Rider's Recommend

Riding and Travel Gear

Camping and travel gear laid out on grass: rucksacks, dry bags, boots, a jacket, cookware and flasks

Travel gear, from the airport to the back roads — and what each item is for. There are no specifications on this page — sizes, materials and battery life belong on the seller's page, where they can be checked.

Motorcycle Back Seat Bag - Universal

Motorcycle Back Seat Bag - Universal

Size: Universal

Straps across the pillion seat, which is where the space is on a rented scooter once the underseat box is full. Most useful on the days when everything you need has to travel with you.

Buy the back seat bag with AliExpress

Motorcycle Gloves Real Leather

Motorcycle Gloves Real Leather

Gloves are the first thing riders leave behind in the heat and the first thing they think about on gravel. Worth having in the top box even on the days you do not wear them.

Buy the leather gloves with AliExpress

Portable Scale for Travel

Portable Scale for Travel

Hooks onto a bag handle so the weighing happens in the room, not at the check-in desk. It earns its place on the way home, when a trip's worth of shopping has to fit inside a budget airline's allowance.

Buy the luggage scale with AliExpress

Slim Leather Wallet

Slim Leather Wallet

Holds a couple of cards and a folded note without the bulk of a full wallet — which matters when you would rather keep it in a front pocket than a back one.

Buy the slim wallet with AliExpress

Motorcycle Helmet Intercom

Motorcycle Helmet Intercom

Fits inside the helmet so two riders can talk while moving, instead of pulling over at every junction to agree on the next turn. The difference is largest when one of you is following the other.

Buy the helmet intercom with AliExpress

Travel Backpack

Travel Backpack

For the days between hotels, and for the flights where you would rather deal with one bag than two. Also what you carry on a day trip once the suitcase stays behind.

Buy the travel backpack with AliExpress

RFID Smart Wallet

RFID Smart Wallet

A card holder built around an RFID-blocking layer, for anyone who would rather their contactless cards were not readable through a bag in a crowd.

Buy the RFID wallet with AliExpress

Passport Case

Passport Case

Keeps the passport, the boarding pass and a spare card in one place. That is the difference between a calm border queue and emptying a bag onto the counter while the line waits.

Buy the passport case with AliExpress

Before the packing list

Very little of what goes wrong on a trip is equipment. It is a room booked in the wrong part of town, a beach visited in the month the sea is rough, or a day built around a boat that stopped running at the end of the season.

Those cost more than a bag does, and they are decided before anything is packed. If Thailand is where you are going, the pages below are where that part is worked out.

Where to go

Getting around

Where to stay

What to do