What are the best motorcycle roads in the world?

The World's Best Motorcycle Roads Are a Trap (And How I Fell Into It)

The rain wasn't just falling; it was being hurled sideways by a Patagonian wind that felt like it had started in Antarctica just to spite me. My fingers, numb inside my supposedly waterproof gloves, fumbled with the zipper on my tank bag, searching for a GPS unit whose screen had frozen on a pixelated image of a lake I'd passed three hours ago. I was on the Carretera Austral, Chile's famous Route 7, a road featured on every "Top 10" list ever penned. And I was miserable, cold, and wondering how the hell I'd been seduced by a photograph.

What We'll Cover

1. How a Postcard Picture Cost Me $400 and Two Days
2. The Three Types of "Best" Roads (And Which One You Actually Want)
3. My Gear Miscalculation: Overbuilt for Instagram, Underbuilt for Reality
4. The Art of the Detour: Finding Magic in the "Boring" Bits
5. My Ultimate Setup: The Bike & Gear That Survived the Hype
6. What I'd Do Differently (Spoiler: Sell the Action Camera)
7. FAQ: The Questions I Actually Get After 50,000 Miles of Chasing Lists

How a Postcard Picture Cost Me $400 and Two Days

It was a shot of the Stelvio Pass in Italy. You've seen it: a perfect ribbon of asphalt coiled like a discarded shoelace across a green Alpine mountainside, a tiny motorcycle leaning into a hairpin. I had it as my desktop background for a year. In 2018, I finally got there on my Triumph Tiger 800XC. I'd built a whole week around riding it. The reality? A conga line of rental campers, cyclists wobbling in the lane, and tourist buses that took corners like they were on rails, their mirrors inches from my handlebar. The air smelled of overheated clutch and diesel, not pine and freedom. In my frustration to "make good time," I pushed too hard on a damp patch of shadow and experienced a heart-stopping rear-wheel slide that had me kissing the guardrail. No crash, but my confidence was shredded. I spent the next two days and roughly 400 Euros holed up in a pension in Bormio, mentally replaying that slide and fixing a slow leak in my rear tire caused by a nail picked up in the crowded parking lot at the summit. The "best road in the world" had become a stressful, expensive obstacle course.

The lesson was brutal: A road's reputation is its own worst enemy. The "best" roads, as dictated by magazines and algorithms, are victims of their success. They are crowded, often policed, and the pressure to "enjoy" them can make you ride like an idiot. What I learned is that the experience of a road has almost nothing to do with its topography and everything to do with its context—the traffic, the weather, your mindset, and whether you're there on a Tuesday morning or a Saturday afternoon.

My Tactic Now: The Anti-Bucket List

• I hunt for the road before the famous one. Instead of the Stelvio, I now seek out the SS38 from Bormio to Livigno, or the crazy little pass to Santa Catarina. They're on the map, but not the poster. The asphalt is just as good, the views are arguably better, and you might have it to yourself for twenty glorious minutes.
• I use satellite view, not just the map. That thin grey line on Google Maps might be a freshly paved gem or a goat track of shattered concrete. Zoom in. See if it's tree-lined (shade, wind protection) or exposed (views, but also weather). I look for the telltale shimmer of new asphalt or the ragged edge of a dirt road. This is how I found the road from El Chalten to Lago del Desierto in Argentina—a 37km stretch of ripio (gravel) that runs parallel to the Fitz Roy massif that had maybe three cars on it.

The Three Types of "Best" Roads (And Which One You Actually Want)

I was in Laos, somewhere between the Mekong River and the Annamite Range, on a rented Honda XR150 with questionable brakes. The "road" was a red-dirt scar through the jungle, pockmarked with monsoon ruts and dotted with chickens that displayed a suicidal lack of self-preservation. My goal was to reach a village I'd seen marked as a dot: Ban Nalan. It took six hours to go 80 kilometers. I arrived caked in dust, my fillings rattled loose, and was greeted by a group of kids who laughed at the orange man on the small bike. That night, drinking lukewarm Beerlao with the village headman, who spoke no English but plenty of charades, I had a revelation. This wasn't a "great riding road" in any traditional sense. It was slow, technical, uncomfortable. But as an experience, it was pure gold. It was the road that forced engagement, that delivered me somewhere, not just through something.

