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In the beginning, there were interesting issues. First was at London Heathrow, where an Airbus ingested a bird on take-off and made a crash landing, followed by the complete closure of the airport. This delayed arrival of several of our group. Then extremely heavy rains all over the UK. But, as the sun always shines on my MotoQuest tours, the clouds go away, the sun comes out and we jump on our motorcycles in Bournemouth...

Day 1: Bienvenido a Chile! A few people are already here, the others will be checking in today at the Hotel El Paso Park. Welcome dinner tonight at the hotel "Araksaya" restaurant. Day 2: Welcome to the Atacama desert! We got our bikes today and tested them out on a road into the mountains behind Arica. Great ride! Between the ascent and descent we logged over 25,000 feet of elevation change. However, with the 50...

What is a Scouting Trip? Gang gets ready to depart out of MotoQuest's Adventure Shop in Long Beach, California. I am glad you asked! During the Mexico scout trip in December 2012 five of our group (John (one of the ride leaders), Brian, Greg, Brandon and me) decided to take the path less travelled from Durango to Parral which entailed a 50+ mile leg on dirt roads through the mountains, while the main group stayed...

Motorrad, is the largest magazine in Europe focused solely on the sport of motorcycling. It is full of non biased motorcycle reviews and articles regarding travel tips and help around the garage. Click below to check out a great write-up on adventure riding in the state of Washington. Who knows? they may even mention MotoQuest... This will hit newstands on April 6th! Offroad durch den State Washington  ...

We were on a 2,500-kilometer ride around Iceland, one of the most fascinating countries in the world. Our group included Ben, John and me from the United States, Armando from Mexico, Ernesto and his wife, Orna, from Ecuador, and Simon Siggs, the tour company's liaison, from England. Our Icelandic guides were Gudmundur and Thorgeir ("Toggi"), each for five days. A partner in the Reykjavik Motor Center, Soffia, provided the dual-purpose Triumph Tiger 800s and...

Mexico Bound PHOTOS MAP We laughed around the table in a private room at the 555 East American Steak House in Long Beach, California. Surrounded by fine wine, fancy linen and served top shelf steaks and seafood, I announced: "Well, this is as good as it gets. From now on, its this way." And I put up my arm and show a long arc going down. They all laughed and knew it was true. We...

On the first day of Turkey, Kazim Gave to me.... 1st   A UNESCO World Heritage Site,2nd  Mushroom Capped Pillars,3rd  A Hot Air Balloon Ride,4th  Rumi's Whirling Dervy's,5th  A Roman Theatre,6th  Oceanfront Villa,7th  A Harbor Paradise,8th  Romantic Hilltop Getaway, 9th   A major coliseum,10th Istanbul Night Traffic....IstanbulI'd never been to Istanbul before and had no expectations. I just knew that anyone that I had met had something good to say about Turkey. When I...

The 10 Dos and Don'ts of the Dalton 414 miles of frost-heaves, broken chip seal and grated dirt surfaces, the Dalton Highway has its challenges. On a good day, you can ride it wide open. On a bad day, you can go home in a helicopter. Every year motorcyclists are killed on the Dalton Highway. This road offers the rider the adventure gamut. Almost half of the highway is paved or chip sealed. The other...

A nice letter arrived from one of our Best of Alaska Participants today, Always nice to get a nice review!The Best of Alaska with MotoQuestSeptember 12, 2012Retiring 18 months ago and having ridden motorcycles for more than 45 years, A laska has been one of my top Bucket List items.Living near Los Angeles, California, I knew it would be a long ride, probably taking at least a month for the round trip. And for someA nice letter arrived from one of our Best of Alaska Participants today, Always nice to get a nice review! The Best of Alaska with MotoQuest September 12, 2012 Retiring 18 months ago and having ridden motorcycles for more than 45 years, A laska has been one of my top Bucket List items. Living near Los Angeles, California, I knew it would be a long ride, probably taking at least a month for the round...

Note: All Photos from this trip can be found HERE 36415 minus about 700km= 35715km starting point.Day 1 20thOkayama-amanohashidateAfter packing the bikes with the helpful hand of Chie, we set off under a sky threatening to open,but yet to do so. After a colourful few minutes getting used to our new rides, we enter the highwayfor a beautiful ride though the countryside through endless tunnels and massive bridges offeringoutstanding views of the valleys far below....

