HU Travellers Meeting Germany-Autumn 2016

Leonie Sinnige & Peter Scheltens (Amsterdam to Anywhere) Over 100,000 km on 5 continents through more than 50 countries on Honda CRF250L's

Amsterdam to Anywhere: Small bikes, big adventure!

Stories and pictures of our 3-year RTW trip on two Honda CRF250L's: 110,000 km, 5 continents, 56 countries.

We quit our jobs and rented out the house to travel around the world. We explored Africa, rode through the America's and zigzagged across Asia to arrive back in Europe three years later. Visiting 56 countries, meeting friendly people and experiencing true hospitality. And all along the way: amazing wildlife, beautiful nature, delicious food and great riding! An amazing journey, we want to share with you! During the presentation we will give you a seat on our bikes to ride around the world together. Telling you about the amazing hospitality in Libya, the Hippo's next to our tent in Kenya, New Years Celebrations at the most southern tip of the world, exploring ancient Inca routes in Peru, ploughing through the snow in Canada, using the Motorcycle Highway in Malaysia, riding through ever smiling Myanmar, making new friends in Pakistan and riding on top of the world in the Himalayas. All of this off course with lots and lots of pictures! We hope we can inspire you to get on your bike and start exploring our beautiful world!

Amsterdam to Anywhere; life on the road

All you want to know about daily life on the road: budget, paperwork, packing, riding, eating, sleeping and lots more practical information.

What is your budget? Could you camp everywhere? How do you make your route? Did you pay bribes? How did you contact your family and friends? Did you cook? Where you ever sick? How did you get the bikes across the ocean? Did you use a carnet de passage? How are the roads in Africa? Did you have a satellite telephone? Before we left on our trip, we had hundreds of questions like this. We asked friends who had been on the road, read travel reports and visited a HU Meeting to find our answers. The information helped us enormously to prepare for the trip. Now, after having been on the road for almost three years, we want to help future adventurers to prepare for their trip and answer all of these questions. During the presentation we will focus on the practical side of adventure travel and 'living on the road' for a longer time. We will tell about planning our route, riding conditions and dealing with officials. We will explain about our daily routine, including topics like finding a place to sleep, shopping for dinner, staying 'online', doing laundry and managing the budget. We will share our best inside information and hopefully give you some inspiration to hit the road.

Leonie Sinnige and Peter Scheltens (Amsterdam to Anywhere) quit their jobs, rented out the house and left for what would become a 3-year motorcycle trip around the world. Riding their two trusty Honda CRF250L's over 100,000 km on 5 continents through more than 50 countries.

Tim and Lena Hewitt Wrong Way Round - How not to take a newbie on a trip through the Balkans

The Balkans is the perfect place to dip a toe into motorcycle travel outside of the safety zone of Western Europe. In the north you have gorgeous landscapes and flawless, easy roads. In the south, in Albania in particular you have wilderness and rough roads to shake your bike and bones. So the biggest question we had when we got back from our trip was why, given that Lena had only had her license for three weeks, did we start in Albania?

Our trip took us by boat from Italy to Greece and back home to Germany via Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. We will be talking about some of our experiences in the region and some of the lessons learned during the trip. We're not grizzled veteran motorcycle travelers but we hope we can provide some useful information to anyone who's thinking of a trip to the Balkans. It's incredibly easy to get to and as easy or as difficult to get around in as you want to make it - on or off the tarmac. We will be presenting in German and English.

Die Balkan-Staaten sind perfekt für einen ersten Trip außerhalb von West-Europa. Der Norden besticht mit wunderschönen Landschaften und intakten, einfachen Straßen (Asphalt hilft! ;)). Im Süden, besonders in Albanien, ist die Landschaft wilder, aber ebenso wunderschön und die Straßen nicht mehr ganz so intakt und einfach - dort wird man öfters einmal ordentlich durchgeschüttelt. Jetzt, Wochen nach dieser tollen Reise bleibt nur eine Frage: Wieso sind wir nur in Albanien gestartet? Hatte ich, Lena, doch meinen Motorradführerschein für weniger als einen Monat! Wir sind mit der Autofähre von Italien nach Griechenland gefahren und dann durch den Balkan wieder zurück an den Bodensee. Dabei sind wir durch Albanien, Mazedonien, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnien, Kroatien und Slowenien gefahren. Wir möchten euch über unsere Erfahrungen im Balkan erzählen und werden auch nicht die Situationen auslassen, die wir im Nachhinein etwas anders angehen würden ;) Wir sind keine hartgesottenen Motorrad-Reisende - zumindestens noch nicht :p. Dennoch hoffen wir, dass wir Balkan-Interessierten ein paar hilfreiche Informationen weiter geben können. Die Balkan-Staaten sind relativ nah und daher einfach zu erreichen und dank verschiedenster Straßenqualitäten kann jeder selbst entscheiden wie schwer oder leicht die Reise werden soll, wie viel asphaltierte Straßen oder Off-Road-Teile gefahren werden sollen. Unsere Präsentation wird in Deutsch und Englisch sein.

