After writing an article about how to pack your motorcycle for a trip now it’s time for your road trip packing list. I will not write down every little detail about what we took with us but just a list of things what for us are absolutely essentials to take with you on a long distance motorcycle trip. Like I said before as well, we are not traveling light. We like our comfort, we are camping most of the time and we cook our own meals. Of course this things matters with what you want to take with you,  also the time you will be on the road. If you go on a trip for 2 weeks in the summer you might consider taking a chair and table with you, we are on the road for multiple years so for us it’s like our way of living. There are moments we literally live in our tent so you can imagine we need some comfort as well at that moment.

Road Trip Packing List

Let’s start with the basic needs camping equipment essentials packing list;

• Tent
• Sleeping bag
• Mattress
• Pillow

You don’t need to carry so much winter stuff to make yourself warm. In Africa we hit cold just few countries and we bought blankets to keep ourself warm after that we gave them to local people in villages who need them.

There are some things you can add to this list like;

• Small hammer for the hooks (or find a rock on the road and put it in your pocket)
• Small pump for your mattress if you don’t have automatic air one.
• Ropes to make your tent windproof if necessary or hang on clothes or tide something.
• A tarp shelter, we used it a lot; under the rain can be a roof for us or motorcycle, a footprint to protect our tent from needle or sharp stones.
• Extra hooks, you will loose them sometimes and you need them if you want to make your tent windproof in a storm. Also you can use them if you use your tarp shelter separately.

Extra to carry to make your life comfortable;

• Chair
• Table
• Hammock 🙂 If it is so hot and have a mosquito net you can also sleep in your hammock.

Cooking set essentials for motorcycle camping;

• Stove
• Plates
• Fork, spoon, knife
• Sharp big knife
• Pans
• Coffee/Tea cup
• Lighter
• Little wind protection shield for stove

Extra cooking equipment; ( if you have plan to cook almost everyday like us.)

• Bowl for salad or soup
• Wooden spoon
• Cut board
• Little grater 🙂

Emergency cooking food;

Also you always want to carry some food with you so you can cook something if you end up somewhere you won’t be able to find something. Your motorcycle can break down, the road conditions are so bad you won’t make it to your planned destination etc. There are multiple reasons to always carry some basics with you. We always had this with us and after we used it we bought it as soon as possible again.

• Pasta or rice
• Onions and garlic (very small)
• Salt & Pepper
• Tuna in a can (or vegetable)
• Tomato paste
• Cookies (as a back-up snack)
• Water

Clothes:

Don’t take too much you can wash and wear your clothes multiple times no worries;

• 3 or 4 underwear
• 3 t-shirts
• 1 short
• 1 swimming short (what you can use as a normal short as well)
• 1 jeans
• 1 sport outdoor walking pants
• 2 pair of socks (excluding riding socks)
• 1 jacket to keep you warm or protect from wind and rain. We have been carrying our motorcycle jacket inside for multiply use.
• 1 pair flip flops
• 1 pair of shoes (walking/running)
• 1 set thermal clothing

When we need extra warm clothes we bought from bazaar or second hand cheap. When we were leaving the cold we gave who need it.

Another essential part for packing list;

Your toiletries some things are the basic ones and you can add a few things that are always easy to carry;

• Wet tissue (you can use them for everything)
• Bar of soap (for dishes, hand, body and face)
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Small towel (easy dry)
• Shaving stuff

Electronics, you want to take nice photo’s and keep in touch with the world around you 🙂

• Laptop
• Camera
• Action Camera (helmet)
• Phone
• Cables to charge everything (more then 1)
• Good external charge (ours is 20.000 mah so we can charge our camera as well)
• External hard disk (if you go for a very long time like us 3 TB)
• Multi usb plug (so you can charge more when there is electricity)
• Extra SD-cards
• SD card reader
• Extra battery for the camera
• Batteries (extra for head light etc.)
• Earphones

Other things that are essentials on your road trip packing list for a long distance;