Note: To see All the Photos, go to our SmugMug Page Iceland, all on its own up there in the wild North Atlantic. 103.000 sq kms. 320.000 people live there and half of them live in Reykjavik, the capital city. A geological festival going on in one little place. Yet to be spoiled. Rainbows and waterfalls around almost every corner. Land of myths. Europe´s largest glacier is happy being slapped over 8300 sq-km of the...

The Alaska of Japan Hokkaido is the northern most island of Japan and features 20 percent of the country's land mass with 5 percent of the population. Host to the largest national parks in Japan, this country is riddled with wild rivers, salmon runs, brown bears and a multitude of other wild critters. Untamed forests abound in this not so known corner of the Land of the Rising Sun. Also, Hokkaido is the premier destination...

The BMW Owners News magazine had a great story about the Dust 2 Dawson tour.  We decided everyone should have a chance to read it, so here it is. Enjoy. Dust 2 Dawson, by Michele Bissonnette #84750; June 2012 BMW ON In this world of motorcycle riding that I am a part of, wonders never cease to amaze me. As the years of riding add up, I don't seem to be settling into a more...

Day 1 - Arrival  We arrived in the beautiful city of Arica, Chile today to begin our two-week adventure. The town of “eternal spring” did not disappoint, sunshine and 75 degrees makes for nice riding! After we spent some time changing money and walking around downtown Arica, we headed out to dinner at Maracuya. Dining on swordfish and ceviche “al fresco” makes for a great start to the trip! More to come as our journey continues… Day...

CYCLEWORLD.com It’s the USA’s northern most, easternmost and westernmost state.  It’s larger than Texas, California and Montana combined.  Its east-west span-–from its lower peninsula that extends into Canada to the outermost of the Aleutian Islands—could reach from Jacksonville, Florida to Sacramento, California.  But with only 700,000 residents, it’s one of the world’s most sparsely populated areas, and half of those people live in just one city, Anchorage.  Everywhere else, moose, bear, and caribou outnumber humans,...

2012 MotoQuest Japan Three Island Tour Low Ceilings and Hot Water If anything, Japan has plenty of the above! The riders started trickling in days ago. First the Australians, and then the rest. By last night, we had nearly the entire group assembled. Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, Alaska, South Africa, Australia, Canada and England were all represented. The run down: Terry and Bev from CaliforniaGeorge and Valerie from OregonMiles from EnglandColin and Shirley from...

  Laos Tour 2012 Group of riders bonded very quickly as we met at the VTE airport and proceeded to our delicious Lao welcome dinner. Great group of riders from all over the world, one lady from England and one from Nicagara and a fine collection from the USA. We are currently into day 3 of the tour after departing Vientiane and the crazy traffic, mostly scooters and a few over agressive car drivers. First...

Where Wind was Invented Saturday, November 12th. Calafate is a berry from the Patagonia Region. It is also a small tourist town in southern Argentina. It sits alongside a enormous lake, surrounded by desert scrub brush. It is the only place I have ever been where you can see an iceberg drift by with a desert backdrop.  On the west side of the lake, the Andes take reign and that is where the famous Perito...

Today begins a 14 day motorcycle trip into southern Chile and southern Argentina - Patagonia.  Today was an arrival day... no riding... but, we had a bit of a chance to check out our host town, Orsono, Chile.   Above:  Cathedral of Saint Matthew on Plaza des Armas, Orsono. Orsono is located in what is known as the "lakes district" of southern Chile. Above:  Henri and Britten walk on Plaza des Armas, Orsono, Chile. Henri,...

Patagonia 2011A Different Kind of FunThe group started arriving on Thursday and as I got off the plane, I noticed the tell tale riding jackets of motoadventurists. It was Jim and Nicole, fresh from Seattle and newly wed and ready for action! We caught up with Joanna, the fire plug from Poland and made plans to have dinner together. Target of choice was a local restaurant just down the street from our hotel,  from...

April 27 through May 6, 2012 Ride with MotoQuest this April on our West Coast Scouting Trip from the High Desert to the Rain Forest, and along the Pacific Coast Highway. Guided by our own Ariel Krawczyk. Register Here! Route Map MotoQuest is planning a scouting trip in late April 2012 that will depart our Long Beach, California location and travel through Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley, Yosemite National Park, Redwood National Forest, the...

