What I think I am reading is that after leaving the expensive countries of Europe most of you send your camping gear home???? All of my biking has been in Europe where hotels were out of the question. Still are--did a 14 day trip two summers ago with my grandson. one night 210 B & B. After leaving Ital I should send most of the camping gear back to the states??

Generally, I think it's true that after Italy & Greece, hotels get much
cheaper. My own pattern reflects your thinking. Camped in Italy & France but
used hotels in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, & Iran.
Likewise, Ralf & Eva
are expert campers but if you follow their trail they are currently using hotels
in Iran & Pakistan.
However, personally, I would still carry my tent and sleeping bag. I don't have
so much stuff that I need to ditch them.</p>

I second that, although this time around we hope to camp a bit more in Asia. Problem in many places is that you don't get any privacy if you free camp, there are almost no camp grounds, you can't leave your tent and gear while sightseeing, etc., and accommodation is pretty cheap. The other thing is that I used to get pretty dirty riding the bike in India and Pakistan, due to dust and smoke belching trucks. At the end of the day I like to have a shower. The water runs black for the first two minutes...

Come to think of it, if people posted good places to camp in Asia, that would be a useful list, perhaps?

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Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

It depends on what countries you will be going to I guess...

I camped all over Eastern Europe and Northern Asia:

Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, Japan...

One advantage in Eastern Europe is the widespread availability (well, not in comparison to North America like we are used to, but much better than Western Europe in this regard) of free "wilderness" camping. The only people you will encounter when you free camp in Eastern Europe will be shepards with their sheep. They won't bother you.

Mongolia, of course, is the easiest country in which to camp. Second easiest is surprisingly Japan.


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Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius - William Blake

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Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius - William Blake

Hiya,

We travelled overland for 18 months (UK to NZ) and used the tent a total of five times!

We left France in late Feb (after hanging out there for the winter), could have rough camped, but it was too freaking cold, and there weren't any proper campsites open then... Hightailed it to Greece, no campsites open there either. After three weeks in Greece (20 to 30 Euro for a cheap room) we headed on to Turkey where it was about seven quid for the average room... We met up with a couple on cycles who free camped every night so camped with them a couple of times, and another time felt that pitching the tent in an olive grove near the Saklikent Gorge was much preferable to the mozzie infested rooms at the gorge itself...

So, having been into camping prior to the trip, it wasn't something we did alot of on the trip , although being on two bikes, we didn't det rid of the gear as we had plenty of room.... As Peter (beddhist) mentioned you end up so dirty that a shower - even if it is usually cold! becomes fairly important....

There are loads of opportunities to camp... There is a campsite in Islamabad, and you can pitch a tent at Mrs Bhandaris in Amritsar, but I have to say I'm not masochistic enought to sleep in a tent for two quid when I can have a room for five!!!

We used the sleeping bags a fair bit up in northern Pakistan and India, so definitely worth while taking them... The MSR cooker came in very handy for the odd brew and as it packed up to nothing, worthwhile hanging on to.

We know people who didn't take any camping gear and were caught out between Quetta and Multan, luckily they were travelling in a convoy with a Landrover so were looked after... Maybe if we didn't persevere as often as we did the same situation could have easily happened (we arrived in Quetta at around 9pm in the dark!)It was nice knowing that we had the tent, some water and a couple of packets of two minute noodles for emergencies!

Cheers
Jacqui

As a solo traveller i often prefer to have some human contact at the end of a day, rather than being stuck in a tent with my own thoughts. The cheap price of hotels also makes it unnecessary in many places.
The concept of privacy in India is generally not conducive to camping, and you would likely have a crowd of local villagers staring at you as you rolled out of bed in the morning.
However, Iran was a great place to camp, as demonstrated by many Iranian families camping in the parks of small towns and villages. You can camp for free, meet locals and usually enjoy their hospitality.
sean