An Extensive Guide To Bike Tour Planning

In the summer of 2008 I traveled with my new Bike Friday folding bicycle and spent 8 days on the island of Aruba. Around this time I produced the following article (which is the first part of a three part series on my trip to Aruba, which I never published… until now) about how I planned my trip, what items I brought with me, why I chose to go to Aruba, and how you too can plan a short trip to anywhere in the world with your bicycle.

The content of this article was written over a year ago, so some of the electronics have gone out of date, but the concepts and ideas presented in regards to planning your own bicycle touring adventure still hold strong. This is my gift to you on my 26th birthday, so please enjoy!

Why Aruba?

Aruba is a place I never dreamt of visiting. One month ago, I wasn’t even 100% sure where Aruba was on a map (it’s located about 20 miles north of Venezuela in the Dutch Caribbean).

So why in the world did I decide to go to Aruba? And why should you visit this incredible island paradise?

As to why you should visit this place, I can’t tell you that yet. Because as I write this, I have yet to see Aruba. But as you venture further into the material I’ve provided for you here, you will begin to see more and more of the beauty that is Aruba. I’ll be walking you through the planning and preparation for the trip; I’ll be taking you on the tour with me and I’ll be showing you how I get around the island, see the sites, and meet the people; And I’ll be showing you my return home and what has to happen when your trip comes to an end.

As to why I chose to travel to Aruba for an 8-day vacation… that’s a interesting story!

The reason I am going to Aruba is because approximately two months ago my mother called me up late at night and told me that she and my father were not going to be able to use their timeshare this year and that if I wanted to use it, I could.

I, of course, jumped on the opportunity and quickly began planning my trip.

NOTE: This is a great way for you to get free accommodations while you are traveling. Keep your eyes and ears open for friends, family members, and co-workers who might have unused timeshare that you can use. You may not be able to get the timeshare for free like I did, but you can likely find a great price on a timeshare if you are willing to put in the work and keep your eyes and ears open to timeshare opportunities.

The timeshare would allow me to stay in a number of two bedroom suites in about 50 different countries around the world.

At first I was looking into locations in Europe, as I am currently trying to learn German. Austria and Switzerland were on the top of my list, but as time went on, I realized that I did not have the time or money to travel to Europe at this exact moment.

So then I began looking into locations closer to home.

There were a number of places to chose from here in the United States, but I wanted to get out of the country and really explore, so I began looking into Central and South America.

Mexico, Guatemala, and Columbia were at the top of my list, but Mexico was cut out because I have been there before. Guatemala was eliminated because the airport was 100 miles from the resort and there was absolutely nothing to do near the resort once I did get there… so Columbia was the only choice left. But I eventually eliminated Columbia because I knew that I’d most likely be traveling alone… and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to go to Columbia by myself – especially since this would have been my first time ever in South America. If I had had a friend or family member traveling with me to Columbia, I would have gone there in a heartbeat.

NOTE: I’ve made some important points here that you should take note of when you are planning a trip. First of all, visit a place that you really want to visit! I could have taken the easy route and gone to Colorado or Wisconsin, but I didn’t want to go there. I stuck to my guns and picked out places I was truly interested in visiting. Secondly, I did some research and found out how far it was from the airports I would be landing at to the hotels/resorts I would be staying at. At the time that I was planning this trip, I was not 100% sure I would be bringing a bike with me, so I looked for locations that I could easily walk to – meaning that the resort had to be less than 15 miles away from the airport. And finally, I kept safety in mind. I would have loved to travel to Columbia. I still want to go there, but I really want to go there with a friend. I want some backup! I don’t speak any Spanish, so I knew that diving right into Columbia without another South American travel experience would be an incredible challenge. Keep safety in mind!

After all of these locations had been eliminated, I saw Aruba on the list of resorts and decided to look into it.

There were three or four resorts available on the island. They were all within a mile or two of one another, so I picked the one with the largest accommodations – a one-bedroom suite at theCaribbean Palm Village – about a mile from the beach.