• • Sunglasses
  • Headlight
  • Water purification tablets

• Sunscreen
• Hand sanitizer
• Mosquito spray (a good one)
• Bandages
• Blisters
• Pills against diarrhea
• Painkillers
• Paracetamol
• Malarone malaria pills (as a anti dose against it) if you come in risky areas
• Drugs what you need to use daily or what you need to be on the road for you and your body.
• Small sponge and soap for cleaning your dishes
• Pen and paper

I think we have quite a list so far, it looks like it never fits on a motorcycle but if you pack it correctly it does 🙂 We are traveling as a couple so we have more space as when you travel alone but still it’s possible to take it with you, just make your own choice and take a look what you think is essential to you. A lot of stuff you can buy small nowadays as well, like a tent or mattress you will pay a bit more but if you use it a lot it’s worth it as well..

Of course you need to bring extra spare parts of motorcycle to long distance as well, you can read here what we all carried with us.

You can check all our equipment  for long distance motorcycle road trip packing list

And here also you can read the riding gear for our world trip by motorcycle.

FS

When you are preparing a long distance motorcycle trip there always comes  a point, how to pack a motorcycle for a trip? 

When we started our motorcycle journey around the world in 2016 we sit in our room and looked to all we wanted/needed to take with us and we thought it will never ever fit. Now after a lot of experience I would like to share this with you, we changed our bags dozens of times but eventually I think we found for us the best way to pack. I must say, we are not traveling light, we are camping, cooking our self and we like some comfort as well.

There are multiple things what you need to take care about when you are packing your motorcycle, of course the first thing is to find motorcycle panniers/bags that fit to your motorcycle. We have been traveling around the world on Honda CRF250L, they are not big motorcycles and carry capacity is not so much, therefore we think that the cases are heavy to Honda CRF 250L (Why Honda CRF for world trip) and we have chosen SW-Motech soft panniers.

The two most important things while packing your motorcycle is; You need to find everything quick and easy but also you need to make sure you have the right balance. Of course you still want to feel comfortable when you are riding with a balanced motorcycle. Especially in the beginning this is a big challenge to fix everything so you have your balance and all is quick and easy to find.

How to pack for a trip to motorcycle? 

When we started to live in a tent it became our home. Therefore, we are looking for comfort and at the same to be light also thinks smart to our essential things to pack for traveling.  We have two motorcycles and each Honda CRF250L has Sw-Motech tail bags, saddle bags and tank bags. She has extra drybags on the engine protection.

I will start with our 2 tail bags that we carry. One of them has all our clothes in the main part and toiletries in the side pockets. On the road you won’t need your clothes as you are riding. Your toiletries have easy access all the time also easy in the night when you are ready to jump in your tent and just want to brush your teeth. We call the bag “Clothes bag” The other tail bag is our “Kitchen bag” we carry our stove, daily food, plates and pans etc. in there. Nice to only use when you are cooking and not to heavy for the balance as it is high situated on your motorcycle.

I (fs) carry a small ‘tent’ bag just behind me in my back, there is not a lot in there.  We have an extra footprint in there which we use to protect ourselves from the rain as well some times or carry extra water when we were leaving from the main road. Also it has in extra rope an hooks.

Her saddle bags (panniers) she is has one with all our camping equipment (tent, sleeping bags, pillows, mattresses, hammock etc.) We call the bag “Camping bag”  Other her saddle bag ‘is “Food & chair bag”  We always carry extra food with us if we go off road, mountain road… because we never sure we can find a place for food. And on the top of the bag we carry our chairs and table so if we break for a longer time we can relax or when we arrive to our destination I will set up the tent and she will start cooking so she needs the chairs first from everything else. After open the tent and get out our camping equipment from the saddle bag she can put her motorcycle gear inside it.

