Before dad and I spent 100 days riding 15,000 kilometers from Europe to Kazakhstan, the preparation phase almost felt like a full-time job. I remember watching Long Way Round where Ewan, Charley and their team took months to prepare their adventure and thinking “no way you need that long to prep, just go!”. And yet here I was watching my 50th motorcycle jacket review and searching reddit for cheap amazon wool socks reviews.

If you’re like me, you’ll often get lost in the sauce to the point where you don’t even realize you’re in it, rather than just taking an executive decision. This cost me personally 2-3 weeks of my own trip, as I procrastinated clicking the buy button for the gear in my shopping cart. Suddenly you’ll start wondering if you need a €20,000 adventure bike and a satellite phone just to cross a border. Additionally to pure procrastination, staring at a map in your living room, with the sheer scale of the logistics, visas, spare parts, gear, routes, can feel paralyzing.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

After actually doing it, we realized that long-term motorcycle travel is a lot less about having the perfect gear and a lot more about having the right mindset, a couple of zip ties and just a bit of mandatory due diligence. With the experience we gained I feel like I could honestly just leave tomorrow and ride anywhere, with no prep really needed (except some paperwork, more on that below). So I wanted to share with you that knowledge, to hopefully relieve some of that procrastination, anxiety, or whatever is blocking you from simply going. Once/if you have all of these done, don’t wait a minute, adventure awaits!

1. The Best Bike is the bike you already have

The second best is the bike your heart wants.

We spent years wondering about the “perfect” world-tour machine, deep-diving into forums, watching endless reviews, and eventually settling on the mighty old Suzuki DR650. It was the rational choice. The one that made sense on paper.

But very quickly, we realized something: we honestly could’ve made the exact same journey on almost anything. We watched Afghan locals on battered Chinese 125s absolutely shredding through the most technical terrain we encountered, and we’ve seen countless different bikes on the road from the big BMW GSAs to the small cheapest-bike-on-motoscout 2001 Kawasaki ER-5. Heck, we even saw a bunch of madmen crossing the continent on those strange, human-powered machines they call “bicycles.” The truth is, any bike can make it through most terrain. And if you’re the Pol Tarrés kind of rider, you can probably do backflips on whatever you’re currently riding and you probably have the most kitted out bike on earth already anyway.

It is incredibly easy to forget that motorcycling is, at its core, a passion. It’s supposed to be fun. Not hyper optimized. You’re not competing in anything. Stop watching your 1000th Ténéré 700 vs. [insert bike here] comparison video. If you prefer the look and vibe of the Ducati DesertX over the T7 (and can afford it), but are hesitating because the T7 is 10% better off-road, then just get the DesertX. Trust me, you’re the limiting factor, not the bike.

Don’t default to the best bike on paper. Go with the bike that speaks to your heart. You’ll make it to your destination either way, because remember, the road is the destination. In fact, dad is already plotting to take his old 70s BMW Airhead to Magadan via the Road of Bones, and I can’t wait to take my 1991 Transalp through the Balkans. Two completely subpar bikes for the job, but two bikes we absolutely love.

2. Less is More

Pack light. You do not need four t-shirts; you need two. You don’t need two pairs of casual pants; you just need your riding gear and one pair of lightweight hiking pants for off-the-bike use. Pro tip: get the incredibly uncool ones with the zippers that transform them into shorts so you don’t have to pack a separate pair.

You don’t need seven pairs of underwear; three will do fine.

You don’t need two pans, two pots, and a full dining set. For the two of us, we carried one single pan, one single pot, one single plate/bowl hybrid, one single burner, two forks, two spoons and two pocket knives. It was all we needed.

Packing light isn’t just about reducing the raw weight on your subframe. While the physics matter, the real benefit is the lightness of mind it brings.

Every single item you pack is an item you have to manage, clean, secure, and worry about. When you pack heavy, you are carrying a massive cognitive load. But when you strip your gear down to the absolute essentials, that mental weight disappears.

You always know exactly what you have, at all times and where it is. You never have to second guess if you left something behind in a hostel room. Packing up your stuff in the morning takes 5 minutes. You aren’t forced to play a game of Tetris just to get your bags closed. Unpacking and repacking at border checks isn’t that much of a hassle anymore.

