The Better Way To See America Is On A Motorcycle, Not In A Car

America is a country of wide-open spaces, dense cities, tall mountains, lush forests, expansive deserts, and all points in between. I recommend that every American leave home and explore the great lands of this nation at least once in their life to see the kind of beauty that no photo on the internet can replicate. There are many methods to get you out there from aircraft and ships to the trusty car. But if you’re adventuring on your own, there’s no better way to go than on two wheels.

Every year, popular resorts and cruise ships fill to the brim with people seeking relaxation, entertainment, and a getaway from the stresses of daily life. Some hop in a plane and fly across the country. I propose an alternative. Instead of your normal vacation destinations and forms of travel, take the long way around. In fact, just toss out that whole destination thing. Start at home, point in whatever the opposite direction is, and just go.

The concept of traveling without a true destination seemed completely foreign to me for most of my life. My family is full of lifelong RVers. We pick a campground and the extent of the journey was hauling our camper there. The idea of a campground just being a stop on a grander adventure escaped us. Then the pandemic hit and it changed everything. I discovered a part of myself I never knew I had.

You Have The Power

One of the greatest life-changing moments I’ve experienced thus far was the realization that I have more power than I thought. I spent my childhood and the very beginning years of my adult life too afraid to crack out of my shell. Constant negative thoughts permeated my brain, doubting if I could actually achieve what I wanted to do. Other thoughts told me I would be shunned for following my own path rather than the ones prescribed for me in the past.

At some point in 2018, it hit me. I already achieved so much in my life. I bought my teenage dream car and I navigated creating an entire new life for myself. Coming out as trans in late 2014 changed the trajectory of my life. I lost nearly all of my childhood friends and then lost my family for years. Yet, I emerged from the darkness triumphant. I beat the odds and found happiness in my new life. I looked forward to the future.

It was almost like a lightswitch had been flipped in my head. If I can essentially recreate a new person from the ashes of my old self, what else am I capable of?

I sought to find those answers. Later that year, I found myself off-roading my beloved Smart Fortwo through a forest. That weekend liberated me from the shell that contained the rest of my dreams and personality. But that wasn’t the only event. Back in May of that year, I decided to finally follow my longtime desire to ride a motorcycle. I always thought that maybe, bikes weren’t for me. They were for other, more skilled people.

Oh I was so wrong. My steed for my Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic RiderCourse was an electric blue Honda Rebel 250. Its tank had a dent and its bars weren’t perfectly straight. Nobody else in my class dared go for the cruiser. Instead, they went for Yamaha TW200 farm bikes and Honda Nighthawk standards. I happily took the Rebel, and quickly learned that this whole motorcycle thing came naturally to me. It wasn’t long before I was taking the corners and slaloms like I was an old-timey racer.

On the test, I scored the shortest emergency braking distance the examiner had ever seen in over three decades of teaching the class. It took pulling in a second instructor to make sure I really did stop on a dime, impossibly close to the beginning of the score line. He then took my Rebel from me just to see if he could get anywhere close.

From that weekend forward, two wheels have always been a form of liberation I’ve yet to be able to replicate in a car. It’s hard to put my finger on why. I can theorize that part of it has to do with the fact that being on a motorcycle exposes you to the outside world. There’s no safety cage to contain and protect you; no windows to block out the weather or smells. Further, most motorcycles still involve the use of every one of your senses that isn’t taste.

Are both of your hands and feet critical to maintaining safe forward momentum and your safety systems? Unless you own a relatively new motorcycle, almost all of those are contained in the squishy thing inside of your skull. But even a new bike isn’t anything like a new car. Having proper reactions to your environment are essential to your survival.

Motorcycles connect humans and machines in ways most cars do not. Despite all of this, I’m still not quite sure if this is why motorcycling feels so much different than just piloting a car. Speaking of piloting, riding a motorcycle feels a lot closer to taking command of a Cessna than it does a Toyota Corolla.

Pair a rider with the perfect motorcycle for them and the result is a sort of symphony. Like an orchestra, the rider and the bike work together in perfect harmony. The euphoria from this alone can make a whole month. But there is a way to make it even better.

Travel Of Any Kind Is Great

In 2020, I took the journey of a lifetime. I had cash in the bank, gas in the tank of a $500 Ford Ranger, and my girlfriend at the time as my first officer. We took that four-cylinder, rear-wheel-drive, manual truck out west. But for the first time in our entire lives neither of us had a real destination. Yes, our overall goal was to visit the main Gambler 500 event out in Oregon that summer, but that was more of a pit stop, not our final destination. My girlfriend (now wife) thought we’d just get back home when we got back home. So we pointed that truck west and drove with our friends in a convoy. There was no GPS, no timetables, and we didn’t even find accommodations until we figured we needed them.

On this trip, I saw sights that I never thought I’d ever reach in my life. I saw a massive buffalo statue in North Dakota. I got to tour Yellowstone National Park and watch Old Faithful. I got to experience four seasons in the same week as I drove through a searing hot desert in Washington state, bisected rows of towering trees in Oregon, and drove through a full-blown snowstorm on my way to Crater Lake. I never knew any of this was possible. I never knew I’d ever visit Yellowstone, let alone learn that Washington had a desert! I never thought anything that I did on that trip was possible.

That trip also had what I still consider to be the holy grail of camping spots. Somewhere in Montana, we put our stakes down in the middle of absolute nowhere at the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. That night, I got to see a starry night unhindered by pollution on one end of the sky while dry lightning cracked around a nearby mountain. It was perfect.

