It’s all very well saying “we’re not planning a route” and “we’re free to ride where we please” but we do need to know roughly where we are and where we’re heading else we would probably just end up going round in circles!
We’re going to be primarily using paper maps for navigation, we are old school after all! After looking at lots of different maps in shops and spending hours researching which ones to get online I ended buying three A4 spiral-bound maps which turned out to be WAY too big for my tank bag… clearly my research skills are no better at home than they are at work. I decided to actually ask around to find out what other people would use for a trip like ours and we finally got hold of the right maps for us; the Michelin Reds. We’re taking the following paper maps with us:
- Michelin red 713 – Great Britain & Ireland 2009.
- Michelin red 721 - France 2009.
- Michelin red 734 – Spain & Portugal 2009.
- The Best Rides Motorcycle Atlas France.
To accompany these maps we’ve got a Garmin GPSMAP 60 CSx loaded up with Smellybiker’s Wanderlust Worldmap. Since we didn’t really want and haven’t made a route, we are taking the GPS not to help us navigate but to record track logs for us so we can see and show exactly where we’ve been when we get back. We are using the wanderlust maps which are full of useful waypoints like petrol stations and hotels etc. and just in-case we get in trouble these waypoints should at least get us heading in the right direction again.
Garmin supplies a tool called MapSource to manage maps, waypoints, routes and track logs and as you can see from the screenshots the Wanderlust maps we’re using are not overly detailed so wouldn’t be much use for turn-by-turn navigation even if we wanted them to be. The zoomed-in map below shows that we will be able to get a nod in the right direction if we get desperate for fuel or a place to stay; it also shows that it literally is a nod and not much more. These screenshots show the full MapSource file we’re using for our trip; we only have 24 waypoints and no routes at all loaded onto the device, risky? Maybe.
The general idea of our trip all along has been that we will take each day as it comes; we arrive somewhere in the evening and take a look at where we are using the maps and decide a rough route that we want to take. We will write down a list of rough directions and road names which will then be placed in my tank bag ready for us to follow the next day. I guess that’s about it, not overly exciting I know but it hopefully gives you a bit of insight into the level of thought we’re putting in when it comes to navigation and route planning; not a lot!
I’ve always loved the idea of taking a trip without really having a plan, we’re going to be unrestricted and we are going to be free; we can go wherever we want, we’ve got nowhere we need to be or get to and that for me is what makes this trip an adventure… Only 5 days to go now and I can’t wait to get on the road!