We are Tim and Lena Hewitt. Tim is British and Lena is German, so we can present in both languages. We can't claim to be massively experienced travelers; we only started recently with a trip to Morocco last year and a trip to the Balkans this summer. We've not gone around the world, we've never raced the Dakar but we hope we can provide some useful info and insight.

Jo & Sofie Meyhi-Jacobs Breaking down in Iran

Sometimes a well-planned trip becomes an adventure when your engine blows up in Iran. Dealing with the problems and its impact on our trip.

After years of saving and planning for an adventurous trip through Iran, Central Asia and Mongolia, mechanical misfortunes on the road totally altered our plans. It turned a well-planned trip into a real adventure. We will talk about all the problems we encountered and how we dealt with them. But most of all about the wonderful things that happen when you are vulnerable and in trouble in a strange country. We will not bore you with lots of technical discussions, but rather share the emotional roller coaster we lived, the generous help of the people we met and the experiences we would not have had otherwise.

We are Jo and Sofie, motorcycle passionates since 2004. We love nothing more than to discover new countries, other cultures. We found our true love in allroad travelling so after discovering the backroads of Europe, we have broadened our horizons to the Middle East and Russia.

Martin Magnusek Around Africa with 175ccm motorcycle

My plan was going around Africa on motorcycle. I had prepared big BMW in my garage, but 6 month before departure, I changed my plan, and chose my second bike: Czech old motorcycle from 1963, 175ccm two stroke engine. During 5 month in Africa I did 24 000 km, without a single flat tire.

Last 5 years I'm traveling on motorcycles. My first journey was with big BMW to Mongolia, but I slowly moved to smaller bike :-) My last journey was 5 month long trip from Morocco to South Africa on 53 years old motorcycle with small two stroke engine.

Hette Rienstra Four months of summer riding to Mongolia, more or less solo, at the age of 25

Inspired by the stories of people I met during the HU Autumn meeting 2015, I starting working toward to accomplish my dream. Riding my motorcycle to Mongolia. Before I knew it I was applying for visas, got a "carnet du passage" and got 4 months off of work. Not having a riding mate or only being 25 years old didn't stop me anymore. In May I started living my dream and rode my BMW F800GS over the southern route to Mongolia, passing through 17 countries (including Iran and Turkmenistan), 27,000 km, meeting new people and cultures' while being further away from home than ever before. I knew incredible things would happen, I just didn't know what and when. In my presentation I'll talk about my preparation, my highest and lowest points and what it meant to me accomplishing my dream. I hope to share some parts with you, to inspire and encourage you. We are all ready to accomplish our dreams, we just didn't pick the date yet.

Hello, my name is Hette Rienstra, 26 years old. I live in the Netherlands and I'm riding motorcycle since I was 18 years old. What started as cheap transportation, grew to a new passion of traveling on motorcycle. You may know me from my presentation on the autumn meeting 2015 about my trip to Eastern Europe or my Kelly Kettle demonstration.

Nina Hagel and Florian Böcher Discovering Oman – Sand and Sea AND Every day?! - 322 days of blogging

Discovering Oman – Sand and Sea

A round trip of Oman at the edge of summer became a suprising highlight of our trip

Oman was not even on our route when we started out. But as these things go, it turned out to become the biggest surprise of the journey. We had not heard of it as a destination for motorcycle travel as it is off the Europe-Australia route. We think it is time to change that. So come along and get inspired to explore this ancient arabic land and culture with us.

Every day?! - 322 days of blogging

How we ended up with a daily online record of our trip (and how we did it)

We sure did not plan on doing this every day of our trip when we started. None of us is actually a writer, neither professionally nor otherwise. But we are even prouder that we ended up doing it anyways. If you are curious on how to set yourself up for some serious blogging, this is for you. Getting started: Equipment on the road and website beginnings On the road: Testing our set-up and surprising ourselves with the frequency The routine: Keep blogging until you finish The end result: A blog with all 322 days of your trip.

We are Nina and Florian. We have traveled the world by car, on foot and with our trusted motorcycle. In August 2015, we started an overland trip we called Home to Home. Over the course of a year, we travelled from Wellington in NZ back to Frankfurt in Germany.

