Who We Are - Notier's Frontiers - 2Up and Overloaded

The Duo

Marisa

Our story starts out fairy-tale enough. We both grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and Tim was my high school sweetheart. He was even my prom date. At the time, the world seemed an incredible place full of adventure and possibilities. We were young, and in love, grasping onto a vision that together we could face every obstacle life would throw at us.

And then we grew up, and realized that our paths were not parallel. And they were certainly not paved.

Tim dropped out of high school and pursued work instead of academics. I, on the other hand, found myself boarding a plane to go to college on the other side of the country.

There was a ten year break in our relationship, and during that time I tried my best to keep alive the fairy-tale dreams of my youth. I traveled the world, immersing myself in foreign cultures. I watched the Anangu Aboriginal people in Australia dance in the flickering desert firelight, I mucked out stinking goat stalls in Ireland, stayed in Buddhist monasteries in China, and played with spider monkeys in Guatemala. I made incredible friends and memories across the world, and I was grateful for every second of it.

But I always thought back to my home in the US. I'd think about that young man who could make me laugh until my stomach hurt. And I often wondered what had become of him.

Tim

As you can imagine, my life had not been as exciting as Marisa's. As she gallivanted around the world, I went to work, bought a house, a car, and a motorcycle: a 1900cc Yamaha Raider. The whole time I did not venture more than an hour away from the hospital where I was born.

I was a semi-responsible adult, partaking in the average American responsibilities of working to live, living to work, drinking, and watching football. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of what Marisa was up to by seeing some pictures online, and I'd try to live her adventures vicariously through her.

Our worlds collided every so often when Marisa would return home to visit her friends and family. She always had amazing stories to tell us, and all we had to show her in return were different variations of the same stories. She pretended to enjoy these moments as any kind person would, but I could only imagine she felt like she was looking into the wrong end of a telescope. Rather than the great global immensity that she knew existed outside of our hometown, she was instead only watching the minute life that had not changed since her last peer into the petri dish.

One day Marisa came home, and she was married. Completely unacceptable in my opinion. But in the events of her life, she had found someone that she believed would be with her through thick and thin.

That turned out not to be the case, however. Luckily for me, as her marriage crumbled into a divorce, and she found herself back in her hometown, I may have taken it upon myself to contact her a few more times than I should have.

But some crushes never go away, and I didn't want to lose her again.

Marisa

Now, I wake up in the morning in awe at how things have turned out - truly destiny.

Everyday, Tim reminds me that we're given this one chance at life. And if it weren't for dreams and love, if it weren't for adventures full of nasty spills and breathtaking views, then we'd be settling for tarnish and rust. But that's not how Tim and I have decided to live our lives. I don't want to ever look back and regret having wasted all these years. Instead, I want to look back and smile at all the obstacles we overcame, and all the incredible memories we have made.

The Trio

Tim

Now that I had the woman of my dreams, I just had to convince her to get on the back of my motorcycle, and then life would be perfect.

That's because my Yamaha Raider was my first true love. She was reliable and dependable, she didn't complain, or have any really bad habits. She had earned her place in my heart.

But Marisa was pretty adamant that she did not want anything to do with motorcycles. It took some convincing, but eventually I got her to take a ride around the block with me, and that turned into riding around the city. Soon enough, we were taking weekend camping trips on the motorcycle, and Marisa actually loved it.

We rode that bike everywhere we could, and those trips tested the limits of both ourselves and the bike, having to stop every hour or two for gas, and to stretch our muscles (and rest our butts which sounds silly, but it's true).

So as we started dreaming of even more extensive motorcycle excursions, we also realized that the Raider would not be our primary vehicle for lengthy trips across the country. We needed a more suitable bike - an "adventure bike".

I didn't grow up with dirt bikes, and at the time, I had just the basic grasp of the off-road riding world. Yet as I knew my experience would grow, I wanted my bike’s capabilities to be patiently waiting for me to catch up.

I had seen the series "Long Way Round", and so in the spirit of Ewan McGregor, I first went to BMW. But a new BMW 1200GSA was around $22,000. That was just um... that was a lot of cash.

