Hi Everyone

My girlfriend and I have been planning to do a RTW trip for a while now. To begin with we were thinking of back packing our way round and getting a couple of other activities in (I've done a bit of sailing and we thought it would be good to sail from somewhere like Turkey to India), stay in Australia for a while, travel a while through New Zealand (I was a bit inspired by the Ultimate Journey website) on to Tahiti, Easter Island and then on through South, Central America and then on from there.

But while chatting with my girlfriends brother he suggested looking into travelling round by motorbike, this idea has really grabbed me, I love the idea of this, the idea of being able to change your plans and see something that takes your fancy, stop at any point to camp and wake up in a remote area with nothing there but you and the scenery Unfortunately my girlfriend is a little more pragmatic than I am and although she sees the advantages she isn't totally taken by the idea. At the moment her main concern is the amount of money it is going to cost us to do this and more importantly how much more it will cost over backpacking. We are planning to start our trip next September from Estonia (we are currently in the UK to save money but will be moving to Estonia for a couple of months prior to our trip). A part of this money worry comes because at present I am riding an SV650S which neither of us think is comfortable enough for us to do the trip so we would like to sell that and get ourselves a DL650 which will end up costing us around £1000.

So what I guess I am asking is has anyone go through anything like this and how did they go about discussing it, I really don't want any suggestions of splitting up as we are really happy together. Also can anyone give any handy hints on selling a motorbike (I've never done it before) so any sort of hints would be good, places to advertise in the UK or anything really

Thanks again everyone, this forum is really a great place to come to for information

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The Wonderful Wander To Oz

hobospy,
Welcome to this BB


About the factual question: Here's the result of a quick search for it ---

selling a motorbike - Ask.com UK Web Search

IMO, the usual places to sell bikes in the UK are on ebay, motorcycle news (the weekly newspaper) or autotrader. There are other websites, and some of them will advertise bikes for free, but you need to consider how big the audience is.
There is always your local newspaper as well.

You could part exchange the SV for a DL of course; thats why the dealers offer this facility; to get your business.
Some dealers, probably the smaller ones in my experience, may be prepared to buy your bike for cash but it is now getting to the time of year when this is less likely (they are more likely to want new stock in the Spring).

As for your personal relationships, I am not even going down that route! Your on your own with that question!!

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Dave

Buy a copy of "Lois On The Loose" and leave it lying around for her to find! Lois on the LooseWorked for me.

Regards

Nigel in NZ

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The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with . -- 2200 BC Egyptian inscription

Your points about being able to change your plans, see what you fancy are absolutely spot on. I've never done serious backpacking as I don't fancy the idea of being limited to going where everybody else goes at the times that somebody else says I have to. The freedom of having my own transport has always been paramount.
The initial investment of going by bike is going to be higher than backpacking - but much more fun/interesting in the long run.
The other option might be bicycles?! You have the freedom of your own transport, easier/cheaper to ship between places and you can always throw them on a train/bus to go further than you want to cycle.

My missus loves her horses too much to come to Africa with me so I'm going with my mate Dan. Saves renting out my house, I suppose.

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Find out details of my 2011 trip to Siberia on a lightweight dirtbike:
www.brighton2expeditions.co.uk

While travelling in a campervan through Europe and Morocco (92), Therese then girlfriend, asked one night what are you doing with the bike(bmw r65) .Therese hadn't been on a motorbike before so we where in a borrowed campervan. My reply was ,well ,I'd like to ride it home... how about it.. yer Ok... was the reply. Well My brain worked overtime to get the logistics in place .From replanning the Europe trip from that day on, we where in Moroc at the time. to buying konis in Andora (duty free).selling the van back in London.( that was the deal we had with our mate) Buying riding gear for Therese Saying bye to our British friends in a shake down trip around England.which included a front end rebuild at a camp site near Moto Bins, returning the old fork stantions the next morning, The bike was a basket case not that long before. Oh yes getting it rego and carnet'd.
6months later we got home back to OZ I have asways thought ,not bad for someone who had never been on a bike before and her first trip was 26,000 miles.Don't worry just do it