Ultimately, overpacking is driven by the "What If" fallacy. We pack out of fear of the unknown. What if I need a third layer? What if I need this specific tool? What if I want to dress nice for a restaurant? Minimalism is simply the act of trading that fear for trust. You trust that if a rare "what if" scenario actually happens, you will figure it out. You’ll buy a cheap sweater at a local bazaar, you’ll borrow a wrench from a village mechanic, or you’ll just eat your dinner in your uncool pants like the traveler you are.

The Two Exceptions to the “Less is More” Rule:

• Bike-Specific Spares: Always bring the parts that are notoriously hard to find for your specific machine (eg., clutch plates, spark plugs, specific oil filters). Waiting weeks for a DHL package to arrive in rural Tajikistan sucks.

• A Camp Chair: Dad brought a super light, compact Helinox-style folding chair, and I stubbornly did not. I was initially too snobbish about it, adhering to my minimalist ethos. But seeing him recline in his chair at the end of a 10-hour riding day, beer in hand, watching the sunset, while I had to choose between sitting upright or awkward side-lying in the dirt, got me insanely jealous. It’s the one piece of luxury I have officially been converted to.

Note: We don’t have a full packing list drawn up just yet, but I’ll write one eventually. Stay tuned.

3. Don’t Over-Plan Your Route

Unplanned things will happen.

Instead of a day-by-day itinerary, break your trip down into manageable “legs”, each roughly two weeks to a month long, anchored by a starting and ending city. Then, make a list of Points of Interest you’d like to see along the way, but leave the daily routing open. You’ll set your destination for the next day as the trip unfolds.

Why this approach works:

• Timing & Visas: If you have a hard end date for your trip, this keeps you somewhat on track. More importantly, it ensures you actually arrive at borders on time for visas that have strict entry dates. Having a mid term destination helps you get on the bike on those days you just don’t want to.

• Logistics: It helps you plan the big maintenance tasks in advance. Once you know you’ll be in Tbilisi in 8 weeks, you can order a fresh set of tires to a local shop, or even organize a weekend for friends to fly in and visit.

You effectively get the best of both worlds: the freedom and adventure you wanted, with the safety net of knowing you’re always in reach of a logistical hub.

Additionally, it’s also nice to have tracks like the TET downloaded for those days when you just don’t feel like playing explorer and want a guaranteed good route. In other places like the infamous Afghan Central Route or the Pamir Highway, there is only one road anyway.

But for the rest of the world, remember why you’re doing this: for the absolute freedom that motorbikes offer. Take advantage of it!

4. Dress to Protect the Adventure

Your riding gear is going to be your office, your living room, and your primary shelter for the next few months. If you have the budget to splurge anywhere, do it here. You’ll be spending most of your waking hours in the exact same pants, jacket, helmet, and boots, so make sure they are comfortable and up to the task. And beyond comfort, be well protected. Do not cheap out here or convince yourself you don’t need those stiff, expensive adventure boots or CE Level 2 pads.

Yes, good gear is about saving your life. But on a more practical level for a long-term traveler, it’s about protecting your trip. A broken arm or a shattered ankle probably won’t kill you, but it will keep you off the bike for months and send you on a miserable flight home. You want to avoid that at all costs.

When you ride for hours and hours, every single day, two very dangerous things happen:

1. You get deeply fatigued.

2. You get cocky.

Both of these lead to an increased risk of stupid, totally avoidable accidents. That’s just a fact of long-term travel. Furthermore, you might be the best, most attentive rider on earth who never makes a mistake, but the biggest danger will always be the other people on the road and you have zero control over them.

Bottom line: Anything that stops a minor tip-over or a high-speed slide from becoming a broken bone is a massive win.

5. Set a Budget

Everyone’s travel fund looks different, but it is absolutely crucial to have a set monthly allowance.

If you want a real-world baseline of how did it, check out the financial breakdown I wrote to see how we averaged roughly €700-800/month:

A budget is your best defense against on-the-road finances anxiety. Without one, you’ll likely start your adventure full of financial carelessness (which translates to pure joy in the moment) only to end up miserable, stressed, and counting pennies by month three. Having a set budget allows you to pace your splurges across the entire trip, giving you the confidence and peace of mind to know exactly how long you can sustain your adventure.

