April 16, 2017
Our Route: This is the plan
We're heading north from Central Florida, following a combination of Adventure Cycling's Atlantic Coast Route and USBR 1. After reaching Maine, we'll continue into New Brunswick, take the ferry to Nova Scotia, tour around the southern shore, then cross to Pictou to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island. After touring PEI, we'll shuttle across the Confederation Bridge, head west across New Brunswick, into Quebec, then south through Ontario to Toronto and across the Niagara Penninsula to re-enter the US at Buffalo. By then, we'll have 5000 miles of riding over four months. That's when we rent a van for the drive back to Florida.
Our trip planning is much more detailed than that done by many other cycle tourers. It’s not that we both have borderline OCD (even though we do get uncomfortably close to that border sometimes 😊), we just really enjoy the planning process. We have a great time sitting at our computers finding routes, things to do and places to stay. We also spend a lot of time here on Crazy Guy reading journals of fellow cyclists. There’s nothing better than learning from those who’ve been there.
We use Adventure Cycling’s maps, the USBR system, Ride With GPS and Google Earth to develop our route. We then create detailed routes for each day on Ride With GPS and upload them to our Garmins. We rely on the Garmins for all our navigation and don’t carry paper maps while we’re travelling. Sometimes we create multiple routes for the same day. This gives us options for the day depending on road and weather conditions or just how we feel.
The number of hours I spend on the Internet researching lodging is almost ridiculous. I can spend an entire afternoon looking at places to stay in just one town, but that is part of the fun of planning our tour. I like feeling that I have made the most informed choice. By having reservations made in advance, we never have to worry about finding a place to sleep. I keep a spreadsheet which includes all the reservation details. If our days don’t go as planned, I’ve never had a problem cancelling or changing reservations.
We don’t see our trip plan as something we’re committed to, no matter what, but as a reliable framework that’s there when we need it and completely flexible when we chose to change it. Plus, as I said, we just love making plans 😊!
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |