Riding Full Circle: Heather Lea’s Inspiring RTW Motorcycle Adventure

‘Round The World Adventuring, Moto Style

After riding her BMW F 800 GS, alongside partner (now husband) Dave Sears, through 40 countries over 55,000 miles for 708 days, round the world (RTW) motorcyclist Heather Lea is now an accomplished adventure motorcycle traveler. She parlayed her experience into a career as a journalist in the motorcycle and travel industries and continues to educate and inspire others to accomplish big things.

Heather learned to ride over six weekends just before her 40th birthday in late summer 2013. While she had always wanted to adventure by motorcycle, human-powered outdoor recreational activities had taken priority. Turning 40, however, was a milestone that Heather wanted to make count.

In April of 2014 she met Dave, and within a month of dating, they decided to begin a thrilling RTW motorcycle adventure. Dave didn’t even have a motorcycle or license, but those little issues were quickly remedied. The two were off in September 2015 with little knowledge of what was to come.

Heather agreed to sit down with us for a fun interview to provide some insight, realities, and inspiration to other adventurers who might want to sell all their worldly belongings, quit their job, and take the road less traveled, as she and her partner did in 2015.

She parlayed her experience into a career as a journalist in the motorcycle and travel industries and continues to educate and inspire others to accomplish big things.

Tread: Where did you find the motivation to take on this massive adventure, and what was the hardest obstacle to overcome before you rode that first mile?

Heather Lea: The motivation part was easy. It was Dave’s idea, all I had to do was say yes. It’s alarming how a split-second decision can have such a profound impact on your life. The hard part came in actually doing it. The trip itself ended up being far tougher physically and mentally than either of us envisioned.

The biggest obstacle was how much of my savings I needed to spend on kitting out my bike. I started on a used BMW G 650 GS. The motorcycle was in decent shape but not in RTW adventure shape. So ensued a few months of packages arriving almost daily from Revzilla, Touratech, Rev’it, and so on.

T: You traveled the entire length of the Americas, through the southern half of Africa, and across Europe and Russia. What country stood out as a must-visit location for off-pavement (both 2 and 4 wheel) adventure travelers?

HL: Mongolia. Most of the country is unpaved, even the main “highway” into Ulaanbaatar (UB). Mongolia is vast, beautiful, and unlike anywhere else we traveled. Most of its population lives in UB, because that’s where the jobs and schools are. That leaves what feels like untouched terrain everywhere.

From the seat of two or four wheels, you’ll see the family that’s set up for the summer with mobile yurts (gers) below the mountain slopes, tending to their livestock — usually yaks. You’ll see the eagle-hunters on horseback, with the giant birds perched on their shoulders. The roads go off in all different directions, and you have to pay attention. Not even a GPS helps you there. When one sandy track gets too rutted, someone simply moves a few feet to the left or right and starts a new ‘road.’ But that road could suddenly veer over a hillside in the wrong direction.

For all the positives I remember about that incredible country, I also remember it being one of the hardest, most frustrating places to ride a heavy GS. I wiped out numerous times, and never quite got the hang of riding in deep sand—even after a few thousand miles.

T: Any particular countries or places you felt unwelcome or uncomfortable as a female motorcycle traveler?

HL: Ha! The most unwelcome and uncomfortable I’ve ever felt is in my local motorcycle stores, trying to find female riding gear. I rarely felt any safety concerns while traveling; I’d say the opposite. I was more appreciated and almost protected because I was a female riding a big bike very far from home. I’d constantly get a thumbs up from both men and women, young and old.

If you have a head on your shoulders, you’re not likely to get into trouble. I don’t mean to sound flippant. Bad things can happen, and women do need to pay attention. I was also riding with a man and was barely ever alone, so I had that in my favor, as well.

My advice would be to follow female riders online, especially solo riders, to get a sense of how they manage.

T: How many hours a day would you typically ride, and about what distance would that usually equate to?

HL: We’d usually ride 8-10 hours and about 250-350 miles a day. To be honest, there was nothing “average” about our days. It all hugely varied depending on weather, terrain, border crossings, energy levels, and so on.

Our shortest day mileage-wise was a 90-mile “short-cut” between Smithers and Terrace, British Columbia, over Telkwa Pass. It was a very rough two-wheeled track that took us all day.

