No trailer. No shipping the bike ahead. If I’m going there, I want to ride there.
After enough miles on a motorcycle, something strange happens.
You stop looking at a map like a normal person.
Normal people see states.
Cities.
National parks.
Coastlines.
A perfectly reasonable interstate system designed to get them from Point A to Point B without unnecessary suffering.
Motorcyclists look at the same map and think:
I wonder what that road is like.
Then you zoom in.
Then you find another road.
Then somebody tells you about some ridiculous stretch of pavement 1,800 miles away.
And suddenly you’ve mentally committed yourself to spending five days riding there so you can ride an 11-mile road.
This is completely rational behavior.
I’ve already learned that some of my favorite memories don’t come from arriving somewhere.
They come from everything between home and wherever I was supposedly trying to go.
The heat.
The rain.
The gas stations.
The mountains.
The conversations with strangers.
The roads you hadn’t planned on.
The mechanical problems you definitely hadn’t planned on.
And those moments when you’re hundreds or thousands of miles from home, the road opens up in front of you, and you realize:
There is nowhere else I’d rather be.
So I’ve started building a motorcycle bucket list.
Not a list of places I want to fly to, rent a car, take three pictures and check off.
I want to ride there.
My bike.
From home.
No trailer.
Because apparently I enjoy making vacations significantly more complicated than necessary.
First Rule: One Big Ride With Dad Every Year
There is one thing I already know needs to remain on the calendar.
At least one real motorcycle trip with Dad every year.
Not a Saturday ride.
Not lunch somewhere two counties over.
A trip.
The kind where the motorcycles are packed, we’re gone for days, and by the end we’re both tired, filthy, slightly deaf despite the earplugs, and already talking about where we should go next.
Our big cross-country trip taught me something I probably already knew but hadn’t really thought about:
You don’t get unlimited rides with people.
Someday there will be a last one.
I don’t know when that will be, and I’m in absolutely no hurry to find out.
So until then, we’re going.
Maybe some years it’s 1,500 miles.
Maybe some years it’s 6,000.
Maybe something breaks.
Actually, based on our track record, something will almost certainly break.
That’s apparently part of the package.
But there will be one trip every year with Dad.
That isn’t really part of the bucket list.
That’s the rule.
Everything else?
Those are the rides I want to start doing solo.
Key West: Ride Until America Runs Out
This one is near the top.
Key West, Florida.
There is something incredibly appealing about pointing the motorcycle south and essentially continuing until the country runs out of pavement.
US 1 through the Florida Keys stretches across island after island toward Key West, including the famous Seven Mile Bridge.
Eventually you’re riding with water on both sides and very little America left in front of you.
That’s my kind of destination.
Not because I desperately need to stand next to the Southernmost Point marker with 900 other tourists.
Although obviously I’m taking the picture.
I’m not an animal.
I want the ride.
Indiana to Florida.
Down the peninsula.
Into the Keys.
Across the bridges.
Key Largo.
Islamorada.
Marathon.
Seven Mile Bridge.
Then finally Key West.
Park the bike.
Find something cold to drink.
Look south.
And think:
Well, I guess I’m out of road.
Then turn around and ride home.
Because unlike an airplane ticket, motorcycles have consequences.
Pacific Coast Highway: The One I Still Owe Myself
I’ve ridden in California.
I’ve crossed deserts.
I’ve ridden mountain roads.
I’ve seen some absolutely ridiculous scenery from behind a windshield.
But there’s still one glaring omission.
Pacific Coast Highway.
I want Highway 1.
Ocean on one side.
Cliffs on the other.
Big Sur.
Bixby Creek Bridge.
Fog rolling across the coastline.
Those enormous Pacific views where stopping every fifteen minutes becomes a legitimate scheduling problem.
And I don’t want to fly to California and rent a motorcycle.
That feels like cheating.
Maybe not actual cheating.
More like using cheat codes.
I want to leave home on my bike.
Ride west.
Eventually hit the Pacific.
Then turn and follow the coastline.
