Cycling and staying overnight in Dutch nature with ‘The Nature Friends Cycling Guide’ from Nivon

Discover all the beauty that the Netherlands has to offer and go out responsibly with The Nivon Nature Friends Cycling Guide. A booklet for short and long bike rides in the Netherlands with overnight accommodation. The guide contains eighteen unique routes that connect Nivon’s green-surrounded and budget-friendly nature friends houses and camping sites. Great for a day trip, a weekend away and a long vacation. Whether you go on an adventure with your city bike or touring bike. The guide includes tips on the environment and information about the routes and Nivon accommodations.

Two years ago, Magda Vodde, the initiator of the guide, started recording the routes between the Nivon accommodations. She first cycled the routes according to the Cycling Association’s route planner and then deviated from the standard roads to go exploring. Magda: “I went looking for places where you feel you’ve lost your way for a moment. Places in the middle of nature. I alternated these with visits to local places such as Ommen, Bronkhorst and Woudrichem. After all, during your cycling trip you also want to be able to drink a cup of coffee or a beer. The variety of landscapes and surroundings ensures that you will be surprised again and again by all the beauty that the Netherlands has to offer. Why should we travel to faraway places when there is so much to discover in our own country?”

Cycling and staying overnight in the middle of nature
Each route in the guide starts and ends at a Nivon accommodation: an affordable place to spend the night in the middle of nature with a choice of a camping spot or private room in a Friends of Nature House. Put together your own cycling vacation by linking up the individual routes from the guide or by using the four themed routes. These four routes have been put together for a weekend or longer trip. Like the themed route ‘Wind in the back’, which starts in the Biesbosch and ends near Almelo. With the average Dutch southwestern wind, you have the wind with you or in your back during this route. The individual routes can be found throughout the Netherlands and vary in length. There are routes of 26 km which are suitable, for example, for a day trip with the children, and routes of 130 km for the real cycling enthusiast.

Sustainable vacations
The Dutch attach increasing importance to responsible travel. Iris Vermaas, project manager at Nivon: “Every form of travel or tourism has an impact on the environment, but holidaying at home is already more sustainable than abroad. Moreover, spending the night in a tent or in a Friends of Nature House from Nivon has the smallest CO2 footprint. During the cycling itself you don’t consume any fossil fuels and all destinations can be reached by public transport.” The cycling guide itself was also designed to be as sustainable as possible. “We responsibly printed the booklet on a tree-free paper made of 80% stone and 20% recycled clean plastic, also known as stone paper. This reduces the footprint of the guide by 67% compared to a paper booklet. In addition, the material is water-resistant, giving the cyclist the assurance that the guide will last a long time. If you cycle all the routes instead of driving by car, this will result in a CO2 saving of almost 2 tons, or about seven times flying back and forth to Paris.”