Kathy & Rick Howe
Seeing our world with No Checklists,
No Schedules... One Day at a Time.
We’ve been living full time on the road for nearly twelve years now. On Halloween, 2001, we left our home in Paso Robles, California and haven’t looked back since. We left that day on a motorcycle towing a small tent trailer. As we had always vacationed by motorcycle, this seemed logical to us, though it would have worked out much better had we left in spring instead of autumn.
After about three months of mostly cold weather, which included riding through snow in Arizona and waking up to a 34 degree morning in San Antonio, we decided it was time for Plan B and we rode on to Florida and bought our first used motorhome. During our first five years on the road, we traveled throughout the US, Canada and Mexico; visiting the ten provinces and two territories of Canada that you can drive to, much of Mexico and all but one of the states - and no, the missing one is neither Hawaii nor Alaska. As you will see on other pages of this site, we thoroughly enjoyed every day of that five years. If you like, you can read about our travels during this period in our US & Canada and Mexico pages.
Then, while spending a third winter in Mexico and having met lots of folks doing far more adventurous things than we were, we decided it was time to begin moving further afield. After what passes, with us, for lots of thought and research, we performed one of our famous left turns, dropped everything, and traveled cross country - actually from Guanajuato, Mexico to Columbia, South Carolina - in order to pick out a new vehicle we felt would be suitable for the new adventure we had in mind. You can read all about our choice by going to the Our Vehicle page.
In June 2007 we headed north for a second time to Alaska and Canada’s Yukon and Northwest Territories, all the way to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the furthest north you can drive in the western hemisphere. We then began traveling south along the Pan American Highway; through Mexico and Central America and headed for South America. We left the States in December 2007 and arrived in Cartagena, Colombia on June 1, 2008, beginning a tour of South America that took us down the spine of the Andes to Tierra del Fuego at the far southern tip of the western hemisphere (actually as far south as you can drive anywhere in the world) visiting six countries before we shipped our vehicle and flew ourselves home from Buenos Aires in June 2009. You can go directly to our South America or Central America pages to share these adventures with us.
After spending some time in the US, resting, visiting and refitting the Tiger, we shipped our rig to Europe in Spring 2010 to begin what we expect to be a multi-year exploration of western and eastern Europe and surrounding countries. We’re now into our fourth year in Europe and have visited thirty-nine european, north African and western Asian countries. Among many other adventures, we’ve now crossed the Arctic Circle in three more countries, which, added to our two in North America give us five of a possible eight. You can go to our Europe page to see what we’re currently up to.
After Europe, who knows? Australia, New Zealand, Africa and a return to South America all beckon and who can say what else might be around that next turn in the road. There is so much to see and do in this always fascinating world we inhabit, and planning that far ahead just doesn’t seem to be our style.
Every Country, State, and Region we have visited has rewarded us with experiences and memories to last a lifetime and the pleasure just never seems to end. This life on the road that we’ve chosen has been everything we ever hoped it would be and we see no end in sight. In this website we hope to share with you our successes and our difficulties, the good times and the hard times; all in the hope that you will not only enjoy our tale, but will take inspiration from it to expand your own horizons in whatever directions you may choose. If you should have any questions about our life on the road or our travels, please send us an email; we’d be delighted to hear from you.
In all of our time on the road, our motto has been “No Checklists, No Schedules”. Over time we learned that in following that simple rule we had become Travelers, not Tourists, and we were pleased.
Welcome Along!
"I would love you all the day,
Every night we would kiss and play;
If with me you’d fondly stray,
Over the hills and far away.”
~ John Gray
“The Traveler sees what he sees. The Tourist sees what he has come to see.”
~ G.K. Chesterton
“Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.”
~ Pat Conroy
"Dying is not the risk - that is the sure thing. The risk is not living.”
~David Yeadon
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice; and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
~ Steve Jobs
“Life is like a Bicycle; To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
~ Albert Einstein
“If you are not willing to be changed by a place, there is no point in going.”
~ Anonymous
“Life is a bridge, cross over it, but build no house on it.”
~ Indian Proverb