Planning Stage

 

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Peter Brown 2025 Road Trip

February 2025

It’s been 12 years since our last American trip when we took our bike to New York for a 7 week road trip which incorporated the whole of Route 66 and plenty of side trips including Niagara Falls, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon etc before shipping the bike back to the UK. To read more about this trip you can check this out on my other blogs.

This was me and Pam at the midway point on route 66

Bring on September 2025 for our next American adventure. I’ve already booked our posh seats with Virgin airlines, we fly out on 16th of September and return direct to Manchester on Saturday 18th of October which gives just short of 5 weeks.

Our itinerary issue 4  20.08.25

Fly to Las Vagas for 3 nights also pick up Harley Davidson
Death Valley CA, 1 Night
Bishop CA, 1 Night 
South Lake Tahoe CA, 2 Nights
San Francisco CA, 3 Nights
Monterey CA, 1 Night

Salinas CA, 1 Night
Pismo Beach CA, 1 Night
Little Venice Los Angeles, 2 Nights
Barstow CA, 1 Night via Route 66
Kingman AZ, 1 Night via Route 66
Williams AZ, 1 Night via Route 66

Grand Canyon AZ, 1 Night
Holbrook AZ, 1Night via Route 66
Chinie AZ, 2 Nights
Monument Valley UT, 3 Nights
Page AZ, 1 Night
Bryce Canyon, AZ, 2 Nights
Mesquite NV, 1 Night
Las Vegas NV, 2 Nights
Only 1 Spare night now due to detour on pacific coast highway and adding a stop at Grand Canyon 

New route issue 4

Do we hire or use our own bike 

I’ve had quotes for both one for flying our bike to and from Las Vegas which is slightly cheaper but involves more paperwork and there’s no guarantee the the bike will be ready for collection, we’ve also had a few issues on previous road trips with the bike not to mention a new engine when we last did Route 66, so have decided to hire a Harley Davidson from “Eagle Rider Las Vegas” however when you add the insurance and all the additional extras and taxes it’s just short of $9,000 dollars which is far more than I had originally expected. I have looked at some of the other companies operating in Las Vegas giving far cheaper quotes, but on reading their reviews decided against them not wanting to turn up to find no bike available and unable to get a refund.

This is our chosen bike for the trip

I mentioned insurance for the bike but that doesn’t cover me and Pam, and our own travel insurance won’t cover us for a bike over 125cc so that’s involved a lot more shopping around. I mentioned I’d had problems with the bike on previous trips this is nothing compared to what Pam’s been through so this is an area I’m not scrimping on. With the help from the “British Insurance Federation” I’ve got a quotation which will cover us for twelve months, but as our USA Road trip doesn’t start until September I’m leaving it until July / August to put in place so it will hopefully cover us for another trip in Europe we’re thinking of for early next year.

Hotels

I have only booked 3 hotels ( Las Vegas, Death Valley and San Francisco) whilst I have preferred hotels listed on my intended plan I won’t book anymore so as to give me some flexibility if we decide to move on or stay a little longer and possibly only book one or two days ahead depending on location.

March 2025

Whilst the weather hasn’t been great and there’s nothing much happening in the garden, I’ve been busy in my office doing the finer details of the trip selecting which roads to travel on and calculating mileage between overnight stops and whilst I’m not booking anymore hotels I have listed at least 3 at each location which tick some of our boxes ( Parking, pool, breakfast included, near attractions and close to a liquor store for Pam ) I also try to limit mileage to between 150 - 200 miles a day so that it doesn’t become an endurance test. Ive input all these into an excel spreadsheet showing which are waypoints, points of interest or destinations. Then I’ll enter them in my TomTom as itineraries when I’m fully satisfied I have everything mapped out

Packing

The main reason I chose the same bike is that my luggage liners will fit the bike along with the additional saddle bags that fit over the top box, we will do a trial pack at home before loading everything into our cases for the flight. Eagle Rider allows us to store these whilst we’re on the adventure. We will take a limited amount of clothing as most places have washing facilities and we can always purchase more if required. 

This was birtha fully loaded for faaker see 2015

August 2025

It’s been a great summer this year and have had lots going on with our life and the adventure has been at the back of my mind, I have however got the travel insurance sorted and been tweaking up our itinerary and adding a few more points of interest to visit on route. I have also just discovered that the pacific coast highway suffered some major landslides in 2024 and whilst some parts have re-opened a 12 mile stretch still remains closed and involves a 288 mile detour to pick up both ends of the closure, this has now eaten into some of my flexible days which I don’t mind because travelling the pacific coast highway on a Harley Davidson is high on my bucket list too tick off.

One Section of pacific coast affected by land slip 

I imagine this section will take years to fix

I have also just discovered that the Harley Davidson Electra Glide has Apple CarPlay which is a game changer, I have now input my route from location to location with intended stops and preferred roads using google maps and emailed them separately to my phone. If it works this will make navigation a whole lot simpler, I will however take the Tom Tom and spreadsheet with me as a backup.

September 

It’s definitely twitchy bum time with just over a week to go and still have plenty of things to do. I will however be an expert in route planning the disadvantage with the Google Maps and Apple CarPlay is that it will eat into my data allowance and phones battery charge. So with the help of YouTube again I’ve learned how to plan our routes on Harley Davison’s own map app. At the moment I’m just double checking the positioning of my waypoints before downloading them to a memory stick which will be plugged into the bike’s navigation system and pray that it works.
The plan for this last week before the adventure is to get everything sorted and then sit back relax and look forward to our 5 week road trip.

Check out weeks 1,2,3,4,5 to follow us