How to plan a motorcycle route?

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How I Plan a Motorcycle Route Now (After 50,000 Miles of Getting It Wrong)

The rain wasn't just falling; it was attacking, a horizontal, ice-chip barrage that found the microscopic gap between my neck and helmet seal. My phone, duct-taped to the handlebars, had died an hour ago, its digital map dissolving into a pixelated gray square somewhere outside a village called Pajcha. I was in Bolivia, on a road that had ceased to be a road, guided by a hunch and the fading memory of a line I'd drawn on a screen in a sunny California café six months prior. That was the moment I realized my entire approach to planning a ride was a beautiful, detailed, utterly useless fantasy.

What We'll Cover

1. The Paper Map Delusion & The First Digital Betrayal
2. Waypoints Are For Suckers (And Why I Was One)
3. The "Local Knowledge" Trap in Oruro, Bolivia
4. Terrain Lies: How Contour Lines Broke My Spirit
5. My Planning Setup: Exact Specs, Apps, and Costs
6. The 24-Hour Pre-Ride Ritual That Saves My Ass
7. What I'd Do Differently (The $500 Day)
8. FAQ: Route Planning Questions I Actually Get

The Paper Map Delusion & The First Digital Betrayal

My first major trip was a 3,000-mile loop through the American Southwest. I was a purist. I spent $87 on a set of beautiful, waxed-canvas National Geographic topographic maps. I pored over them at my kitchen table with a highlighter, tracing what looked like elegant, sweeping lines through the Navajo Nation. I felt like Magellan. The reality? I spent more time folded over my tank, wrestling with a sheet the size of a small tent in a 40mph crosswind, trying to correlate the tiny squiggle labeled "Route 491" with the three identical dirt tracks splitting off in front of me. I missed a turn outside Kayenta because a gust of wind literally ripped the map from my hands. I watched it tumble, a giant blue and green tumbleweed, into the desert. So much for romance.

The lesson was brutal: romance doesn't get you unlost. I switched to digital, feeling like a sellout. I bought a Garmin Zumo 396. I meticulously plotted my next big trip—Colombia to Peru—using BaseCamp software. It was a masterpiece. Every fuel stop, every hotel booking, every scenic overlook was a numbered waypoint. Day one in Colombia: the unit froze solid while navigating the chaotic, seven-lane-free-for-all of Bogotá's Avenida Calle 80. A hard reset erased the entire route. Not just from the device, but from the microSD card too. The $400 "adventure-proof" unit had a meltdown because I'd plugged it into a different USB charger. I was left with a blank screen and a sinking feeling in a city of 8 million.

My Hybrid, Paranoid Data Strategy

• Primary Navigator: My phone, but specifically, the app OsmAnd+. I paid the one-time $25 fee years ago. It uses OpenStreetMap data, which is terrifyingly detailed in places Google ignores. I've found trails in the Guatemalan highlands marked as "dry season motorcycle path" that saved me hours. The key is downloading the complete vector maps for the entire country/region onto my phone's internal storage before I leave Wi-Fi.
• Backup Navigator: A second, older smartphone, permanently in airplane mode, running Gaia GPS (the paid membership, $40/year). I use it solely for its different map layers, especially the USFS and MVUM layers in North America. It once showed me a legal, open forest road in Oregon when Google Maps was screaming at me to backtrack 60 miles.
• The Final Backup: A physical Michelin road atlas of the continent, purchased for about $15. It's not for active navigation. It's for the "total systems failure" scenario. It lives in my duffel, and its sole purpose is to give me a 1:1,000,000 scale overview to point my bike in the vaguely correct direction toward a major city where I can find Wi-Fi and a beer.

Waypoints Are For Suckers (And Why I Was One)

After the Garmin debacle, I became a waypoint addict in OsmAnd. I'd create 30-point routes for a single day's ride. "Point 14: Interesting Rock Formation." "Point 22: Potential Lunch Spot." It gave me a comforting illusion of control. Then, on the Carretera Austral in Chilean Patagonia, I learned about "route recalculation." I was following my perfect purple line when I saw a hand-painted sign for a *mirador* (lookout) pointing down a gravel spur. Ooh, a bonus! I took it. A stunning view of a glacial valley. When I got back to the main road, my app had politely "recalculated" my route. It didn't pick up where I left off; it drew a new, straight line from my current location directly to "Point 18: Hotel in Cochrane," cutting out 80km of the scenic coastal route I'd spent hours plotting. I'd essentially told it to skip the middle.

The lesson: GPS apps think in terms of destinations, not journeys. They are efficiency engines. Your beautiful, meandering scenic route is just an inefficient series of turns to be optimized away. I stopped using turn-by-turn routing for pleasure riding.