Some people talk about the motorcycle adventure ride they’re going to take one day. Some people make it happen against all odds. Sue Slate is one of those people who makes things happen. Last year as she returned to her home in upstate New York, she couldn’t help smiling to herself as she started planning the next Women’s Motorcyclist Foundation (WMF) adventure ride fundraiser. Soon afterwards, Slate, national programs chair for WMF got together...

Day Nine Well, what a day!  It was certainly the biggest day for riding thrills on the trip this far. It started off at Zuurberg Lodge at 7am with the temperature already at 80 degrees and it was only going to get warmer. We left at 9AM for a short back track on sealed road to the small town of Addo before turning off onto some high speed dirt towards the town of Uitenhage....

Group at Cape Agulhas - Africa's most southern point Day 1 of the riding days, yesterday the 4th October, Monday   Everyone itching to get on the road this morning after our day on 4 wheels exploring the city and going up iconic Table Mountain. Collected the bikes and headed down the coast from Cape Town in a southerly direction. Bikes all looking good, people happy getting used to driving on the right (which...

A couple of years ago, Rob called me up from Vancouver, Canada, and asked me if I did tours to Inuvik, in the Northern Territories of Canada. I said no, but would love to. And so, he flew into Anchorage and we rode together for a week as far north as possible in Canada and had a terrific time. It had been years since Rob and I had ridden together, and we wanted to...

Day 1 D2D 2011 15 Riders left Anchorage this morning headed for Dawson. The morning featured riding the scenic and bustle beating Old Glenn Hiway. Then out through the "twisties thru the trees" of the Glenn Hiway, past Matanuska Glacier, across Caribou Creek on to a lunch stop in Glenallen. The afternoon ride brought a treat of several patches of fresh gravel on our way to our overnight destination of Young's Motel in Tok. A...

  One-Way Ticket to a Lifetime of Memories A Motorcycle Journey along the Pacific Coast Highway with My Favorite Riding Partners   It’s hard to find the right motorcycle riding partner. Some motorcyclists may go a lifetime without finding a person who can both lead at a good pace and also stay on your rear wheel when following. I feel lucky to have just such a riding partner. Only recently have I realized the...

The Isle of Man TT races are the greatest motorcycle show on earth and as the excitement began to build for each tour participants, hick-ups in the best laid plans began to pop-up. As we were leaving Bournemouth , a beautiful sea coastal town along the southern coast of England, Lynn, the tour leader determined changes would be necessary to accomplish our mission successfully. The itinerary said we would spend the 2nd night of the...

After a few weeks of typical Seattle rain as we prepared for the 2011 North to Alaska tour, departure day dawned bright and cool. We had already had to plan a re-route since the Northern Cascade Highway was still covered in 60 feet of snow, with a later opening than had been scheduled in years.  But whichever way you cross the Cascades is snowy and beautiful, so a re-route wasn’t too difficult. After we navigated...

They say the best way to deal with lemons is to make lemon aide. In South America, things are normal when they are not. If you think you are going somewhere, keep in mind, there may be a road block in front of you. Strikes happen regionally and start at the drop of a hat. They last for hours, days, or even weeks. In the case of our situation, the locals around the town of...

Machu Picchu   Kagan took the group took the next day to explore Machu Picchu. Their train left the station by our hotel early in the morning, and by 11AM, they were scrambling around the ruins with their guide, and taking in this most prized item on the bucket list. Jaime and I stayed back in Ollantaytambo, jumped on some bikes, and scouted a road I had heard about from a bus driver the...

Motoquest Blog entry by Sam Sholl. Also, you are invited to visit: http://amotorcyclistsdiary.blogspot.com/--------------------------------------------------------------------------My bike: BMW F650GS (twin, provided by Motoquest)My gear/equipment: * Tour Master Pivot 3 Jacket with insulated liner * Rev'it Cayenne Pro pants with insulated liner * Rain jacket (Firstgear, in case of a down-pour, light weight, large enough to cover regular jacket) * Buff Original Buff (REI, x2) * Schampa Neck Warmer * Athletic elastic wrist sweat bands (block cold air from...

