Motorcycle Tour Checklist: Essential stuff before you travel
ESSENTIAL TRAVEL STUFF - A CHECKLIST
For this blog we’ve prepared a Motorcycle Tour checklist: Essential stuff before you travel ….
So you’ve finally taken the plunge and booked your epic motorcycle adventure with Ride Expeditions. And first off – Congratulations! So many riders talk about doing these trips but never quite get round to actually booking – if we had a dollar for everyone that says ‘ That sounds fantastic, I’d love to do that’, we could retire as millionaires!
Now although all out tour itineraries give full information of what you need to get together before you head off to foreign climes, we thought it was worth a full blog so you’ve got a checklist to tick off. We know that many riders – especially men – like nothing better than a list as it ensures you get everything sorted. How many times have you got back from the shops only to realise you forgot half of the things your partner told you to buy? We’ve all been there …
So here we are then – the checklist – from paperwork to pills, pesos to plugs.
1. PASSPORTS PLEASE
Coming in straight at Number 1, it’s that all important little book. Without a passport you are not leaving your own country, let alone entering another. If you’ve never had a passport, then you need to get on this quicksharp as the wheels of bureaucracy can turn exceeding slow and you’re not going anywhere without one, particularly on a plane! Currently in the UK it’s around three weeks to get one, but that is not guaranteed!
If you do however already have one, then there needs to be at least six months validity left until the expiry date, and that ideally needs to be until you return home, not just leave. Generally we’d say that if you are anywhere close to that limit, then getting a new one is a more sensible course of action. If your travel plans are delayed on you return for any reason – the last thing you’ll need is an out of date passport!
Oh and while we are on the subject – get yourself a sealable waterproof bag for your passport, especially important on tours like the World’s End in Patagonia with multiple border crossings and variable weather. Happiness is not a wet passport!
2. VISAS AND ALL THAT
Now on top of needing a valid passport, many countries will also need you to have a current visa or the equivalent to visit, and these are commonly for a set period of time. Now how you find out will be from your own government’s travel information website – although there are some independent sites that give good advice, we can’t necessarily guarantee that their information will always be up to date or indeed accurate.
For the UK, we use https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice and you just type in where you are going and hey presto – the information is there. Be aware that getting visas can be a lengthy procedure and may involve a trip to or contacting the relevant Embassy, so again look into this as soon as you can.
Some visas will be stuck into your passport, others carried separately and some can be purchased at the airport when you arrive. But find out now!
No visa is currently required for the Isle of Wight, Isle of Sheppy or indeed the Isle of Dogs.
3. JABS AND TABS
Any travel around the world carries inherent risks, and riding motorcycles in remote places certainly does not reduce that risk. Add in roaming pooches, buzzing insects and muddy river crossings, and there’s a whole smorgasbord of possibilities that can seriously crimp your trip. So to prepare you are going to need some protection, and we’re not talking a ‘box of balloons with a featherlite touch’ as Suggs would say. No, we mean injections and tablets to protect you from the most common and nasty health threats in the country you are visiting.
We recommend using https://travelhealthpro.org.uk/ which will give you an indication as to what the threats are in the country you are visiting, and the immunisations / vaccinations that are recommended for that area. On top of that advice, being up to date on your tetanus injections is also a very good idea.
Some vaccinations may be supplied by your own national health services but for others you will have to find private travel clinics. We’ve used Nomad in the UK, but clearly there are many travel clinics available.
As with visas, try and find out what you need and get the jabs or treatments well in advance of travel. You can feel a little uncomfortable for a while after, so it’s best you have time to recover from this before you travel.
4. INSURING A GOOD TIME
As with any holiday, appropriate insurance for the trip you are making is essential. Hopefully you will not need it, but if you do then you’ll be thankful for every penny of that policy, From lost or damaged luggage to medical treatment, a decent policy will have you covered for all eventualities.
Because of the nature of our tours, Ride Expeditions insist that you have not only the appropriate travel insurance, but also appropriate cover for riding a motorcycle in whichever destination you have chosen. This will also mean that you must have the appropriate licence in your own country for the size of bike you will be riding abroad.
Ride Expeditions preferred travel insurance company can be found by clicking on the link here https://partner.globalrescue.com/rideexpeditions/
Now although they offer the Global Rescue cover, this is much more for solo travellers rather than riders on an organised tour. However, the IMG Signature travel insurance policy should cover everything you need for our tours, although clearly as it is a third part and we don’t necessarily know all your intricate details, we cannot make promises on their behalf!
