Dreaming of a motorcycle trip to distant climes? This section will help you to plan your trip, whether it's to the next state, country or all the way around the world! Start here!
The Achievable Dream 5-part series - the definitive video guide for planning your motorcycle adventure. Get Ready! covers planning, paperwork, medical and many other topics! "Inspirational and Awesome!" See the trailer here!
You could just get on a plane with your credit card and passport and buy or rent everything you need when you get there. That includes the bike, riding gear, etc. etc.
Gear Up! is a 2-DVD set, 6 hours! Which bike is right for me? How do I prepare the bike? What stuff do I need - riding gear, clothing, camping gear, first aid kit, tires, maps and GPS? What don't I need? How do I pack it all in? Lots of opinions from over 150 travellers! "will save you a fortune!"See the trailer here!
So you've done it - got inspired, planned your trip, packed your stuff and you're on the road! This section is about staying healthy, happy and secure on your motorcycle adventure. And crossing borders, war zones or oceans!
On the Road! is 5.5 hours of the tips and advice you need to cross borders, break down language barriers, overcome culture shock, ship the bike and deal with breakdowns and emergencies."Just makes me want to pack up and go!" See the trailer here!
Tire Changing!Grant demystifies the black art of Tire Changing and Repair to help you STAY on the road! "Very informative and practical." See the trailer here!
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Resources and Links
Horizons Unlimited Presents!
Ladies on the Loose! For the first time ever, a motorcycle travel DVD made for women, by women! These intrepid women share their tips to help you plan your own motorcycle adventure. They also answer the women-only questions, and entertain you with amazing tales from the road! Presented by Lois Pryce, veteran solo traveller through South America and Africa and author of 'Lois on the Loose', and 'Red Tape and White Knuckles.'
"It has me all fired up to go out on my own adventure!" See the trailer here!
Meet people who don't think you're crazy for wanting to ride your bike to South America or across Asia! They will encourage you, share their experiences and advice on how to do it!
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Horizons Unlimited presents!
Achievable Dream The definitive guide to planning your motorcycle adventure! This insanely ambitious 2-year project has produced an informative and entertaining 5-part, 18 hour video series. "The ultimate round the world rider's how-to!" MCN UK.
"The series is 'free' because the tips and advice will save much more than you spend on buying the DVD's."
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We're going to Ireland today! Well... Northern Ireland. Big distinction, as we'd soon find out.
Parking the bikes in the line-up at the ferry docks. We're basically island hopping through the British Isles!
While waiting inside the lounge, I notice that all the cars have to go through some kind of separate security check
The inspector slid a mirror underneath each car. OMG, they were checking for car bombs! I thought the Irish Car Bomb was just a drink these days. Is this really still a thing?!?! The only other time I've ever seen vehicles checked for car bombs was when we were riding through India!
A bit concerned about our safety now...
No, the ferry worker is not checking my panniers for a bomb. If he was, he'd be inspecting the shaft drive... #funnybutnotfunny
It's a three hour crossing between Douglas and Belfast, and because of our late departure, we arrive on Northern Ireland's shores in darkness. The roads are empty as I route our way towards the AirBnB we booked. We're sleeping under a roof tonight! It's almost midnight when we ring the doorbell and it takes some time before our elderly host opens the door in her nightrobe. It's obvious we've woken her up, but she's hospitable and she's got the most charming Irish accent. She sounds like a leprechaun!
She shows us our room and expresses surprise that we are arriving so late. "... since you've got to be leavin' so early tomorrow".
Huh? Was there some mistake? We booked this room for two days!
She told us that in her AirBnB listing, the checkout time was 9AM. Everyday. Regardless of how many days we've booked the room. She explained that she babysits her grandkids so she didn't want guests to be in the house during the day. What an unusual arrangement. I've never heard of that before, but we checked the listing again, and sure enough, it did state that. We had just misunderstood because no other AirBnB place had that kind of stipulation.
Well, that was quite a kick to the groin. We were really looking forward to spending a whole lazy day under a warm roof instead of inside a cold tent. No wonder her AirBnB was the cheapest listing in Belfast!