It was during that trip when I discovered another part of me. I didn’t know I had this sense of travel and adventure in me. I swam in a crystal clear Oregon mountain lake that couldn’t have been warmer than 45 degrees. I sped along the iconic Bonneville Salt Flats, and drove on the infamous loneliest road through Nevada. In the span of two weeks I lived a life I never thought I would and all of it happened behind the wheel of a junky 1997 Ford Ranger. The last time I talked about this story was my last-ever post for Jalopnik.

I sort of ended it like this:

I’m always thinking about what’s the next silly or great thing on the horizon. The world definitely has a whole lot of suck in it right now. And it sometimes drags me down with it. But when I swing a leg over a motorcycle or sit in that pilot or driver’s seat, it all melts away. I may not be able to control what happens in this world, but I can control this vehicle and the adventures that it will take me on.

If you can swing it, take a road trip without a destination. Do it for as long as you can and don’t be afraid to just go where your heart tells you to. When you come home, you might be a different person. That’s ok. Just remember to be true to yourself and don’t let anything or anyone stop you from being you.

But Doing It On A Bike Is Better

So then, after a life-defining trip like that, you’d think I’d be all-in on cars as the best way to travel. Technically, I believe the coolest way to travel is slowly inside of a train. However, for how romantic trains are, they do have their limitations. You are stuck with the timetable of the train, and comfortable accommodations on a cross-country train tend to be substantially more expensive than just driving or flying. You also can’t really just change your direction on a whim since you’re going wherever the train is.

As I just wrote above, a car is also an excellent, grand way to travel. But over the years I’ve been learning that there’s one step higher than a car.

Back when I was a bit earlier into my motorcycling experience, it was common for me to spend a day riding over 300 miles. I never had anywhere to go, but I experienced the world through the visor on my helmet and on two wheels. I would stop by my favorite beach, ride into the skyscraper canyons of Chicago, and watch the fireworks display of a small town nestled between endless rows of corn. Riding to these places made me feel more alive than driving to them ever could have.

My motorcycle was the vehicle that took me to state parks, Pride events, and to countless first dates. If you were at Chicago’s Pride parade in 2019, chances are you saw me in six-inch heels commanding a 1982 Suzuki GS850G with plenty of patina. All of these connections were made infinitesimally more memorable with the subtraction of a roof and two wheels.

I have yet to take a cross-country motorcycle trip, but I’ve tried. In 2019, I took a Honda Elite 150D on an off-road adventure in the Gambler 500. Those 205 miles the scooter lasted before grenading its engine were some of the most fun I’ve ever had on the Gambler 500 circuit. Back in 2020, I tried to ride a Suzuki Burgman 650 some 700 miles home from the East Coast. But I blew the scooter’s rear tire in Dubois, Pennsylvania, and had to drive the remaining 500 miles home in a U-Haul. It was nice being safe and warm in the truck, but there was nothing quite like seeing the rolling hills through my visor.

Riding somewhere opens up new ways to experience the world. Instead of just looking at a forest passing by your car’s windshield, you will smell the pine in the air, feel the cool breeze rush around your body, and have a nearly completely unobstructed view of the world around you.

A few weeks ago, I was reminded of this glorious truth when Indian Motorcycle (IMC) invited me out to Las Vegas to try out its new PowerPlus 112 platform. IMC’s organizers charted a 200-mile course that had influencers and journalists carving mile after mile of scenic byway that cut around Lake Mead and through the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

(Full Disclosure: Indian Motorcycle paid for my travel, lodging, and delicious food. This post is not really related to the bikes I rode out there or the press event. But the event did provide some inspiration. A review of these motorcycles is coming.)

Once again, out here I was reminded that motorcycles were the better way to experience America. During that trip, I had my music, breathtaking views, and 126 HP of American V-twin muscle between my legs. I didn’t need anything else. Anything else would have been too much extra.

As I rode through the Valley of Fire, the only thing separating me from those beautiful rock formations was some safety gear. I wasn’t surrounded by a cage and there was nothing impeding my view of the stunning environment. If you wanted to stop to really get a look at something, you just pull off, lean on the bike, and drink in the scenery. Being on the bike was travel with just the bare necessities.

As we rode through Lake Mead I got to get whiffs of the local flora and came to a stop to watch animals cross the road. We got to feel up close and personal with nature on that day and the motorcycles got us there. I imagine the feeling of riding a motorcycle is not much different than how some folks feel about traveling long distance by horse. You and your mode of transportation are one.

In my travels I’ve learned I’m not the only one who feels this way. Last year, my wife and I did our dream road trip, a drive down Route 66. One stop during our trip was the Meteor Crater in Arizona. While there, I saw a highly modified Triumph Rocket III with a custom front fork and a sidecar. I met the owner and his wife inside. They told me that the two of them had covered pretty much the entirety of the United States on that motorcycle, stretching from as far north as Alaska to the Southernmost Point in Florida.

Sure, they could have taken a car, they told me, but doing it on the Triumph made it feel so much more of an adventure. I’m so with them.

Of course, doing trips like these on just any motorcycle isn’t going to work. You’re going to hate traveling cross-country on that super cheap motorcycle I wrote about. You probably won’t have a ton of fun on a sportbike with a washboard seat, either. Most of the time, I see folks going the distance on hefty cruisers, touring bikes like the Honda Gold Wings, or modified hacks like that Triumph Rocket III.

The bike you choose for your journey should have enough power to cruise easily on the highway while also being comfortable for a full day of riding in the saddle. However many luxuries you want are up to you. Nowadays you can get sacks filled with whatever you want to drink and full-body electric heat for those cold rides.

Whatever you ride, wherever you ride, and however you ride, I recommend taking your time. Ride without a destination. Just point those forks in a destination and go. Who cares when you get home. But when you do, I think you will have found travel by bike to be one of the best ways to embark on an adventure.