THE TRAVELER

Some people were born as nomads, their soul is always in search of movement. I don’t take the journey limited to a moving activity from one place to another, it can also be seen as the non stop search of a nomad soul. That’s why  a traveler’s soul is always on a journey.

Each journey starts with a dream, continues with planning and preparations and come to life with the travel and ends temporarily at the destination. After the rest of the soul for a short time search starts again for different dreams and destinations. 

Some may think the journey should be assessed at the end. Is it good or bad? Useful or useless? This work of assessing activity look as the evil of modern life for me. Experience itself is precious as well. “I wanted and I did” should have the enough logic. Why is this search of another logical reason? I never expect perfect results for any performance, but I only the experience either bad or good is important. 

 

Journey starts with a dream. You search for new destinations. You dream about the journey, put targets for it. Journey requires the traveler to be prepared physically, socially, economically and psychologically. Traveling on a motorbike needs durability to difficult conditions, because it may be very tiring riding thousands of kilometers, over the mountains and through the valleys .

The historical places, cultural points, natural beauties you want to see nearby can be criteria when deciding which route to take to the destination. For this search of places to see you can use applications like TripAdvisor, Gezimanya ve Atlas Obscura.

Another point ot think about is budgeting. Gas prices are almost similar all over Europe, 10 cent more or less. In Russia and Middle Asia countries it is a lot cheaper. But in Scandinavia everything is extraordinarily expensive. Especially in Norway, the gas was 2,2 euro a litre, as far as I remembered. 

In most European countries, the petrol stations work just as in Turkey, you buy gas as much as you want, then go and pay for it either cash or by credit card. In some European countries pumps in petrol stations are automatic. You are asked first how many litre you are about to buy on a digital panel, then you put your credit card, the machine gets provision from the bank about the amount you’re intended to buy, then pump gives you that much petrol. Here, you should always guess how many litre your gas tank takes. But in Scandinavia, you first put your credit card, the pump automatically gets a provision of 100 Euros, then you get the gas as much as the tank takes and the pump charges that much money from your card and cancel the provision. But some banks in Turkey don’t cancel the provision right at that moment and may take a week or ten days. It means each time you buy gas a 100 Euro blocked from your credit card limit besides the amount you are charged for the gas. For travelers like us, sometimes it means 500 Euros blocked each day besides 100 Euros charged. After a week, about 4 thousand euros may exceed your credit card limit. So It’s necessary to have another credit card. 

Journey needs to be prepared socially. You should say goodbye to family members, organize the works to be done, contact the people to be visited on the journey and so on. 

You should be prepared for the journey psychologically too. You should face the fears about the journey, riding thousands of km away, overcoming the fear of not being able to come back healthy or not being able to find the loving ones when turned back. 

Long journeys that last a month or two need quite a well being psychologically like a Dervish. Besides the budget of the journey,  some extra money should be prepared. In short being ready for the journey in all terms are necessary.

THE ROAD

After deciding the destination to reach the route to it and the route back home should be planned.  The route should be mostly a new route to me. It is the most important thing for me when planning. New countries, new cities, new roads and so on. The condition of the roads should be examined too. Sometimes roads may be in terrible conditions to ride. Also some customs may have special conditions for example, can only allow citizens of neighboring countries to cross. Visa is another important thing that should be cross checked. Going abroad with motorbikes need special requirements like green insurance (international insurance) and motorcycle should be registered on the rider or needs a paper from the owner allowing you to ride abroad.

In general my observation about Scandinavia is not very positive :) Too expensive, very cold, rainy and foggy, and boring. No surprise, no risk, everything goes in a slow manner. if you are in search of adventure, don’t go to Scandinavia, come to Turkey. No one can guess what will happen in an hours riding :D

For me communication is upmost important in a motorcycle trip. I mean, wifi connection, voice call, whatsup and so on. That’s why a mobile phone with a sim card open to international roaming is very important. Without online navigation, google, booking app, it is very difficult to follow a route, find a place to stay and connect people. Communication is very important for me as I said before. Someone else may not need them as much as me. I mainly use Google Map for navigation but sometimes when necessary I use Offline Maps and Navigation app or Here WeGo app. 

 

Also a weather app is necessary especially for those traveling on a motorbike.  if you want to keep dry or get less wet,  you can use a weather app to decide when to  start riding or when to give  break or which route to take. Not only a weather app but also a weather radar app may be useful to follow the rain clouds and to make projections about the travel.

THE COMRADE