A GlobeRider is anyone with a love of motorcycling, travel, and the yearning for adventure. Some are fortunate enough to realize "the dream".  A small but growing cadre within this elite group are the awesome riders who have joined us on our tours.  Others realize the dream on their own. Some dream about riding through foreign lands while they're at work, home or play. They are all GlobeRiders.

We also hope we've planted a GlobeRider seed in the many people that we've met along the way, just as they have helped, fascinated and educated by simply sharing this planet and their lives with us.


YOU are a GlobeRider!


To view the biographies of our staff members, please click on their names(s) below:

• Helge Pedersen
  
  
• Sterling Noren
  
  
• John Wehman
  
  
• Dan Townsley
  
  

We currently offer:




For a listing and information on our current tours, please click here.

The package fee for our tours includes the following:

- A carefully considered and researched itinerary. We pre-run (conduct a full reconnaissance) every tour to identify any potential problems at border crossings, verify road conditions, survey all accommodations, capture waypoints for navigation, and meet and qualify our local guides and drivers.

- Shipment of your motorcycle. We go to extraordinary lengths to allow you to ride YOUR motorcycle, not an unknown rental. Because we pre-run every tour, we know the requirements for getting large-displacement, foreign-registered vehicles across the borders along our routes. Once your bike is prepped for the journey, you will ship your motorcycle to our freight-forwarding partner in Seattle, Washington, USA. We will then personally load your bike into our container, verify that it is secure for shipment, then witness the application of the tamper-proof US Custom's seal when the container is locked.


Because most riders prefer to self-ride on their own after the tour, or temporarily store their bike in Europe for a return tour, we do not include return shipping on our World Tour (which terminates in Munich, Germany).  We will, of course, assist with any shipping arrangements that you may require.


Round-trip shipment of your motorcycle from/to Seattle, Washington, USA is included in the tour package fee for all our other adventure tours.

 

We have many partisipants from Europe join us on our Silk Road Adventure by riding to the start of the journey, Istanbul, Turkey. For this reason we do include return shipping to Heidelberg, Germany at the end of the tour in Xian, China.


Please contact us in regard to shipping. If you wish to join a tour and live outside of the continental United States.  Our preferred partner for uncrated, air shipment of motorcycles overseas is Motorcycle Express.


- All lodgings and accommodations. We try to obtain the best available accommodations for you every night.   Of course, these are reserved well in advance. Included in our requirements - secure parking for the motorcycles. When we say "best available", we mean exactly that.  Generally, the accommodations will be "3" to "4" star if such exist.   At times, the government agency granting our tour permits determines where we will stay. At other times, where we spend the night is a function of the distance we can reasonably travel in a given day, and the "best available" accommodations may be the ONLY lodgings available, and these may of a dramatically lower standard than you are accustomed to. It's all part of the adventure!


All tour package fees are quoted "double occupancy", meaning that you will be sharing a room with another tour participant.  For those who prefer a single/private room where available, a single room upgrade or supplement will be offered for an additional fee.


- Meals. Breakfast is included every day. To allow you the greatest flexibility in your daily ride, we generally do not include lunches - you can stop where you want, whenever you want and not be tied to a fixed time or location. Dinners are included almost every night, although there are times when you will be on your own so that you can get out, explore, and see some new faces at the dinner table! Meals may be in the hotels, or arranged at local restaurants. You may be at a buffet, served a limited or fixed menu, or enjoy the luxury of ordering a la carte.


- Group expenses. Every tour has fixed group costs. These include the cost of a chase or passenger vehicle, its driver and fuel.  To educate, translate and, if needed, intervene, we also have a local guide with the group at all times. When touring in major cities, we will leave the bikes at a secure parking area, and will board chartered buses. Many museum and cultural shows and exhibits have been reserved and paid for in advance. There are fees for temporary motorcycle importation, licensing and registration.


- Pre-departure documentation package that may contain travel instructions, vouchers, suggested reading lists, your itinerary, a daily Roadbook that contains detailed activity and routing instruction along with relevant GPS waypoints (coordinates), a Mapbook showing the start and end waypoints for each day's ride, promotional materials from our sponsors, and of course, a GlobeRiders silk-screened T-shirt, made especially for each tour, and pre-ordered in your size.


- A GPS upload. At the start of each tour, we will collect your Garmin portable GPS unit, verify its operation and settings, then upload the needed GPS waypoints and routes for the entire tour.  We will also offer a GPS instructional course for those desiring one.


- And last, but not least, the collective wisdom, experience and know-how of our GlobeRider guides, who will be with you from start to finish, and be there to offer assistance and guidance where they can!

No.


Only qualified riders may participate in our tours.  If you are an experienced rider and seasoned traveler, you may qualify. Our offerings are some of the longest-duration travel adventures available.  Our itineraries are challenging.  Because we believe that you must be self-sufficient at all times, we don't carry your luggage or make you ride in convoy (unless required by local regulations).  The infrastructure, road conditions, customs, food and language along our routes differ dramatically from what most are used to.