Important Things To Keep In Mind When Selecting Accommodations

In the case of this trip to Aruba, I knew that I would be staying in a resort/hotel for the duration of my stay. Unlike my past tours where I have mainly camped, staying in a hotel means that the packing and preparation for the tour are going to be immensely different.

Here are some things to keep in mind when selecting a location for your travel adventure:

• Pick a place you are interested in.
• Try picking a place you’ve never been to before. Some people visit the same exotic place time and time again. Go against the grain and explore some place new!
• Do your homework and find out whether the place you plan to visit is safe. In the case of Aruba, it’s supposedly one of the safest places in the Caribbean.
• If the place you are staying has a website, check out the site. Pay special attention to the photos and amenities.
• Find out how far the hotel is from the airport. Whether you are walking, biking, or taking a taxi or bus to your hotel, you’re gonna want to know how far it is to the hotel.

• If possible, try and find other people who have stayed where you plan to stay and see what they had to say about the place. As far as my stay at the Caribbean Palm Village, some people said wonderful things about it. Others said that the resort was dated and too far away from the beach. The negative comments didn’t bother me too much, so I decided to go for it.
• If you’re planning to travel with any sort of electronics, look into the electricity situation. Find out if you need a power converter, etc. According to the official Aruba website, “the island functions on the North American voltage standard of 110 A.C. (60 cycles), the same as in the United States and Canada. The TV standard is NTSC so your home video camera will also play back on the hotel’s TV sets or large screen projectors.”
• Internet is also something to look into. I am planning to bring my laptop computer with me on the trip. I hope to update my website and do a little bit of work while I am on the island, so it would be a good idea to find out if the hotel you are staying at has an Internet connection available to it’s guests. If it does, find out if it is free or if there is some charge for using the service. I have not yet looked into the Internet situation for this trip to Aruba, so it’ something I’ll figure out once I arrive. I’m not too concerned about having Internet while I’m away, so I’ll figure it out once I get there.
• Lastly, find out what language they speak! If you don’t speak the language, you may have some trouble. And if that’s the case, try and learn a few words before you leave home. As far as Aruba is concerned, “Dutch and the local language of Papiamento are the official languages of Aruba, but most Arubans speak a minimum of four languages including English and Spanish.”
• Picking your accommodations is an important part of making your trip a success. Pick the right place and you’ll have the time of your life! But pick the wrong place and the whole trip could easily turn into a disaster.

Finding Cheap Airfare

I’d love to be in a situation where I don’t have to worry about money and I flew on a private jet or in first class to the many global destinations I want to visit, but that simply isn’t the case (or at least not yet). Until that time comes, I’m doing my best to hunt down the best airfare deals possible.

Because airfare is a topic I get asked about a lot, I wrote up an article about the The Top 8 Websites For Booking A Flight… you can read that article by clicking here.

How To Rack Up The Airline Miles And Fly For Free

Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past decade, you likely know that there are multiple ways to build up airlines miles and fly for free! I’ve only recently started collecting airline miles, so my trip to Aruba was far from free, but I’m using my Aruba vacation to accumulate airline miles in two different ways.

The first way that I am using my trip to Aruba to collect airline miles is by using my Capital One No Hassle Rewards credit card.

With this card, I earn 1.25 miles for every dollar I spend. I purchased my airline ticket with this credit card and spent $493.30 for a round-trip flight from Salt Lake City, Utah to the AUA airport in Aruba. With that amount, I earned 616 airline miles, which I will be able to use
on a future flight.

Because I fly on Delta a lot… and because my flight to Aruba is with Delta as well, I signed up for the Delta SkyMiles program.

With this program, every time I fly with Delta or use a number of other travel related services with my Delta SkyMiles card, I rack up miles that I can use at a later time to fly for free… or for an extremely discounted price.

Almost all of the major airlines now have reward programs of some type. Most of them are free… and they can really pay off if you fly/travel a lot. But if you barely ever leave home, having a credit card like the Capital One card I mentioned above is likely our best bet for racking up some free airline miles.

Researching Your Destination

Before you leave on tour, you’re going to want to do some research on the areas you will be visiting.

