Now this is one of those "how long is a piece of string?" questions, but I really do want your knowledgeable views!!

My partner and I are planning our RTW trip, and every time we get the plans out the trip seems to extend in time... the problem we have is estimating our average daily mileage... so, given the following, what would you say we should use as a planning average?

• We expect to travel for 3 days and rest for a day, so travel days of 8hrs/day would be the norm
• We will not be travelling too quickly, as we want to see something of the countries we're travelling through
• We'd like to ride on a mix of good main roads and some roads less travelled, but not "off piste" unless it's purely for fun

We'd like planning averages for:

• India/Nepal
• Far East (Thailand/Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam)
• Australia / New Zealand
• South America (Argentina / Chile / Peru / Ecuador)
• Central America (in general)
• Mexico
• US / Canada / Alaska

Any advice / opinions gratefully received!

Paul

Paul,

This is your opportunity to have an enriching and mind expanding experience of the world, mankind and yourself. Just get the where-with-all together and go for it before the opportunity vanishes.

I prefer to measure my travels by how much I have grown from each of my "away from work" experiences and how much more I know about the people I have met on the way. Unfortunately most of us need to work to put the where-with-all together.

Seems to me that if you are both yourng and fit you may be able to experience your wish list of places to visit if you spend the rest of your days travelling, not necessarily all at the one time though.

Have you thought about a second language for yourself/partner?

Chris

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Chris

Hi Paul
Trying to keep to a daliy mileage can be very hard, you may travel for a couple of miles spot a beach, nice veiw even a cafe and stop and thats your daliy mileage out the window.
Some days on good roads i covered 300-350kms then other days any were between 1 and 5kms. There will always be the odd day when you have to ride hard to catch a ferry or cross a boarder.
The best i can say is take your time and see as much as you can.
You never know whats around the next corner. Skip

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Do the best you can with what you have,
A stranger in a strange land now heading North South East West to.....

Paul,

Sorry I got side-tracked with dreaming about the previous post and forgot to tell you what I started out to do about Australia.

As a family we travelled around most of the coastline of Australia with a few inland trips in a twelve month period. We covered most of the highlights of Australia for us in that time. Obviously we did leave a stack out but then again there are other holidays for us.

In the 12 months we travelled 42,500 km. Our daily average travel distance was 120-150 km. On the days that we moved we mostly travelled 4-5 hours a day moving either each night or second night. Occasionally we would stay three nights but this was rare as we usually included our visiting places between the nightly stops.

Australia is a very large place and the highlights are fairly spread out.

If you would like any more let me know.

Chris

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Chris

I think you're over-planning.
You can always rip off 1000+ clics in a day if there's a pressing deadline.
I think you'll find 8 hrs per day, day-in-day-out, to be a lot.
If you have strict exit dates for countries (or continents), just plan around those and do what feels good.
Could even fall in love with a few countries or one continent and say screw the rest..

What mileage do you 'do' at 'home' ? In your own country .. when touring..

Take that and halve it. At lest.

In some places 60km/h (India) will be your top speed .. so factor that in too.

For Africa I have 200 km / day .. some days will be more .. other days will be less..

As in all plans .. it is an estimate .. and will be wrong .. so allow some free room to move.

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

Depending on the roads, and your bike, you can cover pretty good distances in India too. On most of the dual carriageways you will be limited by the speed of your bike, not the road.

For the undivided two lane highways, you can easily manage a moving average of 60 - 70 kph, if on a small bike - but if you are riding something 600cc and above, you could well average 80 kph on the move as well IF there is light to moderate traffic. It would take you some time to get used the the traffics behaviour though (rule of thumb - heavier vehicle has right of way, whichever lane).

At night, on the undivided highways, 50 - 60 kph is what you'd get - your speed would not get reduced on the dual carriageways. Be cautious about riding at night here - dipped headlights are uncommon. On badly maintained side roads, a 25 kph average may be optimistic. Heavy traffic - All bets are off.

I know this advice may sound contrary to what a lot of people may say about the road conditions and speeds, but having travelled extensively in India, you can easily cover more than 5 - 600 km a day, in most places, given a ride time of 7-8 hrs.

If you have to, you can easily do 1000 km in a day. But why would you want to do that? Your "places to see" would usually be less than 25o km apart.