Out of Nazca: 45 minute - 200 Curves - 8,000 Feet I know its not fair to judge, and its extremely dangerous to use superlatives, but let's face it, there is a road in Peru that can only be considered as the best road in the world. Here, they call it the road of a 1,000 curves.   We left the heat the the dust of Nazca and immediately climbed into the mountains. I...

Dave and Ellen have ridden to the Arctic Ocean and to Tierra Del Fuego with MotoQuest. Now Peru. Moquegua is a dot of an oasis in the midst of an ocean of uninhabited sand and rock. The Atacama is the driest desert in the world, and they are not kidding!  A thin ribbon of a stream nurtures this town and keeps the grape crops growing.  There is also an enormous copper mine nearby, so...

  By the time I got to Santiago, more than half the group had made it to Arica and were ready for the trip!  Unusual, since I was hoping to get there first and be the smiling face for them to meet when they got off the plane. At the luggage carousel at the international airport, I heard my name called out. It was Ian from our group, trying to rent a car. At...

Updated: Tuesday, 6/21 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time. Hi all, Welcome to the blog of my journey! I've had bike trips of more mileage, but never one this long or demanding.  I'm headed to the great white north- Inside the Arctic Circle, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on the Arctic Sea.  The trip will take me four weeks, and I'll ride 8000 miles, of which 875 will be on dirt roads.  The reason it's only...

We heard the scream of the engine for three or four seconds before the bikes came into view. A man standing next to me said, “This must be a superbike.” A woman the other side of sixty responded, “No, that’s a sidecar.” The sidecar came into sight and I felt the roar in my chest. The vibrations passed from right to left lung as the bike flew past us. One old and slightly tattered...

On an 8 mile demo ride through the right angles of Daytona and around the grueling twisty, the Tiger 800 handled like a dream in this adventurous terrain, also known as Flatistan. The ergonomics of Triumph's new adventure bike are superb, for a simian-postured early 20's male; and with its sleek design the demo rider felt a few notches cooler slouching into stoplights. As expected, the Triumph Tiger 800 felt like BMWs F800GS without being...

ANTICIPATION Hey, folks, the time grows near. Those making up our merry band probably have the same excited anticipation and concerns I do.....can I learn Japanese in 3 weeks? How many pair of underwear am I really going to need? Will we need any Ninja defensive moves?....and the list goes on, well, maybe not. BUT this will be a grand adventure to say the least. After almost 50 years of motorcycling, this will definitely be a high point for...

I will readily admit that I was initially reluctant to commit, after all it was a sizable cash outlay, for me, and I could acquire a fine new dual sport bike with every farkel Tim Bernard could possibly conceive for the amount we were talking about. I think it was March, 2010 when ol' steelhead, I and about a dozen other IAMC members showed up at the venue in east Boise hoping to catch a...

Photos of this tour: Smugmug Gallery MotoQuest's Video of South Africa     South Africa November 2010   I arrived in Johannesburg in the early morning and took a cab to the city of Sandton, about one hour away. The traffic held us up, and I looked across the horizon and saw a network of fences, new housing complexes and in the distance water towers and nuclear power plant towers. I was as far from...

"Nirvana? that's the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out." - Zonker Harris, Doonesbury Webster's offers two definitions of nirvana. The first is a Buddhist state of existence that requires the extinction of desire and individual consciousness - something most of us will never achieve in case you were wondering, downing 18 beers at the family picnic does effectively obliterate your consciousness and desire, but it doesn't count - I already...

  The Boeing 767-300 banked easily on our final approach into the city, the dawn's light glinting off the aluminum skin of the wings. Out of my window seat I could see that we had dropped way below the peaks, the mighty Andes reaching towards the sky like some angry stone gods as ou LAN aircraft flew just out of their reach. Soon we were just floating above the farms and in seconds the familiar...

2010 Dust to Dawson Adventure   Participants: Phil, Annette, Wym, Marty, Norman, Bill, Derek, Brenden   Wednesday, June 23rd   We met in the MotoQuest Tours parking lot at around 8:30AM. The riders came from all over the United States, with only one representative from Canada. Three of the riders had never been to Alaska before. The skies were overcast and the temperature hovered around 60 degrees.   Our goal for the day was the...

