Nala’s World by Dean Nicholson – one man and his cat

When Dean Nicholson left his hometown of Dunbar on the eastern coast of Scotland in September 2018, he had just turned 30 and was planning to cycle around the world. This wasn’t only a test of physical endurance, it was also an attempt to escape the daily routine and to find fresh purpose in his life: “I hit the road to find a road.” What he didn’t expect, however, was that “a scrawny, grey-and-white kitten” would show him the way.

At the beginning of December he was in the mountains of southern Bosnia, making for the border with Montenegro, when he heard a meowing behind the bike. Scampering along the road was “a scrappy wee thing” that fitted into the palm of his hand, with “sharply pointing ears, spindly legs and a thick tail”. She also had beautiful big green eyes.

Afraid that the kitten would be run over or snatched by a bird of prey, Dean put her into the pouch on the front of his bike. But as he began cycling she jumped out, clambered on to his shoulders, and promptly fell asleep around his neck. Although he admits he’d always been more of a dog person, his heart was won over by the kitten whom he christened Nala, after Simba’s childhood friend in The Lion King. It also means “gift” in Swahili.

By his own admission they made an odd couple: “We were an unusual sight; a big, bearded tattooed bloke on a bike, with a kitten sitting on his shoulder like Long John Silver’s parrot.” But Nala was “a people magnet” and wherever they went they were the centre of attention. Nala had “the ability to put a smile on faces regardless of religion, age or culture”.

When a website ran a piece about him and Nala, his followers on Instagram (1bike1world) shot up from 3,000 to 150,000 in one day. After more media coverage, he had 800,000 followers across YouTube and Instagram. Strangers stopped him on the street and asked for selfies with Nala: “It beggared belief how many people had been touched by our little story,” he writes.

But it was only when he began raising money for local animal welfare charities that Nicholson realised that something extraordinary was happening. A calendar featuring photos of Nala raised £90,000 for 30 charities: “She’d not only changed my world,” he writes. “She’d changed the world around me.”

Marooned in Hungary by the Covid-19 pandemic (and housesitting for a Hungarian couple who follow him on Instagram), he took stock of what he had achieved: he had travelled through 18 countries and, thanks to Nala, he’d become different: “I was a wiser, calmer, more mature person than the slightly wild character who left Dunbar more than a year and a half earlier.”

Nicholson’s account of what the peripatetic author Hermann Hesse termed “the life of a vagabond wholly free” is heart-warming and utterly charming. It’s also a remarkable testament to the power of social media to harness the kindness of strangers.

Once, as he prepared to spend the night on a bench in a small town in Turkey, two women approached him after seeing his Instagram post and invited him to stay at their home. And while camping in a forest near Belgrade, a woman woke him up on a cold February morning with a flask of hot coffee and a tin of tuna for Nala. Her husband had recognised the woods from the photo he had posted. Nicholson’s road trip has taught him the truth of what a Syrian refugee once told him: “Be a blessing to others and you will be blessed”.

• Nala’s World is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£18.99). To buy a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply