Preamble

Welcome to the Shenanigans and Switchbacks motorcycle tour of 2026. We are excited to bring you our latest adventures from across the pond. We have been busy getting ready, studying the news about gasoline shortages and protests in Ireland, weather in Ireland and Scotland and the prospect of not being able to get home after the trip due to aviation fuel shortages in Europe. 

Even though I have billed this as a "motorcycle" tour, it is only in part. It is really a trip in two parts: we have a rental car for Ireland and Northern Ireland and a BMW motorcycle for the Scottish Highlands. Back when Nan pitched the idea of a trip to Ireland and Scotland, I asked her "motorcycle trip?" to which she replied "yes". This was very exciting to me because I envisioned motorcycling around Ireland then riding up the west coast to Scotland and the very motorcycle-famous North Coast 500, which is a windy road around the Scottish highlands known for motorcycle enthusiasts and sports car drivers. Since we seem to be riding trips of about a month in duration, I began thinking about flying Andelska, our intrepid Honda motorcycle, over to Ireland as opposed to renting a bike over there. I made numerous calls to WestJet and shippers about sending the bike and determined that flying would be comparable to a month of renting, depending on where the bike was rented. However, after some weeks of listening to me talk about shipping the bike, she informed me that we were not renting a bike for the whole trip. "We are not renting a bike for the whole trip," she said. OK well, clearly I was mistaken. I got the sense that I should be grateful that we were going anywhere and renting a bike, so I resisted the urge to argue (at length) and determined that this was not the hill to die on. 

Your hosts:

Howie, author.

Nan, principal photographer.

T-800, ChatGPT research.

As such, our winter has been planning the trip, making routes, booking hotels, BnBs, flights, train trips, bus rides and meet-ups. And, due to a number of factors, I elected to do all of our bookings in advance. No flying by the seat of our pants this trip; we are in full-on OCD mode with every stay and every transportation booked. I know many of our long time readers will be heart-broken by this news, given all the therapy I've had to allow me to get away from having to plan everything out before a trip but with increased European travel and many demands being placed on tourist traps infrastructure, I just didn't feel like we would have enough latitude to make game time decisions. Aside from which, there are two bank holidays over there while we are visiting. Trying to get a place to stay last minute might have been problematic. Thanks for the heads-up, Elaine from England!

Here is what we foresee for Ireland and Northern Ireland

Click map to enlarge or get reading glasses. 

Here is what we foresee for the Scottish Highlands.

Click map to enlarge or get reading glasses. 

Our official departure date is Thursday, April 30 and arriving at 10 am in Dublin Friday morning. I expect to be seriously jet lagged when we get there so maybe don't expect a bunch the first day or two, or week or two. Assuming we get there at all; WestJet didn't think moving our departure time up by one hour warranted a dedicated email to inform of us that we were leaving an hour earlier. I just happened to be on the WestJet website on Monday to print off a copy of our itinerary and discovered that we were actually going (nowhere) early. Well, to Calgary. 

We are meeting some friends, Lina and Rod, our former Paris hosts from last year In Dublin. Lina messaged me and asked me what we would like from Paris. My first thought was croissants! Last year, Lina was up early on a Sunday morning to take public transport to the best bakery in Paris (their words) to buy us the best croissants (their words) in Paris while we snored the hours away in bed. And they were, in fact, outstanding.  But then I thought, I should ask for something practical so I asked her to bring us a gallon of gas.

And THIS trip, I have a planned JETLAG strategy: Step 1. Stay up late tonight (it's 11:55 pm). Step 2. attend fitness class Thursday morning and have administered to me an epic butt-kicking by Mistress Chie, our 100 pound Japanese fitness instructor with the strength and stamina of the T-800 Terminator. Step 3. Chew a melatonin gummy the minute we board the Dublin flight in Calgary. (I hope the sniffer dogs don't get confused.) Step 4. Insert ear plugs. Cover my eyes and try to ignore the TV and everything around me. Step 5. Try to stay up to our usual bed time (~8:30 pm) our first night in Dublin. Maybe take another melatonin gummy. Step 6. Try to act normal on Saturday. Either that or just drink myself into oblivion from the moment we board the plane in Kelowna till the moment we hit the sheets in Dublin. What do you think my chances are? Of Step 6, I mean.

Don't forget that Ireland and Scotland are eight hours ahead (of BC). So keep that in mind if you are dying to phone us.

Thanks for following! Hope you have fun! We will.