The thing I think I’m most looking forward to when I get up into the Atlas Mountains is the stars.

Every time I go home to Wales I’m amazed at the number of stars I can see, the way the night sky just comes to life in a way that no-where in London or the South East can match. Then I start to imagine what the night sky must be like when there’s nothing within 100 miles of you, no Cardiff or Newport spewing out watts and watts of unwarranted light into the night sky.

What treasures await me whilst I sit outside the tent, hot chocolate in hand gazing up at an unpolluted sky.

…beside the seaside! And so on.

Mark With is 40, divorced and riding a motorbike around the coast of Europe. He is certifiable, but by God I envy him no end. I’ve really been enjoying his flickr stream, with beautiful shots of sweeping coast lines and cloudless skys.

It rather helps matters that he’s riding a stunning Triumph Bonnie, built in a factory so far away from the sea it just seems right that it’s being dragged around the coast line.

Mike is an inspiration, and it’s his photo sets that have given me the drive to make sure I make it to Morocco in three weeks time

You simply have to know where and how you are going to store all of the essentials, otherwise, where would we be?

Damned if I know… so I thought I’d ask the people who would know… the overlanding community over at Horizons Unlimited.… I asked…

Interesting question.. I thought I could answer it pretty well… in fact I’m a bit of an armchair adventure motorcyclist – that’ll change in September – but I’ve read every single book I can get my hand on and talked to so many people….

So it was interesting when I was reading Ted Simon’s latest book – Dreaming of Jupiter – that I found myself thinking..

“He’s not really being an adventure motorcyclist because he’s staying in hotels”

How stupid is that? I just caught myself in time and called myself many silly names… but it got me to thinking… what is it that makes a biker and adventure motorcyclist? Where does the line start?

In September I’m off to Morocco – I’m going on a CBF600 and will stick to the main roads where I can. Morocco is a well trodden route and as I’m not going off road, and I’m not on a KTM or a GS. Does that mean I’m just on a biking holiday?

Then in July next year, same bike, but this time I’m going to Russia and back, is that adventure motorcycling or just a long road trip on the bike?

Is going RTW on a bike and staying in hotels adventure motorcycling? Or do you have to rough it at every opportunity and try to break records?

It’s quite interesting when you think about it and I discovered that I was being really rather elitist with no good reason – I’m sometimes a prat.

What do you think? (not about the prat part)

I got a whole host of replies, some saying that we shouldn’t be snooty and should just experience the adventure in our own heads, to others who feel that in this day in age, being continuously connected means we’re never really having an adventure… I’m still not sure what it is… but have a read for yourself and say what you think.

It takes three weeks, or there abouts, for a motorbike and rider to head up the Atlas mountains, decend into Marakesh and laze in Casablanca.

Welcome to the Journey To Morocco blog. A testing ground for a much larger journey between three friends in July next year – you can read more about that in Journey To Russia.

This blog is a very simple record of one of that teams journey in September this year, a place to test the technology and the methods that we’ll use on the big one.