With Internet access available to almost anyone, anywhere… research for a bicycle tour is becoming easier and easier.

On more established routes, like the TransAm route in the United States, you might begin planning for the tour by purchasing a book on the route. But for trips such as this one to Aruba, there is no book on the subject, so I had to go about doing my research in another way.

For this trip to Aruba, I have conducted my research in 4 different ways.

• The first thing I did was Google “Aruba.” By doing this I was able to find the official Aruba website that was filled with information that I would need for the trip. I also found a whole host of other websites about Aruba, traveling in Aruba, reviews of hotels in Aruba, etc.
• Then I used Google Earth to view satellite photos of the island.
• I also talked to friends and family members to see if any of them had ever been to Aruba or known anyone else that might have been to Aruba. As it turned out, one of my father’s employees had just recently been to Aruba. She told me it was hot and that a week in Aruba was just enough time to see and do practically everything on the island.
• Lastly, I started talking about my trip to Aruba on my website at BicycleTouringPro.com. As soon as I started doing this, I began to get emails from people who were either in Aruba at that exact moment… or people who had been to Aruba at some point in time.

Here is an email conversation I had with one of my readers who happened to be in Aruba when I first started mentioning the trip on my site. I have changed the name of the writer for privacy purposes

Darren,

I am in Aruba right now and there is NO bike culture here. Did actually see 2 fellows on MTN bikes headed towards the badlands and one fella on a road bike but the roads are terrible, drivers not savvy and besides it is too hot except early AM or just at dusk. Small Island, good beach. Here working for 3 weeks.

- Frank -

Frank,

Thank you so much for writing! I can’t believe you are in Aruba right now. What do you do for work that requires you to be in Aruba for 3 weeks?

And thank you for your notes on biking in Aruba. I really have no idea what to expect. I’m not a beach person either, so it is going to be strange for me, but I’m still looking forward to it.

I did read somewhere online that the biking on the island wasn’t very good unless you had a mountain bike, but I’ll just have to wait and see. I am staying on the north side of the island, but most of the things I am interested in are on the south side of the island, so I will have to bike down there to check everything out. But thank you for giving me a little “heads up” on the weather, road conditions, etc. If you have any other insights, thoughts, etc. about Aruba, please let me know!

- Darren Alff -

Darren,

There are sights to see on the beach especially with tourists from the Netherlands. Must get maximum body exposure to the sun’s rays ya know!

I did find one bike shop in phone book. Yes, mountain bike is the way to go because of rough roads and chances to go exploring.

(Then he went on to describe what he did for work and why he was on the island, etc. I’ve left it out to protect the writer’s privacy)

Most rental bikes seen here are boardwalk cruisers or beat up cheap mountain models. Are you bringing a cycle?

Enjoy your visit.

- Frank -

Frank,

Thanks for the additional info on Aruba.

I am trying to get a folding bike for my trip to Aruba. I’ve always wanted to have a folding bike, and I have a number of small getaways planned this year that would be perfect for a folding bike. So that’s what I’m trying to do. If the folding bike thing doesn’t work out, I may bring my own bike or just rent one there. I’m not sure which. I would probably bring my own bike.

Anyway, thanks again for writing and giving me a heads up. I appreciate it!

- Darren Alff -

Darren,

There is a shop (Trek dealer) on the island away from the tourist zone at St Cruz. They do rent mountain bikes. Went by yesterday. Owner nice.

- Frank -

The reason I’ve typed out this entire conversation for you is because I want you to see just how much information you can get from someone who has “been there” and “done that.”

In this case, I was emailing back and forth with a fellow cyclist, so he was one of the best possible people I could have gotten hold of.

