I met Jimbo Tarpey while staring at salmon in a river, waiting for a grizzly bear to come eat, in Hyder, Alaska.
Without cell service, I sat on a wooden bench, staring at these salmon, as if watching paint dry. Then, I saw Jimbo wander up in a full motorcycle kit, high on life. Thinking to myself, I need to know the story behind this guy, I scooted closer to eavesdrop on his conversation.
In a short while, I became a part of the conversation learning about Jimbo's goal of riding a motorcycle from his home in Minnesota to the top of Alaska all the way to the bottom of South America. His story blew my mind and I am honored to share his story with you all through a Q&A below:
Jimbo
A Q&A with Jimbo on Long Term Motorcycle Riding, History, and the Pan-Am Highway:
Q: Could you introduce yourself?
A: My name is Jimbo Tarpey, a year ago I quit my job and left everything behind to travel the world. I’m a 33 year-old Minnesotan that makes infotainment videos and blogs on historical places across the Americas that I visit on my motorcycle.
Q: How can we follow your journey?
A: You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Patreon by looking up “2 Wheels 1 Compass” or 2W1C. I have a website here too.
I release YouTube videos once every month or so that are real labors, and I try to release a blog or 90-second reel on Facebook or Instagram every other day.
90% of my blogs are on Patreon and free to read, but the best stories are saved for those who donate to my cause. On Patreon you can give as little as $1 / month and access those stories.
Q: What are you currently doing?
A: After saving and planning for 7 years, I quit my job, donated my mattress, left my apartment, sold my car, and rode off on my motorcycle to cross the Americas from the top to the bottom. I’ve been traveling for 13 months.
Not only do I travel, I also ride around to historical locations, stay with locals, and report on the history and culture of the places that I visit on social media platforms as an amateur influencer. It’s been a dream of mine and I’ve worked on it for years and I’m currently living it!
Q: What’s your background?
A: I worked in the health insurance industry for about 6 years... I left it all behind for this trip. I have a degree in Anthropology and I speak Spanish, so I’ve been recently using those to dive into the culture of Latin America and report on the interesting, strange, and unique things I see. I’ve been a motorcyclist since I was 25.
Q: What is your route and how did you decide on it?
I always knew I wanted to travel the world but I didn’t know how. One day, the dream actually started with me looking around Google Earth on a rainy day. I was looking at far off and remote places like Greenland or the interior of Australia. I had just got back from a road trip and I was wondering what extreme road trip places existed.
My eyes were drawn to the top of North America. This was around 2014 so there was only 1 road to the Arctic Ocean. As it turns out, there were a few people that had taken that route in their own private vehicles over The Dalton Highway, the treacherous stretch from Fairbanks up to the shores of Earth’s northern ocean.
Then that made me wonder, how far south can I go from there? Then I looked up the farthest south roads go. That brought me to Ushuaia, Argentina.
My coworker at the time was a motorcyclist and talked about all of the advantages I’d have with traveling on a motorcycle such as cost, ease of access, quality of living, economy, and many other things.
I wanted no time limit to see all the things in between. Given there are things such as tourist visas and seasons there’s obviously not unlimited time, but I wanted to be able to see everything I could. There was no set route other than these two points: Deadhorse, Alaska and Ushuaia, Argentina.
Q: What bike did you choose?
A: I have a 2020 Honda Africa Twin 1100. I selected it because it is an adventure bike class, meaning it has the best fuel economy (~60 MPG), good ergonomics for long highway stretches, and it can go off-road and handle the rough stuff when needed.
Q: How did you select your bike? What other bikes did you consider?
A: I needed something that could handle crossing the vast expanses of North America as well as the rough-and-tumble scenic routes of Latin America. I picked Honda over BMW, Triumph, or KTM because of cost, and it would be easier to find parts and dealerships across the hemisphere.
I considered the Kawasaki Versys and Suzuki V-Strom as well, but the immediate post-pandemic availability back in spring of 2021 limited my options. Right now I’m falling in love with the Yamaha Tenere 700 but don’t tell my bike that.
Q: How did you budget for the trip?
A: I should preface this by saying that my biggest priority for this journey was time. I wanted to travel for years. So, I saved a lot for this over the course of my young career. I didn’t want to be hampered by costs and budgeting, so I saved up a large sum of money over the course of several years and I’m slowly chipping away at it as I go.
I don’t look ahead further than maybe 1-2 days in terms of budgeting. I find out how much it’ll cost to operate daily and multiply that by a month. Every month I’ll look back at my expense totals and forecast what I may be down to looking forward as the months go by.
Q: What was the hardest part of starting?
A: All those years I was saving, I had to put many things aside. Many romantic relationships had to have the conversation: “Here’s what I’m doing. Have you ever considered long-term travel?”
