There is a point where a motorcycle trip stops being a holiday and becomes something you talk about for years. That point is somewhere around day eight, when the routine of packing the bike each morning has become second nature and the landscape outside has changed beyond recognition from where you started.
These are our longest routes. Eleven to thirteen days, two to three thousand kilometres, and enough time to cross five countries or ride the length of a mountain range and back down the coast. If you have the leave and you want the trip rather than the sample, this is the section to be in.
Range, first of all. A thirteen-day route through the Balkans crosses borders that a shorter tour has to choose between – Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria in a single loop, rather than a corner of one of them.
But the real difference is pace. On a long tour there is room in the schedule for a rest day, for an unhurried morning at an archaeological site, for the detour the guide suggests because the weather turned good. Short tours have to keep moving. These do not.
Riders who have done shorter guided tours and want more. Riders with the flexibility to take two weeks. Retired riders, riders between jobs, and riders who have decided that this year the big trip is the one that matters.
Stamina matters more than skill on a tour this length. The individual days are no harder than on a shorter route, but there are more of them in a row – so the rest day, the support van and the quality of the hotels stop being nice extras and start being the reason you finish the trip in good shape.
Hotels with breakfast for every night of the tour, dinners including welcome and farewell meals, airport transfers at both ends, an experienced guide riding with the group, the motorcycle with full insurance, 24-hour technical support and a support van carrying the luggage across every border.
Maximum eight motorcycles. Prices are per person and include the bike, and these tours are passenger-friendly with a dedicated passenger price.
13 days