We only qualify riders who fully understand that, although we encourage you to ride your own ride, you do so in the context of a group-supported environment.  We need riders with the flexibility to take the initiative where they should, and go with the flow when they must.


Most importantly, we hope for riders who understand we are privileged to undertake journeys like these; that it is our responsibility to do so in a manner respectful of the people and customs in the countries we visit, and to make our way in a manner that is least impactful on the environment.

Our qualification criteria fall into three general areas:

1. You. We have a Rider's Questionnaire that you will complete.  Your responses to our questions will be used as the basis for your qualification. In the Questionnaire, we will ask for three personal references - people you know and respect that we may contact to discuss your viability as a group tour candidate, and your riding and travel experience.  We will also ask you to have a Certification of Good Health signed by you and your physician. You must be a relatively experienced rider, have taken some long distance rides, and be comfortable navigating a loaded adventure touring motorcycle off-pavement.


2. Your bike and gear. You must have a qualified motorcycle. You must be the legal and registered owner of the motorcycle (no lien holder).  Your bike must be properly outfitted. Only adventure touring motorcycles with spoked wheels are qualified for our tours. You must have the proper riding gear and be willing to wear it at all times when your bike is in motion.


3. Your papers.  You must have a valid passport with at least 10 blank pages for visas and stamps (some visas occupy an entire page). The passport must be valid for at least six months beyond your return to your home county at the end of the tour. You must have title and registration on your motorcycle. You must have an International Driving License with motorcycle endorsement. You must provide proof of both medical and medical evacuation insurance. You must sign our Waiver of Liability.

DEPOSITS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE

Your deposit guarantees your reservation for the tour, therefore, it is non-refundable should you choose to withdraw from the tour for whatever reason. HOWEVER, should GlobeRiders cancel the tour, your deposit will be refunded 100%. The only normal reason we would cancel a tour would be insufficient interest/not enough deposits.

TOUR PACKAGE CANCELLATION FEE

Once the tour package fee has been paid (tour package fee minus your deposit), the cancellation policy is:

- You must provide written notice of your cancellation/withdrawal from the tour.

- If your written notice is received 31 or more days before the tour start date, the cancellation fee is 50% of the tour package fee (deposit remains non-refundable).

- If your written notice is received less than 31 days before the tour start date, the cancellation fee is 100% of the tour package fee (deposit remains non-refundable). In other words, we do need written confirmation of your withdrawal, but no money will be refunded. By four week's prior to a tour's departure, we have made all our payments to our suppliers and partners. In addition, we have finalized all visa, shipping and international travel documents. Even if we could find a wait-listed rider ready to depart on short notice, there is no time to process the paperwork.

You will need proper riding gear and must wear it at all times when your bike is in motion. Required are:

- A full-face or flip-up type helmet with face shield, or motocross/enduro-style helmet with goggles.

- A "suitable" one or two-piece riding suit with protective armor

- Riding gloves with finger tips.

- Full-coverage boots with toe and ankle protection.

- Rain gear either in the form of internal suit liners or an outer/over suit.

MEDICAL INSURANCE

We require that you have medical insurance coverage and will ask you to provide the name, policy or membership number, and contact telephone number for your insurance provider. Your medical policy must provide for emergency medical coverage or reimbursement outside your country of residence.


MEDICAL EVACUATION INSURANCE

We require that you have medical evacuation insurance.  This may be included as part of your medical insurance policy, but we STRONGLY ADVISE that you study this coverage closely.  Many medical policies provide only minimal or severely limited coverage, or, may not include evacuation insurance coverage at all if you are in a foreign country.

We are proud to have MedjetAssist as one of our sponsors.  We believe they have the most cost-effective and reliable medical evacuation plan available.  If you purchase an online membership with MedjetAssist via our webpage, GlobeRiders will receive a portion of your membership as an agent's commission.  The cost is the same to you whether you purchase via our webpage, or direct, but we would certainly appreciate your support!


TRAVEL INSURANCE

We strongly recommend, but do not require, travel insurance, which may include trip cancellation, interruption, loss, theft, medical and medical evacuation.  Although we have no affiliation with them, we have found InsureMyTrip.com to have one of the most informative online comparison services to evaluate and purchase travel insurance.


SHIPPING INSURANCE

We recommend that you purchase shipping insurance for your motorcycle.  This is available through our freight forwarding partner and rates will be quoted on request. You may also obtain it on your own - we will ask for proof of coverage before loading your bike in our container.  Remember, on most tours, shipping is round-trip.


MOTORCYCLE INSURANCE

In many countries, third-party liability or comprehensive motorcycle coverage is simply not available for non-residents driving a foreign-registered motorcycle.  This is a fact of life and is a risk that must be considered and planned for. Where coverage is available, we will work with our partners to procure it upon request. On tours that include travel to countries requiring mandatory Green Card insurance coverage, you will pay for this separately in advance, but our local guides will obtain policies and distribute them on arrival. If you know of any companies that provide the type of insurance we are looking for, please contact us, we'd love to offer information about them on our website and in our travel documentation.

