Hello experienced travellers-
I am new to international motorcycle travel and have 3 months off and some lofty aspirations. Have done a bit of travel in North America- Florida to Alaska and Labrador and now want to cross Europe/Asia to "connect the dots". 90 days, 10,000 miles/16000km seems to be a reasonable pace. I did my Alaska trip 11,600 miles in 15 days which was nuts. Do not wish to repeat that. Looking for input on which direction and logistics of transport at beginning and end. Been doing some homework, this board is very helpful. Just writing this may help clarify my thinking.

My timeline is set- I have August/September/October 2017 available. No fixed budget but I am natural tightwad so minimizing unnecessary expense preferred. I live in Southwest Florida, a couple hours from Miami. Bike is a 2000 KLR650 with 30k miles, I have put about 6k on it in the last 9 months and have gone over it pretty thoroughly.

My initial plan was to do 3 day ride to Toronto, fly AirCanada from Toronto to Seoul, ferry to Vladivostok and continue from there. I corresponded briefly with Wendy. However, the distance in Korea to be covered is short and Korea is not especially on my wish list. Plus the logistics of an additional country needs to be considered. The final straw was price- ferry is over $700 just for that leg however which has me rethinking the whole deal. For about same air fare/ferry price, I could fly to Tokyo and see a bit of that country, 800 km from airport to the ferry, but it seems that temporary importation is more challenging there. Requires a carnet which I do not think I need otherwise. Alternatively thinking of sea shipping direct from Miami to Vlad. I could crate the bike at home at my leisure rather than in Toronto (much more convenient) and drive it to Miami myself, dropping it off early. For reasons that escape me, it is several hundred dollars cheaper in air fare flying from to Vlad than Seoul/Tokyo and I can fly from my hometown. But then the uncertainty of sea shipment (although I have plenty of lead time) and storage upon arrival are concerns. May be an unwarranted concern, but getting the bike out of Russian customs may be more challenging than other places.

So then I started thinking about going West to East. Air Canada has a great deal flying bikes to Europe, air makes logistics easy, might even be able to go out of Miami as they fly there. Upon completion, fly home from Vladivostok and bike can go by sea as I don't have to worry how long it takes to arrive here. Other advantages is it starts me off in Europe which is probably easier for a beginning traveler, more resources to solve bike problems discovered early. However... it puts me in Europe in August which is busiest time I understand, and in Eastern Asia later in season when weather is less favorable. Latter is more concerning. Additionally I expect bike problems to be cumulative and the bike will have more wear and tear as I head into a more remote area.

Or I could just stay home and dream about "someday".

I would be interested in things I may not have considered or how others might weigh these aspects.

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2000 KLR650, beater wanting to become ADV bike. John Deere livery
2010 Goldwing Airbag tourer, of course it is yellow!