Bhutan Motorbike Adventure: Large Minority's Tuk-Tuk Adventure Travel Gets Two Wheels

Large Minority started seventeen years ago with a conversation between my co-founder Juan and me, a spreadsheet neither of us really understood, and a plan to put people in tuk-tuks and send them across countries with questionable road infrastructure. We called it adventure travel because "structured chaos with a support vehicle somewhere behind you" doesn't fit on a homepage. It worked. It's still working, thousands of kilometres and a fair number of near-misses later.

So the next step, obviously, was to take a wheel away.

We're announcing our first motorbike adventure. It's called Ride Bhutan, it departs 12 November 2026, and it won't be the only one.

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Where the Name Actually Came From

Juan and I were young when we started this, and young in the specific way that makes you think you can single-handedly fix an entire industry. We didn't love what mass tourism was doing to travel, so we built something for the people trying to avoid it. The name is Juan's, not mine, and I'll let him have it: travel off the beaten path and technically you're part of a minority. Get enough of those people together, travelling with purpose and doing it properly , and that minority is no longer small. That's the idea behind Large Minority. He still brings this up at dinner parties, decades later.

Why a Motorbike, and Why Now

Most decisions here don't come from a strategy meeting. They come from someone on the team caring about something for long enough that the rest of us eventually give in.

Nicolo Panigada

This time it was Nicolo. One conversation with him is really what got the motorbike side of the business off the ground, and he's the one who'll be leading most of these trips going forward. Whether that's reassuring depends entirely on how well you know him.

For me it was an easy sell. I've been riding motorbikes since long before Large Minority existed as anything more than an idea and a borrowed laptop, so the pitch didn't need much work. The tuk-tuk was never really the appeal in itself, it was always what it let you do: go slowly, sit low to the ground, end up somewhere with no windscreen between you and the place you're actually in. A motorbike gets you there too. It's arguably better at it, and you can lean into the corners instead of hoping the third wheel behaves itself.

Call it a pivot if you like. I'd call it the same idea, better balanced.

Ride Bhutan: Our First Bhutan Adventure by Motorbike

Bhutan isn't a fair place to start, if we're honest. It makes every other destination on our list look like it isn't trying. Mountain passes that seem drawn by someone showing off, monasteries appearing out of the mist right when you've stopped expecting them, a national philosophy that measures success in happiness instead of GDP. Wise or embarrassing for the rest of us, depending on your mood that day.

Ride Bhutan is our first Bhutan motorbike adventure, and the first time we've tried bringing the usual approach, expert guiding, real local knowledge, no rushing anything, to two wheels rather than three. Anyone who's done one of our tuk-tuk adventures before will recognise the values. Anyone who hasn't: go slow, talk to people, try not to look like a tourist about it.

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More Motorbike Adventures on the Way

Bhutan is the opener, not the whole programme. Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, and Colombia are already in the works, chosen for roughly the same reasons we picked our original tuk-tuk routes: interesting roads, more interesting people, and not much competition doing this properly.

We'll announce each one when it's actually ready rather than dragging out the teasing. If any of those five places already mean something to you, though, this is a decent time to keep half an eye on us.

Why We're Actually Doing This

Every adventure company claims to be "born from a shared love of travel," usually next to a stock photo of a sunset somewhere. Ours has slightly more detail than that. Large Minority exists because a conversation between me and Juan turned into a plan, and that plan somehow turned into seventeen years of getting people happily, deliberately lost. The motorbike side exists for the same basic reason, just with Nicolo instead, and he's now the person best placed to show you why that conversation was worth having.

Nothing about the philosophy changes with a motorbike. Same standards, same refusal to cut corners, just one fewer wheel underneath you.

Still the Same Rules on Responsible Travel

Adding a motorbike to the fleet doesn't change what we actually stand for. Responsible travel has been part of Large Minority since the tuk-tuk days, not a line we added once it started being fashionable to say, and that doesn't change just because the vehicle has fewer wheels.

Small groups, local guides, money that actually stays in the places we visit rather than routing back to some head office abroad, we're carrying all of that over to the motorbike side without watering it down. If anything, a motorbike makes it easier to do well. You're lighter on the road, easier to route through smaller villages without the group announcing itself before it arrives, and better placed to actually meet the people whose home you're passing through rather than just photographing it.

Ride Bhutan gets built the same way every Large Minority trip does: work with people who live there, move at a pace that doesn't flatten the place into a backdrop, and leave it looking like nobody in a rush came through.

A Few Questions You're Probably Already Asking

Do I need motorbike experience for the Bhutan motorbike adventure?

Some, yes. This is a proper motorbike adventure through Himalayan terrain, not a Sunday scooter ride, so we'll ask about your riding background before confirming a spot. If you ride reasonably regularly and can handle mixed conditions, you'll be fine. If your last bike was a moped in your twenties, talk to us first.

How is this different from your tuk-tuk adventures?

Same philosophy, different vehicle. Our tuk-tuk adventures have always been about slow travel and actually being somewhere rather than skimming past it. The motorbike does the same job, it's just quicker and better suited to terrain like Bhutan's, where a tuk-tuk genuinely would not cope.

Who's leading the Bhutan trip?

Nicolo. He's the one who talked us into motorbike adventure travel in the first place, and he'll be leading most of our trips from here.

When will the other motorbike adventures be announced?

We're working through Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, and Colombia now and will announce each as routes and dates get confirmed. No dates yet, so keep watching this blog rather than asking us for one directly.

Is Large Minority still running tuk-tuk trips?

Yes, unchanged. The motorbike side sits alongside the tuk-tuk side, not instead of it. Both count as proper adventure travel, just on a different number of wheels.

Does the motorbike side follow the same responsible travel standards?

Yes, without exception. Small groups, local guides, and money that stays in the places we visit are non-negotiable, whether you're on three wheels or two.

Ride Bhutan, our first Bhutan motorbike adventure, departs 12 November 2026. Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, and Colombia will follow, alongside everything we already run on three wheels. Watch this space.

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