Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Germany to New Zealand 2013 / 2014

The first spark for our round the world trip idea was way back in 2012 and we cannot really remember who came home with the book of two backpackers who traveled RTW back in 2010. But we were instantly hooked. After many more books, videos and DVD's we finally decided to do it, naturally on two motorcycles (which we didn't have) and with two driving licenses (which we didn't have).

After nearly 2 years of saving, planning and driving lessons in the cold winter of Germany we finally did it and started our journey in September 2013. Our bikes, two >10 years old Honda CB 500 (a rather unusual choice) were packed with more gear than we hoped for but less gear than is normal (I just made this up, based on other traveler stories).

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This start of the trip was rather scary as Anna didn't have that much driving experience (getting the license in April 2013) and we both didn't have any traveling experience from outside of Europe. But we thought we would just ease into it - but boy we were wrong.

In the first 2 weeks our main goal was to get more and more to the south as it was already getting cold in the Alps. So we crossed Austria in only a few days leaving many beautiful views behind:

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We crossed Italy in a day and (this will hurt) we did not even stop to try some real Italian Pizza. That was a mistake, but we only now get used to the fact that we have no real time constrains. The first two weeks or so we were just rushing forward.. It still feels like a long holiday. I think many of you can understand.

In Croatia we started to slow down a little bit and to enjoy the local food, the costal road and even more local food :mchappy: We headed down this beautiful road, always the seaside to the right. Right until now I was always longing for the sea as you would might expect by someone who lives hundrets of kilometers away from it. We could not stop seeing this for days:

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And we got rewarded for traveling rather swift the first few days. Warm days greeted us even though it's already October. One shocking moment did occur though. We were driving along on a (kind of) highway in Croatia as I heard a loud bang and Anna on the intercom saying "Uhm, my bike just died. No more light, no more engine and no more power". Should this be the end of our trip already? Was it a mistake to buy old and very used motorcycles? We pulled over and examined the motorcycle. Just like magic it turned back on after a few minutes. This did occur a few more times but days apart so it was rather hard to figure out. In the end it was just a lose battery wire, but for a while we were rather devastated because of the suddenly unreliable bike. But we managed to fix it with just a screwdriver after all :thumbup1:

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After the riches and comfort of Croatia we moved on to Montenegro where we stayed only one night (for it is really small). We are most interested in food. So we used this evening to try a local restaurant and the local beer as well. Both was delicious, and very cheap!

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Then Albania hit us hard. The border officials were interested in the bikes until they discovered that they were no BMWs but just lame Hondas. After the border we suddenly arrived in a totally new surrounding. Suddenly everything we were used to was gone. No more easy to find supermarkets, campsites and ATMs. Suddenly we were the only motorcycles around, children were waving and we got watched wherever we went. More than once we saw the locals use horses, but not for getting tourists around...

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Is this really still Europe? In Albania we saw a kind of poverty like we never did before in the rest of the continent. And don't get me started on the traffic and road conditions. Luckily our cheap Hondas can drive in the dirt just as well as anybody else. If not better.

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We stayed in Albania for 3 days trying to understand the country a litte more. But I think it is still mostly a secret to us, even though we enjoyed that first little challenge of our trip.

After that we moved on to Greece with more of an eye for the richness and culture of a country. And here we are, with no jobs and no home, sitting at a beach in Greece and enjoying the sun and swimming in the ocean. It's a crazy world...

For now that was all. We'll try to keep this post up to date as we move along our journey.

There are blog posts available in English and German at Blog and many more pictures at Facebook

And there is more!
If you really want to see the Alps, the traffic in Albania or the mountains of Iran we may have something special for you. In the past 4 weeks we collected over 100 GB of HD quality film material both while driving and visiting places. We turn our trip into a video documentary so everybody can get a look at all the places we visit / people we meet and a look behind the scenes of a motorcycle RTW trip.

If you're interested you can get more information (and support us if you like) here: Fernweh ("Wanderlust"), The adventure documentary or just watch the video (English subtitles available):

Thanks for reading, I'll try to update you all soon!