Adventure Bike Rider Forum

How do you do it?
In the days of GPS, how do you get around on long journeys from home?
GPS?
Tankbag with map?
Rally style way points
Wing it using road signs
Off to Germany next week and don't have a bike GPS, nor a tank bag.
Think I'll buy a block of post it notes... :woohoo: :laugh: :laugh:

Mk 1 pencil, paper map and route card (thumbs)

You should be able to pick up a cheap universal SatNav on here or Ebay that would do the job! I would just buy a map and go!
Life is an adventure!

That is my thinking, don't want to use a GPS, but may just nab th eone out of the car
and keep it in a bag for emergency use only. I'll write a cheat sheet using google maps
and hopefully find Bad Kissingen, and get back to Hirtshals :laugh:

I use Google maps on my phone, it got me to vienna and back with ease, try to find how to download the directions to avoid data charging if your contract is expensive.

You can download an area on google maps to save to the device but it will only be usable for a period of around 30 days.

Michelin maps, piece of card taped onto tank
20-30 years ago, most of us toured Europe with just a map....... as SatNav's weren't invented
We managed ok
I'm off to the Stella and i'm just using maps, I reckon

2013 for my run to Budapest from Cherbourg, a single post it note with 19 points on it. I knew my way around Budapest so no issues there. I had got a loan of a satnav and decided to leave it behind, easier to concentrate on where you are going. I do have a reasonably good sense of direction which has always worked for me.
Still haven't got a satnav and just use research before I go and post it note inside the tank bag cover.
I actually love the idea of getting away from all this technology and just chilling out. Yes my pack does contain a map book and having read stories of satnavs lost/stolen/dying with all the plans programmed in I have found more than once the trusty map book has saved the day for a few of us travelling together. In a beautiful place there's no such thing as getting lost...

Depends.
Burbling about Wales I just follow the signs.
Big foreign trips I use the satnav. It saves a lot of time getting in and out of unfamiliar towns.
But I always travel with maps too. My previous satnav died in the middle of France a couple of years ago. Pen and poaper got me to S. Malo.

Quite a few years back camping in France with the kids we woke up 8am west of Bordeaux for a 9.30pm ferry from Roscoff.

Alarm had been set for 6am with a planned 9am departure and a 3 hour allowance to decamp.

Panic stations and got into action, we left at 10am so one hour behind. But that hour put us in heavier traffic rounding Nantes [notorious for slow ring road, bit like M25] and also Rennes.

Driving quick and heavily loaded with a trailer and bikes on top we needed one fuel stop. Memory served me of one near a Macdonalds, so two were dropped out at Macdonalds to get the necessary food while I fuelled up with enough to make the ferry and did a quick pick up.

We got to ferry port to be almost last one on.

Kids asked what happens if we miss the ferry.....my replay was simply 'we will spend 2 days camped up in Brittany and get the next one'.

Always helps to have a plan B.....and it did help to know the route....even if you use a satnav explore it on hard copy maps and get a good feel for where you are going.