Tour Plans for 2024

[Nealc]

UK: Home - Portsmouth, ferry to St Malo
France: St-Malo - Nice
Italy: Nice - Bari, Ferry to Albania (Durres)
Balkans: Albania - North Macedonia - Montenegro - Kosovo - Bosnia - Serbia
Central Europe: Hungary - Slovakia - Czechia - Austria - Germany - Holland, ferry to Hull
Home!

You'll love Albania.

We go the ferry to durres, but took the van over as we didn't fancy the ride out of durres with young kids. In reality I think it will be fine. Just steer clear of the eurovelo route which straight lines you through on the busiest road in Albania. Elsewhere the roads are deserted, often gravel, and any drivers courteous.

[roubaixtuesday]

UK: Home - Portsmouth, ferry to St Malo
France: St-Malo - Nice
Italy: Nice - Bari, Ferry to Albania (Durres)
Balkans: Albania - North Macedonia - Montenegro - Kosovo - Bosnia - Serbia
Central Europe: Hungary - Slovakia - Czechia - Austria - Germany - Holland, ferry to Hull
Home!

You'll love Albania.

We go the ferry to durres, but took the van over as we didn't fancy the ride out of durres with young kids. In reality I think it will be fine. Just steer clear of the eurovelo route which straight lines you through on the busiest road in Albania. Elsewhere the roads are deserted, often gravel, and any drivers courteous.

Great to hear!

I'm hoping things will work out to have a few days relaxing by Lake Ohrid which looks fabulous.

[Galactic]

Nothing spectacular

Yes, I'm thinking of doing this tour as an add-on/prelude to something else (Sweden? visiting friends?), so no great expectations - just forest and Baltic Sea would be more than enough. Although:

I think Hel is probably worth a visit, although I didn't go there.

Getting the ferry from Gdanks/Gdynia to the Hel peninsular is top of the list for that particular tour idea. It looks fascinating.

[Galactic]

Must confess I'm in desperate need of inspiration for 2024. I did a couple on months (2000 miles) this summer in France, Germany & Netherlands and whilst it was better than sitting around at home it was a bit dull, un-inspiring. Previous tours I've arrived somewhere, set-up and gone wandering around town and the area looking at chateaus, etc. This year arrived, set-up camp and read a Kindle - seemed to be in a state-of-mind where "just another town, another church, another chateau".

I can empathise with this, particularly the "just another pleasant town" aspect. I definitely find I'm more interested in the scenery these days, so am looking for ever more out of the way places. Bit tricky since on the one hand I'm in the no-fly camp, but on the other I don't want to travel for days on end either

Coastlines definitely have a draw for me, Denmark is overall a bit boring and not challenging in any way, but I really enjoy that country's endless coastline thanks to its dozens of islands.

[WEBH]

Am looking at a little Spanish/French excursion. I've booked the bike express to return from Montpellier in early Oct, so looking at a ferry to northern Spain to start.
Having realised that I enjoyed the riding more in the hilly sections of my last tour, I am aiming at a proper mountain tour, I crossed the Pyrenees years ago on an organised trip but want to try off my own bat.
Not a great distance for a 2 week tour, but sticking in plenty of climbs should make it interesting.
I've got some Michelin maps for the French bit, but any suggestions for a nice hilly route Santander/Bilbao to Montpellier would be welcome.

[bohrsatom]

I'm currently planning a trip through the Massif Central which picks up from an earlier trip I took in 2018. At the time I was riding from Caen to the Med; I got as far as Clermont Ferrand where I met up with a friend who was new to cycle touring. Rather than force him up and over the mountains we took the train to Lyon then followed the Via Rhona to Montpellier. It was great fun but I've been thinking about filling in the gap, so to speak. The current idea is some kind of on-road version of the Grande Traversée du Massif Central maybe with a few more deviations to visit places of interest. I recently bought the Cicerone book to look through over Christmas.

Other than that, got a long weekend in NL at the start of May which is becoming an annual tradition. We'll take the overnight ferry to Hook, cycle to Gouda where we have found a nice apartment, then go out on a few day rides.

In other vague plans, last year I took my Brompton on a one-night microadventure, catching the Eurostar to Lille, riding to Ghent for an overnight stop then finishing in Brussels in time for an evening Eurostar home. Wouldn't mind doing something similar in 2024 but I need to find a different route: the first 20 miles from Lille were dull, as were the final 20 miles into Brussels.

Perhaps this will be the year I go to Taiwan... but then I said that last year too.

