27th / 28th June 2009 – Detailed Route Planning Part 2

From this point on for about 3 months, I periodically got out my State maps, books and spreadsheet and I worked my way through each State that I would be visiting.

This weekend I did the detailed route planning for the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and one of the smallest States, Rhode Island.

My tour was to start in the top right hand corner of the USA and work down to the bottom left. For me this meant the tour would actually start in the small town of Calais on the Atlantic Coast where the USA meets Canada.

From what I had read and researched on the internet, I decided to ride down the coast of these 4 States, hugging the Atlantic wherever I could. Comprising a rugged coastline with many old fishing villages, this would be a perfect start to the tour comprising some 1500 miles.

There would be much to see, stop and do along this coast, so I decided not to plan too many miles each day. I based this part of the tour on an average of 125 miles per day, so this part would take about 12 days.

What I wasn’t doing yet was researching and deciding where I would stay each night – that would come later.