6. Cash is King, Redundancy is Key

Disclaimer: Our experience here is mostly based on the route from Bulgaria to Kazakhstan. Your mileage may vary in other regions of the world, but the underlying principles are universal.

We brought mostly US dollars, which obviously was necessary in places where cards are either heavily sanctioned (like Iran and Afghanistan) or where payment machines simply don’t exist, which is most places outside of cities. We brought Euros too, but most of the time USD were more welcome at exchange offices.

Here are some rules for travel cash:

• Bring crisp, new $100 bills: Many places in Central Asia straight-up refused to exchange smaller denominations or bills with creases and tears. If they did accept folded bills, they hit us with a hefty exchange fee. Keep your dollars flat and pristine. Also, I falsely assumed that bringing a stash of $1 bills would help me pay for small things and get me out of tricky situations. That might have been true 10 years ago, but most of Central Asia now only accepts payment in local currency (even Afghanistan!).

• Exchanging cash is cheaper than ATMs: Even if your Revolut or Wise card has zero foreign transaction fees, the local bank that owns the ATM will often charge you a withdrawal fee anyway. Those sometimes go up to 15%!

• “Black Market” exchanges: Don’t be afraid of exchanging on the street rather than in official exchange offices. Street exchangers sometimes have better rates/fees than the official ones. Just ask the locals or any hostel receptionist where they exchange. It is standard practice in some countries to exchange from their local volatile currency to a more stable one like the USD for savings, and these street exchanges handle a big part of that business. Watch out for scams though.

• Redundancy: Carry at least two different bank cards and stash them in separate bags. Do the same with your cash: distribute it across your luggage. If one bag gets lost, your trip doesn’t end. Also, VISA is far more widely accepted globally than Mastercard. If I had to choose, I’d take two VISAs rather than one of each. A mix of two VISAs and one Mastercard is probably the ultimate sweet spot.

• Bonus: Paying in cash makes it way easier to physically feel and track your monthly budget than mindlessly swiping a card.

7. The Community is your Best Friend (and Worst Enemy)

The motorcycle community is incredible for getting you out of trouble when you’re stuck or need a second opinion. But it also sometimes sucks, frankly, because of all the pseudo-experts out there. For any question you ask, you’ll get 1000 different answers from 1000 different schools of thought. It can leave you with more questions than you started with.

The takeaway? Take every piece of advice with a grain of salt. Try out whatever sounds most logical to you and see if it works. Remember, you are on an adventure. The obstacle is the way. That’s the beauty of long-term travel: it’s not like a one-week vacation where every hour has to be optimized so you don’t “waste” precious time. You have time to figure it out, so enjoy the ride.

Also, learn to ignore the negativity of these Facebook groups and forums. When I first left on my trip, I realized on day 2 that I had a faulty rear shock. I reached out on forums asking how to fix it, and the comments flooded in: “Why would you leave on such a big trip without checking your rear shock?? Are you dumb?” No, I’m not dumb! I simply didn’t know. I live in an apartment with no garage or workshop space, and I didn’t have the budget to pay a mechanic for a full pre-trip inspection. So no, I didn’t have the capacity to do a full rear shock inspection before leaving. Should that stop me from going on an adventure? NO! I took this faulty shock as part of the adventure, figured it out on the road, and then kept riding.

8. The Paperwork Hustle (Start Early)

Let’s be completely honest for a second. Everything else on this list? Negotiable. You can leave tomorrow with the wrong tires, a leaky tent, a subpar bike, and zero route planned, and you will figure it out on the fly. It might cause you some inconvenience or temporary discomfort, but it won’t stop you.

Paperwork is the only absolute, non-negotiable, hard stop to your adventure.

Border guards do not care about your “free spirit” mindset or how far you’ve ridden. If you show up to a crossing without the right piece of paper, the gate simply does not open. Screwing this up is a literal showstopper. It is the boring, unsexy part of adventure travel, but it is the one thing you absolutely must prep in advance.

Here are the big three:

• Visas: While many countries offer easy e-visas or visa-on-arrival nowadays, many others require you to apply weeks or even months in advance. Some require you to apply from your home country, while others require specific travel agencies to sponsor you. Know exactly which borders have strict entry requirements and plan your timeline around them.