The Tracks, Not Routes, Method

• Now, I plan a Track (a breadcrumb trail, a single line) in a planning tool like CalTopo on my laptop. I draw the exact line I want to ride. I make it painfully detailed, hugging every curve of that mountain pass.
• I export that track as a .GPX file and load it onto both my phones. In OsmAnd, I navigate by simply having that track displayed on the map. No voice commands, no "recalculation." Just a pink line on the screen and a little arrow representing me. If I wander off the line, no problem. The line doesn't move. I just ride back to it. It's a visual guide, not a bossy backseat driver.
• For complex days, I'll create a few key "Waypoints" (not route points) for critical, can't-miss-it things: "Border Crossing," "Ferry Dock closes at 5PM," "Only fuel for 200km." These appear as flags I can see relative to my track.

The "Local Knowledge" Trap in Oruro, Bolivia

This one hurts. I was in Oruro, Bolivia, planning to cut over to the Salar de Uyuni via a back route I'd read about on Horizons Unlimited. It was supposed to be challenging but passable. My Spanish is functional, not fluent. At a dusty *llantera* (tire shop) while fixing a slow leak, I asked the mechanic, a man named Jorge with kind eyes and grease to his elbows, about the road. "*¿Está pasable para moto?*" (Is it passable for a bike?). He looked at my heavily-loaded BMW F800GS, sucked his teeth, and shook his head. "*No, señor. Muy malo. Mucho fango*." (Very bad. Lots of mud). He pointed emphatically to the main, paved highway. Dejected, I took the highway, a boring, truck-infested slog.

A week later, over *cervezas* in Uyuni, I met a French couple on a pair of battered Honda XR250s. They'd come the exact way I'd wanted to go. "It was magnificent!" the woman exclaimed. "A little sandy in parts, but dry as a bone. No mud at all." Jorge hadn't lied. From his perspective—a man who fixes broken things for a living—sending a *gringo* on a big bike down a remote track was an invitation to disaster. His "local knowledge" was filtered through a lens of risk assessment for *me*, not the objective condition of the road.

"You have a big bike, you go fast, you carry much," Jorge had said. The French couple had light, simple bikes. Our definitions of "passable" were worlds apart.

How I Vet "Local Intel" Now

• Ask About Specific Vehicles: Instead of "Is the road good?", I now ask, "Did you see a *camión* (truck) or a *colectivo* (minibus) on that road yesterday?" If a public minibus runs it, my GS can handle it. If only donkeys use it, I need to think again.
• Find the Right Local: I seek out other motorcyclists. This often means asking at a gas station until someone points me to the part of town where the *moto-talleres* (motorcycle workshops) are. A rider's idea of a "bad road" is useful. A farmer's is not.
• Cross-Reference in Real Time: I'm now part of a half-dozen region-specific WhatsApp groups (e.g., "MotoTravel Andes," "Central America Overland"). Before a questionable section, I'll send a quick message: "Anyone ridden the T-25 between San Pedro and El Tatio in the last 48 hours?" A live report from someone with skin in the game is worth 1000 travel forum posts from 2018.

Terrain Lies: How Contour Lines Broke My Spirit

On paper—or rather, on the digital topo map—the pass from La Paz to Coroico in Bolivia looked epic. The famous "Death Road" is the tourist route now. I'd found an alternative, a thin gray line snaking over the mountains. The contour lines were tight, indicating steepness, but I'd handled steep before. What the map didn't show was the surface. It was a cobblestone road, but not the cute, European kind. These were giant, slimy, moss-covered, uneven stones the size of bread loaves, laid at a 25-degree incline, in a dense cloud forest fog. My wheels spun uselessly, the bike fishtailing. The smell was incredible—wet earth, rotting vegetation, and my own clutch burning. The sound was the violent *clatter-clank* of my skid plate hammering stone after stone. I had to ride the footbrake and slip the clutch for an hour straight, my left hand cramping into a claw. The map showed a road. It didn't show a medieval torture device for motorcycles.

I learned that elevation is just one dimension. The other three are: surface, exposure, and weather. A 10% gravel grade is a joy. A 10% greasy cobblestone grade is a nightmare. A 10% grade with a 1000-foot drop-off and no guardrail (exposure) is a psychological test. That same grade in a rainstorm is a different activity altogether.

My Surface & Exposure Recon Protocol

• Google Street View is a Time Machine: I'll drag the little yellow man onto my planned track. If it turns blue, I can "drive" the road from 2009 or 2014. The image quality is often poor, but I can see: is it paved? Is it wide? Are there sheer drops? It's not current, but it tells me if it was ever a real road.
• YouTube Search by Coordinates: I'll take a GPS coordinate from my planned track (e.g., -16.1936, -67.7265) and paste it into YouTube. Often, I find dashcam or motovlog footage from a truck or bike that went through there months ago. Watching a Bolivian minibus sway its way down a track tells me everything about width and surface.
• Satellite View Zoom-In: On Google Earth or even the satellite layer in Gaia, I zoom in to 1000ft altitude. At that level, I can distinguish between smooth dirt (light, uniform), rough gravel (speckled), and rocky riverbed (chaotic texture). I look for tire tracks. If I see two clear tracks, it's a road. If I see one, it's a trail. If I see none, it's a gamble.

