How A Canadian Spent 4 Months Traveling on His Motorcycle in the U.S. During Lockdown

If you’re Canadian, and especially if you’re from Southern Ontario, you will definitely remember the winter of 2020/2021 and subsequent spring as Lockdownageddon. I was staying in the Toronto area which has the dubious honour of not only the longest lockdown in Canada, but of any major city in the world. No leaving your home except for essential purposes. No gathering with friends or relatives. And definitely no haircuts. The long, cold darkness of winter mirrored our emotions and lack of hope. Vaccines had just started rolling out, but only to essential workers, seniors and their caregivers. So how was I able to leave and travel while we were supposed to be sequestering at home in misery?

During April - early August 2021, I traveled the continental U.S. through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana (13 states in total) on my motorcycle. Link to Google Map.

This story began while another story ended. In January - March 2020, I rode my motorcycle through Mexico to Belize and Guatemala. It was an incredible adventure and seemed like the reward I needed after a really tough year. But as the “Corona virus” grew to a full blown global pandemic in March 2020, I decided to head back to Toronto, Canada. Notably, I made that decision on Friday the 13th of March. But first, I had to get out of Mexico. I rode like the wind to San Antonio, Texas where friends Natalia and Dan, stored my beloved 2015 Honda CB500X as I flew back to Toronto, Canada. I remember telling them it might be a “few months” because we didn’t know how long the pandemic might last….

In March 2021, I got a text from Natalia saying my CB500X missed me, and that it was ready for some adventure! That got the wheels turning in my head -- could this even work? I was longing to travel again but even if I did, where could I go and what could I see since many businesses have closed temporarily or even permanently? And what if I caught Covid-19?

Then she informed me vaccines were flowing like the Rio Grande down there and freely available to anyone including non-residents. Well that sealed the deal for me! And it turns out my travel insurance company, Medipac, covered medical expenses due to Covid-19.

My harebrained plan was to:

1. Fly from Toronto, ON, Canada to San Antonio, TX, USA (International flights never stopped)
2. Get vaccinated (to help me from getting Covid-19)
3. Pack my motorcycle and travel!
4. Ride back into Canada (Despite the Canada - U.S. land border being closed, Canada will always accept its own citizens. And this avoids the costly $2000 quarantine hotel when arriving internationally by air)

So, I bought a plane ticket, and even booked my vaccination appointment before I left. I ended up staying in San Antonio for 5 weeks to get both shots of the vaccine, and added Step 2.5: Buy a new-to-me 2016 Triumph Tiger 800 XRT!

And of course Step 3 was the best part! I saw so many amazing things like the Grand Tetons, had lots of great experiences like camping under the stars in the desert in Utah. I had some not so great experiences like crashing my new-to-me bike alone in the desert, and my bike inexplicably and suddenly dying in Spearfish, South Dakota.

I slept in a traditional Hogan on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, I faced and conquered my fears riding switchbacks carved out of the cliffs on Shafer Canyon Road in Canyonlands National Park, Utah, I got to pet wild baby donkeys, I reunited with lots of my nomad friends, I met and stayed with many great people whom I had never met before. This is the stuff that fills my soul and why I continue the lifestyle of a motonomad. This is living.

If this taught me anything, it's: Follow your dreams. Sometimes it takes some out-of-the-box thinking, a little bit of research and some help from your friends but you can achieve them. And for me, I didn’t even have to break any rules to make it happen.