i travel about 2000miles a week for my work. i wake up in my truck,have coffee in my truck(services too expensive),eat in my truck(services too expensive),get stuck in traffic jams on a daily basis!,spend my life on boring motorways!. i go on a monday morning to live in a tin box until saturday!
so on the weekend and my hol's i just want to get out there with the freedom, spend time on the back road's and drink/eat with the local's,see the sight's and breath that fresh air!
that's why i ride a bike!
adventuring though is not about the method of movement but enjoying the experience of meeting people etc. there are pro's and con's for every method of travel, (quicker,warmer,dryer, etc)(easier to push) the list goes on and on.
although all my travel's have been on a bike i am looking into doing an adventure jaunt in my reliant robin for a laugh and if it break's down i'll just leave it! there's a charity challenge to mongolia i think every year in car's smaller than 1000cc so this is a possibility. i'm quite sure that a trip like this will be just as enjoyable providing i stop and mingle with the local's and not just drive through and make my own coffee on the side of the road!
whatever anyone chooses to travel cycle/motorbike/car/4x4/van/plane etc. it's their adventure and that's how they want to do it!

ps. when i was going to iceland there was an helicopter on the boat, apparently the owner uses this to travel! it was shipped on the ferrry because it did'nt have the fuel capacity to fly there!
thought of mentioning acerbis to him but did'nt!

I've been out and about in a car quite a bit. This year was the first time on a bike to a destination where a degree of independency does matter. And I must say, I've skipped places that I wouldn't have skipped in a car, because of fuel range, because of river crossings that are a breeze in a car and no go on a bike, because my lack of sand riding skills make something that passes unnoticed in a 4x4 becomes an ordeal on a bike ... .

I haven't been in the situation where I thought: "with a bike I could have gone there".

That said, I'd go on a bike anytime again. Except maybe south-east afrika, as bikes aren't allowed in many of the game parks.

Actually, I guess it doesn't matter that much. It's more in your attitude then the way you travel. It's true that on a bike people might approach you sooner. Once out of the western world, as soon as you're of or out of you're vehicle, your vehicle doesn't matter anymore. It's the world around you, and how you interact with it.

i dont think it matters what you go on . i prefer a bike but in the end its the adventure and how you do it

Why a bike? Dunno... maybe I'm like the dog sticking his head out the window... I always drive with the windows open and the AC off when in a car (ok, I close them partially when it's raining cos it's usually not my car and I don't want the whole inside getting messed up/soaked).

State of the art 2008 Landcruiser with a gazzillion HP or beaten up '82 Holden Jackaroo that slows down to 50kmph uphill? The Jackaroo in a heartbeat. It was so rusted through the roof was held up with putty.

Smooth and comfy still shiny BMW 1200 GS or fourth-hand teeth-rattling Honda Dominator? The Domi is outside my window.

Shiny catamaran with electric winches, or wooden single hull with a creaky mast and blistered hands? Again... blistered hands. Popped the blisters, wrapped 'em up and kept going as there was still a whole day (and night) ahead before we reached land again.

And so on...

Why? Asked myself a lot of times... and still don't know for sure.

Perhaps because, as the son of a corporate expat I lived the luxury life, and found it utterly boring and predictable.

[] And no, I wasn't spoiled, my dad's the kind who believes you should work for what you want, even if you're 8 y/o. [End of ]

Perhaps cos things ain't half as interesting when they go as you want them to go all the time. Most of the (solo or accompanied) travelling I've done wouldn't have been half as interesting if things hadn't gone horribly wrong one way or another... frequently. And yet, I'm thankful they DID (although probably more than one of my travel companions would disagree with me on that).

Perhaps cos I find it more fun to throw a dart on a map and walk out the door to try hitch a ride there than go to the travel agency and buy a bus/train/plane ticket there.

I'm "planning" to do a Madrid-Beijing (or something along those lines) in a couple of years, by motorbike... I don't expect to get that far (at least not with my bike). Wherever it breaks down and I run out of cash, I'll take the indispensables with me and stick out my thumb... and in the end I'll probably end up in South Africa instead.

Anyhow, after drifting off for a while, now to tie it all up... why a bike and not a car? Chaos. That's why. In a car you are safe, you can lock the doors in Mexico City, you can roll up the windows in Siberia. On a bike, you aren't. You have no protective bubble, whatever happens around you affects you directly. When it rains, you get rained on; when it freezes, you freeze; when you crash, you get hurt; when a guy with a knife walks towards you and you fumble your keys, you can't roll up your window...

To me, that's a large part of travelling. If everything had gone "as planned", I'd never have joined the crew of a sailing boat for a regatta and in the process met a 70-year old, 4-foot chinese lady who was travelling around the world after her husband died. Or spent two months prospecting for gold in the middle of the outback. Or had Israeli machine guns (and a tank) pointing at me (in my t-shirt, flip-flops, bermudas and a camera slung around my neck) supposedly 1km behind the front line in Southern Lebanon, 2 minutes before asking a Hezbollah militia guy if he could spare some diesel for our beaten-up taxi...

But, as with everyone, each person has their own reasons and their own drives. If you like 5-star hotels and a carefully laid-out schedule, go for it. As someone already said, to each their own. And don't let anyone tell you how you should live your life. As long as you LIVE it, and don't just watch it go by, that's all that matters.

And if we ever meet, you'll probably think I'm terminally insane and I'll wonder how you can lead such a boring life, but we'll probably still have at least an interesting conversation. And we'll (hopefully) both walk away with just a little bit more learned in this life, and if we're real lucky,a little bit more wisdom.

... (so, did I pull it off or did it just sound real corny?)

PS: Oh, btw, sorry for the endless pseudo-philosophical rambling... my mind is just about as chaotic as the way I live my life.

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"Hope for the best - plan for the worst. Then watch it all go pear-shaped and wing it." - Me

Have a nice trip.

... age and "maturity" seem to steal it away at some point.

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

To me this is a very simple question. I travel on a bike, as opposed to a car for the same reason I ride a bike everyday as opposed to driving a car. I just like riding motorcycles. Whether or not it's raining or I have to take my gear into a restaurant when I stop or have to deal with the heat or any other question, I deal with it because the pluses of riding out weigh the minuses.

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Sam Jones

wind, rain, cold, dust, heat, sandy ruts and all those other *terrible* things are part of the brilliance of motorcycle travel.

on a bike, you are part of the environment you travel in. it affects you, you are required to respect it, and therefore you learn more from it.

in a car, like you said, you can be more connected to your soda and tunes than you are to the things on the other side of the windows. grand.

to compare the two modes of travel is to me like comparing watching a gig or a sporting event live as compared to on the tube. (i own neither a car nor a TV.)

as for communication with my travelling partner, the teamwork and trust required to ride two-up, standing on the footpegs and picking our way through the rough stuff of bolivia, peru or whereever on 450kg of home is a pinnacle of togetherness.

cheers,
andy

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