Warning: The Weather Window Illusion
I planned a 5-day crossing of the Scottish Highlands based on the "average rainfall" for June. Averages are lies. I got five consecutive days of biblical, sideways rain. My "waterproof" gloves filled like balloons, my route was flooded in three places, and I spent a night in a bothy shivering next to a sheep. I now plan routes with multiple bail-out points—paved roads that intersect my track every 50-100km where I can abort to civilization if the sky opens up. Flexibility is more important than the perfect line.

My Planning Setup: Exact Specs, Apps, and Costs

This is the unsexy toolbox. No sponsorships, just what survives in my tank bag and on my devices after years of trial and expensive error.

Item	What I Use	Cost	Why/Why Not
Primary Planning Software	CalTopo (Web Browser)	$50/year (Pro)	I use it for the robust drawing tools, ability to overlay USGS, Forest Service, and slope angle maps. I can draw a track and see the elevation profile instantly. The "Print to PDF" function saves a perfect, zoomable map for my backup tablet. Free version works for 90% of people.
Primary On-Bike App	OsmAnd+ (Android/iOS)	$25 one-time (years ago)	Offline everything. The routing is mediocre, but as a moving map with my pre-loaded track, it's flawless. The points-of-interest database includes wild campsites and water sources users have added. Clunky interface, but it's a workhorse.
Secondary On-Bike App	Gaia GPS (Android/iOS)	$40/year	Purely for its specialty maps (Public Land, MVUM) in the US and its better satellite imagery. I rarely navigate with it, but I reference it when deciding if a side trail is worth exploring.
Hardware 1	Samsung Galaxy S21 (old, retired phone)	$0 (already owned)	This is my dedicated bike GPS. No SIM card, always in airplane mode. Just running OsmAnd and Gaia. Battery lasts 2 days screen-on because no radios are draining it. Mounted with a $25 Quad Lock vibration-dampener case.
Hardware 2	My actual smartphone	N/A	Stays in my pocket. This is for comms, photos, and emergency hotspot if I need to download a new map on the backup phone. It's running Google Maps for in-town navigation where live traffic matters.
Power	USB-C port wired directly to bike battery via a fused circuit	~$35 in parts	After losing power mid-day in Nevada, I hardwired it. Never rely on a power bank you have to remember to charge. The phone on the bars gets a constant trickle.

Tip: The Paper Backup
I print a single 8.5x11" "cheat sheet" for each major leg. It has: 1) A simple line-map screenshot of the track. 2) Key distances between fuel/water/food. 3) Phone numbers for recommended mechanics or hotels at my planned stop. 4) GPS coordinates for a couple of potential wild campsites I've scouted on satellite view. This lives in a clear plastic sleeve in my tank bag map pocket. When everything is dead, I still have this.

The 24-Hour Pre-Ride Ritual That Saves My Ass

This ritual was born from a disaster in Peru. I'd planned a ride from Cusco to Abancay, a known beautiful route. I woke up, loaded my track, and went. By 10 AM, I was stuck in a *manifestación* (roadblock protest) that had been going on for three days. Stones, burning tires, the whole deal. Every local knew about it. I didn't. I lost a full day waiting for it to clear.

Now, the night before any riding day, I do this:

1. Local News Scan: I Google "[Region Name] protestas" or "[Region Name] carretera cerrada" (road closed). I use Twitter search for the major town I'm heading to. It takes 5 minutes.
2. Weather Check at Altitude: I don't just look at the town weather. My track goes over a 4000m pass. I use Windy.com to check the conditions *on the pass* for the exact time I'll be crossing. I've avoided white-out snow and 70mph wind gusts this way.
3. Fuel & Cash Reality Check: I ask the hotel owner or a taxi driver: "Is there *gasolina* in [next town]?" In remote areas, stations run dry. I also get cash *the night before*. Nothing opens at 7 AM on a Sunday in rural Argentina.
4. Track "Sanity Load": I load the day's track into OsmAnd on my primary AND backup phone, and I zoom in on the first 50km. I look for that one critical turnoff from the main highway. I make a mental note: "Turn left 2km after the big blue church."

This ritual has saved me from closed roads, fuel crises, and nasty weather more times than I can count. It turns planning from a theoretical exercise into a dynamic, last-minute intelligence update.

