Planning "The TRIP" Help

[Lady Loner]

I have tried to obtain as much info as I can on the net, but it seems limited or company/buy me products or info, ...

SO, ..

What I would like is for ANY useful advice about touring similar to Korn's epic (and damn Bloody GOOD read) thread in "Touring and Exploration " 3516 miles, ... 11 Countries .. in fact 2-3 hours either side of Korn's route would be nice ..given the following, ..
1/. Female travelling solo, (unless someone hooks up for part of thr way or whatever)
2/. 3-6 months
3/. Buy a bike over there, If so where and what type..??
4/. Tag along Trailer ??
5/. what to take (& why ??)
6/. Best time of year to do it, (given that when it gets to 19-20 degrees I put on a light sweater..)

mainly camping out with option for hotel if needed. (weather, area)

In fact ANY info, costs , places to stay, Costs, what to watch out for, (Have I mentioned costs ?? )

low 5 figure budget .. thats to get me there, do the trip and get back to oz..
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The Devils Right Hand

[Nath]

You haven't explained yourself very well. From what I gather:
a) You live in australia and are are a lady aged ??-??
b) You want to tour mainland Europe for 3-6months

But do you want to:
c) Work whilst you're travelling, or rely soley on funds raised in advanced?
d) Visit the UK whilst you're here?
e) And how many countries do you wish to visit?


Last summer I spent 3months travelling 18,500miles (so ~30k kilometres) through 26 countries in Europe. My total spend was between £3,500 and £4k (that's UK pounds). Most of the Aussies I met in Europe were visiting the UK on 1-2 year working visas, and were spending just a few months touring Europe during the middle of their time in the UK. Doing it that way you have time to find a suitable vehicle, and meet other people who might be interested in travelling with you.

Western Europe is a very safe place for a woman to travel alone. In eastern europe I did get a small amount of police/border-guards trying to intimidate me, but nothing other than a small irritance - For a woman it would probably be slightly worse, but I would still consider it to be safe enough.

What to take? You really want 2 sets of clothes for riding in, and one smarter set of clothes for going out in when you stop in cities. If you head up north to Scandinavia you'll be wearing all the clothes you have to stay warm, whereas down in Spain/Italy/Greece you'll be wearing shorts and sleeveless teeshirts even when riding. The only time to go is mid-summer, though even then you can encounter nasty weather (I found terrential rain in Italy and Spain when days later it was back to 40degree intense heat).

Tools depends on your level of mechanical competance. E.G. I didn't take tyre levers because I couldn't see myself fixing punctures or replacing tyres myself. On the other hand I took a full socket set, full sets of spanners/screwdrivers/allenkeys, plus various other bits like a multimeter and feeler guages. I was riding a 30year old bike so regular maintenance was neccessary, including 4 oil changes. If you can't maintain your own bike then I would be looking to get something very reliable like a big BMW, because getting work done by foreign mechanics who speak a different language to you will be difficult, time consuming and expensive.

I don't know how easy it is to import a bike over here from Australia but I believe it's expensive and difficult, and takes ages as well. I know of a guy who did bring a bike from Oz, so if you are seriously considering it I could put you in touch to find out the crack. This is probably not a good forum to find out about buying a bike here, because 99% of the forum members are from the UK. No-one will have the feintest clue on how a foreigner can go about getting a bike here, or indeed anything else related to a foreigner coming over and then spending 6months traveling round the continent.

Ask some more specific questions and I will give you more answers. I've done two tours of Europe, the first 3weeks and ~5k miles on a 1988 400cc Honda, and the other was the big one 18k miles and 3 months on my 1976 550/4. I have been to nearly every country in the EU, plus a few other non EU countries.

/Nathan - Planning to spend 3 weeks travelling Eastern Europe this July on a homemade sidecar outfit powered by a 28 year old aircooled Yamaha.
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[Lady Loner]