Our longest day mile-wise was Boise, Idaho, to Arlington, Washington. That was only about 9 hours of riding, but over 530 miles, much of it in foul weather.

Days off varied. We tried to take at least one off-bike day per week.

The only time we really had a time crunch was trying to get somewhere before winter started, like Ushuaia. As it was, we arrived there in sideways-blowing snow. That was pretty scary on a bike.

T: We’d imagine that breakdowns, injuries, and illnesses would be the biggest obstacles on a grand adventure of this scale. What did those difficulties look like and what lessons did you learn to best deal with them?

HL: The biggest hurdle came two weeks into the trip. I fell on a backroad and broke my wrist. That put me back home recovering for three months. I was devastated and had to learn to deal with the humiliation of a failure so soon after starting out. That was really rough on my mental state, as was getting back on my bike a few months later to keep going. My fear increased, but so did my resolve to complete what I’d started.

The next issue was with my first bike — the G650GS. Halfway through Alaska, the 650 died. It had been giving me problems for months, and roadside repairs were increasingly stressful. I made the huge decision to buy a brand-new motorcycle in Fairbanks, Alaska. I couldn’t stand the thought of carving off another few months of time waiting for parts or trying to find a used bike worthy of an RTW trip. In hindsight, this was the best thing that could’ve happened. Jumping from a G650GS to an F800GS improved my riding immensely. I had far more confidence in the bike, which translated to my riding.

As for illnesses, we were very lucky and suffered no significant problems other than some flus and GI issues here and there. I’m forever grateful we got to do this trip before the pandemic.

T: What was your biggest expense on your RTW motorcycle adventure, the biggest surprise expense, and roughly the expense of it all?

HL: The biggest surprise expense was having to buy a new motorcycle. I only had so much savings, and worried that spending that amount would mean I’d have to cut the trip short. That luckily wasn’t the case.

Other than that, repairs, bike mods, new gear… all of that was very costly at the beginning and along the way when we needed to replace or fix something. Tires were a regular expense due to how often we needed to swap them out. I think we each went through about 10 sets of tires in two years.

The trip itself cost less than I thought, overall. We budgeted for $100/day/couple, or $50 per person. That’s $18,250 per person, per year. Still a lot of money, and of course, we weren’t bringing in much, besides what I was earning as an occasional freelance writer on the road. But it was manageable to save for after selling almost everything we owned. Neither of us were/are independently wealthy, so it was a bit scary, but we succeeded in not having to ask anyone for money.

T: While you spent quite a lot of time on a motorcycle, what was your favorite experience off the bike on your RTW adventure that you’d recommend to others?

HL: We did a lot of awesome off-bike trips, like flying to the Galapagos Islands, going hang gliding in France, hiking up a volcano in Guatemala. Hands down the best was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. This is actually where Dave proposed to me.

We did a lot of awesome off-bike trips, like flying to the Galapagos Islands, going hang gliding in France, hiking up a volcano in Guatemala. Hands down the best was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak.

It is vital to take time off the bikes. There’s no one thing I would recommend except to recommend getting off your bike. Not just to learn about local culture (otherwise, why are you traveling?) but to get those legs moving, un-crease your back and hip flexors, relax, and reset.

T: Any parting words of wisdom to other aspiring RTW overland travelers?

HL: Parting words always seem to drum up cliches, but I would say you just need to go for it. Don’t worry about money, illnesses, breakdowns and so on. We encountered issues, and at the end of the day, were always blown out of our minds by the kindness of people who didn’t even know us but wanted to help. In fact, I sometimes hoped something minor-ish would happen, just so we could see how we’d find a solution.

We encountered issues, and at the end of the day, were always blown out of our minds by the kindness of people who didn’t even know us but wanted to help.

You’ll never have enough money, you’ll never find the perfect bike, you may end up injured or sick… but those things matter little when compared to the experience of overlanding the world.

A huge thank you to Heather for sharing her inspiring story. It really shows that adventure is calling, and you just need to seize it, even if it’s not easy and you don’t have everything figured out.

To read more about Heather Lea’s two-wheeled adventures be sure to follow her on Instagram @writer_heather_lea and check out her trip website RidingFullCircle.com. We also hear she’s in the middle of writing a book about her adventures, and we’re sure you won’t want to miss that when it becomes available.

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Editor’s Note: A version of this story previously appeared in the March/April 2023 print issue of Tread Magazine.