I took part in a podcast recently, and two of the questions the interviewer asked were: “How do you keep safe on the road travelling across countries? What are the central rules?” The intriguing assumption behind those questions is that it isn’t safe to be out there; and that your survival on the road on a motorcycle depends on following a set of rules. And of course that’s correct in its way, but it isn’t as important as the questions make it seem. Back to Hotspur: “’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink”.

Mrs Bear and I camped out in the Sahara without worrying terribly much. Photo: The Bear

It’s dangerous to do almost anything, to a greater or lesser extent. Try telling your life partner that you’re going on a bike trip with your buddies instead of, oh, attending his/her brother’s wedding, and see what happens. But you wouldn’t plan a trip like that because you are all too aware of the danger it poses of your sleeping on the couch for a while on your return. If the brother’s wedding is cancelled because he’s going on the trip as well, there are still potential dangers. Perhaps some rednecks will visit their axe handles upon you as you sleep in the woods, or treat you to a chat by Cousin Twelve Gauge as you ride.

So the specific question I ask myself when travelling is: does the place I’m riding through pose any danger which ought to change my mind about going, or make me change my behaviour while there? Now there is a  reason I chose the examples from Easy Rider, above. It is because the United States of America is the only place where I have ever felt seriously unsafe, and where I made sure to followed a set of carefully developed rules.

I have ridden in Afghanistan where I had admittedly been told to make sure everyone knew that I wasn’t Russian before I rolled out my sleeping bag or I would “wake up with zzzp,” illustrating the onomatopoeia with a thumbnail across the windpipe. I have ridden in Communist rebel-controlled Thailand (and been held up by a remarkably cheerful and disturbingly young bunch of heavily armed rebels) and free-fire zones in North Africa. I’ve crossed the literally lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. And so on. And yet I have only felt afraid in the good old US and A.

Unless you have done a similar trip to mine, I suspect you will not understand this. Let me explain.

In Australia, you camp a way away from the road – but mainly to stay away from the traffic. Photo: The Bear

Here I am riding my little Honda XL250 south on I 95 on my way to catch up with an acquaintance in DC. I’m on the freeway because I have spent a little too long in New England, which I found quite enchanting, and I’m running late. Somewhere in  the back of my mind are the numerous warnings I’ve had, ranging from the advice of a New York cabbie to not “let anybody put trouble on” me in the Big Apple, to the suggestion over coffee by the friendly sheriff of a small town near Concord in New Hampshire that I avoid the South entirely.

The repeated warnings are there, but they are not at the forefront of my mind as I turn off the freeway into Baltimore to fuel up. I should have waited until I saw one of those fuel company logos up on the long stick, but I was new in the States. So I rolled along an urban street for a while until I thought I was getting a little too far away from the freeway, and stopped to ask a pedestrian waiting at a set of traffic lights.

Yeah, okay, that looks a bit sketchy – but you see it in many countries. Photo: The Bear

Instead of directing me to the nearest gas station, he looked at me with wide eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked in obvious disbelief. “I need fuel,” I said. “Well, maybe,” was his answer, “but you need brains more. There’s gas down there and second on the right. Fill up and then get the hell out of here.” I’m not entirely stupid, so it dawned on me  that I was clearly in a Black part of town and that they didn’t see too many clueless white boys on small Japanese motorcycles around there. The Black man who had given me the well-meaning advice watched me ride away, shaking his head.

That’s just an example. I was warned against rednecks, swamp dwellers and just the people in the next town. After a while you internalise all these warnings and you start to be, not scared exactly but definitely cautious. If you’re not cautious, other people are for you. The manager of a campground in, I think, South Dakota told me to put my tent up on her lawn instead of in the camping area because she was worried someone might run over me, accidentally or as a joke.

Camping in Turkey is stress-free. Photo: The Bear

The United States doesn’t deserve this, and neither do innocent international visitors. I’m sure the warnings are well-intentioned, but nobody in France or Morocco or Iran or Norway seems to be so distrustful of their fellow citizens. I love riding in the States, but to this day I’m really careful where I camp and keep in mind this flower, safety.