As of late September 2026, Highway 1 through Big Sur is open again, although Caltrans still lists several construction and traffic-control areas along the route. By the time I actually do this ride, I’ll check conditions again because California Highway 1 occasionally likes to remind everyone that geology remains undefeated. (Caltrans)
This isn’t really about completing a famous road.
It’s about finally riding one of those roads I’ve stared at in photographs for years.
Some roads just get into your head.
PCH is one of mine.
Tail of the Dragon: Because Apparently Straight Roads Are Boring
Then there’s Tail of the Dragon.
US 129.
Eleven miles.
318 curves. (Tail of The Dragon)
Which means at some point somebody looked at a mountain and decided:
We could build a road around this.
Then somebody else apparently replied:
Or we could just keep turning.
I need to ride it.
But I don’t want to ride all the way to Tennessee and North Carolina, hammer through the Dragon, buy a T-shirt and leave.
That entire region deserves a trip.
Tail of the Dragon.
Foothills Parkway.
Great Smoky Mountains.
Moonshiner 28.
Blue Ridge Parkway.
The surrounding Smoky Mountain riding could turn this into several days of nothing but curves, mountains and wondering why my shoulders hurt. The established Smoky Mountain Loop alone connects the Dragon with Foothills Parkway, Little River Road, US 441 and Moonshiner 28. (Tail of The Dragon)
This would probably be one of the shorter trips on the bucket list.
But short doesn’t mean easy.
It just means I have fewer opportunities to lose something.
The USA Four Corners Ride: This One Is Completely Ridiculous
Which means naturally I want to do it.
The Southern California Motorcycling Association’s USA Four Corners Tour requires riders to reach:
San Ysidro, California.
Blaine, Washington.
Madawaska, Maine.
Key West, Florida.
The traditional certified ride is roughly 7,000 miles between the four corners and has to be completed within 21 calendar days. Riders choose their own route. (SoCal Motorcycling Assn.)
There is also a True X version.
Because apparently someone looked at 7,000 miles in three weeks and said:
This seems a little easy.
The True X adds Lebanon, Kansas, between each corner, pushing the official estimate to roughly 11,000 miles in 26 days. (SoCal Motorcycling Assn.)
I don’t know whether I’d do the traditional Four Corners first or eventually decide I’ve lost enough common sense to attempt the True X.
But I know this:
I want my name on that finishers list.
That one wouldn’t really be a vacation.
It would be a challenge.
Wake up.
Pack.
Ride.
Fuel.
Ride.
Eat something questionable at a gas station.
Ride.
Find hotel.
Sleep.
Repeat.
For weeks.
There is something deeply appealing about that.
And possibly something wrong with me.
Both can be true.
A Harley Poker Chip From Every State
This one isn’t about a single trip.
It’s about all of them.
I want a Harley-Davidson dealer poker chip from every state.
Not ordered online.
Not handed to me by somebody else.
Not bought on eBay because apparently we’re trying to speed-run missing the entire point.
I want to ride into the state.
Find a Harley dealership.
Walk inside.
Buy the chip.
Put it in the saddlebag.
Keep going.
Harley even sells a U.S. map display designed for dealer chips, describing them as a way to show the places you’ve ridden and the roads still ahead. Which is dangerously close to Harley-Davidson creating an officially sanctioned version of Pokémon for middle-aged motorcycle riders. (Harley-Davidson)
Fine.
I’m in.
Gotta collect ’em all.
The chips become less about the dealerships and more about what each one represents.
That chip means:
I rode there.
Maybe 400 miles.
Maybe 4,000.
But the bike crossed that state line with me on it.
That’s the souvenir.
The little piece of plastic just proves I did it.
Every National Park I Can Reach in the Continental U.S.
This may be the biggest long-term goal.
I want to visit every National Park in the contiguous United States on the motorcycle.
The National Park Service currently recognizes 63 sites specifically designated as National Parks nationwide. I’m limiting my motorcycle challenge to the contiguous U.S. because eventually logistics cease being adventurous and start becoming maritime freight management. (National Park Service)
I’ve already seen some parks from the bike.
And that’s what created the problem.
Because once you’ve ridden through places like Zion or Petrified Forest, walking out of an airport and getting into a rental Nissan Altima just doesn’t hit quite the same.