For my Sw-Motech saddlebags (panniers) I have one bag we call our “Computer bag” I’m carrying our computer on the road as we learned she drops her motorcycle more often so less change to damage our computer. 🙂 On the bottom of the bag I carry some small heavy things on top of that a bag with the computer, next to it for easy access our shoes, flip flops and pants when we arrive or take a longer break we have easy access to what we need right away. On the other side “All other thing bags” I’m carrying a bag with everything else we have with us, this bag is changing a lot and we are not opening it a lot like motorcycle winter jacket, gore-tex protection, thermal clothes…. I do same thing like her. When we change our shoes and put the computer bags inside to tent I use the saddle bag for motorcycle gears. Our motorcycle boots we have next to the tent and our helmets inside the tent.

Also she carries 2 dry bags on the engine protections from her motorcycle. This bags are for some “Extra tools” we carry and rarely things we use like glue, parts for our GoPro and other small things in here.

We also have small tank bags from Sw-Motech which are our daily “Electronic bags”. We carry cables, batteries, our phones, cameras, action camera…etc.

Apart of all the bags and panniers sometimes she carries our soft cooling bag  behind her back including some water and ice so we have a cold drink when it is 45 degrees. Especially if you travel in remote and hot areas you always want to carry this with you with a very easy access. 🙂

She and I have been carrying small tubes under our tail bags which have chains and spare parts of our motorcycles inside. Behind one of my saddle bag I have a small shoe box. We have our tools in it.

I hope I explained it good enough, if you have questions you can always send us a message and we will answer your question.

FS

When we are traveling continent to continent one of the expensive things is shipping or airfreight our motorcycle to another continent.

Why motorcycle transport is expensive by air?

First of all, most cargo companies or airlines cargo companies don’t work with the customer directly, especially if they are in the dangerous class like motorcycles.  Therefore you need to find an agency for it and pay them.

Second, motorcycle needs to go to the custom service for exit the country to check VIN, plate and engine number.  The agency can take care of it.

Third, you need to pack and carry your motorcycle to the airport. General the agency doesn’t make a air freight box and sent you to another service / agency.

All of them are extra costs for motorcycle transport by air. Also, you must pay for air freight as well. 🙁

 

Air waybill has change a lot with motorcycle cargo box size.

You must make a box or pallet for the motorcycle as small as possible because an airlines cargo companies calculate transport cost with the size. The kg is not important for your bill, only important for them self when they put the motorcycle in the plane, I suppose for balance.

We used airfreight from Khartoum, Sudan to Istanbul, Turkey. The size of the motorcycle was 220*130*130 when fully pack with side bags and rear bags. The air waybill was around 500 USD like that. But you can make your motorcycle small so you can fly your motorcycle cheap.

Here our video about shipping, you can watch before keep continue to read :  

So, we got out our bags. We removed the screen and mirrors. We got the wheels and mudguard out. We wanted to take the plate and back panel as well but it wasn’t easy to that with Honda CRF250L.  Finally, our motorcycle size came 190*90*105 for air cargo. What was the air freight cost for one motorcycle after that? 🙂 228 USD.  We saved 232 USD for each motorcycles cargo.

Find a cheap air cargo package company for motorcycles.

We didn’t pay any extra money to pack our motorcycle. When we were talking the company we showed some photos, which my brother sent to us from his air cargo packages, how we will pack motorcycles (you can use ours haha).

We also told them we will get empty the tank, remove battery pole heads because we know that the motorcycle goes through dangerous good check. Also we said that we wont put motorcycle in a box or plastic wrap around so the custom service can see plate and VIN number.

We made a pallet because forklift carries package to air cargo and we stabled them with strap clamps. We carried our Honda CRF20L on the back of a towing vehicle to the airport. We scared a little when towing vehicle was carrying because pallets were forklift cars. 🙂

Normally, the agency doesn’t want to take a risk and send you another company to pack because they know the company how they can pack for dangerous good or custom service. After discuss  a while with the agency in Sudan they allowed to us make our own pack. We wanted one thing from them, close our motorcycle with plastic wrap after finish all control. We told them we can pay how much cost but they didn’t take anything. So, our motorcycle could be clean and nothing fall down any case. We gave them our motorcycle on the first photo to transport

and motorcycle arrive to us like this. They were coming from Africa so the package can look like a Zebra. 🙂

Don’t forget after put your motorcycle on the pallet how much you have space it is yours. Therefore, you can carry some extra things on it as well. We were flying with a cheap fly which means we must pay extra for luggage. We put our helmet, boots, motorcycle gears and some little bags around the motorcycle and stabled them. 

