Dreaming of a motorcycle trip to distant climes? This section will help you to plan your trip, whether it's to the next state, country or all the way around the world! Start here!
The Achievable Dream 5-part series - the definitive video guide for planning your motorcycle adventure. Get Ready! covers planning, paperwork, medical and many other topics! "Inspirational and Awesome!" See the trailer here!
You could just get on a plane with your credit card and passport and buy or rent everything you need when you get there. That includes the bike, riding gear, etc. etc.
Gear Up! is a 2-DVD set, 6 hours! Which bike is right for me? How do I prepare the bike? What stuff do I need - riding gear, clothing, camping gear, first aid kit, tires, maps and GPS? What don't I need? How do I pack it all in? Lots of opinions from over 150 travellers! "will save you a fortune!"See the trailer here!
So you've done it - got inspired, planned your trip, packed your stuff and you're on the road! This section is about staying healthy, happy and secure on your motorcycle adventure. And crossing borders, war zones or oceans!
On the Road! is 5.5 hours of the tips and advice you need to cross borders, break down language barriers, overcome culture shock, ship the bike and deal with breakdowns and emergencies."Just makes me want to pack up and go!" See the trailer here!
Tire Changing!Grant demystifies the black art of Tire Changing and Repair to help you STAY on the road! "Very informative and practical." See the trailer here!
With an HU blog, you'll get a lot more readers than in some obscure corner of the web, it's all set to go, no setup required, and it's free! Start your Travel Story Blog right now!
800+ HU Communities in over 115 countries! People who want to meet travellers - yes that's YOU - and can provide local assistance, and may be your new best friends!
Make a DifferenceTips on fundraising or donating time and energy to a cause.
After the big trip - Was the trip the best - or worst - thing you ever did?
Resources and Links
Horizons Unlimited Presents!
Ladies on the Loose! For the first time ever, a motorcycle travel DVD made for women, by women! These intrepid women share their tips to help you plan your own motorcycle adventure. They also answer the women-only questions, and entertain you with amazing tales from the road! Presented by Lois Pryce, veteran solo traveller through South America and Africa and author of 'Lois on the Loose', and 'Red Tape and White Knuckles.'
"It has me all fired up to go out on my own adventure!" See the trailer here!
Meet people who don't think you're crazy for wanting to ride your bike to South America or across Asia! They will encourage you, share their experiences and advice on how to do it!
We're not a big multi-national company, just two people who love motorcycle travel and have grown a hobby into a full time job and a labour of love.
When you decide to become a Member, it helps directly support the site. You get additional privileges on the HUBB, access to the Members Private Store, and more. Of course, you get our sincere thanks, good karma and knowing you're helping to keep the motorcycle travel dream alive. :-)
All contributions are gratefully appreciated and acknowledged.
T-shirts, Calendars, Stickers
T-shirts Cotton or synth sweat-wicking t-shirts with the cool Horizons Unlimited graphic on the front and a snappy slogan (changing every year) on the back.
Calendars Featuring the 13 winning photos from the Horizons Unlimited annual motorcycle travel photo contest!
World Map Sticker for PanniersShow your route on your panniers. Great conversation starter when you meet people on the road!
Travel BooksMotorcycle and travel books to inspire and inform you!
Videos - Watch and Learn!
Horizons Unlimited presents!
Achievable Dream The definitive guide to planning your motorcycle adventure! This insanely ambitious 2-year project has produced an informative and entertaining 5-part, 18 hour video series. "The ultimate round the world rider's how-to!" MCN UK.
"The series is 'free' because the tips and advice will save much more than you spend on buying the DVD's."
Advertisers- Horizons Unlimited is well-established as the first source of reliable, unbiased information on all aspects of adventure motorcycle travel.
We reach a dedicated, worldwide group of real travellers, and are the only website focusing exclusively on long distance motorcycle travellers.
If you sell motorcycles or motorcycle accessories, riding gear, camping equipment and clothing, transport motorcycles, organize motorcycle tours, or have motorcycles to rent, you should be advertising with us!
Ride TalesPost your ride reports for a weekend ride or around the world. Please make the first words of the title WHERE the ride is. Please do NOT just post a link to your site. For a link, see Get a Link.
I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!
Photo by Helmut Koch
Vivid autumn colors in Canada
This will be a journey both "Up to the Territory", and "Down Memory Lane"!
In the late 1970s, I rode a BMW R60/5 from Sydney to Alice Springs and a new job, which changed the direction of my life.
