Motorcycle Adventure Touring in May

Riding the Karakoram Highway is one of the world's great motorcycle journeys, a paved thread climbing from the plains of Pakistan to the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese border at 4,733 meters, the highest paved international frontier crossing anywhere. Built over two decades by Pakistani and Chinese crews through some of the most broken terrain on the planet, the road follows the Indus gorge and then the Hunza river north, past the hanging glaciers of Rakaposhi, the spire cluster of the Passu Cones, and the turquoise Attabad Lake that drowned a stretch of the old road in 2010 and is now bypassed by long tunnels. The classic ride runs from Islamabad up through Chilas, Gilgit and the Hunza valley to Sost and the Khunjerab, with side roads to Skardu and the Deosai plateau. It is a rider's road for the scenery and the sheer altitude rather than for speed, with hairpins, rough patches, glacial meltwater across the tarmac and army checkposts, all set under a continuous horizon of high peaks.

Morocco condenses extraordinary terrain variety into manageable riding distances from Marrakech. The Tizi n'Tichka pass over the High Atlas at 2,260m, the southern Draa Valley with its kasbahs and palm oases, and the open desert approach to the Sahara dunes near Merzouga are all reachable within a four to seven day circuit. Marrakech has a growing rental scene, and many European riders ferry their own bikes across to Spain or Portugal and ride down through the Rif mountains as a first leg. The country is well set up for motorcycle tourism on main routes.

Georgia packs an extraordinary amount of riding terrain into a small country. The Military Highway north from Tbilisi climbs to the Cross Pass at 2,379m before dropping into Kazbegi, where the Gergeti Trinity Church sits on a ridge above 2,000m with the Caucasus range behind it. From Tbilisi you can also ride west to Kutaisi and the Black Sea coast, south through the cave city at Vardzia, and east into the Kakheti wine country. Few countries in the world give you this variety within a day's ride of the capital. Rental infrastructure has grown substantially in recent years and guided tour companies cover most circuits.

Route 66 is the road trip other road trips are measured against: Chicago to Santa Monica across eight states, 3,900-plus kilometers of diners, deserts, neon, and Americana that riders from Europe and Australia rank as a lifetime goal. What makes it practical rather than mythical is the infrastructure: one-way Harley rental at scale, pick up in Chicago and drop in Los Angeles, exists here and almost nowhere else on earth, and guided operators run 15-day departures with support vans, luggage transfer, and hotels handled. The route threads Albuquerque and Grand Canyon country, so October riders can time the Balloon Fiesta on the way through.

Upper Mustang is a Royal Enfield route through the former Kingdom of Lo, closed to foreigners until 1992 and still gated by a restricted-area permit that keeps traffic to a fraction of Ladakh's. The riding climbs past Muktinath toward the walled city of Lo Manthang across Tibetan-plateau desert, canyon ledges, and river crossings, and because Mustang sits in the trans-Himalayan rain shadow, it stays rideable through the early monsoon months that shut down the rest of Nepal. Tours run seven to twelve days with a support vehicle and mechanic, and the permit math (500 US dollars per ten days, minimum two riders, licensed guide) is part of what preserves the place.

Rethymno sits at the neck of the island, so a day's ride reaches both coasts, the Amari valley and the Kourtaliotiko gorge road.