When we arrived home from our Europe 2018 trip we had decided that we would not return to Europe with our bike - we were done! Mind you, we have said that before.

It didn't take us long to get the urge to go again. We realised that we really wanted to cover some of the areas we had missed on previous trips and we would like to do them on the bike. We thought we might also be able cross off a few states in the USA on our way home from Europe.

So, after some conversations with Dave Milligan from Get Routed who ships our bike (thanks for always looking after us Dave), it was off to Flight Center to find cheap air fares for our next trip. After checking out the price of Round the World fares we decided on a return flight to London and also a return flight from London to Chicago for the USA sector of the trip - this option may sound strange but it was more economical.

With the decision made and flights secured it was just a matter of plan and wait.

First part of the trip is always packing what would be shipped with the bike. Our method is simple - lay it all out on the loungeroom floor and then squash it in to the panniers and topbox. After packing the boxes and then wrapping them in bubble wrap, we were ready to take them and the bike to the freight company in Yatala. The bike was dropped off on February 23rd and we would see it again in Felixstowe, UK on 29th April.

With the bike organised we then spent many hours planning our route. We had a calendar covering the time we would be away and wrote on bookings as we made them and filled in a rough itinerary. We changed our mind so many times that we ended up with just the first week written on the calendar! Except for the flights, I guess we will make up the rest as we go.

Our flight to London was April 22nd, via Bangkok. We were ready to go!