Dont really know how to start this thread but here goes ...........................
Travelers seeking Travelers.

How many people actually meet a stranger and go travelling ?
Look at the treads and the amount of replies !
Example 355 views .................. 1 reply !!
Are there to many day dreamers ?
AND ........... If you do meet , what are the chances you will get on ?
I have met 3 people and two were a disaster on a trip to morocco .
So what is the answer ??c

It’s not a question of views vs. replies—I read a lot of posts and I travel a lot, but I seldom respond to any sort of request for travel companions.

I’m far more likely to respond to someone organizing a modest, local meetup, whether with or without . This allows a gradual face-to-face assessment and consideration of possibilities, and it’s more likely to result in shared travel at a later date.

More often I’ve just met people along the road and traveled with them for a period—they’re already headed in the same direction, possibly on a similar schedule and with similar interests and financial limits. What’s more, there’s less of an ongoing commitment to someone I just met, and this is generally a good thing, since well-matched travel companions are rare (IMHO). I’ve also met people on the road, kept in touch, and traveled with them at a later date—sometimes years later.

In direct answer to your specific question (“How many people actually meet a stranger and go traveling?”), I’d offer that I’ve done this quite a lot—but never that I can recall by meeting someone online, here or elsewhere.

Mark

People also reply by Private Message too, keeping the "private" getting to know you discussion off-line.

We do know people have met online here, but only a few - and many "make an acquaintance" then meet on the road later for a bit.

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Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
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Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Like Mark above I've met people on the road and travelled with them for varying lengths of time. Sometimes just because we're going in the same direction, other times for security, now and again because we find we have something in common. I've travelled solo and I've travelled with other people that I knew beforehand and we've planned the trip and a couple of times I've joined 'organised' trips where I didn't know people.

But what I've never done is 'answer an advert' - i.e. set off on a trip from scratch - and travelled together - with someone who's essentially a stranger. Not because that circumstance has never come up but because I consider the chances of it going wrong to be too high. Travelling in the way it's most commonly talked about here is a pretty high stress activity (even if it doesn't feel like it directly) and the chances are more likely than not that you and the stranger will have a falling out at some point - you want to go east, he wants to go west, that sort of thing (and it will be a 'he' if you are). Quite how that difference will manifest itself with someone you've never met before is, in my opinion, too high a risk.

Travelling in parallel - where you go your own way and meet up every now and again - may be workable depending on circumstances but the chances of meeting someone in the first place who wants to do what you're doing but semi independently is going to be pretty low.

LOTS !!!

But perhaps less than used to happen.

There are literally THOUSANDS of Adv tour companies now offering people company.

And where the Hubb was once the ONLY portal to really meet other moto travellers, now there are a plethora of social media sites and apps etc.

Also,travel is now EASY.. You could watch 100 Youtube videos of every route or road you ever want to ride before you ride it.

There is less fear of the unknown because not much is unknown anymore.


I'll compare my first trip through Patagonia in 2007 to my last trip only last year.

Where in 2007 there were very few moto travellers and if you saw another you would instantly pull over and exchange conversation and maybe try and meet up down the road. Now there are HUNDREDS of riders. Mostly in groups or on tours. It's like a Sunny Summer's day in North Wales. You just nod and carry on. It's harder to get away from other riders than it is to find them.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I suppose it's tricky avoiding other riders heading the same way as you, when you're the tour guide

Still quite easy to "avoid" other bike travellers by just keeping off the *main* paved highway, in my experience. Most are on big heavy Euro or Japanese bombers with the entire Touratech catalogue strapped to the back, so couldn't diverge from main highways even if they wanted.

Answering the OP's question: I gave up "seeking" or "finding" other riders via online portals because they all just seemed to want their hand holding or being guided (for free) or both. Now I have my own circle of people and don't need to tap up strangers online, or I meet like minded people travelling in the same direction at the same time, so with a complete lack of commitment, it's easy and stress-free for all parties.

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

For those who want to get away from everything a change of route might be the way to go then ... yes, loads of people want to "escape the rat race", and most of them go to the places they're told are "the best".

The problem with going "off piste" is that then you really can get stuck with little hope of rescue.

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FreeBSD fan since before it was cool ...

A somewhat confusing comment, based on actual experience. Taking a side road off the main highway is hardly off piste. Side roads exist because they lead to where people live, otherwise there wouldn't be a road in that direction. Locals travel along side roads. Hence "rescue" is possible should the need arise. Won't bother mentioning satellite based emergency beacon technology.

Side roads tend not to have trucks or insane bus drivers on them either. Hence further motorcyclist scourges avoided.

Sorry about this off topic reply. Just a response to an off topic statement.

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

I've just been 'dissecting' Bruce Chatwin's 'In Patagonia' book for an academic course I'm doing and I did wonder how things how things had changed between 1974 when he was there and more recent times. Sounds like the place has been 'discovered' in the last decade or two.

I guess it's the way a lot of these places go when the tourism industry sees an opportunity. Back in the early 70's we spent a month in Corfu on the back end of Gerald Durrell's book 'My family and Other Animals', and spent weeks camping up on an empty beach in the north of the island. The package tour world has now claimed the place for their own and I don't think you'd get away with putting a tent up there these days. Before and after pictures below.

Does that apply to trails that have been superseded by paved roads that take a more efficient route? No shortage of those here, I can literally go 30 mins from my house and then not see a single other person for the rest of the day (I carry an illegal radio because there's little signal in the valleys, but there are radio repeaters for forest fires). I also take a mini saw with me now, too, because sometimes there's no way through what is a legal road.

Anyway, my point was that there's plenty of places where there aren't people ... certainly that seems like a good place to reacquire the camaraderie of the past biking experience?

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FreeBSD fan since before it was cool ...

1. This line of "conversation" continues to be off topic in connection with what the OP asked.

2. I could repeat what I said earlier, but that'd be a waste of valuable time. I'm unsure what relevance there is between what I said and trails where illegal radios and cutting equipment to carve your way along them are involved.

It's a free world: each person can read into whatever they think others have said. Apologies if English isn't your first language and my communication has been lost in translation.

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

I think we're just having a communication breakdown here; I did go off topic - I was just thinking of the places and ways one could continue to enjoy the spirit of motorcycle adventuring and also possibly encounter the same sort of people who would make good travelling companions (because they're also wanting to go to more remote places without tour groups or long lines of instagramers)

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FreeBSD fan since before it was cool ...

And they call it "Progress"...

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Anyone old enough to remember Joni Mitchell will also remember she nailed it 50yrs back:

"They paved paradise, put up a parking lot

With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot"

A few years ago I found a 1957 bike travel book in a local charity shop. In it the author describes a place he stayed at in Spain as "one of the finest bathing resorts in the south of Europe despite just being a fishing village". Where was it? Torremolinos !

It is always a bit of a toss up when you are trying to plan a motorcycle trip with other riders over the internet.

Over the years I have learned to not put too much faith in any one internet person that you are supposed to meet up with.

It is a good idea to have a backup plan or backup plans in case the person turns out to be a flake.

There are a lot of factors that go into finding a good riding partner:
1. Trip Budget, hotels or camping
2. Morning Wakeup habits, does one guy sleep in way more than the other
3. Packing up in the morning, I am super slow at getting my tent, etc packed
4. Stopping for pictures and food
5. Riding offroad versus pavement
6. How many miles/ kms to ride a day
7. Speed that you ride at. On my last TAT trip I met up with a 22 year old guy on an xr650. I wasn't expecting to be slower riding on the trail than him, but I was.

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)