Through 2005 our travels have been limited to the western half of North America.  Draw a line from Edmonton, Alberta to Guadalajara, Mexico and we have traveled nearly everywhere west of that line except Baja California.

When we travel we are generally camping.  We have found that we enjoy the outdoors living even when it is raining.  Our first trip by motorcycle was a two week run up Vancouver Island, ferry hop back south to Vancouver, BC, north to Prince George, east to Edmonton, and south thru the Ice fields Parkway in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.  It rained on us 12 of the 15 days we were gone, including the first 3 days being constant rain.  But that didn't deter us, neither did the 104°F bedtime temperature in the Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley in May of 2005.  (It was still 90° when we got up in the morning.) 

The other thing about camping is meeting people.  A person staying in a motel/hotel stays in their room and watches the weather channel.  A camper is outside where others can see and greet them.  We generally stay in RV parks rather than the more primitive forest campgrounds of the US Forest Service (Kathy likes a shower in the morning).  We have more than once set up between a couple of multi-hundred-thousand-dollar RV's while their owners are peeking out of the blinds at us.  In about 10 minutes we're done and kicked back in the chairs with a glass of wine.  Shortly after the neighbors are "just wandering by" and are curious about our setup.  So we give them the grand tour and end up talking about places and things to do in the area while we all sip wine.  We have found that a lot of motorcyclists camp, particularly foreign motorcyclists.  We have met riders from many European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand in campgrounds.  This has just fueled our desire to ride in those places.

With the 1980 GoldWing Interstate we owned during the 80's and early 90's we had a CycleMate trailer that carried our tent and gear.  When we bought the '95 GoldWing SE we bought a TimeOut tent trailer too.  We found that more and more parks were not allowing tents, the TimeOut is not a tent, it's a "popup" which is allowed.  For Europe we're going back to the tent, but without the trailer.  There's too much expense, paperwork and traffic problems to bother with it.  But, we did build some boxes to fit into the hitch to expand capacity.  We also have a newer CycleMate trailer that we bought to take to Mexico in 2000.  In 2008 we sold the TimeOut trailer because the garage of our new house was not big enough for the car, a GoldWing and two trailers.  We have gone back to tent camping.  The CycleMate hangs from the ceiling on a lift and is over the car.  The truck always stays outside.