Hi I'm a new member of the forum but I have read it for some time. I'm thinking about going on a RTW trip on my own in the not too far future. I'll finish uni this summer so the ide is to do it before i settle down with a permanent job, house etc. But time and money is limmited so I was thinking about finding the easiest way around on a motor bike and use that as a baseline. By easy I mean the least amount of difficult to get visas and the least amount of shiping the bike between countries. Any ideas?

So far I've been thinkin about this route:

Down through europe to maroco and trough north africa to egypt

To iran either trough turkey or saudi-arabia

Pakistan-India

Ship to malaysia then indonesia and the philipines and ship to north america and ride down to brasil and ship back to europe...

Any comments?

Ok, just read that it is impossimble to get a saudian visa with a bike. So i guess it's through turkey then. But will an Israeli stamp in my passport be a problem in the middle east?

Try getting a second passport. In Germany (where I am from) this is possible. A friend of mine is a photojournalist specialising on the middle east and always carries 2 passports with him for that exact reason.

Cheers
Bjorn

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http://www.panomoto.com

I traveled around the world in 2004 en 2005; 20 months, 80.000 km. The route I took was as follows: Europe - Turkey Iran - Central Asia - Russia/Siberia - Japan - Chile - Argentine - Uruguay - Brasil - Venezuela - USA- back to Europe. You want to do it easy? What is "easy"? Traveling through Siberia was not easy but it was doable. Search on the HUBB for Zilow Gap and you will find my description. Traveling through Brasil was not easy either; very bad roads. Most people take the Andesroute in stead of the Brasil route. Visa are not a big problem. For Iran, Central Asia and Russia you need a letter of invitation (LOI). Those letters you can buy, for instance from Stantours (www.stantours.com). To have Israeli stamps in your passport might be a problem. Better buy a new passport for your trip. Is it expensive to travel around the world? Generally you can find good accomodation for 10 dollar a night. Russia can be expensive, Japan is expensive. For shipping from Tokyo to Valparaiso I paid about 1200 dollar. That is expensive, yes. Fuel is expensive in Japan and in Brasil.

Have a good trip

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Voorbij de horizon / beyond the horizon: www.wonderfultravels.nl

...yes, I got to agree. Japan is one of the most expensive countries in the world - but it is definitely worth to visit and experience. So, once again, if you (or anyone else) plans to come to the "land-of-the-not-always-rising-sun" get with me. There are lots of foreigners ("gaijins") over here who would gladly help you (out!!)

Klaus
http://virtulanguage.com

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Hmmm, I guess easy is a bit hard to define. The route martheijnens took sounds interesting, but I want to go through South east asia, I've been there twice as a SLBP (stupid lousy back packer). It was in south sulawesi I first got interested in motorcycle traveling after meeting stefan from germany who was traveling aroun the world on a BMW (his bike broke down in malaysia and he was in indonesia while he was wating for the new spare parts). Anyway the criteria for my trip would be (I'll probably change my mind several times):

- Doable on a small bike, I guess my suzuki 350 two-stroke twin isn't up to the task, so I'll try to get a cheap 250 offroader. I'm a mechanic so maintenance and repair shouldn't be a poblem.

- Doable in a reansonably short time so I don't forget everything i learnt in university before I get back.

- Reasonabley cheap. So no shiping of the bike by air, and I want the option of cheap acomodation, so time in europe and USA would be minimum.

There is probably a whole lot of other thing as well, but I need a starting point for my planing.

I don't have an Israeli stamp in my pasport, but if I go trough north africa I thought of going from egypt to turkey trough israel.

Thanks for all the help so far, I love this board...