Firstly, I did a cost plan for backpacking through South America and after including the cost of airfares, both internal and getting there (South America is big) and buses etc, I figured out I was able to travel by motorbike (after the cost of purchasing the bike which I bought kitted up for 2700 euros) for about 7-8 months as opposed to the 2-3 I was looking at for backpacking. If you are two up on a bike it is even cheaper than travelling as a couple on two bikes as I ended up doing. As an example, through South America we pretty much stuck to a budget of $20/day including fuel food accommodation and sightseeing (not that you spend much on that when you are on a bike). Some days work out a lot less and somtimes we spent a little more. We did camp a lot in Argentina and Chile which of course helped but also adds to the adventure when you can just pull over anywhere that takes your fancy and pitch up. It didn't get any more expensive until we hit Mexico and I can assure you, having your own transport there is a big plus. Talking to some other backpackers, the cost of their bus trip was twice as much as what I was paying for fuel. Plus they travelled at night to save accommodation and therefore missed out on seeing the country as they passed through it.
Don't forget to email the communities here as well, if someone can't put you up or give you a patch of grass to pitch a tent on, then they usually know where there is somewhere cheap to do so. A god send in the USA.

As for your girlfriend, there are a few threads in here by the women with tips of travelling for girls, what essentials to take, feminine hygeine etc. And if she has any particular questions, feel free to email me or I'm sure any of the other women on the Hubb.

As for your bike, I also had an SV650S to sell before I left. Unfortunately I ended up selling it two weeks after I left for a rock bottom price just to get rid of it. It didn't help that it was in November with the onset of winter. So if you plan on leaving in a few months. Don't be too greedy, as come October it will be hard to shift. I advertised on Ebay, through which I ended up selling it privately to a guy who hadn't bid on it. MCN and Loot and the Gum Tree (I had quite a few enquiries through the Gum Tree.) And also, don't forget to post it up in a few of the mechanics shops around and Hein Gerricke also have a billboard for advertising bikes.

One tip on the type of bike you get though, make sure you test ride it with her. If her she isn't comfortable on the pillion seat, then the trip will be miserable for you both.

Goodluck with it all. It is an amazing experience, and you never know, your girlfriend might actually want to get her own licence so she can ride as well.

Michelle
Trans Am Upside Down

Thanks everyone for getting back to me. I’ve decided to try selling my bike through the biketrader website, I was thinking of trying to trade it in but I really think having the cash in pocket would be good for when I go out to buy the potential RTW bike

On the personal front I have bought myself a copy of the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook and having been leaving it around hoping that she might pick it up but no luck yet!! Not sure if I would have any more luck if I was to buy the Lois on the Loose, it appears more of a story than the AMH so who knows, maybe get that too.

The whole bicycle thing is quite a good idea, not sure it is the right thing for us, my other half’s brother and his wife have actually just got back from cycling round Europe. They took two years to do it (taking time to work and experience life rather than just be tourists) and have had a brilliant time but for us, I’m not so sure.

I really like the idea of doing a cost plan for the trip, this is her main concern at the moment and I think if I was able to get a detailed cost plan of the total cost and show that we can afford it would be a great idea. Not totally sure of how to go about this, but at the moment I think I should just start breaking the trip up into smaller parts and get individual costs for these, then the shipping and start from there. I realise the petrol costs are likely to be the most expensive part overall but I guess that is all just going to be an estimate, does anyone know of any petrol cost guide for countries?

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The Wonderful Wander To Oz

Me and Michelle have pretty much all of the petrol prices for the Americas written down. If I ever start feeling 'normal' again now I'm back home I'll do a wee post on the petrol costs for the countries we passed through over the last 10 months or so.

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Mike


www.singapore-scotland.blogspot.com
www.argentina-alaska.blogspot.com
My little Vid: India/Pakistan

BMW R1150GS
Suzuki DR650 SE: Ride it like ya stole it. Oh, somebody just did...

That sounds great Mike, we aren't planning the America part of our trip yet but it is still all useful The even best part though is that we started planning out our trip and thinking of costs (mainly because a DL came up for sale, darn guy wouldn't give us a good trade in on my current bike though ) anywhoooo, my other half is happy that we can afford the trip and it won't actually kill us trying to save for itc So about this time next year we should wobbling our way down through Europe

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The Wonderful Wander To Oz