Opinions - Which trip should I make
 

Hi. So I will likely be making a trip somewhere about March time 2011. I'd like some opinions on what trip I should take. I'll likely be re entering education after it and it will be my last good trip for a long time. I'll quickly lay out my potential options.

Ok, firstly, I have read (many times) the AMH and have had a carnet previously so I understand that. Now regards my situation.

I currently have an F650 GS Dakar. It’s been modified already by overland solutions to go most places. (I started a previous trip on it and it failed, long story).

I will be leaving from the UK. My budget will be about £3000.

So, my first idea is to cross Africa, either the East or West coast. But cost is a problem. Last I checked a carnet in Egypt was 800% which is too much. The issue here is the cost of shipping my bike back from South Africa.
The second option is to fly to South or Central America and buy a bike and ride around there.
The third option is to ride India on an Enfield. Is this still a safe bet alone? To be fair though, I’ve been living in East Asia for a while now, and would like to not travel in Asia really.
So these are my options. I’ll be making the trip between March/April and August/September and as I said before, I’ll have about £3000. This will include the cost of carnet (insurance option) if I take my bike. And it will include the cost of buying the bike in either India or the Americas. I could probably add another £500-700 if I was to get it back on the carnet/selling the bought bike.
I haven’t been to any of the above countries so they’re all new to me and really want to see all of them
If you’ve read this far, thanks please throw out your opinions on what you would do.
Cheers

Can't go wrong with South America.... especially if you don't have a girlfriend!

Your budget is pretty slim for that amount of time (five months). By the time you've paid airfare and bought a bike (a beater of a bike, if you expect to have any funds left over), you're down to a very meager sum. Maybe this is do-able in India. Maybe it's do-able in Central or South America if you're frugal. But my choice would be to find some more money before leaving home.

Hope that helps.

Mark

5 months travelling on £3000 leaves you with only £20 a day. I think you're being a bit optimistic, since that has to include fuel and food...

I agree with previous comments. This travel business ain't cheap! :helpsmilie:
But all is not lost!

Couple ideas:

1. Do a short Morocco tour on your own bike. Some great riding. See a bit of Spain and Portugal coming or going. Maybe go a bit further into Africa until money runs low. Ride home.

2. Do an Eastern Europe tour. Maybe get to Turkey, Russia or Mongolia? In a few months you could see a lot, use your own bike. Avoid Carnets if possible.

3. Do a package tour in India to get a taste of what it's all about. Maybe a 3 week tour? Just because you go into teaching doesn't mean you'll never travel again ... does it? Look at Austin Vince! I'm thinking it would take several big trips to India to see it all.

These ideas just off the top of my head.

You could also sell off your Dakar, fly to the US and buy another bike. (much cheaper than UK) You can buy a decent used 600cc dual sport in the US for $2000 USD.

Ride Mexico, maybe some of Cent. America? The Dakar sale should cover your US bike, maybe even give a bit of extra cash for travel? Re-sell bike after trip. No carnets required for ANY of Latin America. Good cheap flight deals to L.A. Set up the buy before you arrive.

Don't forget to include the season and the resulting weather in your final decision making process. The timing you describe (March-September-ish), overlaps the northern hemisphere summer so would be great timing for a totally different ride than mentioned, across to Vlad for example. If you did decide on Africa (either coast), you would want to try to avoid the worst of the rainy season and the worst of the heat by mapping your route and figuring out what rough month you would be where.

Picky details like budget and weather aside, there is a school of thought that recommends to do the biggest adventure you can while you are still free. Life can interupt the best laid future plans, you not too far off from making your dream trip come true so pick which one appeals to you most and beg/borrow/steal a bit more to make it happen. Personally, I'd pick Africa, but really it's very dependant on the individual.

It really should'nt matter how much money you have got.....head off in whatever direction takes your fancy and when you get to the point that half of your hard-earned is gone, simply turn around and take a slightly different route back again.

cheers guys for all the responses. i should clear up the budge thing a little bit. i'd be making one of two choices. the period of traveling i said was more of a window to do it in as opposed to the whole period. i prob wont be returning to the UK until the end of march in truth and then would want to be home at least a few weeks before i started school (so prob late august is more likely).

i could also probably raise the bar to about £4500 if needs be. though some of that would have to be returned either via the carnet or selling any bike i bought.