From Tangle Lakes to Cantwell on the Denali Highway.   Above: The Denali Highway. The Denali Highway is a 115 mile long graded dirt road that runs between Paxon, on the Richardson Highway on the east, and Cantwell, on the Parks Highway on the west. We started our ride from the Tangle Lakes Lodge, our hotel stopping point, 20 miles along the Denali Highway from Paxon.   This image shows a representative scene repeated often...

Chatanika to Tangle Lakes via Alaska Highway, Richardson Highway and Denali Highway. 210 miles.       Above: Chatanika Lodge. For reasons never explained to me, the lodge didn't open for the anticipated 7:00 AM breakfast. We rode to Fairbanks to have breakfast at Sophie's Station Inn, the hotel where we stayed on our first night out from Anchorage.   Chatanika is on the Steese Highway which runs northeast from Fairbanks, to Circle, on the...

Direction, Coldfoot to Chatanika, on the Steese highway: 260 miles   Above: Trucks at Coldfoot. Coldfoot, formerly a gold mining camp, is today a truck stop about half way between Fairbanks and Deadhorse. The BLM has and interpretive center and interesting story boards depicting the mining history placed throughout the "stop." I'm not sure you can call Coldfoot a town. Accommodations are similar (modular buildings) to those in Deadhorse and just as expensive. There is...

At noon, our motorcycle tour group started our 240 ride south from Deadhorse to Coldfoot. .   Above: Arctic Fox on the haul road ten miles south of Deadhorse. I was riding behind Val, and Colin and Shirley (scoll for pics). They were good spotters and stopped for this fox.   Above: Caribou on the tundra off the Haul Road, 30 miles south of Deadhorse. The north slope caribou herd numbers about 30,000. Here are...

Over a year ago my friend Jim, from Williamstown, MA asked if I wanted to join him on a motorcycle ride to Prudhoe Bay in May/June of 2010. We would meet, he suggested, in Edmonton, and then ride up the Alaska Highway together. Jim would be a good riding companion. Jim is a near life long rider and motorcycle aficionado. He owns one of thirteen Britton motorcycles and has other rare bikes in his collection....

  Phil is the managing partner of Motoquest Tours www.motoquest.com. Rob leads tours and keeps the bikes up and running...Motoquest keeps about 25 bikes at its shop location on Spenard Road near Anchorage International Airport. Jason, a new hire this year, is a mechanic who drives "Jethro," the back up support vehicle for the tour (crew cab Chevy pick-up outfitted with slot for a back-up or damaged motorcycle, auxiliary gas tank, compressor, spare wheels and...

    Above: Mwah (sic) at the Alaska Pipeline viewpoint 11 miles north of Fairbanks. Half the 800 mile long pipeline is above ground as seen in the pic. The pipeline has been placed above ground in locations where placing it underground would be inhibited by perma frost, or, where the potential for pipeline or environmental damage was high due to unstable earth. The above ground pipeline rests on "shoes" which can slide back and...

Our bikes might make 240 miles... but, they might not.  "Jethro," the follow truck, will gas us all up at the half way mark, Atigun Pass.  Coldfoot, in the old days a gold camp, is now a truck stop, with modular rooms for paying visitors, and a 24 hour restaurant, 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the haul road.    Our group spent the night in Coldfoot.  More in the log on Coldfoot...

  Above: Deadhorse St. Regis Hotel (heh heh). For a small room with a shower in which you can barely turn around, the nightly cost is $250.00. The hotel is a modular building that sits on a gravel pad placed on the tundra. Yesterday afternoon, riding the final 40 miles in temperatures below 40 degrees, I was glad to go into the hotel to warm up. I would have been happy in a shack...

The energy on the ferry flowed from biker to biker, the excitement of the coming days built as the ship cut through the two-foot chop toward the Isle of Man. The Isle is named for the god Mananan. He protected the island from sea-based attacks by shrouding it in mist so thick that marauders couldn’t find it and turned back. Mananan must have known we meant the Isle no harm because the sun shone bright...

One word: Epic! Prelude by Nicole Christensen, lead guide. May 15th, 2010 Today is the day we meet all the clients for a welcome dinner and get all the logistics out of the way. I am checking and double checking things in my mind to get prepped for the trip; sat phone, check, helmet cam, check, first aid kit, check…..and of course all the paperwork for the clients to sign. We spent the morning dressing...

