1 Year of international adventure motorcycling
 

I need your help! I am putting together a proposal for a year of basically whatever I want to do after college. My plan: get a motorcycle and travel to amazing places. This is where you guys come in. http://s3.amazonaws.com/advrider/icon10.gif
Tell me where you have gone that was so amazing I need to go. Anywhere in the world. Tell me.
So far, I have been planning to go through Central America and South America. Where else do I NEED to go? There is really no limit to where I can go, as long as there is not a travel warning http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p...w/tw_1764.html for the country.

I truly appreciate any input. http://s3.amazonaws.com/advrider/naughty.gif

Well, pretty general question, and when you've had time to read more stuff on here and ADVRider, you'll be able to answer it yourself...

Not clear from your post if you are new to riding or not? If so, you can start by riding around the US, there is obviously tons to see and it will be a good warm up for you.

Central and South America sound great, but have never ridden down there, so can't comment. But definitely head over to Europe, from Normandy to the Danube to the Crimea there is tons of great riding and great people.

motoreiter's comment about are you a new rider is important. There's a disasterous thread on AdvRider about a young rider called Clayton who starts a trip to Argentina.

He only gets to Acapulco and has an accident (post #39) that wouldn't have happened to a more experienced rider (his words, post #83) and is permanently paralysed from the chest down. He can't live with this and eighteen months later he takes his own life.

So I'd advocate advanced motorcycling training, especially to improve your hazard awareness and road positioning.

I'd also echo motoreiter's suggestion about getting to know your own country first.

Ride safe!
Tim

Not been there but Texas/Arkansas sounds pretty amazing to me.

I live in London & Moscow and therefore consider them fairly normal. How do you rate them?

The point is, what is amazing to someone could be mundane to another.

Don't get hung up about places (or touring schedules) - just get moving to new places and meet new people.

Enjoy.
(You will)

Wow, man, that is tough. I once browsed some of that thread, but never got to where the accident happened, and didnt knot it was going to have such a horrific ending.

It is true, riding will be one of the biggest and most realistic risks you´ll be taking on a trip like this. Traffic will also be so much different from home, you sort of need to learn it all again. But having some experience about handling the bike, using your vision and constantly anaylizing what you see, will help no matter where you´ll be riding. Proper gear is also a good idea, even on a hot climate, though it isnt always the most comfortable.

About travelling and where to go. Europe has plenty of places worth visiting; I like Norway, though it rains a lot, and is a bit expensive (western Europe in general is expensive).. .and of course my native country, Finland, is also great in the summer, but keep in mind its very short, June-August, the rest of the year isnt so great for motorcycling.

Southern part of the continent has warmer weather, and my own favourite is Italy. But also Spain, France, Croatia, Greece, even Turkey, they all have plenty of things to see and do, and great roads for bikes.

My friend now lives in Namibia, so I´ve spent a couple of winters there, and rented a bike from South Africa, then toured SA, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia & Zimbabwe. All definitely worth a visit (except I dont know about Zimbabwe´s current situation, this was 6 years ago!) and the roads were surprisingly good (main roads I mean, some of the smaller roads could be challenging!), amazing nature and friendly people. Victoria Falls and the Namib Desert were probably the highlights of those trips.

Last winter we did a 6-month tour on a bike with my girlfriend, from Europe we went Turkey-Iran-Pakistan-India-Thailand-Malaysia-Indonesia-Australia. I enjoyed every country along the way, but if I had to pick 2 of them, Iran and Indonesia would probably be the ones. Dont know if you can get a visa for Iran, though. Iranian people are just unbelievably friendly, and the whole country is so much different than the picture painted to us by the media. Indonesia was dreamlike natural beauty all over, and also very friendly people (though one of them snatched my cellphone!) India was also a big, big experience, but also bad hygiene, stomach problems, and its traffic was horrible, never really got used to it! Australia, on the other hand, had huge wide open spaces without a sign of civilization to be seen, and long, boring highways, but after the hectic chaos of Asia, they were actually a welcome relief!

Done north Thailand, Cambodia and Laos before, and they are all very well worth visiting (you´ll have trouble getting your own bike to Vietnam, which is a shame, but you can go backpacking there, or rent something) The ever-curving tar roads of north Thailand are among the greatest for bikes, the same goes for mountain areas of Laos, but you´ll need an offroad-bike there. Its a shame Burma and China are a problem with your own bike.

Asia in general is quite cheap, I felt like I could spend 4-5 days there for 1 day spent in Europe. Southern Africa was also cheap, but not like in Asia. Australia was expensive, but still a bit cheaper than Europe.

Hope these are of any help! And dont plan to see everything on one trip, you cant. I wish we´d had 9-10 months, intstead of 6, to do our trip to Australia. Its better to go a bit slower and have time to relax and visit some interesting places, there wont be any shortage of them anywhere.

I need a bit more info.
Are you new to riding?
Are you looking to ride to a place or are you wanting to ride and discover.
How much $ are you planing to spend?
Are you willing to rent a bike in a place and ride there or must you take your own bike?
What is the maximum time you have?
How much gear are you planing to take and what bike are you going to go on?
How fit are you, can you take the pounding of poor dirt roads for long times?
What do you find amazing the desert, blue water, mountains, frozen tundra, rain forest? Or is it more the people? There history and culture?

Now the State Department and CIA are part of the US government and follow its leaders lead on who is bad and who is good. There only one place to get information from, find others. The USA would be on there list if it was a foreign country.

Im not trying to to be mean or condinsending. But its Big world lots of places to go.

But for starters a few weeks ride threw Texas to big bend turn east ride the south to key west. Want to realy see it? Try riding 200 mile or so a day. Take lots of photos 50 or more a day take almost nothing with you when you start get what you need as you go. Find what can on the road.