For us it seemed a total long shot. The dream was to pack-up our traditional nine to five jobs and find a way to fund a lifestyle where we could travel and work in a way that would give us flexibility. It took three years of planning, hoping and saving for us to finally be able to give it a go.

There comes a point when you realize you’ll never have enough money saved or time to prepare. If you wait for that day you will never actually set off. That’s what happened to us. We could have stayed in England longer, had more in our savings and a solid plan but we set a date to leave and we stuck to it!

Dave and I share our love of travelling; we have done some backpacking around South America and many trips by car around Europe. It was in 2015 when Dave took his motorcycle test, which was something we had both spoken about doing for a few years. After a couple of months we set off on our first motorcycle adventure to Italy, me as pillion. We didn’t book anything, just took our tent and pitched up wherever the nearest campsite was. This way of living was amazing! We felt free and excited about where we’d end up the next night. Then, it was the dreaded time to start heading back to the UK, 2 weeks weren’t anywhere near enough but all our holiday allowance was used up.

On the way home we talked about touring by motorbike and soon realized the dream wasn’t a passing holiday thought. We were stuck on the idea and had to go for it.

• The Bikes

We spent many evenings researching which bikes would be best for our needs and also fit within our budget. With such a long trip and with so many countries on our route, we needed bikes that were above all lightweight, robust and economical. They also needed a very large fuel capacity due to the large areas of unpopulated steppe and desert we had planned to cross.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect motorbike. Therefore, we had to improvise and re-engineer our chosen bikes as best as we could. After much deliberation, we finally settled on the BMW G650X series, which had been discontinued since 2008. By choosing an older bike as the basis, we were keeping the initial purchase costs down and also meant we had ten years of other people’s experiences with them. We knew what were the weak points and where they could fail. I am 5’5 and I chose the G650 Xcountry; Dave, being taller, went for the G650 Xchallenge.

With these bikes we had power, dependability and reliability. But being smaller, lighter bikes, they had extremely limited fuel capacity. The stock nine litre fuel tank was good for a hundred miles before reserve, a third of what we would need as fuel consumption can double off-road. With this in mind, we began designing extra fuel tanks that would give us a range of around 300 miles.

Dave is not a professional engineer but has welding and fabricating experience from working on classic cars he had owned in the past. Over the course of eighteen months, he designed and built the fuel tanks from aluminium, altered nearly every part of the bikes from the wheels and suspension to the electrics and lighting. We reinforced the rear subframes and built tubular steel luggage racks, as we knew we would be putting a lot of stress on the bikes with our luggage.

We found the experience both highly rewarding and stressful! The bikes would need to cover large sections of motorway as well as face things like the forgotten and brutal tracks of far Eastern Siberia. That was our motivation to tirelessly go over each nut and bolt.

• Camping Gear

We spent a lot of time researching what camping gear we wanted and what was best for our budget. We have quite a large tent, the Lone Rider MotoTent, which was going to be our little house for two years. It provides space to live and sleep, as well as a porch to eat dinner when it’s raining. For cooking duties, we opted to use the MST Firefly, a liquid fuel stove popular for its ability to burn nearly any fuel such as petrol or diesel without the need for hard to get propane bottles.

During all this preparation, deadline was fast approaching. One day it was six months until departure and then, all of a sudden, it was two weeks, and then days!

• Time's Up!

There was just no more time and whatever we had would just have to do, or we would have to sort it on the road. We said our goodbyes at work and had the last week to sort any final things, like packing (or throwing away) our last few possessions. Up until this point, we hadn’t experienced this continuous worrying and apprehension that we had forgotten to prepare or arrange something! I suspect this was really a way of masking the anxiety of ditching our reliable well-paid jobs and leaving the safety of our hometown and families for the unknown.

• The Road So Far

Which brings us to today! We have now officially been on the road for a couple of weeks, and it’s amazing. It still hasn't really sunk in yet, that we are riding East and not going back home for a long time.

We have been riding long days to get as far South as possible, hunting for the sun. We rode through France, Germany and Austria within three days. Italy is one of our favorite countries, so we wanted some time chilling out there; we had one night in Venice. After Venice we were in Trieste for two nights catching up with our freelance digital marketing work, then made our way down to Croatia.

From South Croatia, we rode through Montenegro and most of Albania in a day, tiring stuff! But we would rather do a couple of hard days riding and get two or three days of solid relaxing. And today, I am sitting writing this blog in Marmaras Greece!

Next up is Istanbul, and after Turkey, things will definitely get a little harder. We’ll then be switching to mostly off-road trails, such as:

- The BAM, built as a strategic alternative route to the Trans-Siberian Railway
- The Old Summer Road in Yakutia
- The Baikal 110 or ‘Zimnik 110’

These tracks will take us to Magadan. In terms of route planning that's as far as we’ve got, but we know the places we’d like to go next include Japan, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and then to the Americas.

We’re not sure what will happen next or how long we’ll be able to keep making money and living this dream, but for now we’re here! There is only so much planning you can do, so we’re going to carry on with the adventure and keep riding East. YouTube | RideUnlimited.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenny O'Grady left her job and normal life in March 2018 to travel around the world on her motorbike with partner in crime, Dave.

The pair plan to explore off road for at least two years but who knows what the future will bring.