Note: Kyle Basnar is an intern for this year. He is our favorite.   Blog #1: I have always had a passion for travel. While growing up I was fortunate to have a family that traveled and embraced other cultures. My past time on these family trips was usually spent breaking off from the group and trying to surround myself with the locals. Any time I could getaway by foot, bike, or motorcycle I was...

The group was outfitted with proper bikes, the gear stowed, and we were off. Two roundabouts into it and I knew it was a skookum lot. Three riding two-up and four singles, we headed north out of Bournemouth. The A roads had enough twists and turns to keep our attention. Plus land being at a premium here, there were no shoulders so the margin for error was small. Riding on the left didn’t intimidate them...

  South  Africa 3.7.08   From our Hotel in Hermanus, we could see waves crashing against cliffs as we enjoyed a buffet breakfast. We headed east along the coast towards Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa. Though the day before was hot and sunny, this day was our first taste of African rain. We put our heads down and rode for about an hour and a half before stopping in a small town for...

I left the cozy hamlet of Girdwood at just after four in the morning to catch a flight to Seattle. Once I transferred planes, I settled in for the nine hour journey to Amsterdam. I woke in some confusion cuz it felt like the plane was turning around. At that moment the captain came over the loudspeaker and said, "Good morning folks, this is your captain speaking. There's nothing to worry about but we are...

Wednesday, May 5th I slept to the sounds of a river flowing outside my window. The temperature was cool and there was absolutely no noise all night - a notable occurrence in Peru! Usually, there is a dog, somewhere in the night, barking for all its worth. I walked around the manicured courtyard of the hotel. I passed the fountain, flowers and grass and went over to a pool, which was full of brightly covered...

Monday, April 26th I arrived in Arica, Chile without incident. It was only a 9 and half hour flight from Dallas, Texas to Santiago, Chile and three more from Santiago to Arica. Since I am from Alaska, anything under 12 hours is just around the corner. As usual, the temperature in the "City of Eternal Spring" was perfect, hovering around 75 degrees F.  It almost never rains here in the heart of the Atacama Desert....

This article was in Rider Magazine and features our first Women's Ride   Alaska Women's RideBabes - Bikes - Big CountryStory by Perri CapelAlaska lures male motorcyclists like flies to honey, but getting more women from the lower 48 to tackle it on two wheels has been a challenge, says Phil Freeman, owner of Alaska Rider Tours in Anchorage. In 2007, he struck the mother lode. Eleven women signed up to tour the last frontier...

  Alaska Rider Tour's Japan: Three Island Tour   TOURNING JAPANESE by Kevin O'Shaughnessy in City Bike   As I entered yet another tunnel, one of sixty- seven that I would pass through before lunch, the thought occurred to me again, “You can only go to Japan for the first time once” and doing it on a motorcycle surely has to be one of the best ways to do it. Emerging from the tunnel a...

  Alaska's Outback In search of Alaska's Best Unknown Destinations Story by Lee Klancher Motorcycle Escape Magazine Fall 2006 "There's no law north of the Yukon River, and no God north of the Arctic Circle." -Alaskan saying At the Seaview Bar in Hope, Alaska (pop. 137), my buddy Peter Peil and I were enjoying an after-dinner beer with a local and two guys who were regular visitors. Once they learned we were in Alaska...

    Beyond the Circle Adventure Touring to Prudhoe Bay with Alaska Rider By Brian Rathjen   If the thought of riding along on a deeply graveled road gives you the chills, then you might like to move onto another story. But, if you think being a rider is all about the adventure then follow me, McDuff… Alaska Fun Facts: Alaska is larger than the four next largest states combined. Skimming the water at an...

  This is an article in City Bike, based in San Francisco. It is written by Kevin O'Shaughnessy in 2005. He came up to Alaska with his father and brother and rented motorcycles and took a Self-Guided Tour from us in Anchorage, and went on an adventure.     City Bike January 2006   North to Alaska…and pie Alaskan Adventure Ride   by Kevin O'Shaughnessy   It was somewhere between the towns of Chitina...

    Tobin Lampson of DualSport News joined the second stage of our Northern Expedition Adventure in 2005. Dualsport News Febuary 2006 Alaska: North to South! By Tobin Lampson   The orange-tinged jagged mountain landscapes, some 20,000 feet below, were time-lapse dissolving, frame-to-frame in my mind. It was early evening. The United jetliner was descending, leaving me in Anchorage for the night. The next morning an Alaska Airlines jet would deliver me onto another crazy...

