4-5 weeks in 2020, where would you go?
 

I am planning to take 4-5 weeks out mid 2020 to celebrate turning 50 (I hate parties!!) and am looking for route ideas. I will be travelling alone. Where would you go? Even better, where did you go and how was it?

My option A is to ride the Trans America Trail. I have wanted to do this for a while. I have an XT660z set up for adventure riding in South Africa which i could ship from/back to there but suspect this will not be straightforward or cheap, hence pausing to consider alternatives.

Option B is to do another African trip with the XT. I've done Cape Town to Nairobi and number of trips within South Africa on the XT, as well as Zimbabwe and Namibia on 4 wheels. There is nothing specifically calling to me at the moment in Africa, but I am open to ideas.

Option C is to do something in Europe. I have a Tiger 800 in the UK set up for European touring (rather than off road). I have always fancied going down through the Balkans/Eastern Europe and into Turkey. I was in Croatia and Slovenia briefly this year but would like to see more, and did (and loved) Romania on a previous trip. I have a fascination with Russia too (I have read lots of the Russian classics but have ever been).

Option D is to head up through Norway to the Arctic Circle, back via Finland and the Baltic states.

Option E is whatever you tell me it is!!! A bit of South America? Spain/Morocco (I am terrible at riding on sand)?

Interested to hear your thoughts.

"Mid 2020" sounds like northern hemisphere summer, so not southern Europe or Morocco. "A bit of South America" covers a lot of ground, and some of my personal favorite places will be awkward due to it being mid-winter...but that doesn't rule out four or five weeks in, for example, Colombia. Turkey/Eastern Europe/Balkans would make a nice trip, as would Georgia/Armenia/etc. according to your preferences. You'll want to note that 4-5 weeks is not very long for such a trip.

You didn't mention Mexico or Central America, which are possibilities despite the rainy season (and heat at low elevations). Nor did you mention Alaska/Yukon/northern BC, which would be outstanding options if you can find a bike and manage the limited riding season. Probably easier to buy a bike in the US than to rent or ship, subject to all the usual limitations--you do seem to have had some practice at this sort of thing. It's the wrong time of year for SE Asia or Australia/New Zealand.

If it were me, I'd grab the Tiger and head for Norway, with an emphasis on the fjords, Lofoten Islands, North Cape, and more like that. Easy enough to squeeze in a side trip to St. Petersburg to scratch your Russia itch, and the standard circular route can include a swath of Eastern Europe (Baltics and Poland) as well. Again, four to five weeks is pretty brief, even on good roads. Watch the speed limits in Norway!

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

That is helpful Mark, thank you. Mid 2020 is probably within an April to July window (or from November, but i’d be 51 by then!!), so you

I also acknowledge the limitations of 4-5 weeks. I am married with two later teenage kids and am still working full time so for now it is all i can realistically negotiate. I am aiming for something bigger in 5-6 years when i’ve seen the youngest through uni (all going to plan which of course it won’t).

I’ve done the fjords in Norway but not further north and have heard good things about to Lofoten Islands so will explore that some more. Not having to buy/ship a bike is appealing!

I’d not thought about Columbia but that’s a good shout, as is Alaska so i’ll have a look at them too.

Cheers
Andy

I don't want to frighten you but we thought that with our two. :rofl: Uni should have finished in 2012 for one and 2017 for the other but subsequent courses in various forms seem to be stretching out into some kind of infinity with both of them so we're still paying.

50 does seem to be the age 'du jour'. I'm currently planning for a 50th next year as well but in my case it'll be the 50th anniversary of my first substantial 'overland' bike trip - to Morocco as it happens. Not that much in the grand scheme of things these days but a significant and fairly unusual thing to do back then. We're planning on redoing the trip using 1970(ish) technology - similar bike, same route etc and comparing / contrasting the two eras in print in a similar manner to the way Ted Simon revisited Jupiter's Travels.

