Thanks & will do!

A couple of epic journeys most of us are familiar with are the Ewan McCharlie BMW / Touratech infomercials (yes, I did enjoy them, but no, I will probably never buy a GS Adventure). One thing that has always exercised my brain is why, on the second one, did they ship everything from London to John O'Groats to start, then blast straight down the motorway to London again, rather than simply opening the garage door in London and setting off?

The conclusion I came to is that they only did it to make the line down the map look more impressive. When they get into North Africa, they are both really fed up of grinding out big mileages on highways. I think Ewan made a comment that they were just flying through without taking anything in and missing it all. My immediate thought was they wasted 2-3 days they could have spent in Africa sat on the A1 with the cruise control on.

So, what I ask myself is how much of the enjoyment of a road trip comes from setting an epic challenge and completing it VS just enjoying the journey in the moment? How much is a blend of the two?

I don't think its an easy one to answer, and there are lots of different approaches to trip planning (or intentional lack of plan) on the HUBB that go from one extreme to the other. I'm entirely a "just go somewhere and enjoy" person at the moment, but, I can also see some attraction in setting a challenge. I can also understand that there might be some deeper personal value in experiencing the adversity of grinding across the Kazakhstan steppes - not that I imagine many people would choose to fly to Kazakhstan and obtain a bike simply to do so.