One particular advantages of their policies is that they have a ‘cancel for any reason’ option’ which may prove to be of use if your situation changes significantly prior to your adventure.
5. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
So unless you’ve booked a tour to the UK – in which case then a fist full of your British Pounds will cover all spending options – you are going to need to have access to cash or funds when you are abroad. Some countries you can get out the appropriate currency before you go – in the UK we often use the Post Office or a Marks & Spencer Bureau de Change – but for many currencies then you can only get currency when you are there.
First off however, make sure you tell your bank where you are going. You can probably do this on the bank’s app or website but if you don’t bother, you can’t be entirely surprised if you can’t use your cards abroad! If you’ve never been to Laos before and suddenly there’s a cash machine in Vientiane trying to issue £100 in Loa Kips, this will show up like big red flag to your bank and they will freeze the account until you contact them. Not good.
Cash machines in the places we tour can be few and far between. In the larger towns and cities, then it can be much the same as home. But in the Namibian bush, then looking for any ATMs, let alone one that will work with your card, could be tricky.
As an alternative to using your regular home bank account, you could use a multi-currency account, and we would point you to Wise which works for us.
Of course depending on which level of tour you’ve chosen will depend on how much cash you might need on tour. For our Premier packages, then most expenditure and costs are included, so you’ll just need cash for beer and souvenirs, but choose the more free and easy Explorer option, and you’ll need access to a lot more for fuel, meals and that sort of thing.
Oh and finally – as a back up in many countries, it’s often worth taking some ‘back up’ cash in US dollars as just about everyone seems to like a buck!
NEED AN EPIC TRIP?
6. PILLS AND POTIONS
So this is a tad obvious but worth pointing out all the same. If you are heading abroad for any length of time, ensure you’ve got enough supplies of any prescription medicines to last you for the entire trip. While it might be possible to get the same in foreign climes, it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick! As well as these, it’s worth taking a few essentials like pain killers, anti-inflammatory tablets and maybe a small pot of Sudocrem – if you know, you know. #monkeybutt
If you are on regular prescription medication, ensure you have informed your insurer and Ride Expeditions. We both need to know!
7. PLUG AND PLAY
Now although we’d encourage our intrepid riders to ‘go off grid’ for the tour and just enjoy the riding, we know that a certain amount of technology to is going to travel with you, and that it will need recharging. From phones to tablets, cameras to smart watches they all need a few volts to help them along.
And as many countries have different options for your own and with 14 different types of plug and socket available from Type A to Type N, you’re going to need a travel adaptor of some sort. All of our trip details will list which type you need for each country, but if not, Google will provide the answer within seconds.
Although you can get universal adaptors that have hundreds of different pins rattling round inside to cover every country, in reality they are often heavy and tend to hang out of wall sockets once you plug in your equipment. We take a couple of the appropriate adaptors and a short extension lead in case there are not many sockets in your accommodation, whether it a ger in Mongolia of a five-star hotel in Ushuaia.
8. KIT INSPECTION
Ok so with all the dull stuff pretty much covered, this one’s a bit more focussed on the epic riding that you’ll be doing. Depending on which tour you have chosen, you are going to need to pack the right riding kit, from enduro to adventure, dirt to road. But whichever one it is, always try out any new kit before you bring it on tour, and ideally do a long day’s riding in it to ensure it’s comfy, the right size, the correct fit and doesn’t chafe after just half an hour in the saddle. New boots may need breaking in, body armour may need adjusting, and rucksacks that looked great in the shop may prove to be tight and restrictive when actually used on the bike.
We prefer to rely on tried and tested kit rather than risk the sparkly new stuff!
9. APPS AND MAPS
All our tours will either be led by an experienced tour leader or in the case of Explorer packages, provided with an easy to follow GPX route. However, even on the Premier tours it’s good to have mapping apps on your phone so that you know where you are and can track or record your progress. And there are plenty of options out there from free apps like maps.me and Guru maps, to subscription versions like Outdoor Active all of which offer outstanding detail and mapping.
We also like Relive which will not only track you route but will also produce a great little animation of the route across a Google Maps background, and you can add in pictures along the route. Genius
Try a few before you travel and see which one you like!
10. NO MORE MILK
So this one’s been included just for our blogger Julian’s wife. If you are old school enough to still have milk delivered to your door in the mornings, remember to reduce to amount ordered before you leave. This will avoid the WhatsApp message ‘ Can you cancel the bloody milk? I’m having to bath in the stuff …