• The Carnet de Passage en Douane (CPD): Most countries don’t need this but some do (eg., Iran, Egypt) and will not let your vehicle in without one. Think of this as the passport for your motorcycle. It proves to customs officials that you aren’t going to illegally import and sell your bike in their country. Getting one requires a hefty deposit and processing time through your local automobile club.

• Local Vehicle Insurance: You will often have to buy local third-party liability insurance at every new border once you exit Europe. It’s mostly cheap and easy, but make sure you stay informed of what you need in each country.

Other paperwork you should get sorted before you leave:

• Travel/Health insurance: These policies come in many different forms: some cover only your medical bills, while others cover medical repatriation and will even ship your broken bike back home. Whatever you get, make sure it’s a policy that can actually get you (and your bike) out of deep trouble. Knowing help can come get you if things go entirely sideways is priceless, and if you ever need it, it will pay for itself a hundred times over.

• International Driver’s Licence: This is essentially just a glorified, multi-language translation of your home license, but corrupt cops and border guards love it. Note: An IDP is legally useless on its own. You must carry your actual, physical domestic driver's license right alongside it.

• Original Vehicle Registration (Title / Carte Grise): Do not bring only a photocopy of this, and do not try to cross a border with a bike registered in your friend’s name unless you have a heavily notarized, officially translated power of attorney (and even then, it's a massive headache). You need the original document, in your name.

• Passport Validity & Blank Pages: People forget this one all the time. Almost every country requires your passport to be valid for at least 6 months after your intended date of departure. Furthermore, a long trip across many countries might eat up your passport pages fast between full-page visas and entry/exit stamps. Make sure you have plenty of completely blank pages left before you set off.

Pro Tip: Border officials love paper. Make multiple physical copies of your passport, driver’s license, international driving permit, vehicle registration, and your vehicle’s title. Stash them in different bags. Handing over a photocopy is always better than handing over your actual, irreplaceable passport to a corrupt official.

9. The Mighty To-do List

You’re almost ready to leave but still need one final sanity check. Fall back on a trick as old as time: the mighty to-do list. By splitting the prep into distinct buckets, the mountain of logistics suddenly turns into a series of very manageable, bite-sized tasks. Divide and Conquer. Open up whatever todo list solution you use (an app, Apple Notes, or pen and paper) and set up exactly these lists. Check them off one by one, and before you know it, your driveway is in the rearview mirror.:

• One Bike Prep List: (e.g., oil change, mount new tires, check chain)

• One Gear Prep List: Things you wear, sleep in, or use. (e.g., buy and test tent, pack tools, find merino socks)

• One List Per Country: The bureaucratic checkpoints. Make a mini-list for each specific country on your route. (e.g., Tajikistan border permit, Iran visa and CDP, download offline maps for Turkey).

• One General List: For stuff that doesn’t fit above (e.g., getting travel insurance, canceling your home internet, buying a power bank)

10. The Mental Prep

Remember: at some point, you have to stop preparing and actually do the thing.

I mentioned earlier that I lost weeks of my own trip just procrastinating over minor details. I was paralyzed by the illusion that there was a “perfect” way to prepare, constantly reading one more review, checking one more forum, or staring at a route map until my eyes blurred.

Here is the ultimate mental hack for trip prep: just make an executive decision and move on. Stop wasting precious mental energy over-analyzing a piece of gear when a big adventure is waiting for you. Take action. If you’re stuck on a detail, pick an option, close the laptop, and trust that you’ll figure the rest out and adapt on the road.

The small optimization you lose 2 weeks debating on now, is overshadowed 1000x by the experiences you’ll have everyday on the road, so don’t overthink it too much. The anxiety of the unknown is always worse from the comfort of your couch. But the moment you finally drop the clutch and pull out of your driveway, something magical happens: everything just flattens out.

The overwhelming monster of a trans-continental expedition simply shrinks down into your new, very manageable daily routine. You wake up. You ride. You find food. You find a place to sleep. You fix whatever minor thing broke that day. You have a beer. Repeat.

You will get tired. You will get lost. You will drop the bike. But that isn’t a ruined plan, that is the adventure. The obstacle is the way.

When you’re dreaming it up, everything feels abstract: gas, food, visas, repairs… they all sound small on their own, but somehow they add up. So we decided to share our numbers. Not to say “this is what it costs,” but rather “this is what it cost us.”

