This couple quit their jobs to bike over 4,000 miles across the US on $6,000

Courtesy of Kathleen Ventura

At Hoosier Pass in Colorado, the highest point on the entire trail: an 11,539-foot elevation.

Kathleen Ventura, 31, started planning her bike ride across the US in 2011.

"We didn't even have bikes!" she remembers. "When we decided to rid, it started with micro actions - and first, we had to get bikes."

She and her husband Brock Delinski, 33, were living just outside Chicago at the time, her working as an account executive in sales at Groupon and him working as an operations supervisor for a waste-services company. They had their hearts set on an extended period of international, nomadic travel and figured a cross-country adventure, where they spoke the language and knew the currency, would be a good place to start.

Ultimately, they ended up biking over 4,200 miles in around five months. Ventura spoke with Business Insider to share the victories, challenges, and costs of traversing the US on a bike.