NOTE: You probably noticed that “Frank” said some pretty negative things about Aruba in his first email to me. He said that the roads were bad, the drivers were horrible, and that it was too hot to even go outside. The point I want to make is that you should never let a comment like this get to you. Especially if it is only coming from one person. If, on the other hand, you get the same comments from 100 different people, there might be something to take note of there. I usually don’t think too much about what other people say in regards to these things. For him, maybe the roads are bad and the drivers can’t drive. But to me, compared to what I’ve ridden in the past, I might think that the roads are great… and the drivers are courteous too! It’s all a matter of opinion, so don’t let what someone else says drag you down and spoil your plans for the ultimate bicycle adventure. Do your research and listen to what people recommend, but don’t let a single comment ruin your entire trip.

Using Google Earth To Map Out Your Trip

One of my favorite ways to plan a bike tour is by doing some research with Google Earth. Google Earth is a free program that you can get here. Rather than type out exactly what it is and how you can use it to plan your next bike tour, I’ve produced a short video where I show you how I was able to use Google Earth to plan my trip to Aruba. I also give you some tips on how you can use the program to plan a bike trip of your own.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Planning With A GPS

After you’ve plotted out all the places you want to visit with Google Earth, you can then begin entering the GPS coordinates into your GPS device.

In case you don’t know, A GPS (Global Positioning System) is a handheld device that calculates its position using the signals from four or more GPS satellites. You can read more about GPS devices here.

Once you’ve got your points of interest plotted into your GPS device, you can use the GPS as you travel to find your way. I will show you a working demonstration of how I use the GPS once I get to Aruba, but the first step is to plot the GPS coordinates into the GPS.

Below you will see my complete map of Aruba that I created with Google Earth. I have plotted out all the points I want to visit while I am there

The next step is to enter the GPS coordinates for each and every single one of those green thumb tacks.

To do this, start with a single point of interest. Zoom in on the place marker (thumb tack) and find the GPS coordinates that correspond with that place marker.

There are two ways to do this.

The first way is to hold your mouse over the place marker and then look in the bottom left hand corner of the Google Earth screen. There you will find a series of numbers. I have pointed out these numbers in the screen shot below.

These numbers are the GPS coordinates that you want to enter into your GPS.

The other way to find these numbers is to hold your mouse over the placemarker and right click. A menu will pop up and you want to scroll down and select “Properties”

Once you’ve done that, a window will pop up displaying the name and GPS coordinates of that particular place-marker.

You’ve now found the GPS coordinates. But now what do you do with them?

You have to enter them into your GPS device!

Below is a photo of my particular GPS unit. This particular unit is a Garmin eTrex Legend . It is a black and white, no thrills GPS unit that cost me about $120 at the time of purchase. There are much more expensive and fancy models out there, but I’ve found that for my purposes, this is all I need.

Garmin eTrex Legend

Every GPS unit is different, so I can’t go into all the details on exactly how to enter to coordinates into the GPS device, but the short story is that you find the menu screen where you can “mark” GPS coordinates and you simply type in the corresponding coordinates that you found in Google Earth.

It’s that simple!

After you’ve entered one point, continue to enter a second and third point. Do this process over and over again until you’ve entered every single placemarker from Google Earth into your GPS.

Crafting An Itinerary

Once you’ve got an idea of the things you want to see and do while on tour, the next step is to organize all those points and create an itinerary.

I have produced a short video where I walk you through exactly how I created the itinerary for this trip to Aruba and I have copied a screen shoot of the actual itinerary I will be using for this trip below.

You can download my actual itinerary here and use it as a template for your own tour.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

The Bicycle

I ended up getting a Bike Friday New World Tourist folding bike for my trip to Aruba. I also purchased the suitcase and trailer that Bike Friday recommends. With this set up, I will be able to fold the bike and trailer up inside the suitcase and have the bike fly for free on the trip to Aruba. (The suitcase with the bike and trailer inside weights about 49 pounds).

Once I get to Aruba, I will unfold the bike from the suitcase, attach the trailer to the bicycle… and then ride off to the hotel. It’s a sweet little package… and it is perfect for anyone looking to travel by bike.

Because I plan to do a lot of traveling with my bicycle in the future, I thought that investing in a folding bike like the New World Tourist would be a good idea.

The New World Tourist is Bike Friday’s touring bike. They make a number of different folding bicycles, but the New World Tourist is the only one that is made specifically for long distance touring. Since this is the type of traveling I do most often, this is the bike I knew I had to get.

