Planning your Trip

What do they say? "He who fails to plan, plans to fail." I think that's true to some extent but I've also discovered that plan too much and you'll get hung up on minor details or spend money on things you don't need. Fortunately we live in the age of the internet and in many cases people have already done what you're planning. I have gained almost all of the information I needed for this trip from 3 books and the internet.

This sounds obvious but everything you plan for will depend on your answers to the 4 questions below:

  1. Where are you going?
  2. How long are you going for?
  3. What motorbike are you going there on?
  4. How are you going to live when you're there?

Answering these questions early on will make planning for your trip straight forward. Being unsure of any of the above will result in wasted time and money trying to prepare for every eventuality or buying the wrong documents or kit.

For example, I'm going to Central and South America so I don't need to buy a Carnet de Passage en Douane or obtain Visas. I'm going for about 12 months so I know I'll need to learn how to repair and maintain my motorbike. I'm taking my own motorbike so I'll have to find out about shipping the bike over there and obtaining temporary import permits for it. I'll be staying in a mixture of hotels, motels, couchsurfing and camping so I'll need to buy camping equipment and budget accordingly.

However, if I was riding across Europe, Africa or Asia things would be very different and I would need to adapt my kit and budget to suit. The cost of a Carnet de Passage en Douane for Asia can be up to 300% of the price of your motorbike and the process of obtaining a visa for each country is time consuming and often costly.

One of the deciding factors in choosing the Americas as a destination was the fact that it is easier for a British citizen to travel through those countries and the movement of a motorcycle across the borders is much easier and cheaper than the rest of the world. I'll explain about Carnet de Passage en Douane and the costs involved in the paperwork section of this site.

One of the best things I did early on was buy (and read) a book called "Adventure Motorcycling Handbook" by Chris Scott, 2005 [Trailblazer Publications].

I also found "Riding the World" by Gregory Frazier, 2005 [BowTie Press] very useful.

These 2 books will help you decide on the answers to the 4 questions above. As I said, give those questions some serious thought. The success of your trip could well depend on what you decide. In addition to the 2 books above I also have the "Footprint Mexico & Central America Handbook 2009". I'll buy other guide books as and when I need them. No point in lugging heavy books around when you're not using them.

So...

1) I knew where I was going,

2) how long for and

4) how I'll be living when I'm there.

What I hadn't decided on was what motorbike I was going to use and whether I was going to buy one out there or ship mine out. Let's look at choosing a motorcycle...