You experience a place differently on a motorcycle.
Temperature changes instantly.
You smell the trees.
Feel the desert heat.
Notice elevation.
Feel crosswinds.
Hear things.
You’re not sitting inside a climate-controlled box looking through glass.
You’re in it.
Yellowstone.
Glacier.
Acadia.
Everglades.
Olympic.
Joshua Tree.
Death Valley.
Rocky Mountain.
Great Smoky Mountains.
Yosemite.
All of them.
Not in one trip.
That would turn something beautiful into a hostage situation.
This is a lifetime goal.
Some trips might knock out one park.
Others could string several together.
Eventually I’d like to look at a map and realize there isn’t a National Park in the lower 48 where I haven’t parked the motorcycle, taken off my helmet and thought:
Holy shit. Look at this place.
The Solo Part Matters
Most of these rides I want to do alone.
And that isn’t because I don’t like riding with people.
There’s something different about traveling solo on a motorcycle.
Nobody else’s schedule.
Nobody else’s fuel stop.
Nobody asking whether we can leave at 8:00 instead of 7:00.
Nobody negotiating dinner.
Nobody deciding whether that weird-looking road on the map is worth another 90 miles.
You decide.
Want to ride another 200 miles?
Go.
Want to stop because the view is ridiculous?
Stop.
Want to spend an hour talking to some 73-year-old guy at a gas station who rode a Shovelhead across America in 1978?
Apparently that’s what we’re doing now.
Solo travel gives you something increasingly rare:
time where nobody needs anything from you.
Just the road.
The bike.
Music in the helmet.
Your own thoughts.
Sometimes that’s peaceful.
Sometimes your brain decides this is the perfect opportunity to replay a conversation from 2006.
Can’t win them all.
No Trailer
I keep coming back to this one.
If I’m doing these trips, the motorcycle gets ridden there.
I’m not opposed to trailers.
They have legitimate purposes.
Broken motorcycles, race bikes, moving, people with limited time.
Perfectly reasonable.
But that’s not what these trips are about for me.
I don’t just want to ride Pacific Coast Highway.
I want to ride to Pacific Coast Highway.
I don’t just want a picture of the bike in Key West.
I want the miles between Indiana and Key West attached to the memory.
If I’m standing in Madawaska, Maine during a Four Corners ride, I want to know exactly how much work it took to get there.
The crappy weather matters.
The boring highways matter.
The fuel stops matter.
The 5:30 a.m. starts matter.
The days where everything goes perfectly matter.
And the days where everything goes completely sideways usually become the stories you tell anyway.
The destination is only part of the ride.
Sometimes it’s not even the best part.
I’m Not Trying to Finish the List
That’s probably the strange thing about a bucket list.
I don’t actually want to finish it.
Because every time I ride somewhere new, somebody tells me about another road.
Another park.
Another mountain pass.
Another town.
Another rally.
Another diner.
Another stretch of coastline.
Another place where someone inevitably says:
If you’re already here, you HAVE to ride…
And suddenly there’s another pin on the map.
That’s how this is supposed to work.
Maybe I make Key West next year.
Maybe Tail of the Dragon comes first.
Maybe Pacific Coast Highway becomes the next big western trip.
Maybe I finally commit to the Four Corners and spend three weeks questioning every life decision that led me to northern Maine.
I don’t know yet.
And I kind of like that.
Because the motorcycle bucket list isn’t really a list of places.
It’s an excuse to keep moving.
To keep seeing things.
To spend at least one big trip every year riding alongside Dad.
And to spend some of the others out there alone, finding out what happens when the only real decision for the day is:
Which way do I want to go?
So maybe that’s the better question.
Not:
What’s left on my motorcycle bucket list?
But:
What’s on yours?
What road have you stared at on a map?
What trip have you been saying you’ll do “someday”?
What place is far enough away that getting there is half the point?
Because eventually we run out of summers.
Eventually there will be a last long ride.
And I’d rather have a wall covered in poker chips, a motorcycle with way too many miles on it, and a ridiculous collection of stories than spend the next twenty years saying:
I always wanted to do that.