Today I booked a one way flight to Colombia to start my trip. The clock is now ticking to get everything planned. Fortunately I’ve been thinking about doing this trip for several years and started planning things a few months ago.

There is a lot of planning to do for a trip this ambitious. My first step was to source a motorcycle. While I could rent one, or ship one down to South America, the easiest solution seemed to buy one down there. I got in contact with a man named Tim in Colombia who runs an adventure motorcycle rental business and had a couple bikes for sale. I settled on a 2016 Honda XRE300. A small but lightweight bike perfect for the small rough roads of Latin America.

The bike being ready, the next steps were to figure out travel health insurance, motorcycle insurance, travel vaccines, medevac insurance, and so on. And on top of that, buying and packing all the gear that I’ll need along the way.