I agree with all of the above........it's about what happens along the way not clocking how many km's per day. If you get a feel for a place....then stop. For me it's the light....if the light feels good i.e. the energy, I stop. If the hairs on the back of my neck go up, I stop! ESPCIALLY IF THERE'S A 9MM staring at me.......lol jes kidding(they were machete's). Actually I didn't stop...I gased it.
I prefer a leisurely pace vs a 500km pace.....it's all personal preference.

Hello Paul,

you had many replies to your posting, but no answers. As you can see, everybody travels differently. But this does not help you in your preparation. After your journey you will feel sorry for trying to prepare that much, as Lone-Rides said, but this also doesnt help you now. Because you want to make a rough plan about your journey now and get organized.

ok. I can give some numbers. I travelled 75 months (not working in this time) and I did on average 3000km a month, this means 100 km a day. The longest day was in Patagonia on Ruta 3 with 850 km. Once I covered in six weeks about 14.000km, also in South America. An average riding day for me was between 200 and 300 km. As I left my plan was to travel 30 months.

enjoy your planing, but more imported, dont spend too much money in your planing time (I mean, dont buy the winter gear for Alaska right now, you can do that when you are in the US)

greetings

mika

Thanks all,

Perhaps I should have explained that we're not going on the RTW trip until 2008, as my partner's youngest daughter can't be left at home until then, and we don't want to take her with us!! Perhaps that will explain the "over planning" situation...

I appreciate all of the comments, and sentiments, expressed and guess that it confirms my own view - but I wanted to ensure we weren't setting ourselves up to fail or to put too much pressure on. With 26 months of travelling looking like what we'll need to do what we want to do, it feels about right.

Oh, and we have a trip round Eastern Europe planned for next August to give us more experience. We've already done a 3-week, 3,000 mile trip round Europe last year, but it was the collective experience of the folk here I wanted to tap into - guess the phrase "we're all individuals" applies!!

Anyone else care to share Mika's approach and share what you actually did?

Paul

Hi Paul, I suspect that you knew the answer to your question all along. Ultimatley you will make the choice as you travel through each country based on your own likes and dislikes, what i might stop to see you might not etc. But i understand that a rough timetable for each country visited might be a good idea. Out of intrest what age will the kid be when you set off on your travels ? I ask because i plan an overland trip but will also have to wait for at least three years to do it for the same reason as you. Only we are going in a 4x4 truck and would like them to come with us, but the choice is theirs.
Regards.........marty

Hi Marty,

She will be officially an "adult" having turned 18. As such we're comfortable with leaving her to get on with her own life!!

In the past, I've taken my son (who was 17 at the time) round Europe for 3 weeks on the bike, and also left my kids (who were in their late teens at the time) on their own whilst I went trekking for 4 weeks and on another 3-week trip round Europe.

As long as they're mature enough, then my reasoning was leaving them at home was good experience for them (if not for my house, but that's another story!). In retrospect, I'd have loved to take them travelling when they were much younger, but apart from camping holidays in UK/France it wasn't practical.

Good luck taking your kid(s) with you - I'm convinced experiencing life as broadly as possible as early as possible results in a very rounded, independent adult.

Paul

I agree with your sentiments about kids and travel. All the best with your plans Paul..............marty.

So, are you saying that to travel around the coast is about 42.5k? or did you take any side trips into the interior?.

My wife & I plan on shipping our bikes from Canada and hopefully staying for 6 months. Do you think that is long enough to get a good overview of your country or should we be looking at a year?

When I go for trips around in New Zealand I try not to do more than 200-300 km per day. NZ ain't that big, you could ride the length of the country in 2 days, but that's a bit of a waste, as there is plenty to see.

Make a list of the things you want to see and join them up. If it's more than 300 k's find something else to see in between stops.

Avoid the big tourist traps in the high season and stay off the main roads for the best riding experience. There are usually alternative routes which are MUCH more senic with MUCH less traffic. Avioid higways 1 & 2 in the North Island as they get busy. Try route 52 if you're heading into or out of wellington as a good alternative.

The road condition will rarely hold you up in New Zealand appart from the odd road works, sheep on the road or truck crash...

Average about 30 -50 kph on gravel and 75 - 100 kph on the open road.

Are you camping or staying in fancy hotels? There are some great free and cheap campsites run by the department of conservation. Search for my other posts for links and other info about NZ.

Send me a PM when you arrive.

Mark.