I had relationships with an expiration date. My goal was the exact opposite of people looking to have children, buy houses, and settle down. There’s a lot of social pressure to do these things, both internal and external. It’s hard to ignore those pressures.
Also, you need to consider apartment leases and large possessions when you go. I had furniture and a car. I had to sell the car and have friends take what they could if they agreed to it. I also got a storage locker to pack up my life and I paid the maximum 2 year advance for it. When signing for my last apartment, I awkwardly asked for a 20-month lease that was set to expire in July 2022 so I could leave in the summer to the Arctic.
Q: What was the largest barrier-to-entry that almost made you reconsider?
While friends were using their vacation time to visit far off locations around the world, I budgeted my paid time off to go on long-distance motorcycle trips around the US and Canada to practice the camping, packing, and logistics of this ‘big trip.’
I don’t think anything got close to making me reconsider. Once I had told my friends and family I was planning on doing it, and once I’d started to save up the money and make sacrifices for the long-term goal, there was no going back.
It would hurt more to quit than it would to keep going.
Q: How far have you gone? How much is left?
I have gone from Minneapolis, MN to Deadhorse, AK, and I’m writing to you from Costa Rica after being on the road for 13 months.
I have been on the road for 43,902 km or 27,279 miles.
I have no idea how many miles are ahead, but I’m targeting hitting the bottom of South America in January to February of 2025 during the southern hemisphere’s summer. From there, I will head North.
I don’t know what I’ll do after I reach the bottom. That is still TBD. I’ll look at the 4 Bs:
My Bank account
My Bike
My Brain
My Body.
Then I’ll decide what I can handle next. A Trip home? A continuance to another continent? Time will tell.
Q: Thus far, what are 3 to 5 highlights?
A: In no particular order:
The Dalton Highway to Deadhorse Alaska. Reaching that Arctic Ocean shore was a feat I’d been dreaming of for years.
I was invited to dive deep into the Mexican state of Sinaloa to stay with local motorcyclists. Those connections lead to private invites to 2 Mexican motorcycle rallies that even put me on 2 local news outlets. Link 1 Link 2
A therapeutic psychedelic mushroom experience with a shaman as a spotter in the mountains south of Mexico City.
Stowing away on a 12-hour ferry from the Baja Peninsula to the mainland of Mexico by getting past security and sleeping on the floor of their movie theater.
Death Valley’s challenges and reaching a point of total self-sufficiency after about 4 months on the road.
Jimbo
Q: Now, on the flip-side, what are 3-5 lowlights?
Particularly in order, but each of these ‘bad times’ turned into great stories.
5) I hit a bowl of soupy sand and crashed offroading in the Paso de Cortez in Mexico in between Mexico City and Puebla. It broke my pannier off (Box attached to the motorcycle with my gear). The pannier had my emergency can of gas attached. With the help of locals I was able to connect it (imperfectly) and I took it to a welder. He gave me a quote and told me to come back in 3 hours. Upon returning to the welder, he told me the price was going to be 33% more. I argued no, we had a deal. When I attached the pannier, I noticed gasoline had been stolen from my can. They tried to overcharge me after stealing from me.
4) My motorcycle battery died and could not be bump started or jumped (it’s a Lithium Ion Battery) so I hitchhiked with a French-Canadian 255 km (158 mi) one way, then had help from a Canadian motorcyclist to go out and tow it back adding another 2 trips of that same distance.
In total I went 765 km (474 miles) over the course of about 9 hours of travel in 1 day across central British Columbia. It was all done on generosity.
3) I was horribly sick with Montezuma’s Revenge with no appetite for 4 days as I recovered in a Mexican motorcyclist’s spare bedroom on the roof of his house in the Yucatan Peninsula. There was no AC and only a fan. At the hottest time of year, during the hottest part of every day, it loomed around 40C (104 F) for several hours, meaning aiming a fan at me was cooking me like a convection oven as the temperature was above my body temp. It took a few days to work up the gumption to go to a doctor.
2) I finally came down with Covid for the first time in Washington state. I’d tested negative, but as I was coming down with it, I stayed overnight in the garage of a motorcyclist as the cascadian rain came down. As we were getting to know each other, I was held conversationally hostage as he went on a racist tirade against immigrants and addicts. I was in no condition to leave, it was dark and raining, I was getting more sick by the minute, and I was also in the process of eating a dinner he provided me. When he took a second to breathe, I thanked him for the dinner and he changed immediately and it was over. I was confined to the garage because a pit bull was inside the house that he assured me would attack me. Luckily I had a noisy space heater that drowned out the sound of rats fighting in the piles of motorcycle parts of the garage. I left the next morning first thing.