I now categorize "best" roads into three types, and I only actively seek out two of them.

Type 1: The Amusement Park Ride (The Stelvio, Tail of the Dragon)

These are the technical marvels. Perfect asphalt, engineered corners, dramatic elevation. They're for sport riding, for testing your lean angles and your bike's suspension. They're fun, but they're a closed loop. You start and end in the same place, and the road itself is the destination. My mistake was treating all great roads like this. On the Transfagarasan in Romania, I was so focused on apexes that I missed the crumbling castle on the hill until my third run up it. These roads demand a specific mindset: go early, go mid-week, treat it like a track day, not a journey.

Type 2: The Conduit Road (Carretera Austral, Ruta 40)

This is the long ribbon that connects two distant points through epic scenery. The riding can be monotonous (long straights, gentle curves) but the scale is the point. The challenge here is endurance and logistics. My Patagonia misery happened because I focused on the road's reputation and forgot about the infrastructure (or lack thereof). On a Conduit road, the 300km between fuel stops is the real test. These roads reward preparation, a comfortable seat, and a willingness to be small in a vast landscape. The beauty is often in the roadside pull-offs, not the corners.

Type 3: The Delivery System Road (Most of my favorites)

This is the road that takes you from the known to the unknown. It's often unpaved, sometimes barely on the map. Its "quality" is irrelevant. Its value is in what it delivers you to: a hidden hot spring, a village with no electricity, a viewpoint you can't find on Instagram. The road to Ban Nalan was a Delivery System. So was the track I took off the Dalton Highway in Alaska to get to the tiny settlement of Wiseman. The road itself was awful—mud, shale, potholes filled with rainwater the color of weak tea. But it delivered me to a cabin where an old prospector told me stories for hours. These roads aren't on most lists. You find them by talking to locals, by seeing a faint line on a paper map, by saying "I wonder where that goes."

My Shortcut: When you look at a famous road, find what it connects. Then, look at the smaller roads that spiderweb off from those connection points. The magic is almost always in the capillaries, not the aorta.

My Gear Miscalculation: Overbuilt for Instagram, Underbuilt for Reality

For my "Big Trip" to South America, I bought the kit. The $800 Klim Adventure Rally suit, the $600 Sidi Adventure 2 boots, a $400 Schuberth helmet with a built-in comms system. I looked like a Dakar racer on a budget. And for the first week on paved roads in Chile, I felt invincible. Then I hit the ripio. The Klim suit, while tough, was about as ventilated as a trash bag. At 85°F, I was stewing in my own juices. The Sidi boots were so stiff that feeling the rear brake pedal was a challenge, a real problem on loose gravel where modulation is life. The Schuberth's comms system failed after a heavy dew because, as I later learned from a German rider in a bar, "the microphone gasket is a piece of shit, everyone knows this." I spent two days riding incommunicado, my only sound the howl of the wind and the nagging voice in my head that said I'd bought the "best" gear for the photo, not for the ride.

The turning point was in El Bolson, Argentina. I met a Chilean rider named Javier on a 1998 BMW F650 Funduro. His gear? A faded leather jacket, sturdy jeans, well-worn but flexible touring boots, and an old Nolan helmet. He was clean, comfortable, and had been on the road for six months. My kit was "better" in every spec sheet metric, but his was right. He could feel his bike, he wasn't overheating, and when a strap broke, he could fix it with a zip tie from the gas station. I felt like a cosplayer.

