The trip route is planned!

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. I've been enjoying a few days away from computers to celebrate the holidays but now it's time to get back at it.

We have finished planning our trip route. If you click on the map, it might take you to a larger version... (maybe).



The summary goes a little like this....

Start in Calgary, Canada... head East till we hit the coast at either Halifax, Nova Scotia, or St. John's Newfoundland - Flights will determine what city we leave Canada from as we want direct flights only to ensure our bikes stay with us.

Next we hop on a plane, landing in London, UK. We'll ride North to Liverpool and grab a ferry to the Isle of Man to check out the Isle of Man TT race. From there we'll grab another ferry over to Dublin, then up Ireland to Scotland (with yet another ferry in there) and then down to the channel tunnel to France.

While in Europe we will head northeast though Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Germany has much to offer in our minds so we'll head south for a while and zig-zag through Germany to Switzerland. Next it's off to Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, then back southeast to Slovakia and Hungary.

Eastern Europe is an area I'm extremely excited about (having lived in London, and done some travel, western Europe isn't as appealing for this sort of adventure, but then again, it's still going to be an amazing section of the journey - I digress).

We will track from Hungary to Ukraine where we will visit Chernobyl. Then, heading north we will go to the very Soviet-style Belarus and further to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia where it is rumoured that Dylan and I have ancestry.

Once in Russia we will tackle St. Petersburg and head to Moscow - a place that has always left me in awe since I was a little boy. In fact, I still have a soviet flag that I bought when the Olympic games were in Calgary in 1988. I was in fourth grade and did a report on the Soviet Union. It continues to fascinate me to this day.

From Moscow we will travel southeast to Samara, Russia. Then we'll be taking the plunge and heading into Kazakhstan. We will visit what's left of the Aral Sea - one of the greatest natural disasters ever created at the hand of man. Onward we will travel across Kazakhstan and then into the Altai region of Russia to get into Mongolia.

Mongolia is my new fascination. Since seeing Ewan and Charlie ride it in "Long Way Round", I've definitely wanted to try my hand at riding through such a mystical and beautiful land. It's going to kick our butts but I think it will be completely worth it.

Hopefully by 2008 the trans-Siberia / trans-Russia is completed. That will make the journey from Ulan-Ude to Vladivostock easier and safer. We've scheduled a couple of weeks for this section of the journey.

Our Russian section will draw to a close at Vladivostock with a two-day ferry ride to Japan. We'll ride from the ferry on the west coast of Japan to Tokyo. From there we grab a trans-Pacific flight to Vancouver, Canada - the homeward stretch.

Earlier this year I rode from Vancouver to Calgary in one day. I never want to do that again. So we've scheduled more time for this beautiful trek of 600 miles (1,000km).

Finally, after four months and an estimated 20,000 miles (32,000km) we will arrive home in Calgary. We will have gone from Here to Here.