The originally text was published in the Polish “World of Motorcycles” magazine in July 2023.
Hi, this is Hania and Jacek. Ex-entrepreneurs, aged around 50, currently without a permanent job, except for one thing – travelling the world on motorcycles. We left our home in Katowice about 10 months ago with the intention of wheeling to India. Nice idea, right? Like many before us, we dreamed of the Silk Route for a long time. Although in a straight line it is only 6,000 km, and by road – about 10,000 – we have not yet reached India. But – we found our new home … in a permanent journey.
The preparations for the trip took several months. We sold our old Yamaha Tenere XT660Z and bought 2 new bikes: Yamaha Tenere 700 and Honda CRF 300 Rally. For several weeks, we customized them to cover long distances with heavy luggage on pothole roads and off-roads.
We also watched several hundred hours of vlogs, read well over 1000 articles on travel websites. We went through dozens of guidebooks and marked 1,348 points on the map that we wanted to visit along the way.
The night before we left, we fell asleep feeling that we were well prepared for this trip. What naivety… We came across problems that do not occur during shorter expeditions. Here’s what we want to draw your attention to if you’re considering a months-long motorcycling wander.
Weather and seasons
Provided you’re not a neurotic detailer like Ben Affleck in The Accountant, you break down a longer trip “more or less”, not in days, but in time slots. When will you arrive in Turkey? In about a month. If you have time – you assume that a lot can change along the way. Locals guide you to an unmissable viewpoint, you find epic roads, or a deserted wild beach ideal for camping. Thursday becomes Tuesday, and mid-April transforms into the end of May.
In season or out of season? It’s a question that divides people as much as whether they prefer the mountains or the sea. During the season, the weather is in your favour. It‘s more expensive, but all the attractions you might want to see are open, and the tourist facilities are in abundance. It is also easier to meet other motorcyclists on the route and exchange experiences. In the off-season, you take great photos, because all must see places are empty. But it is also more difficult for you to ride (brrrrr cold), sleep in a tent (even colder at night) and you can easily find yourself in a closed hotel (even though Google says it is open, and you can even book and pay for it on Booking.com).
So when is it better? To be honest, it doesn’t matter because… you can’t plan it. Overlanding for many months, some places fall out during the season, others out of season. It won’t bother you much, because the world has its own unique charm at any time of the year, and you absorb it from the saddle of a motorcycle like Ted Simon in Jupiter Travels. You quickly stop caring about seeing the Kalash Valleys during the cherry blossom season, as you simply won’t be able to get there. It is because you have lingered in Rawalpindi fascinated by Mughal palaces and post-colonial heritage from the times of British India. The Kalash Valleys just have to wait.
Destinations and routes
Of our 1,348 points, we haven’t even visited half of them. Why?
While preparing at home, digging through the sources, we were still finding the same destinations everywhere. Using Google, Tripadvisor and Youtube, we found, above all, well-known and massively visited places. An attempt to search for attractions with the note “off the beaten track” resulted in the pins on the places not besieged but also, as it turned out later – of dubious cognitive value.
Our maps contained a mix of eminent and famous places (after all, you can’t miss Persepolis when riding through Iran) and little-known and not very attractive places (like the Romanian village of Ciocănești, which was supposed to be a folklore masterpiece, and we almost missed it while driving through its center). Add to this spectacular roads of which someone in some vlog was ravished and used epithets of delight, and we get a completely abstract itinerary.
In the excess of places necessary to see, we created Garmin trails on an ongoing basis, diligently avoiding the main roads. Already in Bulgaria it turned out that we simply didn’t remember the meaning and importance of some pins on the map. Who would remember what he read about the defensive walls of Sozopol 6 months ago? And why exactly was he interested in them?
Point too far from the chosen route and logistically unjustified? We skipped it without hesitation. A point in the area that was mentioned to us by a motorcyclist recently met at Moto Camp Bulgaria? Urgently added to the map with the conviction that we cannot miss it.
There was a revelation in Iran. We talked with a traveller from Poland (as regards foreigners in Iran, we met only Poles and two of them only) about what captivated us and what repulsed us in this country. Our routes sometimes overlapped. We’d been to many of the same places and … we had completely different opinions about them.
Everyone has their own unique journey. We build a network of beloved places, a treasury of valuable experiences ourselves – and even though we visit the same locations, we follow the same paths – we see completely different things.
Health and well-being
“Rest after the hardships of the journey” – this phrase straight from the novel by Jane Eyre comes back to us like a boomerang whenever our physicality fails to keep up with ideas, or even with a careful game plan.
It’s not only that your ass hurts – you can get used to it quite quickly. Rather, the lack of certainties and constant rituals of life that we normally never think about. They are like electricity in the socket and water in the tap, which are always there and we never think about them.
It is impossible to rest after the hardships of travel … on a journey – for that you need a home. A house or a kitchen where you can brew tea at any time without disassembling special equipment. A wardrobe where you can reach for your favorite sweater and the same bed … even for a week. Otherwise, you wake up in the middle of the night, and it takes you a loooong time to realize your way to the toilet. Yesterday the toilet was just in a different place.
Sleeping in a tent is great. But not when a flock of wild birds starts a concert at 3 am. If you are on a short trip, this is an indispensable element of the adventure. You’ll sleep when you get back. But in the 4th month of riding, when you’ve just found an epic spot among the Martian rock formations, and you think you’ll rest here for a few days – you feel like shooting those birds right now.
Street food is fast, delicious and cheap. The problem is that it contains mostly fat and carbohydrates. And maintaining a balanced diet takes a lot of time and effort. Plus your fitness. If you haven’t implemented the iron discipline of daily exercise (let’s face it – it’s difficult even at home) your shape dissolves slowly and consistently like an effervescent tablet in cold water.
Before you know it, your nails are starting to break and you need more effort to lift the bike from the ground after a fall on some picturesque mountain road.
But with time you find harmony and your own well-being on the go. You’re not trying to implement regular workouts like you do at home. Instead, you go for a brisk walk in the morning. If there is a lake on the way – you will not miss the opportunity to swim. Mountains? You stay a few days to go hiking. Prolonged asphalt riding for several days and there are no views of activity? You make a deal with yourself that you will cross each village standing. And when there are opportunities – you book a fancy hotel for a few days, go for a massage, sauna, or even spend the whole day in the SPA.
You stop rushing anywhere and you change your priorities. No longer the destinations, attractions and the internal compulsion to see them determine the rhythm of the journey. Your overall well-being comes first – it allows you to experience the beauty of the world to the fullest. And this is a magical moment, because then your several-month trip full of spectacular spots, unforgettable experiences and great adventures turns into the life on the go.
How to organize it well? We’ll write about that next time….
