How to Plan a Cycle Tour Around The World

When we planned our cycle tour around the world, we went to TOWN! We had no idea what a cycle tour around the world really entailed, and we massively over-cooked the process.

The truth is, a large cycle tour needs less planning than you can imagine. You need a bike, you need your kit, and you just need to ride. The adventure will unfold around you and reveal things you couldn’t even dream up, never mind plan for.

But, if you’re anything like us when you’re thinking about your first big trip, you want to go in prepared.

This article details everything we thought about when planning our world tour by bicycle. We’re sharing how we figured out our budgets, how we planned our routes, and the exact cycling routes we took through each country. Plus, a free spreadsheet and video explaining how we use it to plan our trips.

Remember, planning a bike ride around the world looks different for everyone, and we all have different planning needs. Take from this article what you think is useful.

In this article

• Come up with a travel plan
• Get inspired by our routes
• Download our free spreadsheet to plan your own cycle tour
• Get inspired by our routes
• Get to the start line
• Essential items you need to pack

Come up with a travel plan

First things first, you’re going to need to come up with a travel plan. Your plan will help you figure out everything from kit to budget and how much you need to save.

We’ll go through how you can help figure out these three core questions.

• How long, roughly, do you want to travel for?
• Where do you want to travel to?
• How much money do you need?

In some ways, these questions all influence one another; you might find you need to revisit point one once you’ve determined point three. For example, you might want to travel for two years, but by the time you get to point three, you might realise that you need to reduce your travel time and enjoy more luxury.

Below, we go into each of these points one by one, but before we get there, take a look at the video and our planning spreadsheet below to help you answer some of your financial and planning questions.

Download our free spreadsheet to plan your own cycle tour

This free spreadsheet has four sheets to help you plan your cycle tour around the world. Or, you could use it for a smaller tour!

The sheets included are:

• Pre-Trip To Do List
• Kit List
• Itinerary
• Budgeting Flight Estimations

This planning document will likely expand as Stew, and I add to it. When you open the sheet, head to file > make a copy. Or, download it to your PC.

Download

By filling in the spreadsheet above, you’ll be able to figure out how long you’ll be able to travel for, where you’ll be going, and how much cash you’ll need in the bank.

How long do you want to travel for?

Having an idea of how long you want to travel will help determine how much money you need to survive without a job.

For Stew and I, it was easy to figure out how much time we needed since we had a goal to achieve: we wanted to cycle 24,000 miles (38,000 kilometers) around the entire globe.

In short, we started with that goal and then worked out what that looks like in terms of distance/day. We threw in some rest days to explore and recuperate. We needed just over a year.

Our actual calculation was pretty complex, and we used a spreadsheet to help plan this. You can download our world cycle touring plan spreadsheet above. Just take a copy, and it’s yours!

Where do you want to travel to?

Different countries have different economies, right? If you want to quit your job and travel to Europe, you’ll need much more money than traveling to Southeast Asia.

Think about where you want to go. What are the places you have to see? What places might you be able to visit to save money?

The places you prioritise will be a good place to start and can help structure the travel plan.

For example, Stew really wanted to go to China and the U.S.A., so we allowed these decisions to guide others.

Due to visa restrictions, we were not allowed to visit the U.S.A. shortly after visiting Iran, so for now, Iran was removed from the travel plan.

China was a must-go for us, but obtaining a visa can be difficult. A tricky visa might be a deal breaker for you, so you can allow the logistics to alter your travel plan. We decided to persevere with the Chinese visa since we could obtain the visa before we left, but we chose not to go to Russia since we would’ve needed to fly home to collect a visa to get there.

The U.S.A. is an expensive country to visit (relatively speaking), so we needed some cheaper places to visit to help manage the budget. Cheaper places included Kazakhstan, Albania, Laos, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Argentina.

Visas can guide your itinerary – some visa restrictions might require you to leave a country and come back.

Choosing to visit somewhere because of a visa might sound uninspiring, but it needn’t be! Ironically, we went to Laos purely so we could come back to Vietnam later with a second visa.

Laos ended up being one of my favourite countries of the entire trip.

Alright, so you roughly know how long you want to travel for or how long you need to travel for (if you have an objective like we did). Now, figure out how much money you’ll need to save to achieve your desired travel plan.

How much money do you need?

To help give a little perspective here, I will throw out some numbers, including our budget to travel for just under one year.

You can travel the world for a year with as little as £2,000.

Yep.