All numbers below are per person, even though we were two traveling, father and son, each on our own bike. Being two helped a bit here and there (splitting a loaf of bread, sharing a cooking pot, hotel rooms costs often being per room rather than per person), but most expenses remained individual. The prices are what I can recall — estimates, not audits — but they should give a solid idea of what you’d spend on a similar route. For context, we’re Swiss nationals living between Belgium and Switzerland, and the trip took place between May and August 2025.

TL;DR 💸

We spent around €750–850 per month per person, all included (except pre-trip costs like gear or documents).

According to Tricount, where we tracked expenses, we averaged €766/month, though that’s likely a bit low since we probably forgot a few things. Treat this as a good estimate, not an exact science.

Sleeping 🛏️

At the start, we had a plan: camp for three nights, then treat ourselves to a hostel for a day or two. On paper, it sounded great — riding through mountains, pitching our tent under the stars, then enjoying the pleasures of modern life: AC, kinda hot water, and somewhat clean sheets. A chance to catch up on blog posts, editing, and some Wi-Fi goodness. In reality, it didn’t quite hold up.

We slept for free about 40% of the time. That is, camping or being hosted by locals.

It wasn’t that we got lazy or soft. When we’re on motorcycles, both of us actually prefer camping when we can. It takes about fifteen minutes to set up camp, and after that, we get an amazing evening in nature. Going to a hotel, on the other hand, means finding one first, negotiating the price, checking if the parking is safe for the bikes, hauling our gear up from the street to the room, and then convincing ourselves that yes, we might as well do a quick laundry run while we’re at it. Sometimes, though, camping just didn’t make sense.

In Iran, for instance, a lot of what’s worth seeing is in the cities. We’d roll into Tabriz or Tehran after a long day on the road, and by then, the last thing we wanted was to ride another hour or two just to find a quiet field to sleep in. We’d rather stay close, in a small hostel with a shower, a roof, and maybe even Wi-Fi that half-worked, and spend the next day exploring mosques, tea houses, or just resting. Being in the country as the 12-day war unfolded also meant camping was a no-go. Though one night, on the road between Tehran and Mashhad, we did get invited to sleep at a local family’s place. One of those spontaneous moments that remind you why you travel in the first place.

Afghanistan was another story altogether. We spent about ten days there, and camping was simply not an option. Too many stories of travelers being “invited” by the Taliban to pack up their tents and sleep under supervision, which, in Afghan terms, means you’re not sleeping outside tonight. After days of rough roads and dust, we didn’t need more adventure than that. Guest houses and hotels were the only choice, as low quality and expensive as they were.

Other times, it was nature itself that made the call. Like the high-altitude plateaus of Song Kul in Kyrgyzstan or the town of Murghab in Tajikistan, where we spent three nights waiting for the weather to clear. We could have ridden on and “not wasted” those days, but we didn’t ride 10,000 km to do the Pamir Highway and Ak-Baital Pass just to see grey clouds. If we wanted fog, we’d have stayed in Belgium.

Either way, when we did pay for accommodation, it was rarely expensive. We feel at ease in hostels and shared dormitories. Throughout the trip, we averaged around €10 a night, often including breakfast: bread, eggs, tea, maybe a bit of cucumber. It was rare to pay more than €20, even in bigger towns. The exceptions were Turkey and Afghanistan, where prices crept closer to €15–20 per night.

Looking back, the mix felt right. The nights spent camping in silence, surrounded by the hum of insects, the faraway bark of a dog, or the too-close buzz of a mosquito, balanced out the hostel nights filled with travelers’ chatter, the clink of tea glasses, and the faint buzz of the AC unit.

If I did it again, I’d expect a similar balance, but I wouldn’t plan for one. If I feel like a hotel, I’ll take it. If I feel like camping, I’ll camp.

Food 🍔🌭🥦

We like to eat simply, we rarely went to a fancy restaurant and sticked to small local restaurants, small snack bars, or roadside cafés. Most days we had two meals out and a couple of teas or coffees.

Typical prices:

• Turkey, caucasus and Iran: €4–5 for a full plate (meat, rice, salad, bread, ayran)

• Central Asia: about €3 for a rice-and-meat dish

Add coffee, pastries, and the occasional beer in bigger cities.