We heard from a lot of rider who use air cargo (airfreight) to transport their motorcycles some of them paid a lot of money to package between 200 USD to 600 USD. We paid 30 USD for each motorcycles cargo pack. So, talk a lot air cargo agency to make yourself or search and find cheap company to pack for you. Don’t pay a lot of money.

GS

When we search about choosing right motorcycle for beginner we can find a lot of articles for that. You find a lot of info about motorcycle type detail as well. Who write all articles most of them really expert. So, who am I? How can I write something for choosing motorcycles?

I am just a rider like you or I was looking to find a right type of motorcycle when I started like you. Just want to share my experience and opinion for that.

I bought my first motorcycle on 2006, which was Honda Naked CBF 250. After that I ride BMW 650 GS. I had a change to ride also Honda Transalp as well. I am on the world trip since 2016 and have been riding Honda CRF 250L. We can get a lot of messages about choosing motorcycle.

Let’s start some questions before tell which one is the right motorcycle for yourself :

• I don’ t know who you are. What do you like to do for your travel or weekend? Camping, hiking, sport, nature, easy weekend, push yourself sometimes….
• Why do you want to have a motorcycle? All my friends have, want to something different, I saw some shows, don’t want to stuck on the rush hours, and give a feeling to you freedom….
• Have you never ride motorcycle before? Are sure you like to do that?
• How much money do you have to spend for a motorcycle?
• If you have a motorcycle do you want to just ride or want to learn mechanic as well?
• Do you have any health problem like back, neck, heart…?

I asked them when I was beginning. I like camping and nature so much. I saw some movies and I wanted to have a motorcycle 11 years ago. I was thinking more freedom. Also, I was living in Istanbul and rush hours are crazy there and I didn’t want to sit many hours in the car for go to only 20 km.

When I started to search and ask about motorcycles to who was riding motorcycle they give their opinion and almost all of it was different type or model. 🙂 I am 169 cm tall and how I can ride a motorcycle if my feet don’t touch the ground. We had always rush hour and not good roads what I can do with race? That motorcycle how I can buy because you said best? Do you have any idea how much it is? I had an answer to almost everybody what they told to me buy.

I need to choose a model to start, first I wanted to learn what does it mean the type!

Naked (Standard): The other name is street motorcycle and upright sit position.

Touring: Long distant motorcycle. They are general more big and heavy. Can’t find small cc alternative. Like a big brother for naked. 🙂

Sport: For me, it means race. Open the gas and go fast J a forward leaning sit position.

Sport Touring: It is between touring and sport model.

Cruiser: Means Harley Davidson for me. 🙂

Dual purpose and adventure: It can vary off-road conditions from tar road to dirt. Upright sit position.

Off-road: Motocross, Enduro, Rally, Dirty bike… in the same category type. They are good for sand, gravel, mud, river and snow.

Scooter : To be honest I never search about it.

How did I choose my first motorcycle in the beginning?

Even if a dual-purpose type of motorcycle looked like right for me, after answer all my questions, I bought NAKED. I was beginner. I prefer was practice more on the tar road. So, first one can be a street motorcycle J 

I suppose a lot of new rider think same way. I could learn to ride. I can drop it easily so, nice to be light. I am beginner and I don’t need power so much. 125 CC or 250 CC could be a good start. Maybe 250 CC is better if I like and want to keep the same motorcycle for a while.

The price is important. I don’t want to pay a lot of money. If I drop it the part must be cheap. Mechanic needs to be easy to understand. Therefore, I can fix some basic things. If I don’t really like to ride I want to sell it fast and don’t loose a lot of money.