She noticed our disappointment and offered us a compromise, "I'll let you stay till 10 tomorrow. Have a good night!"
Her Irish accent didn't sound quite as charming anymore.
10AM comes around way too soon and we're turfed out of our AirBnB room
Where to now?
We've got a whole day to kill before we're allowed back into our room. So we do a Google search for some good breakfast places.
St George's Market is a popular place in the city not just to get fresh produce, but also to grab a meal. We find parking (very) close by.
There's a ton of selection inside. I decide on a falafel breakfast. Yes, I traveled all the way to Northern Ireland for Middle Eastern food...
The dark-skinned guy at the falafel booth took my order. To my surprise, he had the thickest Irish accent I've ever heard! I was dumbstruck. It was like watching a movie that was dubbed. I sat down next to Neda with my falafels and exclaimed to her, "OMG, that Middle-Eastern guy over there has an Irish accent!" She shot me a WTF look and that's when I realized... this Asian guy sitting right here has a pretty thick Canadian accent (or so I've been told)...
Over breakfast, we search the Internet for things to do in Belfast. I was really only interested in seeing one thing, and that would only take an hour or two at the most. And now we had to find a whole day's worth of activities!
Okay, first stop: The Titanic museum just down the street from the market. I spy with my big I, a Neda
I had no idea the Titanic was built in Belfast. The museum only opened recently, in 2012 (the year we left home), and is designed to look like the prow of a ship. Belfast has a rich history of ship building.
Statue of Titanica, made to look like the figureheads on the front of sailing ships
This is Nedica, the figurehead on the back of a BMW motorcycle
We didn't actually go inside the museum. £9 each was too expensive for us, considering we actually weren't that interested in the Titanic. We're just killing time.
So we hop back on the bikes and ride to our next tourist destination.
Belfast Castle! Basically checking off the "Top 10 things to do in Belfast"
Just an average run-of-the-mill castle within the city limits. But we quickly discovered the garden was full of cats!
Some are in plain sight, some are hidden. Some are in the form of sculptures, others in mosaic. Some are even in the form of shrubbery!
These are my favorite kinds of cats. The ones I'm not allergic to!
We only found out after our visit that there are nine cats in total hiding in the garden. We weren't really looking for them at the time and managed to find five. Legend has it that visitors to the castle will have good luck if there's a white cat living there. So to celebrate the legend, the garden full of hidden cats was created. Good fun for kids and motorcycle riders looking to kill time!
But now it's off to see what I was really interested in. We rode out of the city and into the suburbs of Belfast.
Belfast is a divided city, with English Protestants and Irish Catholics clustered in self-contained neighbourhoods. Violence between the two factions have been ongoing for over a century now, ever since war broke out between Irish separatists in 1919, leading to Ireland leaving Great Britain in 1922.
I became aware of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland when I was barely a teen. U2 was on the radio and the most popular song at the time was, "Sunday, Bloody Sunday". Bono wrote the song about the Bloody Sunday massacre of unarmed civil rights protesters by British troops in 1972 in Derry, near the Irish border.
I was only a kid at the time, but that song made me realize that there was a whole world full of stuff happening outside of my suddenly much smaller existence.
Walls were erected in some of the more problematic neighbourhoods where Catholic neighbourhoods butted up against Protestant neighborhoods
We visited a park where children were playing soccer, joggers were running on the paths, and barbed wire tipped the fences that separated Catholics from Protestants.
It floored me to realize this was not a historical remnant. This is present day life in Belfast.
Every night, the gates would close and be locked up, to prevent night-time violence between the two communities
We rode out to one of the Protestant subdivisions. The flags on all the houses left no doubt which neighbourhood you were in
A group of young men were gathered outside of one of the houses and watched as we rode by. Despite our Canadian-plated motorcycles (and a British passport tucked somewhere deep inside one of my panniers), I still felt a bit uneasy. All of this nationalist imagery surrounding us made everything a bit more menacing.
