overlanding and overpopulation
 

Hi all,

I hate overpopulation.
But.........don´t be afraid, I won´t shoot you guys.
I wonder how about you , does it bother you? Does it affect your trip or route planning? Am I the only one, or is it maybe in my head?

For example the city of Hamburg still has no decent ring road. All trafic, both local and transit, has to use the few motorways which goes almost through the city center. For me Hamburg is a no-go at daytime. When I have to pass that city I either go a long way around or plan my arrival there late in the evening or at night. I know the long way around takes both more time and kilometers but rather that, then driving in rush hour traffic.
Another example: I watched the map of Austria and Slovenia, saw a nice route and then watched street view. No way, way too many villages to cross and way too much traffic.
I have to say, I drive a 4x4, not a motorcycle and these are transit countries to my destination but I like to take detours and leave the motorway sometimes but I want to get keep on driving as much as possible at the same speed. I don´t have to drive fast, but I want to keep a constant speed.
Another one: When I think about visiting a touristic site or event I read the reviews from other people and they write ¨way too much people¨, ¨long waiting lines¨, ¨not enough parking¨ ¨overcrowded¨. Then for me it´s a no-go.
In Europe there are a lot of interesting places and events but there are often way too many people so one can´t enjoy them as much as it should be.

All the best,

Rögnvaldur

My reaction to your title was that unless you're doing a lot of sleeping around while on the road it probably won't affect overpopulation problems ...

However, in regards to traffic / crowd problems, yes that does affect where me and my other half go - in fact all our trips (and our choice of where to live) are based around going to places where there aren't many people.

Being on a small motorbike makes a huge difference though, you can flow through traffic like water around the rocks in a stream - for me going into Barçelona by bike takes half the time of going by car.

On another note, we went to Venice once and it was fantastic because we went when it was (comparatively) quiet; we stayed and commuted in by bus with people who work there, which gives one a different point of view - so these things can be done with a little planning and thinking laterally.

Of course there will be places who can be described as overpopulated and for that reason it didnt appeal to me. I personally didnt ride into Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Jakarta, Guatemala City and a few others for such reasons. However I did ride into Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Lima, Bishkek etc with my own norwegian plated bike - and it was awesome, ubercool, fantastic!

Each to their own I guess, even though others have written this and that about a place I dont really trust it nor do I always agree about it. I rode the Transfargasan road in Romania on a sunday in early August. What a shitty experience! First of all it rained and it was quite foggy a bit up into the mountains. Secondly the whole road was absolutely littered with vehicles of all kinds all along the way! Just a gigantic chaotic traffic mess the whole bloody road, and I couldnt see a damn thing due to fog, rain and vehicles!
Of course if I had ridden that same road on a weekday in clear sunny weather I suppose the experience would have become quite different….

Also I went to see the Foz de Iguazu in Brasil. It was also overpopulated to say the least and I was at one stage so tired and frustrated of waiting in lines for buying a ticket, for finding parking, locating transport etc etc that I almost returned. But when I finally reached the falls I was very exited and glad I made it all the way because the falls was really something out of this world!

Again - each to their own, whatever floats your boat.

In Mexico a lot of the country is covered by two different set of roads, the toll roads and the free roads. The toll roads is wide and well maintained and bypasses most villages and small towns. The free roads goes through most villages and towns and is full of speedbumps and live stock, stray dogs etc etc. So what do you want? To ride at a high speed and cover big distances easily or do you want to see the villages and village hustle and bustle and ride over 500 speed bumps pr day? Personally I rode mostly on the free roads, I could encounter people and life much easier, maybe some would say it was «overpopulated» but I still liked it that way.

Visiting a place is also about timing, when to get there, especially such «overpopulated» places.

Overpopulated area's aren't for me but maybe we need to recognise we are part of the problem.... A bit like when someone is stuck in a traffic jamb and moans about all the traffic holding them up! And I'm sure we all managed to buy our modes of transport and lifestyles by utilising all that overpopulation.

The way that I see it, don't moan about about what other folk do, make a tiny footprint wherever you go and contribute to local communities wherever possible.

Being born, growing up and living my half life in Hamburg I can tell you that your navigation can be optimized.

There are no ring roads for a good reason in Hamburg but there are plenty of ways to avoid main roads and to use state roads instead all marked with a B on maps.

Crossing Hamburg to the south means always crossing the river Elbe and therefor you have on western side the highway A7 with the at daytime always overloaded Elbe-Tunnel.

Or you avoid Hamburg and turn more to west and hit the town Glückstadt where you take a ferry to cross the river. Advantage of this is that your way will show you some really views of the nice country side between Hamburg and Glückstadt.
https://www.frs-elbfaehre.de/en/

Also there is a new ferry line between Brunsbüttel and Cuxhaven.
https://elbferry.com/

Crossing Hamburg by the east side means using the old and new Elbe bridges on south-east side of Hamburg City Center which is definetly overcrowed from early morning to later evening.

To void this you take highway A1 in direction south to Seevetal.

As far as you go more to the upstream side of the Elbe you will find different ferry options who will transport a motorcycle. For cars next bridge or ferry will be in the area of Lauenburg which about 45km to east from Hamburg. Also a tour to see and enjoy the nice nature around Hamburg.


hth

It's funny: we all like to be travellers - but we hate it when other travellers get in our way.

Big highways (motorways) were designed to take all the travellers off small routes that were getting clogged up and put them all on one fast-moving transit belt. Nice idea but for two things: when they get overloaded or an accident happens, they really stop, and you're stuck. And for us, who hope to do more than just go between A and B, they miss out all the interesting places along the way.

If you really are in a hurry then taking your chances on the major route is probably the best way, but if you have a little more time it's definitely worth setting your satnav to avoid "Interstates" which will take you down some more interesting roads. It'll be slower, but more rewarding.

But going back to the OP, there are places where overpopulation really makes a difference to the travel experience. Most of England is like this, unfortunately, and you can really feel the difference in better, emptier roads in France and the rest of Europe - at least, between the cities, which are bad wherever you go!

Thank you all for the replies.

I would really like to know the reason why Hamburg has no ring road. I think it should be no problem to build bridges or a tunnel over/under the Elbe river.

The Glückstadt-Wischhafen ferry is nice, done that a couple of times but I am not the only one, also there are sometimes waiting times upp to 2 hours.

The new ferry to Cuxhaven is on my plan for my next trip.