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2016 Europe Tour

By December 7, 2015January 24th, 20162016 Europe tour, Motorcycling, Travel

I’m currently planing for a tour of Europe as early as I can in 2016. I’ll be taking the Transalp. This will be my first major trip away in more than a decade. I’ve experienced a few life changing events over the last year and am looking forward to taking the time out to do this trip.

I have no firm plans on a route. Loosely, I’ll be starting from my home port in Guernsey, ferry Trip to Mainland UK, down South Devon/Cornwall way, working my way up the west cost, through Wales, Midlands, Scotland, etc. I’d like to do the North Coast 500 while I’m up there. There is so much of the UK I have not seen. I aim to spend some time camping, Dartmoor, Wales, Highlands. From there, the next step would be to make my way down the North Sea Side as far as Dover. From there, if all is going well, I’ll either take a short break home (check the house has not fallen down!), or carry on through the tunnel into France. I would then be shooting to go as far as Croatia (really want to see there), down to Greece, Ferry to Italy, back up, through Austria (see if I can find that Hotel I stayed in as a kid), down to Hungary (visit Sofia – Just because it’s my mothers name), and work my way back up and to St. Malo, where I’d catch a Ferry home. One giant loop.

map

This is a very ambitious trip (for me). Probably at least 5000+ miles. I’ll hopefully get to see a lot of countries, experience different cultures, all the normal travel stuff. The stars on the map are just places I’ve been adding as I come across somewhere I’d like to see. Other than that, I’m just planning to drift from place of interest to place of interest along the rough route, camping or finding reasonable accommodation along the way. For me, the journey will be a major part of the enjoyment, not the destination. This would be a total departure from how I always did things in the past. Plan, action, review! I’d like to get to the Scandinavian countries too, but I think that will be for another trip.

I’ll be blogging this trip as I go, so feel free to follow along and let me know if there are any places that are ‘must sees’. I will I think be building a ‘where’s Paul’ map, utilising a Spot tracker for the journey. This will allow my family some comfort that I havn’t fallen down a giant hole somewhere and am still alive. It also adds that little level of geekness any ex IT bod needs to add to such a journey.

 

 

 

5 Comments

  • Mick Gavigan says:

    Hi
    You had a brief string (way back in 2011) on a Yachting and Boating Forum requesting info on fuel flow sensors. It appeared you had an Arduino and were looking to incorporate the fuel flow onto the computer.
    Did you resolve it? I’m trying to do the same on a Narrowboat and have the Arduino working with a GPS signal for speed etc but am having trouble with the fuel flow sensing.
    Hope the trip goes well.

    Can you help please?
    Mick

    • pjsmith says:

      Hi,

      Sorry for the really late reply. I did not. The reason being that the fuel that flows through the fuel hose, a large proportion of it goes back via a return into the tank! You’d need to log the in and out to figure out how much the engine used and you need to be really accurate.

      • Mick gavigan says:

        Ok thanks for the reply anyway. I have a solution but my electronics ability/confidence is prohibiting me from doing it . I have two thermo sensors that can detect flow by temperature (one in each line) and that will work if I can get the electronics right.

        Anyway thanks again and hope the trip goes well.

        .
        Mick

        • pjsmith says:

          Let me know what sensors you have, or a link to the data sheet. I’d be interested to read up on them. I’ll offer any advice I can too.

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