Jamie Elvidge of Motorcycle Cruiser Magazine covered our Denali Highway Adventure in 2005 for the a now defunct magazine called Motorcycle Escape. We run a similar tour called the Northern Lights Adventure.   Motorcycle Escape Magazine   Wide Awake in Alaska   By Jamie Elvidge   Editor in Chief of Motorcycle Cruiser magazine       There are periods of time during our adult lives when we need to spend more energy doing what...

  This is Part 2 of a two-part series written by Stephan Cross, a New Zealand rider who joined us on our Prince William Sound Camp Tour the first week of August, 2002.   He wrote the article for a Kiwi-based motorcycle magazine call Bike Rider Magazine.   We do not run camp tours anymore but we do run the same itinerary. It is called The Northern Lights Adventure and features the Denali Highway....

    This is Part 1 of a two part series written by Stephan Cross, a New Zealand rider who joined us on our Prince William Sound Camp Tour the first week of August, 2002. He wrote the article for a Kiwi-based motorcycle magazine call Bike Rider Magazine. Incidentally, we do not offer camp tours anymore. I am running the very same route this year. It is called The Northern Lights Adventure, without the ferry...

This is an article by Brian Rathjen from Backroads Motorcycles, Travel & Adventure Magazine when he took our Alaska Harley-Davidson Tour.  We now call it the Best of Alaska Tour.   ALASKA-THE LAST FRONTIER   by Brian Rathjen   Jim, our pilot, gave a short laugh which filtered through the headset as the small three-seater piper made a swing arc downwards into the craggy, mountain enshrouded valley. Below us a number of mountain goats...

  This article is about the Northern Expedition Adventure that Christen Neuhauser from RoadRunner Magazine took with Alaska Rider Tours during the summer of 2004. The Late Christen Neuhauser liked to ride 500 mile days. He was not a napper. If you like napping,  you are with the right folks. If you like riding 500 miles a day, a  Custom Tour may be what you are looking for.   Little Known Facts: Christen Neuhauser...

Dr. Gregory Frazier took a Best of Alaska Tour with Alaska Rider Tours (MotoQuest) in the summer of 2003 and covered it for Dualsport News. Here is what he had to say.   NOTE: We do not offer camping tours any longer, but stay in comfortable lodge-style accommodations.   Dualsport News, April 2004   Alaska Off the Road By Dr. Gregory Frazier   Bears, mud, gravel tundra, snow, ice, fire, and fun! Throw in a...

Here is an article by late contributing editor to Rider Magazine, Lawrence Grodsky. He came with us in the first week of August on our Prince William Sound Camp Tour, 2002. We don't offer camp toursanymore, but run the same route...it's beautiful!   The article is in the March issue of Rider, 2003 featuring the Northern Lights Adventure Tour     Before the Mountains Disappeared   Story and photography by Lawrence Grodsky   To our...

My duty shift, my scheduled line of flying for July 2009, ended while I was in the Middle East. I was given a choice of travel. I could take a coach seat on United Airlines' Boeing 777 for fifteen hours from Dubai nonstop to Washington, DC, departing in a few minutes around midnight. Or I could wait until after breakfast and take a first class seat, along with my own bed in a private bedroom,...

Shanti We left Kaza and continued up the Spiti Valley. We headed past Losar, our refuge from the storm last year, and climbed Kumzum La, the 4990m pass that we had climbed twice in a blizzard. It was much less arduous with dry roads and warm temps.At the bottom of the pass we hooked a right turn to Baikal or Moon Lake. The road to the lake was challenging with several deep water crossings, loose...

Halfway done w/number 1 We took the boys on a day ride to get familiar with the bikes and left-side driving. Back up Solang Valley and they all looked solid so we headed halfway up Rhotang La for lunch. The dry road gave them some idea of what they may be in for without the added stress of hundred meter mud puddles and water crossings, plus traffic was light because we timed it so that...

Sunday, August 2, 2009 Field trip   We started our day at the hot springs in the temple just up from our hotel. You leave your shoes outside the temple with a man who will keep an eagle eye on them for one rupee(3cents.)Many locals bathe daily in the temple pool. The water is much hotter than you will find at a hot tub in the states. Your skin quits sending the pain signal to...

