The beginning. New York to Alaska, Alaska to Argentina.

---

So here we are again, back on the road with no particular destination or time frame in mind. What a sweet & wonderful way to live a life! Apologies, I promise that's the only bit of gloating I'll do. I swear.

Right, the very rough outline of the nearest thing I'll get to a plan is import my motorbike from home over to New York (see picture on right) ride up towards Alaska (about 5000 miles) followed by a trip due south towards the sunshine & maybe down to the southern most tip of Argentina (another 18000 miles or so) nice & simple. Other road users, wildlife, weather & a million & one things permitting, the two most important of which are how far my luck & a few dollars carry me.

It won’t all be sunshine & smiles but it certainly beats working for a living, so I think it’s time to see what the world has to offer before I finally give up on traveling & grow old gracefully.

During travels past I've sent updates via email, principally to keep my mum, happy but this time I was told to create a blog - so here it is.

My part of the deal is to let you know how I’m getting on, where I am & what I’m up to & I’d appreciate if in return you could log on every now & then & leave a note to say hello, I’m all on my own out here.

I’ve missed not spending night’s star gazing, meeting new people & seeing new things so I’m looking forward getting back into the rhythm of being on the road & growing a decent handle bar bikers moustache. The reliance on baby wipes instead of showers I'm not so keen on but needs must.

So I've got a few maps, a Sat Nav (that struggled to find St Albans at home) & a rough idea of where I'm going (Alaska is enormous, even I shouldn’t be able to miss it) & I know which direction to head in (north west). More importantly I know what to do in the event of a bear attack - punch it in the nose! I’m not sure if that applies to both black & brown bears & hopefully I'll never get to find out.

From a few quick calculations using a tube of toothpaste as a measure & the globe I have at home I now know New York to Alaska is roughly the same distance as London to Saudi Arabia.

Alaska down to the southern tip of Argentina is roughly the same length as two tubes of toothpaste or to put another way - London to Alice Springs, Australia. In answer to your inevitable first question, no, I didn’t realise it was that far.

Wish me luck.

---

Photos

Stage 1
My bike & I a long way from home.