Now retired, I will travel from Little Mountain, Qld, to Darwin, NT on my long-term Harley Davidson 1200 Sportster, via Birdsville. I would have gone via Birdsville the first time, if I had realised that Birdsville is a travel icon!
Most of the time I would travel in company with wife, Jill, on her XVS650 Yamaha, but this time Jill will fly, and meet me in Darwin.
Thanks. A Sportster is not a touring bike of course - HD have a series of bigger bikes for that job.
But I like the agility of the Sportster, and have found that it will not even notice the 50kg of touring gear that I normally carry, and, having reached the destination, it all comes off in 6 minutes. Then the packmule becomes a quarter-horse again!
I have travelled this route many times, but never by bike.
My Sportster is of course a genteel, city-guy, cruisish lollard by edict from the MoCo, but somewhere deep in it's gene pool it must have a racial memory of the Furious Fifties, when it ran the Jack Pine Rally, and the Santa Catalina Grand Prix.
So why not eat a little dirt now? So the gravel roads it was for us, and that meant Darwin via Windorah and Birdsville.
So the leaving of Queensland's long narrow and bumpy sealed roads was to end at Windorah, before facing the even worse gravel roads.
And in Windorah, there was a number of things to be done.
First, post home about 15 hundredweight of clothing that I should have never brought in the first place.
Second; buy some fuel from a blind man. As you do.
Yes, the gentleman was definitely blind, he finally admitted as much, but not until we had gone through a to-and-
Sorry about the last entry. I think that this small slow e-machine computer does not like fast impatient typists.
Anyway: the blind console operator: I think that he never gets cheated.
Because his customers are either locals, who would watch each other like hawks; or tourers like me. And we would not cheat him either. Just because.
27.7.11.
Wild camped beside the road for the first time in years, and sure eniough, a rat came by and ate a hole through the bottom of my plastic cup. Ignoring, on the way, two Uncle Toby's Muselie Bars, and a cask of half - decent Yalumba Reisling.
Not sure what this tells us about rodent discrimination...
Arrival in Birdsville early on the 28th, hoping to find hotel or motel accomodation. No chance, this is High Season in the outback, and the little town was jam-packed with Grey Nomads, who had arrived in 4 by 4s, or by air, as apprpriate to factors like affluence and relative decrepitude.
Not that I scorn other people's modes of travel, as I am/have been both bushdriver and aviator. But the population crush put me back under canvas again for the coming night. Ah well. I have slept worse.
But after the mandatory photoshoot outside the pub, I went in to find food and and was immediately fined for using a cell-phone in the bar! (All in fun. The proceeds go to the Royal Flying Doctor Service)
And while in there, I met with a group of dusty Kiwi adventure riders on Suzuki DR, BMW and KTMs, who were competing in a rally run by an Australian property development company. Apparently, the ride details are on ADV rider, but I have not checked.
The company had organised for contestants to start from numerous points around the country and navigate via GPS co ordinates, with position reporting via SPOT satellite tracking.
Hard men to be sure. And as I pointed out to them, a group who would have to return on another occasion and ride the same tracks again, next time looking at the country, instead of constant high speed blasting.
"Oh? you arrived in Birdsville from the South? That would have been on the Birdsville Track fom Marree, right?"
"Ah, yeah, I suppose so"
"Did you see Tom Kruse's Outback Mailrun Truck? The Lake Eyre Sailing Club? Australia's oldest, oudoor mosque,as used by the Afghan cameleers in the 1800s?"
"Er no"
Ah well I'm only jealous that I can longer ride so hard and fast....
29.7.11 After seeing the Kiwi Adventure rider/rallyists off, I turned North again towards Boulia.
Riders will know that Australia in general and Queensland had huge rains earlier this year.
So much for Global Warming and "we may never see flooding rains again"!
So it was no real surprise to me to find lakes where there never lakes before in living memory. And: oh yeas, they just crossed the road.
I have to say, it's the first time that I have heard Harley exhausts underwater. Happy too, to avoid hearing the air intake underwater...
All in a day's ride, and the delight of the desert after rain came back to me.
And the birdlife! Just check some of the pix.
Boulia is the home of the "Min Min light", by popular aclaim. It seems that at certain times on a cold night, it is possible to see a mysterious light moving slowly along the horizon. Mystery indeed!