I wanted my feet touch the ground, not only my toes like a ballerina. I was sure that I would have a balance problem a lot.

I didn’t look for side bags, window, hand protection…etc. If I want to have them I could buy separate.

And I bought HONDA CBF 250. I ride 2 years and like it. I made 15.000 km. Only, long distant journeys (each day, 400 km ride with it in 5 days) killed me because it isn’t that type of motorcycle. 🙂

If you ask about Ferry He had only one motorcycle which we have been riding for our world trip journey Honda CRF 250L 🙂

You want to go a world trip by motorcycle and you never ride motorcycle before how you can choose a motorcycle, first you should learn to ride! 

I didn’t ride motorcycle for 8 years and Ferry never ride before.  We were getting ready to our world trip. First, we asked somebody who I can trust their opinion. After that we searched a little who went to motorcycle world trip before and which motorcycle they were riding.

First of all, it is a world trip and each country can have different road conditions which can be tar road, gravel road, sand, mud…etc. So we need a motorcycle to ride mix road. Motorcycle type must be Dual Purpose & Adventure.

We were looking a motorcycle light if we need to push it in the river, mud and sand or lift it up. Also, we won’t have any plan to ride fast even on a tar road, max. speed will be 100 km. So 250 CC motorcycle should be fine.

We will be on the road and we need to fix our motorcycles when have a mechanic problem. We need a motorcycle, which one easy to understand mechanic detail and fix it without being expert.

Some countries don’t have motorcycle or have small one. If we need a part of motorcycle how can we find it? Therefore, which motorcycle we are going to choose nice to find a part easily.

We were looking cheap motorcycle. Quit the job and go to world trip many years means need money on the road. 🙂 Also most of parts are cheap to replace.

When we made the list, we saw to we couldn’t have a lot of choose. And we decided the HONDA CRF 250L was the best match for us.

We have changed something and modify a little for long distance ride. You can find detail here…

GS

 Our motorcycle experience has started in Europe. So, We didn’t know what we really need it. After travel 3.5 months in Europe We went to Turkey to get ready our motorcycles to Africa trip.

What did we change on Honda CRF 250L motorcycle? How much did we pay to modify our motorcycles?

Before keep continue to read you can check our video which is ”Getting Ready to Road Trip | Modification Motorcycle CRF 250”

Window: We had it in Turkey from “GP Kompozit“ and paid 45 Euro for two motorcycles in front screen.

Seat: It is one of the most important think if you want to ride everyday or many km. in a day. We changed seat in Turkey and paid 100 EURO for two CRF 250 L. We got it from “Motosay“

Tires: We made 20.000 km with original IRC tires. We were riding most of time on the asphalt in Europe. When we have changed to our road to Africa We started to look a new tires, which one is best for all roads. After all searched and told people who has experience for Africa We decided Heidenau K60. We bought in Holland and carried to Turkey and changed there. We paid 100 Euro for a pair of tires.

Inner tube: We will hit a lot of of road in Africa We knew that. And we don`t want to problem with out inner tubes. So, We bought ultra heavy-duty inner tubes and paid 40 Euro for a pair of them.

Motorcycle leg: Honda CRF 250L has a little problem with leg when you put bags. Of course motorcycle goes down and leg gets too long. Her father helped us to have big leg pad. We are so happy to have it now.

Hand Protection: We need to protect our clutch and breaks and of course our hands. We bought in a website and paid 30 Euro for each pair.

Side Metals: Side metals are so expensive in Europe. We traveled in Europe without side bags because she said that it is so cheap in Turkey. We bought side metals from “Aydin Kardesler“ and paid 50 Euro for each motorcycle.

USB Charger: It is working really well to charge your phone, Go-pro, camera…. But don`t buy Chinese’s one because break very quick on the road. We bought from Louis and paid 25 Euro.

Phone Keeper: We don`t have GPS. We used maps.me from phone to find our way. That`s why we bought a phone keeper in Turkey and paid 15 Euro.