Our RTW Motorcycle Route
Wondering where we’re going and where we’ve been? So are we! Here’s what we’re doing and how we’re doing it…
The Plan
The plan is to ride motorcycles round the world indefinitely.
But getting our bike into certain countries isn’t that easy because of shipping, paperwork and bureaucracy and the problem is, we want to ride everywhere.
So, our route is going to be a little messy. We may have to ship our bikes backwards, and sometimes ahead while we rent, buy and sell other bikes in countries it’s too expensive or difficult to get ours into.
We don’t want to just tick countries of a list as quickly as possible, but really get to know a place before we move on, and that means taking it very slow and spending time in each country.
And we hope the guides, blogs and tips we write on each country we travel through will help you explore those places too!
The Original Route
We left the UK on 1st January 2018 and this was our original route. We’d head from the UK to Japan, ship the bike back on ourselves to India, ride to Australia, the US to South America, then Africa, Middle East and back into Europe… it didn’t go to plan.
How it’s going…
We plan to do the route in one go and only fly back home if necessary and for special occasions. But we’ve split the entire route up into stages below to make it easier to follow (and get our heads round!)
STAGE 1: UK to Japan: COMPLETE
- Europe, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea.
Check out our Blog for stories on our adventures through these countries. And if you’re planning on riding there too, take a look at our detailed Destination Guides.
STAGE 2: Cambodia to Australia – COVID
- India, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand
While we were Nepal, Alissa had a bad bike crash and we had to fly home.
READ MORE: A Wrong Turn
We continued the trip once she could walk again, starting in Cambodia, but by the time we got to Thailand, the Covid outbreak had hit and we had to leave our bike and fly home again.
READ MORE: Stuck in Thailand
STAGE 3: North America to South America
- Northern tip of Alaska, USA to southern tip of Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, South America
STAGE 4: South Africa to North Africa
- As many countries as we can in Africa and the surrounding islands
STAGE 5: Spain to Nordkapp
- Europe, Balkans, Eastern and Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia
STAGE 6: Anywhere we missed…
- We’ll finish Stage 5 in Nordkapp, will look south and head anywhere we’ve missed…
The New Route
Due to the crash in Nepal and now Covid, our route has had to change. At the time of updating this page (October 2021), this is our new and most current route. Our bike is still currently in Thailand and we’re waiting for the borders to open before we can get back on the road and continue the RTW trip.
The Red line is where we have ridden and the Blue line is what we have left to complete.
Useful guides
If you’re planning a RTW motorcycle trip and need a little help with paperwork and logistics, check out these guides here to get started. If you’re after costings for shipping then take a look at our Recommended International Motorcycle Shipping Companies Finder too. And we have dedicated country, gear, bike and motorcycle travel preparation guides for when you’re ready to dig deeper. Please feel free send us an email if you need help with anything. We’re always more than happy to help fellow travellers.
