Best of the Black Hills - Self-Guided (USA)

Eight nights in a loop of the Black Hills from Rapid City on a Royal Enfield, ridden self-guided: no group, no guide and no support vehicle, with the route, the bike and the hotels all arranged in advance.

Rapid City opens it, then Wall by way of Badlands National Park, a landscape of eroded ridges and prairie holding bison and mountain goats, with the Wall Drug roadside stop afterwards for a cup of coffee that still costs five cents. Hot Springs follows across the Pine Ridge Reservation, with a soak in the natural springs at the end of it.

Custer comes next through prairie with bison, pronghorn and prairie dogs about, then the Needles Highway, a narrow road threaded between granite spires, with lunch at Hill City and the Crazy Horse carving nearby. Keystone follows through Custer State Park and over Iron Mountain Road, which is the best piece of engineering on the trip: pigtail bridges that spiral the road over itself and tunnels aligned to frame Mount Rushmore.

Deadwood is next by way of Sturgis, home of the rally and of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, to a gold rush town that has kept most of its frontier buildings. Sundance follows through Spearfish Canyon into Wyoming, then Lead by way of Devils Tower, the first National Monument in the United States, and the geographic centre of the country near Belle Fourche. Bike rental is included and the price is quoted per person in US dollars. Self-guided suits this region, since the roads are well signed and the daily distances short.