Motozor

This trip has been amazing, and I have fallen in love with so much about New Zealand. I could easily see myself moving here, even just for a few months out of every year. The people are great, the collectivist culture is tolerable (although I stand out here even MORE), and the country itself is beautiful in ways that surprised me. I didn’t expect to have such a visceral feeling of “home” here. I’d love to return next winter and ride for several weeks, explore the North Island more, get off-road a bit and see the wilder parts, find some other people to ride with.

I did find that I needed far more internet access to get work done on my current projects than was readily available here in New Zealand, but this would be much less of a problem if I’d known this and planned a bit better for it. New Zealand has solid internet connectivity to the rest of the world, but it wasn’t as freely available everywhere I went. Even “free” wifi came with 30 minute time limits, the occasional content filter, and most bars and cafes aren’t set up for digital campers quite the same way.

This trip also convinced me that living off the motorcycle is not only doable for me, but enjoyable. I did 6 weeks this past summer in Colorado, but with a home-base apartment in Boulder, as well as all the comfortable familiarity of still being in the United States. The trip to Alaska is back on the table for this summer, and I think with some planning I can actually pull off balancing fun time against getting some amount of work-work done.

My overall route