Originally Posted by Tourist in MSN

I mostly camp in campgrounds, not motels, so can't help on motel locations. But, if you have a good GPS with a good basemap in it, you should be able to do searches for lodging in that. I have not done that type of searching for motels, so I do not know if phone numbers are in the GPS database, maybe? Also, on my phone I have the Android app Maps.Me, you can do a search for motels, but I have not personally used that so I do not know how well that works. Both of those options do not require a data plan if you had the maps loaded into your GPS and/or phone ahead of time.

Food, on some of my tours we fully expected that we would find enough grocery stores so that we did not have to worry, such as Pacific Coast. On such trips, we had a day of food (freeze dried) buried in the bottom of a pannier as a continency, thus we never had to get obsessive about finding a grocery store because we had a one day contingency. But other tours, I was more concerned. When two of us rode the Florida Keys, everything is linear, not two dimensional like everywhere else. When still at home, I found that there were two main food chains in the area. Their websites gave me locations, I put their store locations along our route into my GPS while still at home, that way we could plan our food stops as we were rolling. My Canada trip, I knew that part of my route would be a food desert, so on that trip I also put major grocery store chains into my GPS so I knew where they were and planned accordingly. Before I went into the food desert, I stocked up with about six days of food. The first time I did that grocery store and GPS thing was my Iceland trip, there it came in really handy to know where the grocery stores were for my trip planning, some communities are tiny and offer minimal services.

Water, I can't advise. I like cooler weather, so I am more likely to have too much water, not enough. I have avoid trips to arid places. (I also have avoided flats from thorns that way too.)

The only times that I have gotten bored on a bike tour was on a day when I did not travel due to bad weather, such as all day rain or strong headwinds. If I watch the forecast far enough ahead, I often found that I could find a touristy area to spend such days. But, thinking back, I have had some boring days. But they are so rare, I do not bother to bring a novel along, I always find something to keep myself amused or busy.

Some places, I do not want to leave the bike and gear unattended, but I have generally felt pretty good about state parks and national parks. That said, sometimes situational awareness warns you in advance that you are not in such a great place and need to watch your stuff carefully.

Some of my touring was solo, some with a former co-worker. When solo, you do not have to plan things with someone that might have a different opinion, but you are alone and have to be self reliant.

Would you do this on your Backroad? Do you have a good lock? Most of my tours that were in areas with low crime rates, I did not bring a very good lock. The trip I am looking at for this year will go through some areas that I would be less trusting, I plan to bring a lock that cost over a hundred bucks plus a good cable to go with it. My touring partner in such areas carries a very heavy chain.

When going somewhere that is not a published bike route, I just look at the map for route ideas. But I have also used my GPS routing. And have used the Android app Komoot (spell?) for routing. And sometimes use Maps.Me for routing. And occasionally I will be standing somewhere and decide that the paper map looks like it has a better route than all that electronic stuff.

Sometimes you just have to be brave and go for it. But if you do some solo trips on routes that have published bike maps from ACA or guidebooks (Katy Trail, Pacific Coast, etc.), doing the solo trips where you had some proper information first can help you build confidence. Or, do a couple self supported group trips with ACA to build some confidence. Then, plot out your own trips after you have done a few of those other trips.