Hmmm? Some interesting, some might say fascinating, comments here into what the original inspiration was for some of us to go overland travelling. Could be a worthy topic for a brand new thread perhaps? .. or has this been done already?

I could do with a great read; nothing better than a good yarn or two. And Christmas is only 41 Days, 5 Hours and 31 Minutes away!
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Right Way Round ...

I feel I have to finally admit it: I inspired Ewan and Charley. They read my stories in Motorcycle Sport and Leisure and said to themselves: "If that stupid tawt Bright can manhandle a wholey unsuitable overloaded bag of sh!t BMW around the world, then so can we. All we really need is Russ Malkin to film us: He's the best..."


Errr, sorry, just woke up. T'was just a dream. My inspirations were Ted's "JT", Helge Pedersen's "10 years on 2 wheels" and Robert Fulton's "One Man Caravan". Another excellent book I read after I came home from my trip was Jonny Bealby's "Running with the Moon".

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TBS.com

I have some friends who off roaded to Alaska and raced the outlaw Baja 1000 every year. They dragged me to a slideshow by this dude named Helge Pedersen. I saw that big bike in a tiny canoe and was hooked!

That was probably 15 years before LWR.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ±1974.

E&C introduced me to the concept of travelling on a motorbike and then I came up with the idea of an USA tour. But it was the travellers at the HU meet in 2010 that inspired me to be a bit more adventurous. It was Walter Colebatch in particular though that inspired me to ride to Mongolia & Siberia, I never really gave any serious thought to these places before. Revisiting the USA plan again now but it keeps getting sidetracked: Central Asia is beckoning me. Other travel tales keep me going, providing me with a fix until my next adventure. Being currently unemployed though after my return is very frustrating and retarding my progress not to mention not being able to save.

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

It was LWR that led me to the BMW GS as my primary bike. But going around the world like they did seemed the stuff of rich movie stars (um, movie star and buddy). Especially when they made such a production around the planning stage - carnets, fixers, survival training, deals with motorcycle and gear companies, support vehicles, etc. If this was what RTW travel was all about, then it wasn't for us. We'd just stick to our 2-3 week moto-vacation in 1st world countries, then fly back home to earn money for next year's trip.

On one of our vacations through Europe (4 whole weeks!), we were at the cargo warehouse at Munich airport, prepping our motorcycles for shipment back to Canada when we ran into a guy unpacking his F650GS Dakar, fresh off the plane from Vancouver. It was just a 5-minute conversation, but he told us how he was 9 months into his trip, having completed an Argentina-to-Alaska run and was now doing the European continent. 9 months! And we thought we were really loosening the leash at 1 month away from home...

I know the exact date that happened, because we blogged about it over 5 years ago:

"As we waved goodbye to our motorcycles, our minds were abuzz with the logistics of doing such a trip ourselves.

The train ride back to Munich had us discussing what it would take to do a motorcycle tour for over year, possibly two, that would take us around Europe (properly this time), Eastern-Europe, Africa and Asia, and even back to the Americas (south and central). It probably won't happen for a few years, but I think we're both committed to this idea. Last year, after riding to California and back, the seeds were planted for this Europe trip. Now, at the end of this trip, we've got to up the stakes again. "Ride The World", indeed!"

Today marks the 5 month anniversary since we left on our own RTW trip. Haven't made it out of NA yet, but we're in no rush, having sold everything to wander around aimlessly on two wheels. I never got the name of the guy we met at the cargo warehouse in Munich airport, but he was far more of an inspiration to us than Obi Wan and his sidekick.

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

I remember reading Jupiters travels in the late 70s after which I started to plan a route to Tehran where my father was working at the time. I had just rebuilt my already 25 year old BSA which I thought would be ideal for the trip. Probably fortunately the trip never came off for budget/girlfriend reasons.

When we did set off in the early 90s our only inspiration was the promise of a long holiday in the sun!