For your 50th I'd suggest a similar approach - do something that's significant to you. If all bike travel / destinations are much of a muchness then by all means take a list of suggestions from here and rank them by convenience / cost / weather / any other criteria you can think of and make a decision. 50ths though don't come along that often so I'd suggest going with something that's important to you, something that's been bugging you for a while, something you keep putting off - even if it's nothing to do with bike travel. I have a number of things like that and they don't all involve travel.

If I had to make a travel suggestion for 5-6 weeks it would be down through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and over to the Caucasus but that's mainly because it's on my personal list and keeps getting bumped. :rofl:

4/5 weeks is plenty for The Balkans
Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Italy, France.
You’ll have time to fly your wife out for a few days rest in say......Greece :D

Enjoy

TAT makes you cut thru the playground. I would instead spend all of my time circling the playground.

I would fly into Denver, buy a DRZ400/WR250 and spend 2.5 weeks on Colorado trails and 2.5 weeks on Utah trails.

Here's a link to my 2 week trail only* trip in Colorado.

https://advrider.com/f/threads/two-w...-dump.1109867/

I want to do the same in Utah soon.

where would you go
 

Fly to Auckland, hire a DL650 from the Suzuki dealer there and have the time of your life. NZ is like a small planet all on its own with every type of road and amazing scenery.

New Zealand in July? I tried that once.....

That's a good plan - but the window Temporaryscapee has is April-July, so a bit too early for the high passes in Colorado - although you might be lucky if you left the Colorado sections until the end of the trip... similarly, you'd have to miss some of the key sections of the TAT if starting that early in the year too.

But as you suggest, plenty of riding in Utah (although you might have to miss the La Sal Mountains still), Arizona, Nevada, California - so you could easily put together an awesome cross-country on-road and off-road route essentially doing a huge lap of the Grand Canyon for example?

Jx

Thanks everyone, this is all helpful and appreciated


Thanks JMo for the info - when would you be confident on the high passes? I could do a bit later - i was just thinking about avoiding peak holiday season.

Hi Temp' - It really depends on how severe/long the winter has been - this year for example, almost nothing is open yet; while pretty much this time last year (1st July) I was riding Imogene Pass (over 13,000ft), and everything further east of there was already clear too.

Generally speaking, if you're going to ride the TAT route through Colorado it's better to leave it until July at least (for info. the old route went via Hancock and Tomichi Passes to the north west of Salida, and north of Hwy 50 - where there is a huge network of old mining roads and jeep trails... but Tomichi is almost always closed due to landslide/s (no longer county maintained) and Hancock is pretty tough going on a loaded ADV bike these days, as it gets a lot of 4 wheeled traffic from Jeeps and side-by-sides), which is why Sam now routes you over the lower elevation Marshall Pass (a little over 10,000ft) to the south of Hwy 50, which is often open earlier and so extends the available window... since further west Cinnamon Pass (along with Engineer) tends to get ploughed (if at all possible) by early/mid June too...

However, the basin west of Animas Forks (leading to California and Hurricane Passes, which are the continuation of the TAT) are over 12,000ft, and being so remote tend not to get ploughed early... fortunately you can usually divert south via Silverton, and pick up the TAT again west of Hwy 550 (the Million Dollar Highway).

Realistically, I'd say you ought to consider hitting Colorado around mid July to give you a good chance of all the TAT route passes being open, but conversely leaving it much later than that and it's really hot further west when you get into Utah and Nevada (in fact it's already hot there by the end of June).

If you do decide that riding the TAT is your big birthday present to yourself, then I'd suggest you start towards the end of June on the east coast (essentially right about now), and that gives you two to three weeks in hand before you reach Colorado for the passes to be open, and allow yourself another couple of weeks to get the most out of the TAT west of Moab and up into Idaho etc.

Hope that gives you something to go on - although equally Morocco is a wonderful destination too, and spending your 5-6 weeks looping down through Spain and Portugal, then a couple of weeks in Morocco before coming back through Southern France (via the Alps) would be another great way to spend your 50th summer!

Jenny x