Here’s our tried and tested, used and abused, hard-earned kit list. This is everything we carry and the complete packing list for our round the world motorcycle trip…
RTW Motorcycle Packing List
Packing for a never-ending round the world motorcycle adventure wasn’t going to be easy. We started overloaded and over-packed… and we’re still overloaded and over-packed today. It’s natural, everyone overpacks at home and either chucks it on the road or posts half of their stuff back. We’re still finding ways of doubling items up and sending stuff home. But below you’ll find what we’re down to today. And we’ve also included links under each section to more in-depth guides if you fancy digging deeper.
If you’re looking for an in-depth breakdown on packing for a motorcycle trip, check out our Ultimate packing list next as it lists everything you could possibly need in easy to read lists.
READ MORE: The Ultimate Motorcycle Trip Packing List
Adventure Riding Gear
- Riding Suit: We each have lightweight and vented jacket and trousers. We remove the thermal and waterproof lining from each and leave them at home.
- Waterproofs: Cheap throw-over waterproof jackets and trousers (around £15 per set)
- Boots: Altberg military boots (review). They’re lightweight and act as both our riding and walking boots for hiking and trekking
- Gloves: One pair of cold weather gloves and one pair of hot weather gloves
- Neck tube: Handy for riding in hot and cold conditions and doubles up as a hat when camping. We carry a neck scarf each.
- Helmet: We use the Schuberth E1 (review).
READ MORE: 10 BEST Adventure Bike Helmets
READ MORE: The Best Adventure Bike Boots
READ MORE: The Best Adventure Jackets
Personal Clothing
- Sub Zero thermal down jacket. We use this under our motorbike jacket if it gets cold and can also use it when walking around towns or hiking. It has a double usage (hence why we chucked the thermal liner), compresses and stuffs into a small bag when not in use
- Three pairs of riding socks
- One pair of lightweight hiking trousers and one pair of shorts
- Four t-shirts
- Underwear
- One pair of flip flops (we use our riding boots for long walks or if it’s cold, and use our flip flops for everything else
READ MORE: The Best Heated Motorcycle Gear
READ MORE: How to Pack for a Motorcycle Adventure
Miscellaneous
- First aid kit
- Ukulele (because why not)
- Small compass
Electronics
- Laptop
- Mobile phone and mount
- Camera and GoPro
- Tripod
- Adapter
- Memory cards
READ MORE: The Motorcycle Travel Photography and Video Kit List
READ MORE: The Best Sat Navs
READ MORE: The Best Bluetooth Headsets
READ MORE: The Best Mobile Phone Mounts
Camping
- MSR tent
- MSR Dragon Fly stove (review)
- MSR cooking system (review), pots, pans, bowls [click here for our review]
- Foldable wash bowl
- Thermarest lightweight ground mats
- Plastic cutlery
- Mora knife
- Head torch
- Picnic blanket (comes in very handy)
- JagBag silk liner (review)
READ MORE: The Complete Motorcycle Camping Guide
READ MORE: The Ultimate Motorcycle Camping Gear Checklist
READ MORE: The 10 Best Motorcycle Camping Tents
Bike
- We have a pretty comprehensive tool kit, which allows us to fix most things on the bike. Check out our Ultimate Tool Kit guide as it lists all the equipment and tools we use to keep our bike going. (Kriega Tool Roll Review).
- We originally carried spare fuel and water in Rotopax containers. We used these from the UK to Japan as it was important for countries in Central Asia and Mongolia. But now we’re in Southeast Asia we have ditched the containers as we no longer need them.
- Abus Granite lock (review) – We stopped using this big heavy lock and now use a cheap cable lock instead.
- Pac Safe mesh net (review) – We have also stopped using the PacSafe mesh net as well.
- Mr Funnel petrol filter (review) – Incredibly important in countries like Uzbekistan.
READ MORE: The Ultimate Adventure Bike Tool Kit
READ MORE: SBV Adventure Bike Tool Kit Review
Food bag
- We keep a separate bag for all our food because we like riding off into the wilderness, we need to carry food supplies for a few days. We keep this food in a Kriega US-30 pack tied to the crash bars.
- Easy to reach cutlery also lives in this bag
- On the other crash bar we have a smaller Kriega US-10 which holds spares, miscellaneous stuff, waterproofs etc.
Want to ride round the world?
If you’re reading this guide because you’re thinking about or planning a round the world motorcycle trip, then that’s incredible and congratulations on your first step!
We have sections on this website purely dedicated to round the world travel and helping you do it. Take a look at the Resource: Round the World section as it’s where we hold all of the RTW guides in one place. And if you need a hand with any aspect of it, feel free to ask away in the Forum too. Good luck!
Read more on Packing for Motorcycle Travel
Thanks for checking out our RTW Packing List Guide. We hope you enjoyed it! Here’s a few more articles on packing and preparing for a motorcycle journey that we recommend you read next.
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This is really interesting to know. It’s my damn camping bag that takes up so much room lol! Got to try and find a smaller sleeping bag somewhere. Any recommendations for a lightweight one person tent? Thanks guys! Love the blog! x
Haha! Those darned camping bags! Yeah, they’re the biggest, bulkiest section of kit! We use the MSR Hubba (a very well renowned tent). I’ve been using MSR tents for about 8 years now and they’ve never broken on me so I just keep using them. Hilleberg are also pretty good and Vanguard too. Here’s a link to the Hubba and also look at the Freelite if you want to go super dooper light https://www.msrgear.com/ie/products/tents?prefn1=att_11&prefv1=1%20Person&page=0
As for sleeping bags, we bought ours from Mountain warehouse and they’re very small and lightweight.
Good luck with the packing!
Great blog find very interesting sounds like you’re both living the dream are you going to write a book about your adventure please takecare and look after each other ???
Hi Les! Thanks very much for your comment and kind words. Haha writing this blog is a job in itself, not sure we’ll have time for a book! We’re really glad you like the website. Take care as well and all the best 😀
Andy.
A great way to pass the time whilst drinking my morning coffee… great articles on here, tons of tips and information… thank you.
Stay well, stay safe and stay sane
Here’s to getting back on the road
Steve.
Ah! Thank you so much for your kind words! Much appreciated and we’re really glad you like the articles! We’ll try our best to stay safe… not sure about staying sane though!
All the best 😀