Cycling odyssey: City workers quit their job to pedal from the UK to Japan

Would you quit your job to travel 20,000km (12,427 miles) cycling from London to Japan?

For Andre and Claire, a couple with a healthy sense of adventure and two well-maintained bikes, the risk was one of the best decisions they ever made.

Bred of working in London, where they commuted by bike, the couple made a snap decision to set off on a huge cycling tour, passing through Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Northern India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China and South Korea.

Claire and Andre quit their jobs in London to take on an epic 20,000 kilometre cycling adventure from the UK to Japan

'There is never a perfect time to go on a trip like this ,' Claire tells MailOnline Travel in an email. 'But the only advice I can give is to stop making excuses, be brave and go for it.'

It all started when 29-year-old Brit, Claire, and 31-year-old Canadian, Andre, dreamt up an epic cycling tour of a lifetime that would take them across the world, pedalling from the UK to Japan.

'We have been on a couple of short cycling tours in the past, but never anything this scale,' the pair wrote on their blog, Punctures and Panniers.