Life Update + The Next Big Thing

Hello! It has been over four years since my last post, you would be forgiven for forgetting me. I am gearing up for my next adventure now which means more posts for you. Before I get into that, here is a brief life update. Four years in less than a page...

What Happened

After the last road trip ended I moved to Long Beach California, a sunny place for shady people as we like to say. This was something like a salmon swimming upstream (and who doesn't love salmon). I was born in Long Beach and I returned to take care of my grandparent's home after we had moved them out. Cue lots of DIY and DIwhy remodeling. I learned a lot from that experience. Once the house was ready, I played property manager for a few years while a rotating cast of friends and kind strangers rented rooms from my grandmother.

Once work on the house had wrapped up, it was time for a big boy job. I started working for a B2B lunch delivery service, first managing the company's relationships with restaurants and then with drivers. Food is chaos. Logistics is chaos. Combine that and you get chaos squared. LOTS of things to manage and take care of there.

Along the way in Long Beach I got involved in the bicycling scene. I was living on the suburban east end of the city but even still I found I was looking for the keys to my car less and less and grabbing my bicycle helmet more and more. Additionally, I found myself taking the bus and train to get around increasingly. When the lease on my car was up in 2023, I did the unthinkable and did not replace it. I simply was not driving enough to justify the cost. Not much longer after that, the motorcycle was soon to follow. Ironically as I was shedding vehicles my vehicular writings were being published. First in Ultimate Motorcycling Magazine and then in the MGNOC magazine. Many thanks to Don at Ultimate for giving me a change to ramble for his publication and Frank at the MGNOC for not complaining too much after I called him out for reproducing my entire blog without my permission. Frank has since made good on this error.

2024 was a difficult year. I began it with four grandparents and ended it with one. I miss Katie, Aaron, and Jerry dearly. I am thankful that none of them were left wanting by life and will fondly cherish my memories of them for forever.

The passing of my grandparents meant that it was time to sell the family home and time for me to move. I chose downtown Long Beach, that is what prompted me to sell my beloved Guzzi. The Guzzi was fun, exciting, and took me on an incredible adventure. However, with the move to downtown the costs to keep the bike were set to increase and the ease of getting around without it was going to increase more. In 2020 I was a diehard car guy. I restored cars for fun, worked in auto parts, and assumed I would be like that more or less forever. In five short years I had gotten rid of all my motorized vehicles and felt even more mobile without them. With my friends I started a nonprofit to teach people how to fix their own bicycles. That has been one of the most rewarding experiences of recent memory. I hope it will be around for long after I am gone to keep Long Beach rolling.

In mid-July 2025, two events occurred concurrently to upset this happy balance. My work, once fulfilling and interesting was starting to burn me out. I had lost my ability to self-motivate and was having difficulty with keeping myself engaged. At about the same time, my landlord terminated my lease so she could sell my unit. If either of these things happened on their own, it would have been hard. Since they both happened at the same time, dealing with it was actually pretty simple.

What's Next

I left my job and moved all my belongings into storage. The plan is to travel the world for a while. In a lot of ways I am at a perfect age for this, young enough to wander and adventure but old enough to throw money at real problems as they come up. No job, no rent, no mortgage, no partner, no kids, no car payment. No worries. I am immensely thankful to be in this situation.

So if you continue to follow this blog, what can you expect? The same daily posts and 'journalism' but with a distinctly non-motorcycling bent. If a motorcycle trip is about 'freedom to' this trip is going to be about 'freedom from'.

Where a motorcycle gives you freedom to go anywhere (even between lanes or off the road entirely) this trip will be about freeing myself from the responsibility of safe carriage.

What will the trip look like? I am going to start by traveling the US, primarily by Amtrak. After a month of that, I will fly to Europe and do a month and a half to two months of the same out there. From Istanbul fly to Uzbekistan, then Delhi, southeast Asia, and Australia. Circumnavigating the earth.

If you would like to follow along, daily posting will resume on October 3rd. 

The Plan (insofar as there is one)

10/3 - Train from Santa Barbara to San Jose

10/8 - Train From Emeryville to Denver

10/11 - Train from Denver to Chicago

10/12 - Train from Chicago to Kansas City

10/13 - Bus From Kansas City to Fayetteville, Arkansas

Bus from Fayetteville to Memphis

Train From Memphis to New Orleans

10/19 (probably) Fly from New Orleans to Miami

Bus from Miami to Cocoa Beach

Bus From Cocoa Beach to Jacksonville

Train From Jacksonville to DC (Possibly with an overnight stop in Raleigh if there is time)

Train from DC to Philadelphia

Train from Philadelphia to NYC

Train from NYC to Boston

11/3 Fly from Boston to Amsterdam

Go to Eindhoven

Go to Copenhagen

Go to Paris

11/13 Go to Madrid

Mid to late December - Fly from Istanbul to Samarkand

Train to Tashkent

Fly from Tashkent to Delhi

Travel in India

Travel in Southeast Asia

Fly to Australia and spend some time there

Fly back to California