Murals cover the sides of many of the houses, depicting violent events in the history of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland
1969 marked the peak of the violence, when British troops were sent in to Northern Ireland to quell the violence. This lead to the resuscitation of the nascent Irish Republican Army (IRA) in retaliation. Although there was supposed to be a ceasefire in 1994, some of the murals disturbingly commemorate deaths much later than that date - neighbours that had been killed in the local skirmishes between Catholics and Protestants.
I saw little kids playing among the buildings, with these murals watching over them. It was very sad to think that they were being indoctrinated into this ceaseless cycle of hate and revenge. I always thought these paintings were Belfast's scars. But they're not. They're clamps holding the wound open so the city never heals.
A lone mural called, "The Women's Quilt" celebrates Love and Forgiveness amidst all the hatred and vengeance
We rode to one of the Peace Walls on Shankill Road
Erected in 1969, a number of Peace Walls were built along public roads to contain the violence between the Irish and English communities. They were only supposed to be a temporary measure at the time, and were due to be torn down within 6 months. They are still standing today. And the gates close every night.
More murals adorn the Peace Wall
The murals on the Irish side depict the usual Irish-flag waving rebels and... African-American historical figures, Frederick Douglass and Barack Obama?!?
A large part of the Irish struggle is against the systemic racism by the British. There is a close identification with African-Americans and the abolitionist movement to end slavery in America.
Obama is *very* popular in Ireland.
The wall and its murals really reminded us of when we visited the Berlin Wall
Very different imagery on the Irish side. Lot more greens.
Suddenly, that British passport seems to be burning a hole in my pannier. I'm doing a lot of nervous gulping around here. Then it dawned on me: Northern Ireland is still a part of Great Britain. *Everybody* here, Catholics and Protestants, have British passports...
And that's the root of the problem for half the population here. Duh.
We stopped so I could take more pictures of the murals. When I returned, I saw a group of kids talking to Neda about her motorcycle. She let the kids sit on her bike. Over the intercom, I heard one of them ask her, "Can you turn the bike on?"
Alarmed, I spoke into her ear, "DO NOT PUT THE KEY IN THE BIKE! They'll ride off with it!"
She came back over the intercom, "I've worked with kids before. I'm not an idiot, you know."
Some of the kids are fiddling around with the switches on the bike. I hear Neda gently admonish them, "No no, don't do that"
She said it in the exact same way she talked to the kids at her old job. As we rode away, I mimicked her tone of voice over the comms: "No no, don't do that". We had a good laugh. They were good kids.
But they would have totally rode away with her bike if she had left the key in.
Leaving Belfast today. Not entirely rested. We're going to book a proper AirBnB place tonight where we can actually stay indoors for the entire day. And we're going to be sleeping in a new country tonight. Or at least that's the plan.
Outta the house before 9AM. We know the rules...
Unlike the sunny weather we enjoyed on our day off yesterday, it's looking pretty dismal for our ride out of town. Low clouds hang above our heads, thick and grey, expectant with water. So we leave with our rainsuits on. The mornings are getting too chilly to ride without them anyway.
We head towards a stretch of road called the A2, otherwise known as the Antrim Coast Road.
It's a delicious stretch of pavement that follows Northern Ireland's north shore and gives us stunning views of the North Channel
Not even an hour out of Belfast, Neda comes in over the comminicator, "We need to stop. I don't feel very well."
Oh no. As we slowed to pull over on the shoulder, I was going to ask her what exactly was wrong. But then I saw her reach into her backpack, grab a roll of toilet paper, climb over the low stone wall, and hurry quickly away from the road...
Oh.
So, while Neda is taking care of business, I do what I normally do. Take pictures. But not of her though...
Minutes pass. And then several more minutes later, I yell over the stone wall, "Everything ok?"
"Uh huh", came the weak reply.
I climb over the wall and walk over to her. She looks miserable.
So I do the only thing I know that comes naturally to me.
I take a picture.
"Noooo! You're not putting that on the Internet!"
"Ok ok. I promise."
Poor Neda. Getting the slurries while on the road really sucks.
Have YOU ever wondered who has ridden around the world? We did too - and now here's thelist of Circumnavigators!
Check it out now, and add your information if we didn't find you.
