300 miles in a day in Europe is easy. Sustained 300 miles every day, for weeks and months, is very hard.

While that's a decent loop, you've got a huge gap there between Finland and the Balkans. There's definitely plenty to see there - assuming you don't want to mess with Russian and Belarussian visas, you would be going through the Baltic States (fairly interesting) through Poland (probably via Warsaw and Krakow, the latter definitely worthwhile), then Slovakia (specifically the High Tatras - feel free to skip Bratislava), into Hungary (Budapest is a must). From there I'd turn east into Romania (Cluj-Napoca, Turda Salt Mine, the Transfagarasan and Transalpina roads, really lots of nice mountain and forest roads in the national parks, Brasov and Bran Castle definitely, Bucharest by preference) into Bulgaria (stop by Moto Camp, say hi to Graham Field), and on to Istanbul.

From there (having paid the exorbitant toll for the Europe-Asia bridge, but of course you have to do it!), into Greece - maybe head south, maybe not - then Macedonia (I hear Lake Orhid is very nice), Albania (bunkers everywhere!) and Montenegro (try to time it for the HUMM meet there), maybe see the European Federal District of Kosovo on the way but head for Dubrovnik and up the coast, get a Bosnia and Herzegovina stamp in your passport with that little chunk of coastline, then keep going up through Split and Zadar. Into Slovenia for the Vrsic Pass, possibly into the wonderful SS-roads of the Dolomites, over the Carnic Alps into Austria and the Grossglockner. Through Innsbruck and Feldkirch, cross Liechtenstein off your list, into Switzerland for the Furka-Grimsel-Sustenpass triangle, and down to the Lake Maggiore/Como area. Then west again via Gran Paradiso to Chamonix, pick up the Route des Grandes Alpes all the way down to Monaco. Follow the Riviera coastline to the Pyrenees, check out Andorra. Do a circuit of Iberia and end up back in Santander/Bilbao for the ferry home (or, if it's running by that time, the direct Santander-Ireland ferry).

Hell, now I want to do that!

I'm not going to quibble with AnTyx' itinerary, which give you plenty to see and a plausible route. Of course, for each suggestion there are certainly a dozen equally valid counter-suggestions. And no matter how you work it you'll surely miss lots--it's the nature of things that in the process of getting somewhere you become aware that you're missing far more than you're seeing. Journeys are therefore exercises in deciding what to miss out on as much as what to see.

But what's really lacking here is consideration of the seasons. Your six month trip is going to include parts of three seasons and maybe 35 degrees of latitude. I've been up to Nordkap in mid-September, and things were definitely getting marginal for motorcycle travel. November/December in central Europe can be brutal, not to mention dangerous. Autumn rains quickly get old in a lot of places, and early mountain snow will definitely interfere with the best laid plans. On the other hand, summertime heat can strip you of the will to live--or is that just me?

I'll add only that when I find myself predicting daily mileages, I somehow forget to allow for bad weather. Yeah, I can put in my allotted 300 miles through blustery November rain, wind and snow and the short days of late autumn....but it's sometimes remarkably unpleasant as well as marginally safe.

YMMV, and I hope that's helpful.

Mark

Cheers Guys, that's cracking advice!

AnTyx, that's pretty much the route i was looking at initially on Google Maps.

Mark i'm out in Norway at the moment and have been up to Lofoten this summer. The absolute earliest i can get away with up in Nordkapp is Late May, so i would probably use this as the time to set off from the UK.

I've been doing some rough number crunching and the route would be around 15000 miles and would roughly take 70 days. That's not including staying anywhere for anymore than a couple of days.

My tank range is roughly 180 miles so that's around 85 tanks of fuel at around 20 GBP a tank, so thats about 1700 GBP in fuel

I was thinking around 30 pounds per day in Europe to live very basic. If i double that to include alcohol and sightseeing then that's around 4000 GBP

All in all I reckon that the whole trip would cost approx 5,600 GBP over 70 days.

What do you think so far??

I think that if you calculate the the trip at 70 days and 5600 pounds, you should give yourself 100-120 days and 10,000 pounds. That'll let you actually enjoy the trip.

Antyx is again spot-on. If you're stubborn like me, you'll be thinking you know better and can do it your own way. Just leave yourself some options so that you're prepared for the day you learn he was correct after all--a friend at home who'll deposit more money in your account, a loose plan to bail on the last couple of weeks of your trip, or an arrangement to return home several weeks late without significant penalty.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark