What do you use for trip planning?

[hppants]

The State highway paper maps do a great job of telling me where State Parks and other camping options are relative to where I am. Before I leave, I try to find the ACOE campgrounds along my route and note them. Like RFH, I use the ride reports section of this forum for great routing ideas, can't miss roads, etc. And I usually fart around on Googlemaps to get the "30,000 foot view" of the overall tour.

Otherwise, I try not to plan much - certainly not more than a day ahead. The "unknowing" is a wonderfully significant part of the adventure. Resist the temptation to over think the planning. I know that you are concerned about not knowing where you are, missing something, running late to somewhere, and other things. But truthfully it's all good stuf and with the GPS, cell phone, and the fuel range and all day comfort of our motorcycle, it would be darn near impossible to get seriously lost. Instead, let your mind be free from the rigors of the plan to really enjoy the ride - be in the moment. With camping gear, you have an additional layer of protection - since you have the house with you, if "right here" looks like a nice place to sleep, go for it.

We spend our entire life at home marching to some drum - use your vacation to its full potential. You can thank me later with your wonderful ride report.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

I should add that there are a few places where someone has written a book compiling the best motorcycle roads of an area. One of the very best of these is a book called Motorcycling Montana and it tells you EVERYTHING you would want to know about that area. If you are lucky enough or wise enough to find such a book it can be worth its weight in gold. I have bought several books detailing motorcycle roads and rides in areas that held interest for me. I always benefit from these books, some more than others.

 

[s.ga.rider]

I have that book redfish and have been reading it.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

I have that book redfish and have been reading it.

Excellent!

Were you aware that the author is a member of this forum? And that he has a post in this thread? (Hint: It is post #19!)

When I first ordered that book I ordered a couple copies because I knew I wanted to give one or two as a gift. I cannot remember how many I ordered before it was over. I made several folks happy with that book. It rode in the truck with my family last year on our Big Family Vacation.

 

[Big Sky]

Thank you for the humbling plugs, fellas.

 

[st4gary]

Cole's new book on Idaho is just as good too!

Gary

 

[s.ga.rider]

I have that book redfish and have been reading it.

Excellent!

Were you aware that the author is a member of this forum? And that he has a post in this thread? (Hint: It is post #19!)

When I first ordered that book I ordered a couple copies because I knew I wanted to give one or two as a gift. I cannot remember how many I ordered before it was over. I made several folks happy with that book. It rode in the truck with my family last year on our Big Family Vacation.

Thats where I learned about the book. He has been extremely helpful. Even sent several paper maps and given me a lot of tips and routes.

 

[gapiob]

just a map...

And when I am on a city, I used wase on my cell phone, and I have vocal indication through my scala Q1

 

[Fred W]

Cole's new book on Idaho is just as good too!
Gary

Oh snap. Time to order a new book. May be time for Idaho (and beyond) in 2017...

As for trip planning, I've done it both ways.

For all of the ~ week long trips that we have done centered around "Owners Meetings", where you have a tight time table to get to the rally, and back, with an allotment of time to run the routes that the rally masters provide, I have used GoogleMaps and converted them to generic .gpx files using the GmapToGPX online utility, then import and heavily edit the GPX file in Mapsource (or Basecamp if you prefer) to make it usable on the Garmin GPS.

But for our 2 week Vacation Ride to the Great Divide in 2014 I decided to run a different way. I had an overall idea of the places I wanted to go, and the things I wanted to see, before we ever left. But I only mapped out the ride route for the following day when we were at the hotel each night of the vacation ride. That plan does require that you have a trusted computer you can bring along (I have a little netbook PC that runs Mapsource just fine) and that you are relatively confident in your on-the-fly routing skills.

The advantages for being so flexible are numerous: It allows you to plan your day based on how energetic you are feeling, as well as what kind of weather you'll be facing tomorrow. It also allows you to comfortably change your plans in the likely event that things change along the way without feeling that you are getting "behind schedule" or some such. It allowed us to search for a couple of good hotel deals in the general landing area each night, and I'm sure that you could search for a few campgrounds just as easily, and have the ability to bail on the camping if the rains come in.

It worked well for us, so I highly recommend it for those that won't be flustered by not having a per-ordained plan to follow every minute of each day.

Have a great trip, and enjoy every moment of it. That is a heck of a wonderful area that you'll be traveling to. Wish I was coming along.

 

[ionbeam]

As for trip planning, I've done it both ways.
For all of the ~ week long trips that we have done centered around "Owners Meetings", where you have a tight time table to get to the rally, and back, with an allotment of time to run the routes that the rally masters provide, I have used GoogleMaps...Mapsource (or Basecamp...

But for our...Vacation Ride...I had an overall idea of the places I wanted to go, and the things I wanted to see, before we ever left. But I only mapped out the ride route for the following day when we were at the hotel each night of the vacation ride. That plan does require that you have a trusted computer you can bring along (I have a little netbook PC that runs Mapsource just fine) and that you are relatively confident in your on-the-fly routing skills...

It worked well for us, so I highly recommend it for those that won't be flustered by not having a per-ordained plan to follow every minute of each day.

+1 to this. We also have an essentially trusty but virtually disposable netbook we carry to plot our routes, manage the 6.87e6 pictures per day and find ride possibilities we were not able to anticipate when we were 3k miles away at home.

Then again, we have been known to take a roads just because it turned left and went south and where ever we were is where we wanted to be

 

[Fred W]

Yeah, I definitely hear that. It's why the Vstrom scratches an itch that the Feejer can't quite reach, but maybe even he isn't good enough to scratch the bigger itch that a more off road worthy bike would?

We've had mutual friends that wandered away from the on-road experience, and I attribute that to the spirit that strikes you when you get to a side road intersection, and maybe it's not paved... And you say to your (inner) self, "Gee, I wonder where that goes?"

"I've made a lot of U-turns in my life. But I've never really been lost." - Fred W

 

[Redfish Hunter]

"I've made a lot of U-turns in my life. But I've never really been lost." - Fred W

Then you better "Plan" on taking a boat ride in the Louisiana Marsh with Redfish.

I find that this forum is costing me lots of money and lots of vacation time. Now I have to contact Cole and buy a (few) copy(ies) of his book on Idaho. Considering that I did not get to use very much of the Montana book and never did use it for the bike, I feel more money and future vacation days slipping away.