Rainer und Birgit Knabe Next Exit Afrika

Erzählungen und Geschichten, Musik, Bilder und kurze Videos, ein kleiner Rückblick auf eine tolle Auszeit

Im Wohnzimmer werden mitten im Winter die beiden Motorräder startklar gemacht: Afrika. Gnadenlose Stürze und viele Schutzengel, permanenter Kühlwasserverlust und unerwartete Pannenhilfe in Marokko, staubige Pisten, aber wir haben jeden Tag genossen!

In Deutschland mit dem chromglitzernden Softchopper und silbernem Roller herumgetourt. Die SR500, schicke japanische Joghurtbecher und das Traumduo F650GS/Africa Twin zeigten uns Europa. Mit den beiden XChallenge folgten wir unserem Lebenstraum über staubige Pisten quer durch Afrika.

Toshi Meier-Brook Barging Barriers in the Balkans - Turning travel into adventure using a motorbike and a wheelchair

We went to the Balkans on our leaner sidecar combination this year. One goal was to attend the Montenegro HU meeting, which (in contrast to us and our bike) is highly off-road oriented. Seeing where the road would take us during the day, we carried a tent which we didn't use (too many low priced cabins), and a kitchen which we didn't use (too good local food). Apart from admiring some truly amazing landscapes, we didn't really do much sightseeing, and rather tried to get in contact with local people and their culture as much as possible.

Despite the title, don't expect our presentation to be mainly about the peculiarities of motorcycle travel with a wheelchair. But, of course, since using a wheelchair can add some spice to many situations, we will loose some words on that. And we will gladly answer any questions concerning travelling to places that are not barrier-free using a wheelchair.

Heike and Toshi have a long term travel companionship reaching back more than 25 years. Heike is using a wheelchair and needs assistance for most activities. Despite Heike's handicap, together we have explored many parts of the world. Since 2012 we are reaching out for more adventures on a BMW R1200GS with a leaner sidecar. We try to make contact with local people, as much as we can, as our travel is more about the people than about sightseeing.

Hans-Ueli Flückiger From Cancún via Cuba to Panama AND From Panama to Cancún

From Cancún via Cuba to Panama

A unique experience: With the Stahlratte.de and my Africa Twin from Cancun, Mexico via Cuba, Jamaica and Providencia to Panama.

This year the schedule for the Stahlratte.determined my journey. This 113-year-old sailing ship with six sails drove me in 2013 from Colombia to Panama. The Stahlratte provides the only way Cuba to travel with your own bike. About 4'000 km in five weeks give new impressions and contacts. Jamaica and Providencia, a Colombian island, are quite different. Another highlight are the many wonderful snorkeling dives at different locations. I am happy when I can show you this journey with enthusiasm!

From Panama to Cancún

2014 and 2016 I drove from Panama to Cancún, Mexico - and next year I will go back!

Central America - countries over which you hear more than you know. 2014 and 2016 I drove from Panama to Cancun in Mexico and have seen and experienced many things. Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula. But there is so much more to see, so that I will again travel around this small country next year.

I am 65 years old and travel since 2008 with my Africa Twin through Latin America, total 85'000 km. Part 8 of my journey brought me this year from Cancun with the Stahlratte.de via Cuba, Jamaica, Providencia to Panama. From there I drove the Africa Twin back to Cancun.

Angeluss Grüner Carburetor maintenance

A carburetor is a key instrument for fail-free operation of an engine.

Many people take their vehicles, when they are on tour, to the edge of the material possibilities. One gets the best bike, and takes it to the harshest climates and environments and expects a maximum performance and durability from the bike. This is only possible if a maximum of care and maintenance is attended to the vehicle. I will explain how a carburetor works, then I will show you how to professionally clean and replace spare parts in a carburetor.

Do you know the difference between these two things? If not, come find out!

I sailed around the world on a sailboat in 23 years, in the last 7 years I traveled S-america on a R45 BMW.

Border crossings - How to get through borders with minimal stress and cost!

Packing light - Tips and techniques from experienced travellers to reduce weight and bulk.

Regional discussions - e.g. travelling in South America or Asia.

For Women Only - A must for the ladies, so be sure to plan on being there! A chance to talk to experienced travelling women without the men around!

Experienced Travellers Panel - ask the experts anything you want!

Walk arounds / Show and tell!

Tents and Bedding discussion (in the camping area) - What works, cheap vs dear and which ones keep you dry, warm and comfy!

Bike mods - Show off your best bike mods - homemade saddle bags, toolbox mounts, GPS mounts, seats, side stands, tank panniers, cup holders, etc.