Ride of a Lifetime

Eighty-nine nights and twenty countries from Chiang Mai to Slovenia, guided and supported, 20,000 kilometres along the Silk Route.

This is the operator’s flagship and the longest motorcycle tour it sells by a wide margin. Yunnan opens it with the world heritage towns of Dali and Lijiang, then Tibet, Lhasa and Everest Base Camp, which would be the whole of most itineraries and here is the first month.

Kyrgyzstan follows, around Issyk-Kul and through Bishkek, then the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan, which reaches 4,655 metres and is the second highest international road in the world, and the Wakhan Corridor along the Afghan border, with the second-century fortress at Yamchun above it. Samarkand and Bukhara come next, then Merv and the desert roads to Ashgabat, a ferry across the Caspian to Baku, and the Georgian Caucasus by the Abano Pass to Stepantsminda. Turkey brings Cappadocia, the Mediterranean coast and Istanbul, then Sofia, Bucharest, the Carpathians, the Balkans, the BMW Motorrad Days gathering at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the finish at Piran on the Adriatic.

A support vehicle carries the luggage and the spare parts, driven by an experienced guide with basic mechanical skills, and accommodation is basic along the Pamir Highway and three to five star elsewhere; the full inclusions are not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. The riding takes in gravel, dirt and water crossings as well as sealed road, so this is not a tarmac tour. Ninety days is a quarter of a year and the price reflects what it takes to move a group across twenty borders. Anyone considering it should talk to the operator about visas long before anything else, since several of these countries need applying for months ahead.