Check the RAW segments; Grant, your HU host is on every month!
Episodes below to listen to while you, err, pretend to do something or other...
2020 Edition of Chris Scott's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.
"Ultimate global guide for red-blooded bikers planning overseas exploration. Covers choice & preparation of best bike, shipping overseas, baggage design, riding techniques, travel health, visas, documentation, safety and useful addresses." Recommended. (Grant)
Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance™ combines into a single integrated program the best evacuation and rescue with the premier travel insurance coverages designed for adventurers.
Led by special operations veterans, Stanford Medicine affiliated physicians, paramedics and other travel experts, Ripcord is perfect for adventure seekers, climbers, skiers, sports enthusiasts, hunters, international travelers, humanitarian efforts, expeditions and more.
Ripcord travel protection is now available for ALL nationalities, and travel is covered on motorcycles of all sizes!
What others say about HU...
"This site is the BIBLE for international bike travelers." Greg, Australia
"Thank you! The web site, The travels, The insight, The inspiration, Everything, just thanks." Colin, UK
"My friend and I are planning a trip from Singapore to England... We found (the HU) site invaluable as an aid to planning and have based a lot of our purchases (bikes, riding gear, etc.) on what we have learned from this site." Phil, Australia
"I for one always had an adventurous spirit, but you and Susan lit the fire for my trip and I'll be forever grateful for what you two do to inspire others to just do it." Brent, USA
"Your website is a mecca of valuable information and the (video) series is informative, entertaining, and inspiring!" Jennifer, Canada
"Your worldwide organisation and events are the Go To places to for all serious touring and aspiring touring bikers." Trevor, South Africa
"This is the answer to all my questions." Haydn, Australia
"Keep going the excellent work you are doing for Horizons Unlimited - I love it!" Thomas, Germany
Horizons Unlimited is not a big multi-national company, just two people who love motorcycle travel and have grown what started as a hobby in 1997 into a full time job (usually 8-10 hours per day and 7 days a week) and a labour of love. To keep it going and a roof over our heads, we run events all over the world with the help of volunteers; we sell inspirational and informative DVDs; we have a few selected advertisers; and we make a small amount from memberships.
You don't have to be a Member to come to an HU meeting, access the website, or ask questions on the HUBB. What you get for your membership contribution is our sincere gratitude, good karma and knowing that you're helping to keep the motorcycle travel dream alive. Contributing Members and Gold Members do get additional features on the HUBB. Here's a list of all the Member benefits on the HUBB.
helps answer the question - Why Go? Inspirational stories by veteran travellers Greg Frazier (5 times RTW), Peter and Kay Forwood (193 countries), Tiffany Coates (Mongolia Mayhem) and Rene Cormier (University of Gravel Roads).
Get Ready! covers planning, paperwork, medical and many other topics! "Inspirational and Awesome!" See the trailer here!
What stuff do I need - riding gear, clothing, camping gear, first aid kit, tires, maps and GPS? What don't I need? How do I pack it all in? Lots of opinions from over 150 travellers!
break down language barriers, overcome culture shock, ship the bike and deal with breakdowns and emergencies."Just makes me want to pack up and go!" See the trailer here!
Grant demystifies the black art of Tire Changing and Repair to help you STAY on the road! "Very informative and practical." See the trailer here!
Ladies on the Loose! For the first time ever, a motorcycle travel DVD made for women, by women! These intrepid women share their tips to help you plan your own motorcycle adventure. They also answer the women-only questions, and entertain you with amazing tales from the road! Presented by Lois Pryce, veteran solo traveller through South America and Africa and author of 'Lois on the Loose', and 'Red Tape and White Knuckles.'
Cotton or synth sweat-wicking t-shirts with the cool Horizons Unlimited graphic on the front and a snappy slogan (changing every year) on the back.
Show your route on your panniers. Great conversation starter when you meet people on the road!
Motorcycle and travel books to inspire and inform you!
The definitive guide to planning your motorcycle adventure! This insanely ambitious 2-year project has produced an informative and entertaining 5-part, 18 hour video series. "The ultimate round the world rider's how-to!" MCN UK.
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