What I'd Do Differently (The $500 Day)

My biggest regret is letting the plan become the boss. In 2019, I was in Albania, behind schedule. I had a booking for a ferry from Patras, Greece to Bari, Italy in three days. To make it, I had to blast through the Albanian Riviera and across Greece. I had a beautiful track plotted along the coast. Halfway through, I saw a sign for a castle in the hills. A local on a scooter waved me over. "*Kështjella! Shumë bukur!*" (Castle! Very beautiful!). I looked at my map. The detour would cost me two hours. I shook my head, pointed at my watch, and rode on.

I made the ferry. I saved my plan. And I have no memory of that afternoon's ride—it was just a stressful, hot slog. I missed a castle, a conversation, and an experience for the sake of a colored line on a screen and a €120 ferry ticket I could have changed. The plan cost me €500 in lost experience, easy. I was a slave to my own GPX file.

Now, I build in "Fudge Days." A 10-day itinerary has 7 days of riding and 3 "buffer" days with no plan. If I see a castle, I take the detour. If I meet cool riders and they invite me to camp by a lake, I join them. The buffer absorbs the delay. If I don't use the buffer, I get a rest day in a nice city, which is never a bad thing. The plan is a suggestion, a framework. It is not the scripture. The moment it starts dictating your "no's," you've lost the plot.

FAQ: Route Planning Questions I Actually Get

"I'm planning my first two-week trip. Should I use a pre-made itinerary from a touring company?"

I did this once, for Peru. It was… fine. It was also the most generic, sanitized version of the country possible. You'll hit all the postcard spots and eat at restaurants with English menus. You will not get lost, have a meaningful breakdown, or share *chicha* with a farmer who fixes your bike with baling wire. If your goal is checklist tourism on two wheels, buy it. If your goal is an adventure, steal the company's route *as a baseline*, then use the methods above to modify it. Add a 50km dirt detour they'd never risk sending clients on. That's where your story happens.

"How many miles/kilometers should I plan per day?"

This is the most common and most personal question. My rule, forged in misery: Take your comfortable day-ride distance at home and cut it by 40%. If you think 400 miles on the interstate is a big day, plan for 240. Why? Fatigue, photo stops, unexpected attractions, bad roads, border crossings, and the sheer mental load of navigating a new place. A 180-mile day on winding Andean roads with a lunch stop and a flat tire will exhaust you more than a 400-mile slab day. I aim for 150-250 miles (250-400km) max. Any more and I'm a zombie at dinner.

"What's the one app I absolutely need?"

If I could only have one: OsmAnd+, with full offline maps downloaded. It's the Swiss Army knife. It's not the best at any one thing, but it will prevent you from being truly, hopelessly lost, which is the primary function of route planning. Google Maps will fail you the moment you lose cell service, which is always when you need it most.

"How do you find those amazing empty roads everyone posts about?"

Two ways: 1) Look for the gray lines, not the yellow ones. On any map, major roads are bold. Zoom in. The thin gray lines are your friends. 2) Ask the wrong question. Don't ask "How do I get to [Destination]?" Ask "What's the most interesting way to get between these two points?" That mindset shift makes you look at the map differently. You start seeking out the squiggles, the gaps, the roads that dead-end at a river (check for a ferry!).

"I'm terrified of getting lost."

Good. A healthy fear keeps you alert. But redefine "lost." You're on a motorcycle with fuel. You're not lost in the *Survivorman* sense. You're just "temporarily uncertain of your position." My protocol: 1) Stop. Breathe. 2) Look at your offline map. Even without a blue dot, you can usually figure out "I'm at a river crossing about 10km south of the big town." 3) If truly baffled, ride to the nearest settlement—even a single house. Point to your map. Someone will help. Getting "lost" and finding your way back is the fastest way to build real navigation confidence. It's a rite of passage.

"How detailed should my plan be for a multi-month trip?"

Plan the first week in detail. Have a vague outline for the first month. Have a list of "must-see" regions for the rest. That's it. Booking things months in advance is a chain around your neck. You'll meet people heading the opposite direction who tell you about an unmissable festival in a place you've never heard of. You need the freedom to say "Yes." I book my first three nights in-country to beat the jetlag, and that's it.

Your Next Step

Don't start by planning the epic trip. That's overwhelming. This weekend, plan a micro-adventure. Pick a town 100 miles away. Don't take the highway. Open CalTopo (or even Google Maps in "avoid highways" mode) and draw the most convoluted, squiggly line you can find to get there. Load it as a track into your phone. Go ride it. Get comfortable with the feeling of following a line, not turn-by-turn directions. Miss a turn. See what happens. Practice the feeling of being "off script." That's the core skill. The rest is just software.

What's the one road or track that's been sitting on your "someday" list? Not the big trip, just that one weird-looking squiggle on the map an hour from your house. Name it in the comments. Maybe saying it out loud is the push you need to go ride it next weekend.

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