A tour of the baltic is a trip I've long wanted to do. Ride through Europe to Poland, up through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, ferry to Finland, up into Lapland, down through Norway and Sweden , ferry to Denmark - back home. And you could easily add a few eastern european countries onto this trip if you wanted.

Europe ain't the cheapest place to travel but Norway, Sweden and Finland all have the right to wild camp enshrined in law (and culture). Take a tent and it might not end up costing you too much. Plus you wouldn't need to buy a bike.

Matt :)

South East Asia on rented bike?
 

AS I am currently sorting out renting bikes in Vietnam: flying there is not cheap that's true (700 pound return) but then you could rent a bike for several months for as cheap as 100 USD a month.
From Vietnam you could enter into Thailand, Laos etc...maybe even China with a vietnamese registred bike.

Not sure how crossing borders with a rented bike works out but other alternative is to buy a 2d hand cheap 125c from a rental agency agreeing on a buy-back scheme.

With 3 grands, lets say you pay 1500 pounds on flight and bike purchase/rent, the remaining 1500 pounds is a lot of money in the region. You can easily sleep in confortable places for 10USD a day.
Worth checking with renting agencies.

The one I am going with, the girl there is really helpful, so worth asking her.

www.flamingotravel.com.vn

info.flamingotravel@gmail.com

Or just rent a bike in vietnam, travel, then go to Cambodia and rent another one etc....

Cheers,

i considered SE Asia. But i used to live in thailand and have travelled (backpacked) pretty extensively around there. so there is not a great deal i want to see. also, after nearly 5 years of asia, i kinda want a change. although india is still an option i'd consider.

I don't think 3000 pounds will get you very far in Scandinavia and the Baltics either unless you are very, very frugal. Plus I have to say that the scenery is not terribly interesting, Norway aside, and the riding's not particularly fascinating either. But riding relatively locally saves on buying the bike....and it allows you to easily head home when you start to run out of funds. "Local," in this context includes North and West Africa, parts of Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe....

But it gets you very, very far in Russia - once you have the bike, Visas etc.

A 4 month, 22,000 mile bike ride from UK and back last year cost me £5,400 all up, door to door - including an expensive high season air fare (Magadan to Vladivostock, while the bike was in a cargo ship), tyres, chain, sprockets, clutch and other consumables and repairs, all fuel, accomodation, food - and beer!
I only camped 5 or 6 nights, offset by the occasional expensive hotel. My only 'saving' was using my Moscow home en route and while waiting when Colebatch was delayed crossing Kurg & Kaz from the south, before I went east to meet him in central Siberia.

This was an 'extreme' journey but very 'unextreme' cost.
A shorter time and distance would cost proportionatly less.

That's US$2000 per month, which is what motorcycle travel seems to cost in most places. But I think that when you price a trip that way you're cheating. If you've got 3000 quid, you've got 3000 quid--not 3000 plus shipping, airfare, visas, etc. Plus, the OP was including the cost of the bike itself--and outfitting it for travel--in his costs. How much did it cost including visas, air, shipping, and the works? More like 8 or 10,000 quid? That's the real cost of your trip.

This aside, I agree that Russia will be cheaper than Scandinavia. No question about it, and no intent to suggest otherwise. In fact, I'd be pressed to think of anyplace on the planet which would cost as much as Scandinavia....except maybe Iceland before the economic crisis.

Mark

Not really. It was exactly £5,407.86 recorded as below.

Bike I have anyway. A fairly suitable bike, already owned for two years and given hardly any special preparation expenditure. Still in use.

Visa I have anyway for living there, but a single entry one would have cost a UK citizen £75 (US citizen £99). Still in use.

Riding gear I have anyway. Still in use.

I rode the bike all the way from London.
No air, no shipping - just toll free roads plus £1 for Channel Tunnel (original investor's concession rate). Shipping the bike (and my air fare) between Magadan and Vladivostock paid with cash drawn from Bankomats (ATM) and therefore included - see below.

The works?

The £5,407 was the TOTAL amount of cash drawn from Bankomats and amounts charged to Credit Cards - so it could not possibly have cost me more!
This included non-trip costs such as visiting friends, restaurants and entertaining while in Moscow (££££), some clothes etc along the way and one ДПС contribution (speeding fine/bribe).

Total cost from my banks & credit cards. How can that be cheating?

If you can spend more than that without it appearing on bank statements please tell us how!