SAITAMA, JAPAN: An 11-year-old girl is due to set off on a seven-month journey by bicycle across South America with her parents next week.

Akane Toyoda, a sixth-grade student at a primary school in Kawajimamachi, and her parents are scheduled to leave Japan on April 9 for a trip of more than 7,000km across the South American continent.

To focus on the journey and strengthen family ties, the Toyodas will spend their nights outdoors and are even planning not to take a mobile phone with them.

Toyoda is the only child of auto mechanic Tsuyoshi Toyoda, 44, and his careworker wife, Midori, 47.

According to the itinerary, the family will start its journey at the southernmost tip of Argentina on 15 Apr, and head north.

At a pace of 30km a day, the Toyodas will pass through the Patagonia region, where the wind is often strong enough to blow a person over, reaching a height of 4,000m above sea level in the Andes. They will return from Peru to Japan in late November.

Toyoda’s father has a national qualification as a first-class mechanic and serves as the factory director at a Honda dealership in Saitama.

To help fulfill his dreams, he traveled around Australia on his motorcycle in 1991. In 1992, he participated in the Paris-Beijing rally. After he married Midori, the couple crossed Alaska by motorbike in winter 1994.

The girl says her goal for the upcoming trip is “to go the entire distance all by myself for the first time”.
Taking textbooks with her, the girl will study school subjects every day with the help of her parents. (The Yomiuri Shimbun/ AsiaNews)