1) At the Calgary Stampede Rodeo, one of the largest gatherings in Canada, I went out to the bar with some locals. After getting separated, we found each other to leave. I climbed into the vehicle of my ride back to the hostel but I didn’t know my driver was drunk. He hooted and hollered, waving his cowboy hat out the window as he began to swerve into oncoming traffic. When I asked him to drive safer, he called me a pussy. I asked to be let out of the vehicle but he refused.
I was then literally in the process of being kidnapped, as he wouldn’t let me out of the vehicle. He ran red lights to prevent us from stopping so I couldn’t get out. Finally after hitting some traffic, I got out. I walked home a sobering 5 hours across Calgary with no water and arrived at 7AM. My card was eaten by an ATM earlier that day and the Stampede was going on, so Uber was not an option.
Q: What is the community like on the road?
A: I feel like there are 3 different circles you run in. There’s the backpackers, the overlanders, and the locals. Each one of them has different things to offer and can be interesting, helpful, and you can learn from each of them in their own way.
Q: Best interaction?
This is impossible to answer.
I’ve traveled alongside wonderful people and stayed in the homes of the best hosts imaginable. I keep in touch with many folks I’ve met along the way, some of them I’ve only seen once or twice. There is so much positivity in people. You really see it come out when you travel.
My world view has grown much more warm because of all of the hospitality, and generosity I’ve witnessed over the last year. Anyone that travels like I do would say the same.
Q: Since you are solo, is it lonely? If so, how to avoid that feeling?
A: Yes, it can be lonely. I try to keep a regular cadence of keeping in touch with friends and family virtually. If I need to get a fix of personal human interaction, I can stay at hostels or go on tours. As a solo traveler, you’re surprisingly more approachable. Sometimes just being lost in a book on a beach, in a park, or in the hostel lobby can make you seem approachable. Opening up a paper map on the side of the road acts as a magnet for people to come to you to help as well.
When I’m very lonely, I write. I write blogs that no one will read. I try to get to the bottom of the loneliness I’m feeling. One thing I cannot fix, however, is that I’m in this for the long run. I fight through those feelings like any other illness, injury, or sunburn. It takes some time.
Q: What do you mostly eat?
A: This is probably my weakest link in travel. Eating well is essential to having a good time and being able to tackle problems efficiently and enjoy the journey.
In countries where the dollar is more powerful, I eat at restaurants a lot to get local flavor and save on time. If I’m in more expensive places like Costa Rica, California, or the Canadian arctic, I cook for myself. I’ve cooked medleys of vegetables with rice or lentils. When you resort to cooking more it’s much harder, because on a motorcycle you have no refrigeration.
Q: Hygiene tips/tricks for long term motorcycle travel?
A: I carry biodegradable soap in case I need to bathe in a body of water like a lake or river, I carry cologne for those sweaty days where I know my odor will offend people in my proximity and I can’t get showered yet. In tropical environments, I sometimes apply deodorant or shower multiple times per day.
Keeping gear clean is also essential to its longevity and your own mental state. I try to keep my boots, riding jacket and pants, and helmet padding washed every so often to keep it in good shape and my smell down.
They no doubt need to be washed more often in hotter climates where I sweat more.
Don’t forget about your camping pillow, sleeping bag, and air mattress! Keeping them clean will keep your skin clean and smell down as well. They typically require handwashing, so it’s good to keep a day budgeted somewhere every month or two to get things really washed depending on climate.
Q: What has bike maintenance been like on the road?
A: I purchased a new motorcycle. There are many reasons for and against this.
When you buy a used motorcycle, it’s not as big of a loss if you need to abandon it in the event of a massive situation like deportation, a pandemic, or crash. When you buy used, however, they may need maintenance for wear and tear that is not-so-typical.
My Africa Twin has only needed routine maintenance such as tires, air and oil filters, brakes, chains, and sprockets. It helps to have an understanding of WHAT wears out and keep a tally of the intervals. I keep a spreadsheet of all regular replacements and at what mile / km they were done at.
You don’t have to be a mechanic to do this life. If you’re not mechanically inclined, you just need to be prepared to spend more time and money when things do go wrong or need to be changed. You can also learn as you go such as I am.
Q: After a days riding is done, describe a “typical” night in a town and in a remote setting?
A: There is no ‘typical’ anything in a life like this, but I try to follow some similar guidelines.
When searching for a hostel, hotel, or other non-camping setup, I ask if there’s a safe place to park my motorcycle indoors. That’s a first. Then, I ask if there’s Wifi, AC, any breakfast included, and cost. If I can avoid AirBnB or Hostelworld getting a cut, I call hostels and hotels directly to make reservations by phone. This helps me save a few bucks and the folks on the other end of the line typically like the personal touch. I’m also able to ask the aforementioned questions in real time.