The Gear Philosophy I Adopted: The 80/20 Rule

• Boots are for walking too. I swapped the ultra-stiff ADV boots for a pair of Forma Terra Evo Low's. They're shorter, more flexible, but still have a good shank and protection. I can walk around a town for an hour without looking like a robot. This change alone improved my mood and my riding on technical terrain.
• Layers beat a fortress. I abandoned the single-piece armored suit. Now I ride with a ventilated mesh jacket (the Klim Induction, which I got on sale for $250) and separate riding pants. I can strip layers. I carry a lightweight waterproof shell that goes over everything, not a built-in membrane that cooks me. This system cost less and is infinitely more adaptable.
• Electronics are passengers, not pilots. My GPS is now a weathered Garmin Zumo XT mounted with a vibration-dampening mount from Touratech (a $75 lesson I learned after killing a cheaper unit). My phone runs Gaia GPS as a backup. I keep them both in airplane mode 90% of the time to save battery. The romance of the open road is killed by the constant chirp of a Bluetooth connection.

Cautionary Tale: I bought a "state-of-the-art" inflatable hip/back protector system that integrated into my pants. It deployed spontaneously while I was filtering through traffic in Mendoza, Argentina. The sudden inflation around my kidneys was so shocking I nearly dropped the bike. I spent $350 to feel like the Michelin Man had assaulted me in an intersection. I now use standard, non-inflating D3O armor. It's dumb, simple, and has never tried to surprise me.

The Art of the Detour: Finding Magic in the "Boring" Bits

The plan was simple: ride from Queenstown to Milford Sound in New Zealand, a route hailed as one of the planet's finest. I made it to Te Anau, the gateway, under a sky the color of wet slate. The forecast for the Sound was 36 hours of solid rain and 50mph winds. The famous road was closed due to avalanche risk. I was dejected, sitting in a cafe, tracing my finger along a paper map—a habit I've kept for moments like this. I saw a thin, squiggly line heading north from Mossburn, labeled simply "Mavora Lakes Road." Dirt. No services. 80 kilometers of who-knows-what.

I took it. What followed was two hours of sublime, solitary riding through beech forest, along crystal-clear rivers, and past lakes so still they doubled the mountains. I saw more wild deer than cars. I ate my lunch on a jetty, the only sound the lapping of water and the distant cry of a bird. It was, without a single switchback or dramatic cliff edge, one of the best rides of my life. It wasn't on any list. It was a detour born of failure.

I've since built this into my methodology. I now plan for detours. I allocate "buffer days" with no destination, or I identify a "bail-out" route for every famous stretch. Some of my best discoveries:

• Instead of the Pacific Coast Highway (often foggy and congested), I took the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road inland from Big Sur. A narrow, climbing, technical road through the Los Padres forest that smelled of dry oak and hot earth, with zero traffic.
• Instead of the entire Ring Road in Iceland, I spent three days exploring the Westfjords. Road 60 to Latrabjarg is a brutal, washboarded, breathtaking coastal track that ends at a bird cliff. I had a flat tire there, changed it with frozen fingers, and remember it more fondly than the perfectly paved tunnel under the fjord near Akureyri.
• The conversation that changed my route: In Georgia (the country), at a roadside shack selling *khachapuri*, I asked the owner, an old man with hands like tree roots, where the road behind his shop went. He said,

  "To my cousin's village. The asphalt is bad. But the wine is good."

  I went. He was right on both counts. The village was Ushguli, and the "bad asphalt" was a river-rock track clinging to a mountain. I spent the night on his cousin's floor, drinking amber wine from a horn, for the equivalent of $15.

My Ultimate Setup: The Bike & Gear That Survived the Hype

After selling the Triumph and going through a Suzuki DR650 phase, I've settled on a setup that works for my 80/20 style (80% paved, 20% unpaved, 100% unpredictable). Here's the exact, non-sponsored, warts-and-all breakdown of what I ride with now, after the expensive lessons.

