed and I enjoy meeting people while exploring Decatur and the wider world. Consider this my hello as we pass each other along these virtual streets. I look forward to your reply.

Until next time, without my armor,

Karyl

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