Western Highlights

Just take the brief shuttle ride to your hotel. If you’re still awake, why not take in the Santa Monica Promenade this evening, the largest street crowd in California (except for Disneyland!).

Our taxi is waiting to take you to Glendale Harley-Davidson to collect your new Harley, and your Western Highlights motorcycle tour begins. Head straight into the Los Angeles National Forest, and soon you’re riding the winding mountain road into cooler, clearer air, climbing up to over 1500 m in almost no time. Stop for an early lunch and refreshment at the only biker café in the Forest, and after lunch continue across the mountains until you ease down through ski resorts and into the desert. A short ride on Route 66 brings us into San Bernardino and our run into Palm Springs, home of the stars.

Head to Joshua Tree and ride a loop through the national park. You can see amazing colours, rock canyons and more kinds of cacti than you knew existed. Expect to see Wile E. Coyote on top of every boulder. After Twenty Nine Palms you ride into the Mojave Desert and pick up legendary Route 66, which offers some of the most dramatic scenery in Southern California – lush grasses, startling volcanic formations, stands of Joshua trees, and sage pinion pine.

Continue on Route 66 into Arizona, along the famous Oatman Highway and on to Kingman, considered the ‘heart’ of the Mother Road, in the middle of the longest remaining stretch of the road through the Hulapai Indian Reservation, with its scenic buttes and mesas. Stop for lunch in Williams, gateway to the Grand Canyon. And from here it’s a short ride and a gentle climb to the Canyon itself, at nearly 2,500 m. Be prepared, the view really is spectacular, and the sunsets are the reddest you’ve ever seen. If time allows, take the helicopter ride, it is quite awesome!

If you didn’t have time yesterday, take the helicopter ride this morning. Then take the 30-mile geological expedition along the Grand Canyon rim, and into Navajo territory. Stop at the trading posts for silver and turquoise art and jewellery, once traded for food by the local artisans. This afternoon you’ll ride through the classic Wild West landscape of stark sandstone buttes and forbidding pinnacles of rock poking from an endless expanse of drifting red sands. It is only when you reach Monument Valley that you realise how your perception of the Wild West has been shaped by this one place – a perfect scenic distillation. The final leg today on your Western Highlights motorcycle tour brings you to sleepy Mexican Hat. This was briefly a frenzied gold-mining camp, which takes its name from a riverside sandstone hoodoo that looks like a sombrero! Then it is on to picturesque Bluff for the night.

First stop, the Mokee Dugway and the ride to the Valley of the Gods, where much of ‘Thelma and Louise’ was filmed, and then across the Colorado River where it pours into Lake Powell. Ride along the southern tip of Capitol Reef NP (huge cliffs), on to Glen Canyon (sublime sandstone) and up to the Devil’s Backbone through the Escalante Wilderness and on to Bryce Canyon. The riding and scenery are just spectacular, a day you won’t ever forget on your Western Highlights motorcycle tour .

Catch the spectacular colours of Bryce Canyon in the early light before you head off through red rock canyons and mountain cedars on the ‘Switchbacks of Zion’ to Zion National Park where the beauty around every bend slows your pace. As the day passes and the altitude drops, it doesn’t take long for the cool mountain air to be replaced by the desert heat. Fortunately you aren’t far from that neon oasis, Las Vegas, where you can enjoy an evening of revelry.

The day is yours to do as you wish. Visit the many hotels and casinos, the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead – the choices are too numerous to mention.

Another early start to catch the early morning desert light as you ride past Red Rock Canyon and swing into the switchbacks that drop off the rim into Death Valley. The vista is immense, like looking across a sea of sand and stone, as you descend nearly 1000 m until you are below sea level. After lunch at Furnace Creek (aptly named!), you cross the valley floor, and swing into the switchbacks that zigzag up over mountain passes and valley floors into Big Pine, along Sequoia NP and up to Mammoth Lakes.

Today on the Western Highlights motorcycle tour you’ll explore the wonders of Yosemite. Ride through the winding granite canyons of the famous Tioga Pass, take a trail etched into a vertical cliff as the mist from a 900 m waterfall keeps you cool, and just enjoy the park’s natural wonders. Yosemite is just as beautiful, wild, rich and sublime as you’d expect, only more so!

There are few route choices today to get to San Francisco. The most popular choice is across San Rafael Bridge into Marin County, an unabashed introduction to Californian self-indulgence: a pleasure zone of conspicuous luxury and abundant natural beauty, with sunshine, sandy beaches, high mountains and thick redwood forests. Then ride south to pretty Sausalito for a late lunch. Once a hotspot for drunken sailors and bawdy saloons, Sausalito is now much more like the Cote d’Azur. After lunch it’s over the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco.

A free day on your Western Highlights motorcycle tour to enjoy the beautiful city of San Francisco. It’s a funky individualistic, surprisingly small place – and certainly the most liberal city in the USA. There are several possible excursions for you, such as a trip to Alcatraz, a Bay Cruise or a Napa Valley wine tour.

Roll out of the city on the beautiful, winding Skyline Boulevard for coffee at Alice’s Restaurant, then onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the famous Route 1, to Santa Cruz for lunch, fun and sun on the beach. This is one of the best rides in the world, ending in the coastal grandeur of the Monterrey Peninsula, whose crescent shaped bay and cypress groves have been celebrated by poets, authors and artists. This evening, take in the shops, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and the great ambience.

This morning you’ll ride 90 miles along the cliff edges of Big Sur, the best section of Highway 1, where rocky cliffs form a sublime landscape, redwood groves line river canyons and the Santa Lucia Mountains rise out of the blue-green Pacific. About halfway along you come to Esalen, named for the long-gone native tribe who once enjoyed the natural hot springs on a cliff top high above the raging surf. Cruise up to Hearst Castle, where you can take a guided tour, and continue through tiny seaside art communities and miles of sandy beaches to Pismo Beach. As night falls, the jasmine flowers perfume the soft coastal air outside the Whaler Inn. It feels like paradise, and it just might be – welcome to Southern California!

This is the home of the California beach scene, and you have time to enjoy it all. After cutting inland at Santa Maria to enjoy the great back roads and scenery we get back on Highway 101 at Santa Barbara and cruise straight into Malibu, the famous beach colony. After another 20 miles we’re in Santa Monica, LA’s oldest and biggest resort – once a wild beachfront playground, it’s now a self-consciously liberal and health-conscious community. Venice Beach is where LA parades itself openly along the Boardwalk, with the famous Muscle Beach gym. From here it’s a short ride across town to return the motorbikes, before checking in for your last night.

The end of the road, as we say farewell and you prepare for the flight home. Enjoy reflecting on the adventure you’ve had on your Western Highlights motorcycle tour.