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European Road Trip
Hello All,
I plan on touring Europe on a motorcycle and wondered where to start? By my reckoning i'd take 6 months to tour Europe and visit every single country and wondered who'd done it before. Any tips, advice links all appreciated. Meddy. |
Well, the first question is - where do YOU start? :) Which country are you in right now?
Do you already have a motorcycle on which you will be doing this trip? Do you want to stick to tarmac roads, or go offroad? Are you more interested in culture, city life, or beautiful nature? Assuming from your username that you are in the UK, I would start with Ireland for obvious reasons, and then take a ferry down to Santander/Bilbao - the Iberian peninsula has a lot of great riding, and you might as well start with the farthest corner if you are intent on visiting every country. By the way, what exactly do you mean by every country in Europe? Just the EU/EEA? What about the Balkans? Turkey? Russia? Ukraine? Belarus? |
Hiya.
Yes would be starting off in the UK and i already ride a GSX650F, although that may change. I fancy Europe as far east as i can go, so was thinking doing a big loop from London - Norway - Finland - balkans - turkey back through to spain and up to Ireland. Just as a rough calculation i've got a total mileage figure of 14800 miles, thinking that i would do approx 300 miles a day. I'm thinking do a couple of days riding through gorgeous countryside and then look to stop off somewhere in a city or major town for sightseeing. |
300 miles in a day in Europe is easy. Sustained 300 miles every day, for weeks and months, is very hard.
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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 :D 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. :)
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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 |
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I've done it before, but it took me 12 months. I did it one month at a time (one month each year) for the past 12 years. I think that if you try to do a 70 day, 15,000 mile trip, you will only wind up with a sore arse and memories of all the different gas stations you visited along the way... and you will probably never want to ride another motorcycle in your life. I've done some 'long haul' trips, such as Toronto to Los Angeles and back in 10 days time (that's about a 5,000 mile circuit), and although that kind of 'transiting' - I wouldn't think of calling it 'touring' - has its own charms, you don't really see or experience from the surroundings you pass through. It reminds me of riding from Luxembourg to Poland in 5 hours... I did that once, but all I saw was the yellow line along the left side of the motorway. My suggestion to you, based on my 12 years of touring one month every summer in Europe, is that you pick one country, or perhaps one region, and plan to explore it. Allow for a day of perhaps 200 miles riding, then a few days staying in one hotel and exploring around the area, then another day of perhaps 200 miles riding, etc. If you are always on the road doing long distances, you'll soon get mighty tired of checking into a new hotel every night and then checking out again in the morning. For what it's worth... Michael PS: I suggest you budget about 125 Euros per day for food, lodging, and fuel. 30 UK pounds per day is totally inadequate, even if you plan on sleeping under bridges. You'll spend that much just on (cheap, basic) food and fuel. |
Hiya all.
I'm closing in on my goal of riding around Europe on my Yamaha Tracer 900. The planned route detailed by Antyx above will be my planned route. I'm currently planning the first 'leg' of my trip, riding up from Calais to Copenhagen to Helsinki in order to get the ferry over to Latvia. This would be in mid to late May. I've already ridden extensively through Norway in 2017, so there would be no need to create the expense of doing that again. My plan would be to ride to Oslo then up through Sweden. I'm wondering the best and cheapest route then to Helsinki? Cheers. |
Four years planning, and it appears you've learned that posting anything specific will tend to get it shot down! So...I hope your schedule (70 days) and budget (30 GBP, doubled to include frivolity) have evolved during the interim.
What's missing here is your stated intent to visit "every single country" in Europe. I understand there are ~44 of these, and it appears you're missing quite a few (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Malta, Iceland, San Marino, the Vatican, Cyprus), and probably several more (Moldova, Luxembourg, Kosovo, Czech Republic, Germany, even Italy). And don't forget to include Armenia and Georgia, which are geographically and perhaps politically as much European as, say, Turkey. Of course, some minor detours would include a few of these, but certainly not all--and not within your timeframe or budget. On the other hand--because there's always another hand--getting out on a major trip of any sort is a major accomplishment in itself these days. Hope it works out for you! Mark |
Like Pan European, my wife and I have been on motorcycle holidays in Europe for 1 month a year for 27 years. Over the years we have worked out a system to keep expenditure down when needed - perhaps it may give you some ideas.
We camp on campsites, in a tent, with the occasional cabin or room if we’re in bad weather. Wild camping would be free of course. We look for farm or council owned campsites, out of tourist hot spots, which are the cheapest. France is the cheapest country in Western Europe, campsites in the Balkans and Eastern Europe are harder to come by and often more expensive than a cheap room - although we did find a council one for 75p a night in Slovakia but that was in 2001. We carry a large bag of porridge and coffee for breakfast. We purchase baguettes and fillings (cheese, tomato etc) then look for a picnic spot for lunch - often carrying the leftovers (cheese etc) with us for the next day. We will stop around 3pm for a little coffee (no milk). Once our camp is set up in the afternoon/evening we will pop to the supermarket and buy some dinner to cook, a bottle of wine and some fruit to go with the porridge in the morning. Often we will pop into a bar on the way back for 1 beer. We will travel like this for a few days (no motorway) then settle somewhere for 2 or 3 nights, then continue on again. We avoid cities, they drain our wallets very quickly - too much temptation, for us, to buy stuff, go to a restaurant, go on the beer. If we want to go to see a city we will book a city break as a separate trip and budget accordingly. When using this method, I reckon, we average 20€ a night for camping and 20€ a day for food and drink. Fuel obviously depends on how far and how fast we travel. We tend to stick to A/B type roads and travel around 250 miles a day which, at the moment would cost us around €30 each. Obviously when we stop for a few days this goes right down as we just go to see local stuff, often using 1 bike, (walking in the mountains, local swimming lake etc). So when we’re on the move it costs us around €100 a day - this is for 2 but I don’t think the camping or food/drink would be a lot different for 1, but the fuel would. So perhaps €60 for 1 using this method. Hope this info helps - have a great trip. |
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You can also use campsites, but that tends to be expensive, everything is expensive in the North. As for taking the ferry to lativa, I don't think the ferry is operational since covid. You would have to take the ferry from Helsinki to Tallin (Estonia) instead. Should be cheap in the range of 10-30 euros. I recently rode down from Helsinki to Cyprus, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will try to do a short writeup about it, but the weather is too nice so I gotta go out and ride! |
I am currently looking to do an extended EU tour (Ish) this year as well.
I don't want to turn this into a political thread but one thing to be aware off, if you are traveling from the UK on a British passport is that you can now only stay in the Schengen Area for 90 days out of every 180. If you are only traveling for 70 days then this wouldn't affect you but as others have said more time would allow you to see more and with the nature of any long trip delays are inevitable, there are exceptions to this rule for a select group of countries. It is worth being aware of this, there are some very hefty potential penalties for over staying it. These links might be helpful, i'm no way an expert on this, I'm currently getting my head around it at the moment. https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/per...tish-citizens/ https://cibtvisas.co.uk/The-Schengen...Rule-Made-Easy Best of luck with the Planning and Enjoy your trip! |
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Cheapest? Tallink/Silja ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, because you can put your bike on the ferry for free if you buy a passenger ticket and use the Louis.eu partner code (look for Tallink/Silja on https://www.louis.eu/service/rund-um...iscard/partner for details). Best/most interesting? Eckero Line from Sweden to the western end of Aland, then ride and ferry-hop through the archipelago to Turku or Tampere before riding to Helsinki. |
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