Have you ever dreamt of seeing the world from the seat of a motorcycle? To feet the wind in your face as you take in new and exciting towns, cities, and beautiful panoramic views that stretch on for miles. To be able to ride into the sunset. Taking a motorcycle trip is something that a lot of people dream of, but turning it into a reality may take a lot of effort. Where would you even start planning your motorcycle touring holiday?
In this article, we’ll discuss everything that you need to know about planning your motorcycle holiday.
Stop Talking Yourself Out Of It
The first step in planning your motorcycle trip is to stop talking yourself out of it. There will always be fifty great reasons why you shouldn’t do something as monumental as taking a motorcycle journey, be it family, work, or health reasons. But there are always going to the same reasons for actually biting the bullet and doing it- it might be time to sell your motorcycle and you might want to go on a trip before you sell it, whatever the reason, at the end of the day you should do it because you have always wanted to do it. If you keep on putting it off and putting it off, then you’ll never get around to making the trip.
One of the best ways of stopping yourself from talking yourself out of taking the trip is to actually book a ticket on a ferry or book some of your accommodation. By doing that, you’ll be committed to actually taking the trip.
Plan How Much Time You Will Need
You may have visions that you’d need to quit your job if you were to take a life-changing trip away on your motorcycle, but you really don’t need to give over so much of your time to have an experience that will stay with you forever. If you could book a fortnight off work, you’d be able to see quite a lot of the world. For example, in just two weeks, you could cover a lot of ground motorcycle touring across Spain.
Be realistic about the amount of time that you’d be able to have and how much you think that you could ride in one day. If you want to enjoy time away from the bike each day, pick a country where everything is closer together and ride from area to area. If the ride is the most important aspect of the trip for you, you could easily cover a few hundred miles in one day.
How Much Will The Trip Cost?
One of the biggest legitimate concerns that you may have is how much will the trip cost in its entirety?
There is a mixture of costs involved in taking a motorcycle journey. First of all, you’ll need to factor the cost of ferry crossings if you plan on riding overseas. You may require visa documents, and you’ll certainly need to think about motorcycle insurance for the trip as well as making sure you are licensed to ride overseas. Then you need to think about the costs of running your motorcycle. You’ll know roughly how far you can travel on one tank, and, while fuel costs will vary as you travel, you can estimate how much you will be likely to spend. Always make sure that you budget for more than you think that you’ll need when it comes to fuel.
A variable cost might be your accommodation, depending on how you plan on staying while you are travelling. You could stay in a hotel each night. This will be the most expensive option. Whereas if you were to camp in a camping site, you could expect to pay around a quarter of the cost of a hotel room for the night. Alternatively, you may want to consider wild camping which would be free.
If you are camping, it is likely that you’ll cook your own food. This will save you a lot of money.
However much you work your trip out as costing, ensure that you budget extra for if your bike breaks down or you run into an emergency.
What Paperwork Will You Need?
You will need to think about the legalities of making your overseas motorcycle journey and ensure that you have all of the relevant paperwork sorted prior to your trip. Take out holiday insurance as well as motorcycle insurance. That way, you’ll be covered for anything that could go wrong.
You will need paperwork such as the carnet de passage, and it is also advisable to ensure you have the vehicles logbook with you when you travel.
Make sure that you have at least six months left on your passport. This will often be a requirement of the countries that you may be visiting.
Finding Your Way
When it comes to finding your way around a strange new country, you shouldn’t just rely on a sat nav. Things could go wrong. The batteries could fail, or you could lose signal. The last thing that you’d want is to be completely lost without a method of navigation.
Take paper maps with you too, and make sure you get a rough idea of the routes you’ll be taking on paper before you start to ride.
How Far Can You Ride In One Day?
One of the biggest questions you will have to work out the answer for is how far will you be able to travel in one day. While it is perfectly feasible that you could travel 400 miles in one day, riding this far day-in-day-out will get tiring. If you have a pillion passenger on your bike, then it won’t be comfortable for them either. A more achievable distance might be to aim for around 200 miles on a normal day, and this will allow you time to stop off and see the sights as you travel.
There will be days on your journey when you’ll need to cover greater distances; however, if you plan your routes ahead of your departure, then you can stagger the days when you’ll be travelling the bigger distances.