Saturday, August 1, 2009 Smells   Sally (shameless plug for alaska travel source) pulled some strings, worked her magic, threatened, cajoled or whatever and got me on Thursday's oversold flight. Mariska and Anu picked me up in Kulu and only an hour late, which is practically early in India.The first thing I noticed was the heat. 34 degrees Celcius (double it and add 30 for F, I'll do this one for you, it's 98.) Then...

Pathet Lao Caves, Vieng Xay, Laos     SmugMug Gallery This is a group of friends riding the same route as our MotoQuest Tour, and having many of the same experiences that our tour participants have in Laos, but not staying in the same places as the tour participants do. We are traveling on a shoestring budget, and our lodging reflects that. During our MotoQuest Tour, we stay at the highest level of accommodation...

Alaska, land of lakes and mountains, rivers and glaciers, is a long way to go for an 8 day ride so I had to pad it out a bit. There is a cute little town on the south eastern corner called Skagway, located at the end of a long fiord like inlet and so full of history that I can’t put it all in this epic.  However,   to get there I flew from Ankorage...

It started here two weeks ago and seems like two months. Every day packed full, every day packed well. That so much could occur makes us think a spell, and then think a little more. Riding at 15,000 ft in Peru. The first day out rode well, up into the mountains to get in gear, to see just what this altitude thing was all about. Back at dusk and to the top of El Moro,...

The road today kept climbing, with still debris in places. Although the strike ended two days ago, no-one seems to be in a hurry/nor responsible for cleaning up the mess. In places that are cleared, it's not cleared very far. Just to the edge of the road, thank you. Charred stumps, steel rails, piles of rocks. Yea, we remember those. Burned/melted spots in the asphalt where the tires and stumps were a-lit; shame good roads...

My, what a city. A lot of hustle & bustle, a lot of narrow, cobblestone streets, a lot of old (I said old) buildings, and the feel of strength in the air. Walked the streets for hours and hours, stopped at every plaza we happened across. Sat and talked with people (what an amazing sort), and munched on bakery goods from the Panderia. Had snacks from street vendors and ice cream from the Helado cart....

Well, it's better than the pictures. So much so my eyes welled up uponwalking thru the Gate. A boyhood dream, finally come true. I mean, there it is, in incredible hewn-stone glory, celebrating the sky, the mountains,and the earth. It's in the most-inaccessible of places, on a sharp ridgedropping a thousand feet to the river, and they said Let's build somethinghere. To guide their planting and harvest, they constructed a roundedtower and placed openings in...

But you know, you just don't get up on a volcano all that often. The scenery was truly surreal, the air so incredibly crisp, and the view was farther than you thought you'd ever see. Headed down the other side we had bike trouble (ours), and that far out you better be prepared. We were, but sometimes there's only so much field operation you can do. The first stall (felt like running out of gas)...

We knew the day could be interesting, for we heard there was going to be a strike. Seems the populace was angry about the government selling water to Chile, and the roads in and out of Cusco and many of the neighboring communities would be blocked. Also, the train to Auguas Caliente was not going to run, which meant there was no way to get to Machu Picchu (the Inca Trail was also closed). The...

Went up in a Cessna today, almost too windy to fly. But there's cowboys here, and unless the plane's blown over on its side up indeed they go. Kinda like a bucking bronco ride (a lot), it's the only way to see the lines. So see them we did. The surveyor in me figured no big deal, for we run straight lines as well. But if you consider the remoteness, the terrain, their incredible complexity,...

Arequipa Yes, it was a three-hour dinner on a three-story rooftop overlooking the Plaza de Armas at sunset. And it was incredible. Cold, yes, but the waiters brought serapes and we were toasty as hell. The light in the sky seemed to take forever to fade, refusing to let go until the last Magnifico was uttered. Of course the ensuing darkness was abayed by the sparkle in the plaza, where a thousand lights strung thru...

Laos is the forgotten destination of southern Asia, sort of squeesed in between Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma ( now called Myanmar). A country of wonderful people, with a long and mysterious history. Like a lot of things that happen in my life, it all came about as a bit of an accident, I had been trawling the internet for adventures following my other exploits and Alaska Rider just turned up, and it seemed like a...