So I checked out its rival next, the KTM 1190, which had the same engine size but was much lighter, and had more ground clearance. Plus it was only $16,000.

I didn't have $22,000 dollars (I really didn't have $16,000 either, but that was $6,000 less that I didn't have). I realistically couldn’t afford either, and didn’t have a very good use for an adventure bike except a dream... but man, did I want it.

And so I made a decision. In 2014, the paperwork was signed, and Marisa and I added a new member to our family -
the KTM 1190.

Maiden Voyage

Marisa

Obviously the first thing we wanted to do with our new adventure bike was to go on an adventure.

We were able to align 18 days off of work during which we headed out west and rode around the Rocky Mountains to test the motorcycle, and to test ourselves. This became our Maiden Voyage.

Like all adventures, it had its highs and lows. Our gear was woefully not waterproof enough for the deluge of rain we faced, and I quickly learned that I turned into a monster when I'm cold and wet.

I was so cold on that trip, I wouldn't even take off my helmet for photos. Tim kept calling me "Marvin the Martian".

But there were also some incredible highs as well. We saw buffalo (almost got hit by one), towering stone hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, ancient Native American petroglyphs, and we climbed snowy mountain peaks. But best of all, Tim had a surprise in store for me when we got to Yellowstone National Park. I thought we were posing for another picture, but instead...

Truth be told, we almost died a few times (well, Tim almost died), and we did many stupid things (again, that was mostly Tim). But we learned a lot from this trip. We learned that we needed to invest in better rain gear, a lighter tent, a better luggage system... the list goes on. But most importantly, we learned that this is what we wanted to do - travel the world on a motorcycle. It was the perfect combination of what we both loved: my love of traveling blended with Tim's love of motorcycles.

If you'd like to experience our Maiden Voyage just as we did, then check out Tim's short and hilarious account of our trip in his book Maiden Voyage. It's available in paperback and Kindle, and all proceeds go to furthering our travels. Plus, we guarantee you will not just laugh out loud, but you might end up wanting to sell all your stuff and hit the road as well.

Paperback / Kindle

Finances

Tim

Once we started dreaming of traveling full-time on our motorcycle, we then had to figure out how to pay for this pipe-dream vacation of ours. And we realized that there are only three options:

Set off broke and couch surf our way along while picking up jobs whenever possible.
Find a way for others to fund us either via an online presence, grants, or sponsorships.
Or pay our own way.

We didn't want to embark on our journey with no money, but we also didn't want to rely on making ends meet through advertisements on our website, pitching ourselves to corporations for sponsorships, or by asking our friends, family, and followers for constant financial support.

So you guessed it... we decided to pay our own way.

I worked for a telecommunications company, and Marisa was a teacher with no student debt, so we were very fortunate with our professions. Along with living simply for nearly four years, we were able to save enough money to buy all the gear we would need, and after selling pretty much everything else, we had a fair amount of savings left for our trip.

I can't take credit for this awesome tool, but an "inmate" on advrider.com name WQFTruckster created an Excel spreadsheet which I used as a financial planning tool. It became invaluable to me as I watched my savings grow, and you can download it using the following links - (metric, standard).

Preparing to Leave

Marisa

I once watched a documentary about a couple who sailed around the world on a boat, and when asked what advice they would give aspiring world travelers, they said, "Set a date to leave, and stick to it." And so that's what we did.

Because we like the cosmos, we decided to leave for our epic trip on August 21, 2017, the day of the total solar eclipse in the US.

There were, of course, a few things we wanted to get done before that day arrived.

Tim took an off-road riding course through Bill Dragoo, and also attended the Overland Expo West 2017 to get advice from experienced motorcycle travelers. Plus, he took the time to learn the basics of motorcycle mechanics. Meanwhile, I worked on my Spanish (very useful in Latin America) and researched where we were headed and what paperwork we would need.

But before we knew it, August was upon us. And it was time to leave.

If you've gotten this far, and want to know more about what happens next, check out Tim's book 2Up and Overloaded. It will take you on the journey with us, starting with our days preparing for the trip, all the way to Panama.

Paperback / Kindle

And if you're interested in what gear we ended up using (and what items we threw out), check out our GEAR page.

GEAR