We Love Long Beach

On New Year’s Day in 2008, Jeff Hyland and his friend Mike Tryon left Southern California on bicycles en route to Florida. They called the journey, which took them through the Southern states, “the Southern Tier.” “The purpose of the ride was to educate people about environmental conservation, and to inspire them to ride a bike more often,” Hyland explains.

For Hyland, this sort of adventure was something he could not pass up. In 2006 he spent a year in Costa Rica with famed biologist Jim Wolf, editing video on local insects and spiders. “Wolf’s dedication and passion for biology motivated me to want to do what I felt I was made to do,” Hyland recalls. Less than two years later Hyland was on the road, at work on his own documentary, at times sleeping in awkward places like horse stalls and hanging out at the Biosphere II in Arizona (minus Pauly Shore).

The journey to Florida took them over four months, and they poetically finished the ride on Earth Day. Over 170 hours of footage were compiled on the trip, which is being made into a four-part documentary series on major issues ranging from water conservation to climate change. “The environmental movement is about humans, not just polar bears,” says Hyland. “It’s about educating the future generations so that they can enjoy this planet as much as we have.” // SCOTT JONES