Three months and want to do Europe to Vladivostok or vice versa
 

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.

Personally I would not want to be in Eastern Siberia in October, so I would start in the east, although the logistics sound like a major pain...There is a reputable guy in Vladi that can deal with your bike on arrival; I think his name is Yuri Melnikov, he is mentioned many times on this site.

Another idea would be to fly the bike to Europe and spend three months tooling around Europe, you can also ride to Moscow, etc. from there so you would get a good taste of Russia.

Honestly most of the ride through Russia to Vladivostok is pretty tedious so I would not be too broken up if you can't ride to Vladi. If you want a little bit of adventure you could do something like ride through Russia to Murmansk, into Norway for Nordkapp, and then back down through Norway to western europe.

Hopefully you'll figure something out, have a great trip!

I would do some research on temps on a potential eastern Russia route in October. I rode east to west to Vlad late May / early June last year and had a few bone-chilling soaking wet days. You got me curious… a quick look at Wunderground shows an average historical high of 39 F for Oct 10 in Khabarovsk. Brrrrr. And you’re from Florida! :innocent: :Beach:

https://www.wunderground.com/history...eqdb.wmo=31735

Yeah, the uncertainty of sea shipping is no fun… and storage upon arrival. I don’t know about that, I always ship by air. I wouldn’t worry about Russia customs too much. Yuri Melnikov, with whom you’d work on shipping by sea into Vlad (or by ferry from Korea) is a real pro -- great communication and everything in order.

If something did go south with the bike, it would be more time and difficulty to get a part shipped into Russia compared to Europe. You can find bike shops in Siberia, but it can be hundreds of miles between them and don’t expect to be able to find parts.

Whichever way you choose, I hope you do Mongolia -- it’s one of the world’s best moto destinations. :thumbup1:

Consider this perhaps?
 

I did the trip from Japan in 2015. Travelling east to west means you can have the sun in your eyes for a good part of the riding day if you're a late starter, late finisher type. You could consider advertising to buy a bike from a rider who has completed the East to West crossing and doesn't want to do the return trip? I saw a couple of bikes change hands in Mongolia with people doing this. You never know you could even get a gig just riding the bike back for someone and just deliver it to them at the end of your trip.

On hold this year
 

The guy we hired to fill in for me in my absence has turned in his resignation, so I will be unable to get time from work. Perhaps next year depending on our recruiting success.

Game back on!
 

New guy starting at work May 1st allows me to do this trip starting this August

Nice! But given the months that you have chosen, I would suggest to do it from Vladivostok to Europe. Because Eastern Russia will be getting cold in October. Not only cold, possibly not so nice driving weather for bikers.

When you finish in Europe there are plenty options to get your bike over sea back.

Yes, East to West seems the vastly better option at this time of year.