When camping, we cooked ourselves: simple meals like rice + tomato paste + tuna, costing about €2-3/meal.

All in all we averaged around €8/day. If you’re on a tighter budget, you could definitely cut food costs even further.

Transport 🏍️💨

Fuel was one of our biggest, but also most predictable, expenses.
We each spent roughly €700 total for the entire trip — give or take (€600–800 is a fair prediction). Our old Suzuki DR650s averaged about 5L per 100 km (roughly 47 mpg), and across most countries, fuel cost less than €1 per litre. It was even (almost) free in Iran!

Other regular motorcycle costs looked like this:

• Engine oil: around €50 per month

• Repairs at local mechanics: €50–100 per month

• New tires: about €250 per pair

Once you leave Europe, mechanics become very affordable, and most workshops are happy to help travelers. Whenever we were near a town and had an issue, we’d stop and let the pros handle it — but we also carried tools, spare parts, and enough know-how to do our own repairs when needed (which happened more than once, usually somewhere remote).

We covered about 5,000 km per month, meaning fuel and maintenance easily made up roughly one-third of our total expenses.

If you’re doing a similar route on a bicycle or hitchhiking, you can expect your budget to shrink dramatically. This is the part of our spending that’s hardest to avoid with an engine.

(For local taxis, buses, or city rides, check the Miscellaneous section below.)

Miscellaneous 🤷‍♂️

All the small extras — entrance fees, hammams, taxis, sunscreen, gas canisters — stayed under €50–100/month on average.

SIM & Connectivity 📶

We mostly used local SIM cards, which cost around €10/month and only took 20 minutes to buy at a local shop.
Only in Turkey did we switch to eSIMs, since local SIMs were expensive for foreigners.

Pro tip: always buy SIMs in small convenience or phone shops rather than at airports — you’ll save a lot and avoid tourist markups.

Laundry 🧺

We usually did laundry at hostels, for about €1–2 per load, once or twice a week. It was cheap, easy, and a good excuse to take a break while waiting for it to dry.

City Transport 🚕

We mostly got around town using taxis when exploring cities. It cost us less than €5 per day, and being two people meant we could split the fare.
We could’ve used public transport, but since we rarely stayed more than a few days in each city, we preferred saving time over a couple euros.

Cash & ATMs 💵

We started the trip with about $2,000 USD each in cash, which we exchanged along the way. Cash exchanges were almost always cheaper (and more negotiable) than ATM withdrawals, which often came with high foreign transaction fees.

We paid by card whenever possible, Revolut worked great but make sure you have a couple of alternatives or some cash in case it’s refused.
In Iran and Afghanistan, card payments were impossible, but elsewhere, VISA cards were widely accepted (far more than Mastercard).

And surprisingly, we never had to pay a bribe the entire trip. We had one close call in Kyrgyzstan, but managed to talk our way out of it.

Pre-Trip Costs

Documents & Visas 📄

• Iran Carnet de Passage: €300

• Iran visa: €100

• Afghanistan visa + vehicle permit: €150

• Regional permits (Afghanistan/Tajikistan GBAO): ~€100

  • Some countries require you to have get a special permit to get into certain areas. Notably Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

• Motorcycle insurance (2–3 countries): ~€50

  • Some countries want you to buy a local insurance on arrival. These usually cost about 10€ for a month or even a year. Either way not very expensive.

Motorcycle & Gear 🏍️

• Motorcycle: ~€6900 (mine, with all parts). Dad’s was ~€4,000

• Luggage system (MoskoMoto Reckless 80L): €400

• Tank bag (Enduristan Sandstorm) : 200€

• Health Insurance + travel insurance: €300

• Riding gear (helmet, jacket, pants, gloves, boots, rain gear): €1,500

• Tools & spare parts: €300–500

Camping & Clothing 🏕️🥾

• Tent (used): €40

• Cooking gear (MSR, shared): €300

• Sleeping bag (Millet): €100

• Sleeping mat: €50

• Merino clothing: €150

• Pants & shorts: €100

• Fleece: €30

• Puffer jacket (bought in Turkey): €20

• Basic running shoes (used as daily shoe): €50

• Hat: €20

Electronics 📷💻

• Camera (Sony ZV1, used): €500

• MacBook Pro 14” M3 Pro (used): €1,100

• Pixel 8 (used): €400

• Old phone (used as GPS): free

• Power bank (anker 25000mah): €70

• Chargers & cables: €50

Final Thoughts

Riding from central Europe to Kazakhstan turned out far more affordable than most people (including us) imagine. For about €700–800 per month, we crossed a continent, ate well, slept decently, and experienced everything from the Turkish plateaus to the high Pamirs: deserts, chaos, border crossings, endless tea, and the kind of generosity that makes you rethink comfort.