But the answer my be less mysterious than Roswell New Mexico. It seems that a cold layer of air can refract light from a far- away road train over the (very flat) hoizon. And there is your silent moving light.
In the pub that night, I had another incredulous query about a "Harley in the Outback". I do not know why people are surprised at this. Certainly, there are a host of made-for-the-job adventure bikes on offer, but there is no reason that any well-maintained bike should not do the job.
And a Harley was the first motorbike ever to be ridden around Australia. In 1929, two-up and burdened with a sidecar, sometimes through places where roads did not exist.
So how did I prepare my bike for the trip. Er actually, I didn't.
I did take a spare drive belt, since belts do not like gravel very much, I'm told. My belt had 2 stone-holes when I left and the same number at the end of the trip.
Peter and Kay Forwood who have ridden their Harley in every country in the world, have never bothered to convert over to chain drive, as have so many other HD adventurers.
The only modifications that I have installed on this bike were to fit Intiminator valve-kits in the front forks, and I fitted "Progressive" rear shocks at the rear. I'll say more about this later.
Actually; this my problem. I do not have a URL, and can only attach pics from my own computer. And there used to be a way to do this. But no more!!!
Can you suggest?
And at last I came to Dajarra.
All those years ago, I had concluded that I had found the axxxole of the world. How little I knew. Since that time I have travelled extensively in Australia and have found a smorgabord of contenders for that title.....
This time I found a quiet little town centred around a roadhouse, selling petrol, groceries, ....
And was this last commodity that dragged down impressions last time. Dozens of roaring, brawling drunks - and the damn BW would not start! I found a loose battery terminal and seemed to unpack tools to fix it.
But I was rescued by a smiling elderly Indigenious fellow, who proffered me a can ring-pull. (remember them?) What a guy!
This time Dajarra was quiet and peaceful, and I was happy to pass through, have a toasted sandwich, and ride on.
Have YOU ever wondered who has ridden around the world? We did too - and now here's thelist of Circumnavigators!
Check it out now, and add your information if we didn't find you.
Check the RAW segments; Grant, your HU host is on every month!
Episodes below to listen to while you, err, pretend to do something or other...
2020 Edition of Chris Scott's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.
"Ultimate global guide for red-blooded bikers planning overseas exploration. Covers choice & preparation of best bike, shipping overseas, baggage design, riding techniques, travel health, visas, documentation, safety and useful addresses." Recommended. (Grant)
Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance™ combines into a single integrated program the best evacuation and rescue with the premier travel insurance coverages designed for adventurers.
Led by special operations veterans, Stanford Medicine affiliated physicians, paramedics and other travel experts, Ripcord is perfect for adventure seekers, climbers, skiers, sports enthusiasts, hunters, international travelers, humanitarian efforts, expeditions and more.
Ripcord travel protection is now available for ALL nationalities, and travel is covered on motorcycles of all sizes!
What others say about HU...
"This site is the BIBLE for international bike travelers." Greg, Australia
"Thank you! The web site, The travels, The insight, The inspiration, Everything, just thanks." Colin, UK
"My friend and I are planning a trip from Singapore to England... We found (the HU) site invaluable as an aid to planning and have based a lot of our purchases (bikes, riding gear, etc.) on what we have learned from this site." Phil, Australia
"I for one always had an adventurous spirit, but you and Susan lit the fire for my trip and I'll be forever grateful for what you two do to inspire others to just do it." Brent, USA
"Your website is a mecca of valuable information and the (video) series is informative, entertaining, and inspiring!" Jennifer, Canada
"Your worldwide organisation and events are the Go To places to for all serious touring and aspiring touring bikers." Trevor, South Africa
"This is the answer to all my questions." Haydn, Australia
"Keep going the excellent work you are doing for Horizons Unlimited - I love it!" Thomas, Germany
Horizons Unlimited is not a big multi-national company, just two people who love motorcycle travel and have grown what started as a hobby in 1997 into a full time job (usually 8-10 hours per day and 7 days a week) and a labour of love. To keep it going and a roof over our heads, we run events all over the world with the help of volunteers; we sell inspirational and informative DVDs; we have a few selected advertisers; and we make a small amount from memberships.
You don't have to be a Member to come to an HU meeting, access the website, or ask questions on the HUBB. What you get for your membership contribution is our sincere gratitude, good karma and knowing that you're helping to keep the motorcycle travel dream alive. Contributing Members and Gold Members do get additional features on the HUBB. Here's a list of all the Member benefits on the HUBB.