When it comes to a remote setting, I use iOverlander a lot. It’s an app that requires no internet once you’ve downloaded a region. It has a ton of free sites (and some paid but hard to find) where I’ve ended up running into a lot of travelers on the Overlanding circuit.
Q: Camping set up?
I have a Nemo Galaxy 2 person tent that can fit my gear underneath the rain flaps. It’s free-standing which is SUPER helpful, and I can leave the rain fly off to sleep in much hotter environments.
I have a small cooking stove / burner that takes white gas and butane. It’s the achilles heel to my cooking setup. Gas can be easily found in countries where camping is a bigger hobby but hard everywhere else. Folks who can turn gasoline into a stove have more versatility.
Now that I’m in Latin America I don’t camp as much, as costs are lower. I look for hostels with kitchens when I can.
Jimbo
Q: Worst night sleep?
A: Death Valley turned my tent into a sandbox overnight. Zippers never worked the same, my helmet visors were scratched up, and my air mattress, air pillow, and sleeping bag had a risk of getting holes. I slept with a balaclava over my mouth and nose. When I finally did sleep for a few hours, I woke up to my eyes caked in sand.
I’ve had much worse quality sleep at very hot locations I’ve camped like the Caribbean coast of Guatemala or Pacific Coast of El Salvador, but those don’t sound as interesting. Extreme heat when sleeping can really make your trip rough as poor sleep impacts your entire day.
Q: Close calls, road conditions, have you gone off-road yet?
A: I would consider the entire Dalton Highway, which goes North out of Anchorage up to Deadhorse, as off-roading. It can be in pretty rough shape depending on the weather and conditions that year, or sometimes it just comes down to what stretch you’re on. You need 50/50 onroad / offroad tires and quite a bit of experience to handle it.
I’ve done a lot of off-road riding in the Canadian and American west, as well as getting to some remote Latin American villages. I admit, I’m not the best off-road rider, HOWEVER, I can cut through thick Latin American traffic as well as the moto-delivery locals.
Give me a little coffee, the right fast-paced song playing in my bluetooth helmet, good weather, then drop me in heavy Mexican City traffic. I’ll dart through it like a madman, weaving between lanes and aggressively keeping pace with the rest of them, regardless of the size of my 1100 Motorcycle. All of my focus, both physical and mental, is engaged. For some reason it’s a huge thrill to me. It’s an adrenaline itch that no roller coaster could scratch.
Q: Darien gap with a motorcycle. What’s your plan
A: At the moment, I’m taking a break in Costa Rica. I used to live here, so I’m staying with friends and regrouping.
Eventually I’ll contact a company called Overland Embassy, based out of Panama, which seems to be a great group of people. They do Motorcycles, Vans, even RVs. They do air and sea, even to Europe. The current plan is flying the bike from Panama City to Bogota with them.
Q: Scariest experience thus far?
A: Going out on a limb to trust a stranger with psychedelics in Mexico was quite a stretch. I rode into a very poor and dangerous region of the country and trusted someone I didn’t know with all of my things while I put myself in a very vulnerable situation.
Even getting in contact with them was through a grapevine. It wasn’t exactly advertised. The trip I was on turned paranoid for a while, but it ended up okay. I came out the other side in much better shape than when I went in.
It was totally worth it, I wouldn’t go as far as suggest it to others. There are too many variables to consider. It’s not like finding a place to go ziplining.
Q: License plates… if you care to elaborate/share.
A: When I was a wee lad growing up in Minnesota, a neighbor who had recently moved from South Dakota gave me some of their extra license plates. From there I started collecting them from friends and relatives, many giving me some as presents. I would display them on my walls as a kid.
As I’ve traveled, I’ve started seeking them out at junkyards and gift shops. I’ve never purchased a single one online. I currently have about 18 of them on me, all Mexican states and one Belize plate, and I’m looking to find a way to send them home while I’m in Costa Rica.
They’re fun to display and many of them have some crazy stories.
Q: How has history interwoven into your trip?
I love stories, specifically non-fiction ones. I feel like those “based on a true story” tales are always the best. For that reason, I love history. I had the idea to travel to places to speak to their historical relevance as a way to bring people along for the journey.
For some people, going to a historical place is “just a few old buildings” or “Just a hole in the ground.” but giving it historical context makes it so much more interesting.
History ties people to a land. It’s a part of the culture, identity, and personality of a people. Finding those artifacts and monuments to history helps people relate to one another.
I see it as: Anthony Bourdain used food. I use history.
Q: Parting words/message you want to get out to the world?
A: This is not a vacation, it is a major lifestyle change. It is a lot of work and high risk, but there is also high reward.
Also: there is no wrong way of doing this. There are people that travel the world on scooters and roller skates. The way you do it will determine what’s hard and easy. As long as you keep moving and you’re enjoying things, you’re doing it right.