[willp01908]

Planning a (nearly) circumnavigation of Great Britain - going to give myself a couple of months, leaving early April. Excited and nervous alternately as it will be the first time I`ve done such a long tour alone. Never such a long one in the UK either, having always preferred Europe and it`s more enlightened attitudes towards cyclists.
Maybe a few weeks overseas with Mrs willp in the summer.

[Psamathe]

Planning a (nearly) circumnavigation of Great Britain - going to give myself a couple of months, leaving early April. Excited and nervous alternately as it will be the first time I`ve done such a long tour alone. Never such a long one in the UK either, having always preferred Europe and it`s more enlightened attitudes towards cyclists.
Maybe a few weeks overseas with Mrs willp in the summer.

Camping for B&B/hotels? I've always been put off UK tours by what I see as poor/difficult camping (and I prefer camping to B&B/hotels).

Ian

[willp01908]

Was planning on camping as much of it as i can. - bad idea?

Not averse to pitching up behind a bush if needed for the occasional night and maybe a fair bit more wild camping in Scotland. Hopefully a few nights with Warmshowers, Welcome to my Garden or various people I know on the route.
I like to use CCC certificated sites too.

[MrsHJ]

Lovely thread, nice to hear your hopes and plans for near or far.

I seem to have firmly decided my spring plans a few times only to move onto the next idea. I think I’m locked in now as some time constraints due to work have made me look for a shorter tour than my original plan (actually my second plan really) which was Saint malo to Nîmes with a few days to look around at the end and a leisurely train trip back.

My current plan is Zell am See (Austria) to Debrecen (Hungary) on EV14. I should be booking shortly. I have planned to train it but am currently leaning to flying.

I’m hoping for another tour in September and not sure what I’ll do for that one yet. I may dust off one of my many planned tours from the future ideas folder. https://cycle.travel/map/group/940 I tend to keep an eye out for interesting articles and ideas and then pop the outline route into the folder for future consideration.

[Slowroad]

Really enjoying reading about your plans!
My list of possible tours over the next couple of years includes:
Edinburgh to Glasgow & return;
Fife;
The Maas/Meuse;
Finishing off the Rhine route from Speyer to Basel then Andermat (which will take me at least 2 weeks!);
Brittany;
Parts of the Loire and tributaries - motorcycled these in the late '90s and always wanted to return for a cyle tour;
The Seine sea to Paris & maybe beyond.
It's really going to depend what happens in life...

[CliveyT]

Other than that, got a long weekend in NL at the start of May which is becoming an annual tradition. We'll take the overnight ferry to Hook, cycle to Gouda where we have found a nice apartment, then go out on a few day rides.

My favourite town in the NL. Are you staying in the centre? because you can easily spend a day walking around the town itself. Especially if you go on cheese market day

[CliveyT]

We're planning on taking the tandem for a loop from Hoek van Holland to it's birthplace of Waltrop and back because- well why not?

Also my in-laws go on a lot of cruises and they're always hinting that we could join them but it's not really our sort of thing, so we're thinking of one of the bike and barge holidays so we can get out and go cycling every day and they can get an (inland) cruise stopping at interesting places every day. Only issue I can think of is they're obviously not designed around cruise based sightseeing so I'm worried they'll only dock towards the evening when everything is closing so won't actually see anything at the stops. Anyone been on one of these that can advise?

[Jdsk]

...
Also my in-laws go on a lot of cruises and they're always hinting that we could join them but it's not really our sort of thing, so we're thinking of one of the bike and barge holidays so we can get out and go cycling every day and they can get an (inland) cruise stopping at interesting places every day. Only issue I can think of is they're obviously not designed around cruise based sightseeing so I'm worried they'll only dock towards the evening when everything is closing so won't actually see anything at the stops. Anyone been on one of these that can advise?

We've taken bikes on barge holidays, but mostly children's for use on the towpath.

And we've walked from Fort William to Inverness with a barge to sleep and eat on. Just wonderful.

Bikes are so much faster than hired barges that I don't think that you'll have any problems with arranging to meet at places of interest or adding your own.

Jonathan

[mattheus]

6 days in the Austrian and Italian Alps - one big climb a day. 2 days to get there by 9 trains, and 2 days to get back by 9 trains.

Cool! [although obv I'd wish more direct trains for you!]

Haven't seen BIG mountains since 2019. I've hiked in the Tyrol, and following TCR etc has really given me the bug to see that area again.
I look forward to your travelogue!