Bike touring abroad

[Gee68]

Has anyone just packed their gear,hopped onto their bike and just headed off,no plan,no map, just driven to the Chunnel or ferry and headed off.

This is a dream of mine but is the reality a nightmare.

[anonymous-user]

I’ve not done any touring from the uk but I tour quite a lot in Europe (based in Austria so Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy) and it’s a piece of piss. I take a tent but often find it’s roughly the same price to stay in b&bs once you’ve factored in all the costs and breakfast. Plus way more comfy and nicer if it’s been wet and you’re soaked.

The only thing that would piss me off about coming from the uk is the slap down from Calais or wherever you land to get to the “good” roads.

It’s dreamland though.

[KTMsm]

Does it work for you when you do that in the Uk ?

Because it never bloody does for me - I end up on single track gravel roads or going through endless crappy towns / cameras

So now I plan everything - boring planning makes better riding IME

[anonymous-user]

KTMsm said:

Does it work for you when you do that in the Uk ?

Because it never bloody does for me - I end up on single track gravel roads or going through endless crappy towns / cameras

So now I plan everything - boring planning makes better riding IME

I should add that I never plan anything. The roads round me are fabulous. I started trying to plan things but hated it.

[KTMsm]

bulldong said:

I should add that I never plan anything. The roads round me are fabulous. I started trying to plan things but hated it.

I hate planning too but after so many crap rides it was the only option - if you're one of life's happy drifters, fair play but it just doesn't work that way for me

I'm Warwickshire so decent roads in all directions but a lot of crap ones too

[The Road Crew]

Pre covid, yes, quite a few times on the bike.

Unplanned is brilliant.. Just enjoy what you find as you go.

Went one year with the intention of doing Swiss/Italian border. Soild rain all the way from Calais to Geneva... 10 day forecast was all rain for Switzerland! Sod that we all said.. 1 day detour to Perpignan and we spent an amazing week in the pyrenees instead!

Just go. Don't think about it too much. Just go.

[Gnits]

Yep, definitely worth doing, don't bother with any motorways, the journey is the destination, just check where the weather is nice and go and have a look. Awesome.

[Dr Jekyll]

I find the planning more fun than the travelling.

[black-k1]

It all depends on what you want to get from your trip. It's great to not have a plan and just go where the mood takes you. Finding hotels is generally pretty easy as long as you don't find yourself somewhere in the middle of a local celebration of some sort.

The down side is it's also very easy to end up on rubbish roads, missing all the sites. If there is a group of you then accommodation can be more of a challenge.

I've done too many trips without planning, only to return to find I was only a couple of miles away from a stunning road, but missed it. To find that there was a real interesting site another couple of miles downbthe road but I'd turned off. Or to find I'd spent too many days getting "nearly there" but had run out of time and had to turn back.

I now like to know where I'm going, to know what the highlights and the low lights are, and to know what are the best roads to get there, once I'm there and to get back.

I also enjoy the planning.

[Iminquarantine]

Gee68 said:

Has anyone just packed their gear,hopped onto their bike and just headed off,no plan,no map, just driven to the Chunnel or ferry and headed off.

This is a dream of mine but is the reality a nightmare.

Nope, get a plan and get a map. Otherwise you will have no clue where you are going and will end up on a return trip to Grenoble via the autoroute.

[DiproJanuary]

Not helping the OP too much, but check out this kid who went to the Giant factory in China to pick up his bike in person and then cycled it back to the UK. Amazing

https://bikepacking.com/plog/cycling-home-from-chi...

[N111BJG]

black-k1 said:

…. it's also very easy to end up on rubbish roads, missing all the sights. If there is a group of you then accommodation can be more of a challenge.

I've done too many trips without planning, only to return to find I was only a couple of miles away from a stunning road, but missed it. To find that there was a real interesting site another couple of miles downbthe road but I'd turned off. Or to find I'd spent too many days getting "nearly there" but had run out of time and had to turn back.

Some of my mates take the ‘on the hoof approach’, when they return it always seems they’ve gone back to familiar places & ridden favourite’ routes. Not very adventurous is it.

[the cueball]

20 odd years ago, I jumped on my Ninja as a younger know it all.. got a ferry to Holland with the route directions on my tank:

"Head to Germany, turn right and head to Italy"

Had a great time, made a load of mistakes.. but loved every minute of it.

Some years later and older and wiser (apparently), I walked away from a job, drunkenly purchased a bike off Ebay (not the same day!) and toured Europe for the next 6 months... Just me and the bike.. no plans.. woke up each day and picked a spot to ride to - went to every country and had a blast.

I've had some sort of trip to Europe almost every year even 2020 and 2021, sometimes solo, sometimes with a few mates.. sometimes planned.. sometimes not.

It's always been great, something about it that knocks the socks of a UK one... just feels better.

[Janluke]

Last time I went we used the Booking.com app, stop for lunch decide how far we're going and where we're stopping that night and book the accommodation. Saved a lot of knocking on doors etc

[ChocolateFrog]

I'd love to buy something like a CRF250 and head off to Africa.

Followed a young lad on Instagram who did just that a couple of years ago, down the west coast to SA and back up the east coast.

Young kids now and a job I wouldn't want to take a long break from means it's probably a pipe dream now as I'll be in too much pain come my 60's to do it.

I think watching Long Way Round and reading Ted Simon's book as a kid gave me the bug.

[KTMsm]

ChocolateFrog said:

I think reading Ted Simon's book as a kid gave me the bug.

Me too but I was frequently thinking - You can't do that

When he was heading into the desert without enough fuel etc

[NorthernSky]

Do a bit of both. Have a planned route to a distant destination, then when you arrive there, schedule in a few days to just range out and explore random things, or to use the cliche, roads less travelled.

[Royvid]

I been thinking exactly that for next month (February). A trip on my own from U.K. to Portugal. The only thin that bothers me is the covid thing, can I get from France to Spain and then into Portugal and back without having to pay for PCR tests?? As far as I know I can get into France, I have looked on Gov. but I am none the wiser, I am all fully vaccinated so should I go ???
Roy…

[boxedin]

I tend to book hotels for the first couple of nights to get into the general area I want to be then follow the weather. Thanks to online booking and free cancellations it's much, much easier than the days of old.

[KTMsm]

Royvid said:

so should I go ???
Roy…

Yes - if you get stuck in France or Spain that's not exactly hardship