USA/Canada

2019 Route

My 2019 route was planned in a similar manner to the 2015 tour. I found scenic drives, the National Parks, State Parks and interesting towns to visit and mapped out a route to join them. My planned route is shown below. Due to tornado warning in Pennsylvania, meeting an amazing group of people in Harpers Ferry (West Virginia), who convinced me to visit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a few other unplanned events, my final route looked a little different (final route map to be included). You get the picture though.

My 2019 planned route in the USA (excl. Canada) is shown in red below. The route in yellow shows my 2015 route in the USA (see 2015 route below for more details).

2015 Route

The concept behind my trip was to see as many National Parks and scenic drives as I could cover in 90 days. I bought books and maps showing scenic drives in Western USA/Canada and linked these to the National Parks to get my indicative route. I say indicative as things always change, as they did, primarily due to forest fires. My planned versus actual route is provided in the map below.

I ended up riding 11,450 miles; visiting 3 Canadian National Park, 18 USA National Parks, 4 USA State Parks and losing track of the number of National Forests and Waterfalls I saw along the way. It was fantastic!

My Trip Summary provides the highlights and lowlights of my trip, while this video captures the trip from a visual perspective.

You can use the search function to find a blog about each state that I visited. Hopefully I can figure out how to make my website more interactive on day.

My USA Bucket List

As it is always good, in my view, to have a list of things that you would like to achieve, I made a ‘Bucket List’ of things that I wanted to do during my three month tour in 2015. I have noted which I achieved and which I may hopefully cover off on this year’s tour. If not, I’ll just have to come back for another visit! 🙂

Objective	Outcome
See the sun rise and set in the Grand Canyon; Bryce Canyon and on the beach	Incomplete
Cycle over Golden Gate Bridge	Incomplete
Ride a Harley	Incomplete
See a shooting star	Completed
Have a picnic on the beach	Incomplete
Take a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon	Incomplete
Do white river rafting down the Colorado River	Completed
See at least 1 waterfall	Completed
Walk on a Glacier	Completed
Do line dancing at the Calgary Stampede	Completed
Go to a baseball game	Completed
Go to a batting cage	Incomplete
Visit Alcatraz	Completed
Visit a lighthouse	Completed
Visit a ghost town	Completed
Camp in (at least) 3 National Parks	Completed
Spend time with my cousins in Chandler	Completed
Drive part of Route 66	Completed
Do at least 2 of (or part of) the great hikes	Incomplete
Make at least one new friend	Nailed this one!!
Go to an open air theatre/cinema	Completed
Watch a live band	Completed
Sit around an open log fire	Completed
Take a hot air balloon ride	Incomplete