Item	What I Use	Cost (When I Bought)	Why/Why Not
Motorcycle	2019 Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sports (DCT)	$14,200 used (2022)	Why: The DCT is a game-changer for long days and technical terrain. No clutch hand fatigue. The bike is a tank, simple, with a 24L tank. Why Not: It's heavy. Dropping it on a slope in Morocco required a five-minute breather and some creative cursing. The stock suspension is soft for serious off-road.
Helmet	Arai XD4 (Solid Matte Black)	$650 new (2023)	Why: The fit is perfect for my head shape. The peak is indispensable for sun and light rain. It's noisy as hell, but I wear earplugs anyway. Why Not: Expensive. The visor mechanism feels flimsy compared to the rest of the helmet. Pinlock insert is mandatory.
Jacket	Klim Induction (Mesh)	$250 on sale	Why: Flows massive amounts of air. Takes D3O armor. Looks decent off the bike. Why Not: Zero weather protection. You need a separate layer for rain/cold. Zippers can stick if you get them muddy.
Pants	Rev'It Sand 3	$320	Why: Comfortable enough to wear all day. Good ventilation. The "click-connect" to my jacket is stupidly convenient. Why Not: The knee armor slides down if you don't adjust the straps perfectly. The material shows dirt stains like a badge of dishonor.
Navigation	Garmin Zumo XT + GaiaGPS on iPhone	$400 (Garmin) + $40/yr (Gaia)	Why: Zumo is weatherproof and has a great screen. I use it for primary routing. Gaia on my phone (in a Quad Lock case with vibration damper) is for exploring, offline topo maps, and marking waypoints. Why Not: Garmin's base maps can be outdated. The "Adventurous Routing" option once tried to send me down a hiking trail. You must curate your own routes.
Camping	MSR Hubba Hubba NX 2 + Therm-a-Rest NeoAir	$450 (tent) + $180 (pad)	Why: Fast to set up, freestanding, has survived Patagonian winds. The pad is warm and packs small. Why Not: Tent is not cheap. On a 28-day trip, I only used it 4 times. Often, a $30 hostel bed and a hot shower win.

The Daily Running Cost: I budget $75-$100 per day when moving. This covers fuel (my bike gets ~40mpg, so ~$25/day), a basic lunch ($10), a decent dinner ($20-$30), a budget hotel or campground ($15-$40), and a buffer for tolls, coffee, and the inevitable ice cream. In Southeast Asia, that drops to $40/day. In Scandinavia, it balloons to $150. I track it all in a stupid Google Sheet because seeing the numbers keeps me honest.

What I'd Do Differently (Spoiler: Sell the Action Camera)

This is the painful, honest recap. The stuff that keeps me up at night, or makes me laugh with the benefit of hindsight.

1. I'd buy a cheaper, lighter bike first. The Africa Twin is brilliant, but starting on a used BMW G650GS or a KLR650 would have taught me more, cost less to drop, and forced me to focus on riding, not electronics. The 300cc rally in Laos on that Honda XR taught me more about momentum and line choice than any big-bike course.

2. I'd never, ever buy "adventure" luggage new. My $1,200 set of aluminum panniers got dented, scratched, and the lock mechanism failed in the dust of Uzbekistan. A fellow rider had a set of used, scratched-up Touratc*ch panniers he bought for $400, and they worked just as well. The romance of shiny new gear evaporates at the first drop. Now, I use a combination of a soft tail bag (the Mosko Moto Reckless 80L, bought second-hand) and a single, cheap aluminum pannier on the left side for tools and wet gear.

3. I'd stop filming everything. I carried a GoPro for years. I spent hours charging batteries, fiddling with mounts, and editing clips that maybe three people watched. The pressure to "document" pulled me out of the moment. I sold it. Now I take a few still photos with my phone. My memory is a better editor.

4. I'd learn basic mechanical before leaving. My first flat tire change took 90 minutes and two broken tire levers. I'd paid for a class but skipped the "boring" tire module. Stupid. I later spent a Saturday in a friendly dealer's garage and learned to do it properly. This skill has saved me days of waiting.

