Bikepacking from Esbjerg to Copenhagen via Aarhus.
Crossing Denmark off-road via the Northern Route across the middle of Jutland to Aarhus. Then the ferry to Odsherred and onto Copenhagen.
In summer 2021 I cycled with my son across Denmark, from Esbjerg to our summer house in Odsherred on the island of Zealand. I then cycled onwards back to Copenhagen, so in effect crossing Denmark.
The goal was to be off-road as much as possible as well as seeing some sights that are central to the history and geography of Denmark: The Jelling Stones, Møllehøj (Denmark’s highest point just south of Skanderborg) and Denmarks second city, Aarhus. There’s also the ice age geography of Odsherred, the cathedral town of Roskilde and finally the capital Copenhagen.
The route.
The stages.
There’s plenty of options for splitting this route up into longer or shorter stages. Our plan was to save money by camping so that we could afford a hotel in Aarhus. This meant planning slightly ahead to find camping spots since wild camping isn’t allowed in Denmark. There are plenty of places to camp in the “wild” however, and they are easily found on https://udinaturen.dk/map-page (its in Danish and I think the “routes” are pretty useless, but is very good for camping spots).
