Seven countries, four languages, two seas and one outstanding European adventure—Europe Coast to Coast takes you through the heart of the continent on a journey rich in culture, history and natural beauty.

The Netherlands, Belgium & Paris

Our group will gather in Amsterdam and spend the first night in the ancient city of Haarlem before picking up the well-traveled bike route—Nordzeeroute. This protected, coastal path winds its way along the coast of the North Sea for nearly 300 miles. We’ll make our way through charming Dutch and Belgian towns and cross the border into France. There we’ll ride on country roads and enjoy the delights of rural life along our way. Then we’ll continue south to Chantilly on the outskirts of Paris and spend a day exploring the City of Light.

Rural France, Germany’s Black Forest & the Bodensee

Next, we’ll continue east through the vineyard (葡萄园) in Champagne Region into the valleys of Alsace-Lorraine and then walk to Strasbourg, right on France’s border with Germany. We’ll cross the Rhine River and follow Germany’s outstanding network of bike paths through the charming Black Forest to the shores of Lake Constance, also known as the Bodensee in Germany.

The Alps, Northern Italy & Venice

Leaving the Bodensee, we’ll start our climb into and through the Austrian Alps. Shortly after walking along the Swiss border, we’ll cross into Bella Italia and begin our downhill slope towards the warm waters of the Adriatic Sea. Upon arrival, we’ll put our bikes away and spend our final days of the journey together while exploring Venice, one of the world’s most beautiful and mysterious cities.

After midnight, when the crowds of revellers (饮酒狂欢者) have gone, Choi Young-soo crouches (蹲) in a shabby alley in Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district. This is the only time that the 35-year-old, a part-time food delivery rider, dare leave his tiny room at a cheap hotel he shares with about 30 other people. The rooms, he says, are “only slightly bigger than coffins(棺材)”.

Choi’s desperate situation is real. He is one of a large and growing number of ordinary South Koreans who find themselves choked by debt. “I feel like other people sense that I’m a failure, so I only come out at night to smoke and watch the lost cats,” says Choi.

Choi’s serious debt came with alarming speed. Just two years ago, he was working as an IT engineer for a firm. Years of punishing overtime and late nights seriously damaged his health. After lengthy discussions and a year spent planning and saving, he and his wife decided to open a pub in Incheon.

After an encouraging start, their business fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. After bars and restaurants were ordered to close as early as 9 pm to prevent the virus from spreading, the number of customers reduced to a trickle (细流), and then dried up altogether. After failing to pay their rent for four months, the couple sought help.

Securing a bank loan was surprisingly easy, but the interest rate was a steep 4%. Within months they had taken out loans from all five of South Korea’s high-street banks. Unavoidably, they had to borrow more to pay off existing loans, joining long queues of troubled business owners eager to secure cash from commercial lenders with interest at more than 17%.

Household debt in South Korea has risen in recent years and is now equal to more than 100% of GDP, a level not seen elsewhere in Asia. The rising household debt has gone hand in hand with a dramatically widening income gap worsened by rising youth unemployment and property prices in big cities beyond the means of most ordinary workers.

According to Lee In-cheol, the chief executive of the think tank Real Good Economic Research Institute, the total amount of debt run up by ordinary South Koreans exceeds GDP by 5%. In individual terms, it means that even if you saved every single penny you earned for an entire year, you would still be unable to repay your debt. In response, the country’s financial services commission and financial supervisory service recently decided to prevent more South Koreans from falling into debt. “That is why major banks have acted to limit borrowing,” says Lee.

Assigning children some chores once they reach a certain age has been an important part of responsible parenting for centuries. Easy tasks like taking out the garbage or cleaning their room are intended to teach children the basics of taking care of themselves and self-control. On the surface, it would seem that this age old practice has stood the test of time. However, a new study finds that childhood chores may not help kids develop self-control after all.

To come to this conclusion, researchers from the University of Houston analyzed data originally collected as part of a 10-year study on Mexican youths at various ages (10, 12, 14, 16 and 19). These children self-reported how much self-control they believed they had, and parents were also surveyed. Besides, the 10-year study also gathered data on various aspects of the children’s lives, including their day-to-day home life and any chores they were typically asked to do.

The research team analyzed all of this data. They were surprised by what they found. “We found no evidence of co-developmental associations between chores and self-control, with four out of four of our assumptions receiving no support. The result was dumbfounding given the strong theoretical basis for our predictions,” says study author Rodica Damian. However, that doesn’t mean parents should give up childhood chores altogether. “Maybe chores don’t matter for personality development, but they still predict future chore behavior,” Damian says. “It is a stable habit and having a tidy home is not something to ignore.”

Damian and her team also looked into another self-control matter unrelated to chores: whether self-control levels between the ages of 10-16 predicted better career outcomes in young adulthood. They found that children who had higher self-control at age 10 had less job stress and better job fit nine years later. Additionally, children whose self-control showed positive changes from age 10 to 16 had higher job satisfaction years later. “The results suggest that improving one’s level of self-control, regardless of where you start, will help you later in life,” Damian concludes.

What kind of potato chips would you create, and what would you name it, if you wanted to sell the product to pregnant women?

This was the task that marketing professors Kelly Herd and Ravi Mehta presented to more than 200 adults, in a study of how emotion impacts creativity. The participants were divided evenly into two groups. Group A were simply given the assignment without any extra instructions. Group B were told to take a few minutes, before beginning the task, to imagine how the customer would feel while eating the snack.

The amateur product designers came up with different potato chip ideas and descriptions, but the most creative were: Pickles-and-ice-cream chips, Sushi chips, and Margarita-for-Mom chips. The most creative ideas came from the group that had thought about how the consumer would feel before starting the task. “I think it is fascinating to see the result—the empathy(同理心) has great influence in maximizing creativity,” Herd says. “This is one of those areas of psychology that hasn’t been clarified yet for marketers: how does thinking of others’ feelings affect those who are creating new work?”

“We’ve shown that empathy can change the way in which you think,” Herd says. “We’ve looked at it in a somewhat narrow context of product design, but it appears that amazing things, such as imagining how someone else feels, can have a huge impact on creativity in general.”

Herd and Mehta conducted five separate experiments, including asking participants to design a child’s toy, select materials for a new kind of food for kids, and redesign a grocery cart for the elderly. And these experiments provided more evidence for their finding.

The researchers believe the initial focus on others’ feelings creates the ability to consider issues from diverse points of view. The ability to “shift avenues of thought” while perceiving and processing information is a benefit to creativity.

“An interesting trend in marketing now is that large companies are developing new ideas for products and services from their customers’ suggestions,” says Herd. This year alone, more than half of consumer goods manufacturers say they will get 75% of their innovation and research and development capabilities from crowd-sourcing (众包).

In an ultra-competitive marketplace, few companies will survive for long without innovation and new products, Herd says. In fact, a 2016 study published in Business News Daily found that 82% of company executives interviewed believe there is a strong connection between creativity and business results.