Planning our motorcycle trip

Read all about our 4,000-kilometer motorcycle trip through Argentina here.

We're almost ready to leave on our motorcycle trip to northwest Argentina. For future travelers, here are a few lessons we've learned so far about traveling in Argentina:

A road atlas can be easily purchased at the streetside kiosks that sell newspapers and magazine. It's published by Firestone and called Atlas de Rutas. It includes maps of all Argentine provinces, including major cities and some small towns. The Automovil Club Argentina (ACA), the Argentine version of AAA, also sells maps, but they aren't nearly as detailed.

If you're planning on camping along the way, ferreterías (hardware stories) are your best bet for most supplies. For specialized camping supplies (like tents or sleeping bags) you'll need to go to camping stores, but their selections are pretty limited (and they often won't have basic supplies like a tarp or rope).

The Atlas de Rutas mentioned above includes a list of camping sites. I also recommend acampante.com, which lists site according to cities in each province. Google Maps doesn't include sufficient detail in most Argentine towns to figure out how to get to your accommodation.

We decided to rent a Harley through GoodBike Argentina. There are a few rental companies in Buenos Aires that offer bike rentals (we dealt with Motocare, Caracas Moto Tours, FlyDriveArgentina and 2WheelTravel). Motocare never got back to us and FlyDrive Argentina was incredibly rude. Caracas Moto Tours and 2WheelTravel both looked like good options, but they included per-day mileage limits. We decided it was worth paying slightly more for a Harley from GoodBike to be able to ride as much as we want. (We also had a good experience with them on a day trip a few weeks ago.)

- Steph