I've been exploring this site for the last few months, and have learned a ton! Thanks to everyone who has put so much time and energy into making this a truly incredible resource. Amazing amount of info here. I thought it might be time to introduce myself and ask for some specific input on the trip that I am planning right now.

My name is Adam, and I am an American living and working in Seoul, South Korea as a voice actor, along with my wife, Jessica. We love the life there. I bought my first motorcycle here in Korea two and a half years ago, a Daelim 125, and then quickly upgraded to the Hysoung v-twin Mirage 125. My wife and I have completely fallen in love with bikes, and after some touring in Korea, set our sights on a trip in Europe!

We've been part of another great web community, Couchsurfing.com, for about 5 years, and have made friends with and hosted great people from all over the world, but primarily Europeans. They have all extended offers to host us in return, so we are going to take off in June of this year and visit all of them over the course of six months or so.

The plan now is to start with a circuit of the UK, head through Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, ferry over to Finland and Lativia, then overland through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Rep., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece (more or less in that order). We have friends or couchsurfing contacts in almost all of those places, so accomodation should be free almost everywhere we go.

I know this is a far cry from the sort of RTW trips that so many of you have done and are doing, but it should be a great first, extended adventure that will prepare us for more challenging endeavors down the line.

I just bought a 2006 BMW F650 Dakar outfitted with ABS and Hepco&Beker Gobi cases included for the equivalent of $5,000 US, which was a pretty fantastic deal, I think, and is more than adequate for our purposes as is. I've assembled a pretty thorough kit of gear for the trip, which you can see here.We will be taking some more trips around Korea once the weather warms back up a bit, and I'm sure some of that gear will have to go, but it's a solid start. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Now, on to the questions-

1) Have any of you made a trip like this before? If so, is there any pertinent advice that you would like to offer?

2) Have any of you shipped a bike from Asia to Europe (and even from Seoul)? If so, do you have any shippers you would reccomend?

3) Is any one taking a trip to Europe during the same time frame that would like to meet up and ride with us for any stretch of the trip?

4) Would any of you be willing to host us, or allow us to use your shop for repairs along the way?

5) Any favorite roads or towns along our route that should not be missed? Any that we should be careful to avoid?

If you have made it this far through my post, thanks! Any insight or opinions that you could offer to help us plan our trip would be greatly appreciated!

Adam Lofbomm
Lofbomm.com

__________________
"We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on "good" rather than "time" and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes."

-Robert Pirsig