We met cyclists cycling worldwide, spending an average of £5/day. Of course, on this budget, you’ll be sleeping rough, stinkin’, traveling in cheaper countries, and eating cheap, too, but it’s doable if that’s your jam!

Honestly, it’s not ours.

Where possible, we like a pillow to lay our head on, and we want to experience everything: good food, adventures such as scuba diving, and the odd excursion when one takes our fancy. In Vietnam, we visited Halong Bay, and in China, we went to the Great Wall (of course!).

We traveled with a daily budget of £22.50 per day per person. A total of £45 for the two of us, rather lucrative in comparison to our £5 friends.

In 2019/20, £45/day, flights excluded, means you need £16,425/year (£8,212.50 each). We only spent £12,142 or £34.10/day (£6,071 each).

£45/day with our itinerary was enough to sleep in a hotel most nights, eat out, and grab a shower! We camped plenty when we were over budget, ate cheap in Europe, and ate like kings in Southeast Asia. It’s all about balance.

If you’re curious, here’s what we spent a day, on average, in 20 countries that we visited in the first phase of our trip.

Our daily spending can only give you an idea of what you might spend since we all have different needs and comfort levels. Plus, inflation, but it’s better than nothing. Sites like www.budgetyourtrip.com can also help you determine what you might need to save in order to live comfortably while you travel.

Now, figure out what else you need to save for. You’ll need to factor in the cost of travel and vaccinations.

We forgot to account for vaccinations, which was a bit of a bummer. These guys cost approximately £650 each and two dead arms!

Since we were traveling by bicycle, there wasn’t much to account for in terms of public transport, but there were some necessary travel expenses, such as a:

• Ferry from Dover to Dunkirk
• Ferry across the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan
• Flight from Singapore to Australia
• Flight from Australia to New Zealand
• Flight from New Zealand to USA
• Flight from USA to Portugal

We researched rough figures for travel by researching the cost of those flights before we left. I plugged numbers into the spreadsheet by researching bookings (see the spreadsheet above). I got an idea of the price if I booked the flight next week and if I booked six months in advance.

Add the cost of flights to your total and remember to save for this, then leave the money in a separate account when you set off on your travels. You don’t want to spend this money on your daily budget by accident.

At this point, we decided to give Russia a miss. Another flight to and from the U.K. was more than our finances could handle!

Okay, now you know roughly what you need in the bank before you set off on your travels. The planning is coming together. It’s time to take action and get money in the bank.

Get inspired by our routes

If you’re looking for a starting point for a route through any of the countries we travelled to, you can check them out here.

Routes through Europe

Cycle Route Through France
Cycle Route Through Italy
Cycle Route Through Slovenia
Cycle Route Through Croatia
Cycle Route Through Montenegro
Cycle Route Through Albania
Cycle Route Through Kosovo
Cycle Route Through North Macedonia
Cycle Route Through Bulgaria

Routes through the Middle East

Cycle Route Through Turkey
Cycle Route Through Georgia
Cycle Route Through Azerbaijan
Cycle Route Through Kazakhstan (and Kyrgyzstan)
Cycle Route Through Uzbekistan

Routes through Asia

Cycle Route Through China
Cycle Route Through Vietnam
Cycle Route Through Laos
Cycle Route Through Cambodia
Cycle Route Through Thailand
Cycle Route Through Malaysia
Cycle Route Through Singapore

Get to the start line

Once you’ve got your plan sorted, you have literally one job…GET TO THE START LINE!

You know what you’ve got to do; now, all that’s left is to do it. Stew always says that getting to the start is the hardest part, and he is right.

If you’ve got the grit to make the sacrifices needed to travel, you will handle travelling. It’ll be a breeze.

Essential items you need to pack

On our website, we’ve listed every single item we took on our cycle tour covering 21 countries and 13,000 miles. Everything listed is coming with us for the second 13,000 miles as we return to finish the trip that covid abruptly ended.

We’ve listed every single item on our site, so if it looks a bit overwhelming, that might be why. Remember, if you cycle already, you likely already own at least some of this stuff, so you’re unlikely to need it all. Plus, you’ll already own some of the more general items (plasters/bandaids, ibuprofen etc.)

Remember, every bikepacking tour is different. We’re all different and like to travel in our own ways, and of course, we value items differently, too. It’s important to do your own research and find the kit that’s going to serve you and the experience you’re after.

We tried and tested everything listed in our kit lists. We use many of these items on bike trips (even some hikes) big and small. All items left the U.K. with us and travelled 13,000 miles to Vietnam. You can trust our recommendations can stand the test of time!

 

Post written by: Zoe Ashbridge