5. I'd embrace the stop. I used to think covering distance was the goal. I'd ride through a beautiful valley thinking about the pass ahead. Now, if something catches my eye—a weird rock formation, a promising dirt track, a cafe with three old men out front—I stop. The schedule can wait. The best stories never come from the planned stops.

FAQ: The Questions I Actually Get After 50,000 Miles of Chasing Lists

"Aren't you scared riding alone?"

Less scared than I am commuting in city traffic. The perceived danger is high, the actual statistical risk, if you're sober and wearing gear, is manageable. The loneliness is a bigger challenge. I combat it by staying in hostels sometimes, or using sites like Horizons Unlimited to meet other riders. But yes, there are moments—a strange noise in the dark in a Kazakh campsite, a fever in a Bulgarian hotel room—where fear is real. You learn you're tougher than you think.

"What's the one road I absolutely must ride before I die?"

I hate this question. It's the wrong question. But if you put a gun to my head: M-41, the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan, from Dushanbe to Osh. Not for the road quality (it's awful), but for the sheer, overwhelming scale of it. The 4,655m Ak-Baital Pass, the lunar landscapes, the ancient Silk Road feel. It's a Delivery System road that delivers you to another century. Bring extra fuel cans and a strong stomach for the altitude.

"How do you afford it?"

I don't have kids. I drive a 12-year-old car at home. I prioritized this over other hobbies. I saved for three years for my big trip by automating a $500/month transfer to a separate account. On the road, I cook sometimes, I camp sometimes, I avoid fancy hotels. It's not a permanent vacation; it's a prioritized expenditure. A 3-month trip can cost less than a new Harley.

"Did you ever want to quit?"

Yes. In Turkey, after three straight days of cold, horizontal rain, fighting with trucks on the Black Sea coast road, with a persistent leak in my boot letting in water, I sat in a grim, damp hotel room in Zonguldak and looked up flights home. I didn't quit. I took a rest day, bought a cheap hairdryer to dry my gear, and found a better route inland. The urge to quit usually means you need a rest day, not a flight home.

"What about theft?"

I've had a tank bag stolen from an unlocked top box in Naples (my fault). I use a heavy Kryptonite chain and disc lock for overnight in sketchy areas ($120 investment). Mostly, I rely on not looking like a target. My bike is dirty, my bags are scuffed. I park it where there are other bikes or in view of a cafe. In 50,000 miles, one theft. Statistically, my bike is safer on the road in Bolivia than on the street in San Francisco.

"How do you deal with borders?"

With patience and a smile. The worst was crossing from Uzbekistan into Turkmenistan. It took 6 hours, involved multiple officials leafing through every page of my journal, and a "fee" of $50 for a "special stamp" that was clearly a bribe. I paid it. My rule: Be polite, have every document in perfect order (Carnet, passport, insurance, vehicle registration), and never, ever argue. The guy with the stamp has all the power. The best was leaving Montenegro into Bosnia, where the guard saw my bike, gave me a thumbs up, and waved me through without even opening my passport.

"Don't you get bored?"

On a 500km straight shot across the Nullarbor in Australia? Absolutely. Audiobooks and podcasts saved my sanity. But boredom is part of the rhythm. The boring stretches make the amazing moments pop. You can't have peaks without valleys.

Your Next Step

Forget the lists. Seriously. Open Google Maps. Zoom in on a region that intrigues you—maybe the Balkans, maybe Mexico's Baja, maybe your own state. Look for the squiggly lines, the roads that follow rivers or ridge lines. Find a town with a name you can't pronounce. Make that your destination. Plan a two-day loop to get there and back. Don't research it. Don't look for photos. Just go. The goal isn't to ride a "best" road; it's to have your road, with all its imperfections and surprises. That's the secret they don't put in the magazines.

What's the most overhyped road you've ever ridden, and what hidden gem did you find because of it? Tell me in the comments—I'm always looking for new "bad" recommendations.