Originally Posted by PanEuropean

Doogle:

I've ridden extensively over many years in the Balkan countries you mentioned (Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia) as well as in Bulgaria. They are all great places to ride.

But, personally, I think you are nuts to try and ride through half a dozen countries this year, this because of the current state of the COVID pandemic and the recent exponential growth of infections worldwide due to the Delta variant.

I think things are going to get a helluva lot worse (a 4th wave) before they get better - just look at your home country (USA) for an example. In your home country, anyone can get a vaccination tomorrow if they want one. That's not the case in any of the countries that you mention... they all have much lower vaccination rates than the USA, and things are going to hell in the USA right now. As soon as things get worse in those lesser developed countries, they are going to start imposing curfews, quarantines, lockdowns and border crossing restrictions.

Last March, at the very start of this pandemic - before it was even declared a pandemic - I took the ferry from Italy over to Tunisia to ride around there. The pandemic exploded, I got trapped in Tunisia, went through about a month of enforced quarantine and lockdown in Tunisia, and barely managed to catch a very expensive flight out of Tunis and back to Canada. My motorcycle is still in Tunis. As much as I would like to go get it ASAP, I don't think that's going to be possible this year... maybe next spring.

If you are dead-set on riding in Europe this year, pick ONE country to go riding in, and make sure that country has direct air service back to the USA if quarantines & lockdowns get imposed. You don't want to be riding a rented bike three border crossings away from where you rented it only to find out that you can't get the bike back to the rental site due to suddenly imposed travel restrictions. It's bad enough when one has to leave their own motorcycle behind... it will be staggeringly expensive if you have to leave a rental bike behind, or if your planned one-month rental turns into a 6 month rental.

Michael