Clothes

Like most of my bicycle tours, I planned to travel extremely light. I was going to bring my Bike Friday as my check in baggage and then carry all of my other belongings (clothes, computer, GPS, camera, etc…) with me on the plane inside my Lone Peak briefcase/pannier as my carry on baggage.

Here is a list of the clothes I brought with me:

• Jeans
• Sweatshirt
• Baseball hat
• Belt
• Bicycle Jersey
• Bicycle Shorts
• Underwear
• Rain Jacket
• 2 T-Shirts
• 3 Pairs of Socks

Electronics

I’m taking quite a few electronic devices with me on this trip. If I wanted to travel super light, I would probably only carry my camera and nothing else. But I want to go to Aruba and enjoy myself, so I’m bringing some of my toys with me.

Below is a photograph of the electronic devices I’ll be bringing with me to Aruba. This list of items includes:

• LG VX8550 Chocolate Cell Phone (without it’s charger)
• 1 Sony 4 GB Memory Stick PRO DUO for my digital camera
• 1 128 MB Memory Stick for my digital camera
• AA/AAA Battery Charger
• Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager & Charger
• Garmin eTrex Legend GPS (containing 2 AA Batteries)
• Sony Cybershot DSC-W7 Digital Camera (containing 2 AA Batteries)
• Sony Camera Case
• Azden EX-413 Electret Condencer Microphone
• Sony Vaio VGN-CR220E Laptop Computer& Power Cord
• Spare Rechargeable AA Batteries
• Flasher light for my bicycle

NOTE: I’m not bringing the charger for my cell phone because I don’t plan to use the phone at all when I am in Aruba. As soon as I get on the plane in Salt Lake City, I will turn the phone off and it won’t be turned back on until I arrive in New York on my way back to Salt Lake City on May 3rd. The only reason I am bringing it with me at all is because I am planning to meet a friend of mine in New York when I stop there for my layover, so I need a way to get ahold of him once I land. As long as I charge the phone to its maximum before I leave home, the battery should hold just fine and I won’t need to charge my phone at any point in the trip.

NOTE: The reason I am bringing a microphone is because I need the microphone to produce the videos that you are watching on this page. I am making these videos as I travel, so I need the microphone to produce those videos. I will also use the microphone to call home using Skype.

Sony Cybershot DSC-W7

Sony Vaio CR Series Laptop Computer

NOTE: All of these electronic devices will be carried with me onto the plane. None of the items will be inside my checked baggage.

Money, Paperwork, Credit Cards… And More!

Before traveling to a foreign country, make sure you look into the currency that is used there. If necessary, get your currency exchanged before you leave home. In most cases though, you can usually find a place to exchange your money once you arrive.

NOTE: You usually get ripped off if you exchange your money at the airport or in the train / bus station. You’ll typically get a much better exchange rate of you exchange your money before leaving home or away from major travel locations once you arrive in the country you are visiting.

As far as Aruba is concerned, the local money is the Arubian Florin, but the US dollar is also widely accepted, so I won’t bother exchanging my money at any point.

You also need to make sure you have all the correct paperwork with you before leaving home. In my case, I needed my plane tickets, resort reservation paperwork, my passport, and that was it!

You also want to make sure you bring your necessary credit cards, debt cards, or any other forms of currency you plan to use while traveling.

Before You Leave Home:

Before you leave home it is typically a good idea to pay all your bills, rent out your home or condo/apartment if you can, secure your home and car, and double-check to make sure you have everything you will need for your travels.

Once you’ve done all that, you’re ready to go!

To read more about my trip to Aruba, just click here.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Bicycle Touring Pro on Twitter, Facebook or via RSS.

Related Posts

• Why Would Someone Who Hates The Beach Go To Aruba?
• Eight Days In Aruba: My Cycling Adventure
• Flying With A “Bike Friday”
• Bicycle Touring Paperwork: An Example From Germany
• How To Plan A Bike Tour: Start Early – Start Now!