To view excerpts from 10 Years on 2 Wheels, Helge's incredible ten-year odyssey around the world, please visit:

10 Years on 2 Wheels


We have a small gut growing line of adventure touring and instructional DVDs.  To view more information on these, to include video trailers and ordering information, please click here.


During most of our recent tours, a Live!Journal (a sort of "weblog") consisting of stories and pictures from tour participant's is created and published to our website en route. These Live!Journals are then archived on our website so that they may be re-visited at any time.  To view the Live!Journals of previous tours, please click here.

Most definitely!


Every GlobeRiders Adventure begins with a pre-run or "recce". Our staff conducts these for many reasons, one of them being to log or capture waypoints, or the numerical position in latitude and longitude, for every accommodations that we'll be staying at - border posts, significant sites of historical or cultural importance, fuel and service stations in remote areas, even a favorite restaurant or two.


In addition, we record and save our tracks, GPS "breadcrumbs" which allow us to precisely replicate the exact route that we followed.


All of this navigational data, in addition to GPS maps for the countries we travel through, are uploaded to each rider's portable GPS receiver at the beginning of every tour. Because we travel in areas where road signs are usually in an unfamiliar language or alphabet, navigation by GPS is the best way to insure our riders make it to each day's destination on their own.


There are an increasing number of GPS manufacturers and smartphones available that include Naavigation Apps with off-line maps.  For what we do, we have found that the hardware and software produced by Garmin is, overall, the best - they make the most sophisticated and robust GPS receivers for Motorcycle Adventure Touring and we recommend their products as shown in the list below.


GPS receivers are constantly under development, and new products are introduced continuously. For many years, we used the Garmin GPSMAP 276C, GPSMAP 376C or GPSMAP 478 on our tours. These have all been discontinued by Garmin but we still support them. Any of the following GPS receivers are acceptable on all GlobeRiders tours.

 

GlobeRiders GPS Recommended List:

• Scenic (iPhone & iPad Navigation App)
• Garmin GPSMAP 276Cx
• BMW Motorrad Navigator IV, V, VI and Adventure
• Garmin zumo™ 395, 590 Series
• Garmin zumo™ 660 Series
• Garmin Montana 600 Series
• Garmin Monterra (pre-approval required)
• Garmin GPSMAP 276C, 376C and 478 (pre-approval required)

The actual software map that we use depends upon what part of the world we'll be in. We usually recommend using OpenStreetMap maps for most of our tours.


For those unfamiliar in GPS use, we conduct tech sessions and classes en route, after the first week, you'll know everything you need to navigate in even the most remote areas we visit.


Of course, one should never rely exclusively on a GPS, and we strongly advise riders to insure they have a good selection of road and highway maps as part of their "kit".


For Garmin's overview on GPS, please click here.


For more in-depth information on GPS, please see Wikipedia's article by clicking here.

 

You can also find device specific articles by Dan Townsley by clicking here.

We certainly recommend you do so.  Once any cargo or shipment has been handed-off to a transportation company or service, it's out of our hands, and although it's a rare occurrence, accidents do happen.


One of our rider/clients asked the opinion of a maritime attorney, here was the response:


"The carrier offers minimal coverage based upon the cargo item as a “package” or “customary freight unit”. The amount paid to you by the carrier is usually limited to $500 or less, or is based upon on a release poundage basis of $.50 or $1.00 per pound. The point is that you cannot replace the bike with the carrier proceeds. If you “declare” a higher shipping value on the bill of lading, you will pay more to ship the bike and, in return, receive the “declared” value if the bike is lost etc. However, the routine way to adequately protect the cargo is to procure your own cargo insurance separately. In doing so, your shipping costs stay at the lower rate and you contract as a first party directly with your cargo insurer. Accordingly, if you do experience a loss, you deal directly with “your” insurer to recover the value of your cargo, i.e., similar to a theft at you house, rather that to seek recovery through the carrier."


Supplemental cargo insurance is option, not required. Generally, you may obtain this directly from our freight forwarder, however, you may be able to obtain less expensive coverage on your own.

Absolutely! We welcome riders from any country, after all, "international" is what it's all about.  Having an international mix of riders enhances the tour for all, and regardless of where we call home, riders share a unique bond that transcends all borders and cultures.

 

 

We can only process visas for those living in the United States, but our travel partners will supply letters of support for those who need to obtain visas in their home country.

 

The only other issue is motorcycle shipment. The surest way to ship a bike is in our container, and if it makes sense, we recommend having your bike delivered to our facility here in Washington State, USA.  However, we have had riders ship bikes direct from their home countries to our ports of embarkation.  And, at tour's end, we will assist in the return shipment of your motorcycle, wherever home may be.