Tips for Taking Your Bike on Vacation

by Dean on July 19, 2015

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Bikes can be very useful on vacation. They enable tourists to see some of the most secluded beaches, havens and tourist sights and they can also drastically cut costs of transportation around the area. Now, there are plenty of organized bike tours in almost any tourist country, with good markings and bicycle paths that pass next to some of the most popular tourist sights in the world. Cycling on regular bases also means healthy living and maintaining this useful habit while on vacation will make you feel more vital and relaxed when you come back to work.

Bikes are usually bulky and sometimes it is hard to take them on a holiday. Not all of them are like that though; there are plenty of folding bikes now which you can easily carry everywhere you go. If you still didn’t buy one of these more practical bikes, there are also a lot of ways how you can carry your regular-sized bike on a holiday. In this article we’ll provide you with some tips for bike carrying, depending on the kind of transportation you will choose for reaching your holiday destination.

Bike Holidays

This is probably the easiest way to carry a bike to your vacation. Simply ride it and cut down your traveling expenses. Of course this can only be applied to shorter and closer to home holidays. Although there are bike nomads who cycle thousands of miles on 6 continents, this can be too much of a drag for regular working people. If you choose to spend your holiday on the bike be sure to carry enough food and water supplies and all the tools that might come useful in case of minor bike malfunctions.

Travelling with a bike

On Four Wheels

Taking a bike on your vacation if you’re traveling by car used to be such a drag, but now there are a lot of new practical solutions that enable people to carry their bike from point A to point B without too much hassle. The bike doesn’t need to be disassembled, even if it can’t fit inside the trunk of your car. You can mount bike racks on your car, which are frames that hold the bike steady during the ride, and they can be fitted on the back of the vehicle or on the roof.

Traveling by Train

When it comes to trains in United States Amtrak offers several options when it comes to bike transportation. It can be taken in as checked luggage with or without the box and there is also a special bike rack storage on board which is probably the easiest and the safest way of transport, but not all trains come with this service, so the whole thing needs to be prearranged. Amtrak usually charges additional $10-$15 for transporting a bike. Folding bikes can be transported for free if the passenger decides to take it on board as a carry-on baggage. Rules and Conditions of transporting a bike with Amtrak train network can be found in Amtrak’s bike policies.

Flying With Your Bike

Airplanes require bikes to be boxed and you’ll need to list them as check-in baggage. Folding bikes can’t be taken into the passenger space like in trains, since airline companies have very strict rules when it comes to carry-on luggage.  They can also charge passengers with “oversized bag fee” because some bikes are really big, even when they are folded. Before deciding to shift your bike with an airplane it’s important to call the airline and explain your situation to them,  providing exact measures of your (folded or unfolded) bike.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Jesica July 30, 2015 at 5:21 pm

Thanks, I read it completely, Bike on Vacation is really awesome and i like very much.

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ran August 5, 2015 at 10:37 am

Thanks, This is very Interesting blog, I am waiting for your next updation.

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