If you’re planning something similar, it’s worth splitting the budget into two parts:

• Running costs: around €700 per month covers food, fuel, accommodation, and daily life on the road.

• Pre-trip costs: anywhere from €5,000 to €10,000, depending on how prepared you are, the bike being the biggest chunk.

So for a 100-day ride, you’re looking at roughly €10,000–15,000 total if you’re starting from absolute zero, or closer to €3,000–5,000 if you already have the bike and some essentials.

It’s not luxury. but it’s freedom. You trade plans for possibilities, comfort for connection, and routine for the unknown.
And for that price, it’s hard to think of a better deal.

Packing for a 12-week ride from Belgium to the Pamir mountains is a challenge—too much gear and not enough room. I've got three main bags: tools and spare parts for the bike on the right, camping gear on the left, and my clothes on top. I've also got a water bladder and rain gear in a bag on the seat, plus my camera and small gear in the tank bag. Stay tuned for a detailed packing list!

Packing video on Instagram

Bags
- Tank bag: Giantloop Fandango
- Luggage bags: Kriega OS-Base pack with 2x18l panniers
- Rear bag: Rear bag Kriega US-40
- Seat bag: Kriega OS-12

1. Get a Visa Grant Notice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

2. Apply for the Iranian Visa at your local Consulate.

In the end, it was pretty smooth sailing, but I had to do some research after facing a second rejection on the official site.

Visa grant vis e-visa : Fail

Sign-up via the official e-Visa site. 

https://evisa.mfa.ir/en/

I've had two unsuccessful attempts with this. The first time, it was because I didn't provide the Belgium ID and only submitted my Swiss passport. The second time, I was missing a detailed travel itinerary. Not wanting to risk a permanent ban, I opted for a different strategy.

Visa grant via DMC : Success!

Via irun2iran

Website: www.irun2iran.com
Contact: Mary Oji, Irun2Iran DMC
+98 902 877 0569, info@irun2iran.com

The folks at irun2iran were super helpful; they quickly requested a detailed travel and lodging plan. So, I mapped out each leg of our trip and where we'd be staying overnight, then submitted it. Two weeks later, I received the Visa Grant Notice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which allowed me to apply for the visa at the consulate in Brussels.

Consulate Brussels

I had a great experience here! After deposing my electronics and phone at the entrance in a locker, the friendly staff at the consulate quickly processed my visa. We initially requested a 15-day visa based on our travel plans, but they generously extended it to 20 days to give us a bit more flexibility. Everything is sorted out and we’re all set to go!

Contacts

Iranian Consulate Brussels

Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 15, 
1050 Ixelles, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 627 03 50
Email: consular@iranembassy.be
website: http://www.iranembassy.be
Visa applications: Thursdays, 09h00 -12h00

Swiss Embassy in Theran

No. 2 Yasaman Street
Sharifi Manesh Ave. Elahieh 
19649-63751 Tehran, Iran
+98 21 22 00 83 33
tehran@eda.admin.ch

Opening hours
Sunday-Thursday: 08:00 - 12:00
Friday/Sat: Closed

Maintenance Intervals

Maintenenceschedule.com

2025

Mar 2, xx km
- New front tire (Metzeler MC360) and tube
- New back tire (Motoz Tractionator Adventure)and tube
- New chain (DID 520VX3 and sprocket set (JT 15/43)
- New speedo cable
- Changed break pads front and rear

2024

Nov 17, xx km
- Installation B&B rack and Outback Motortek panniers

Here are a couple of links of parts suppliers that specialise on Suzuki DR parts in Europe.

Upgrades: Hessler DR Big Shop or Enduroshop.de

Service: Wemoto, CMSNL or Bike Partz

Websites

Zenseeker (the classic!)

Garage logbooks

Snafu