Bend resident embarks on motorcycle road trip around the world

Last month, Elijah Callan left Bend for a two-year road trip around the world. His primary mode of travel will be his Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle that he’ll log tens of thousands of miles on while traversing 64 countries across six continents.

Callan quit his job as a geologist to embark on this trip of a lifetime which he’s been planning for 14 years, ever since he was a student at Oregon State University and discovered the writings of Jack London one winter break. Those tales of hardship and adventure set on the high seas and frigid tundra inspired Callan’s love of writing, travel and meeting people from places a world away from his hometown of Bend.

Callan’s globe-trekking journey also opens a new professional chapter in his life as travel writer. The Bend Bulletin is publishing bimonthly dispatches written by Callan under a column he’s calling “Our Oregonian Abroad.” Callan joins us to talk about the first stop he wrote about and other places he’s excited to visit and share his experiences of.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle studio at OPB this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Last month, Elijah Callan, a geologist from Bend, took off on the trip of a lifetime. He got on his Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle and started a two-year trip that, if it goes as planned, will take him through 64 countries in six continents and every line of longitude on the globe. He plans to document his travels in regular dispatches in The Bend Bulletin, and he joins us now. Elijah, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Elijah Callan: Thanks, Dave. I’m excited to be here.

Miller: Likewise. Where are you right now?

Callan: I am currently in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where I will be dropping off my motorcycle for shipment later this week.

Miller: The last time I remember being in Elizabeth was to go to an IKEA. It’s right near the Newark Airport and there’s a port there. So, this is a little bit of a logistics hub. And you’re putting your motorcycle on a ship right now? Where is it gonna go?

Callan: Well, actually, when I planned the shipping, I had the option of sea freight and air freight, and sea freight was gonna take between 6 to 12 weeks, and I just didn’t have that on my timeline. So I actually ended up going with air freight, which was more expensive, but once it does get loaded onto an airplane, it will be going to Cape Town, South Africa.

Miller: And then you’re gonna get in a different plane and follow your motorcycle to Cape Town?

Callan: I am, I’ll be flying out of JFK in New York City on Friday.

Miller: OK. Let’s go back a little bit and then we’ll pick up where you are now and hear a little bit about being in South Africa. How has the trip gone so far, 3,000 or so miles so far?

Callan: Yeah, I will have to check the odometer on my motorcycle. I just got into Elizabeth today, but the trip has gone good so far. I would call this more of a dry run in the United States. I’m going a bit quicker than I normally would on the rest of the trip, but I’m learning a lot of lessons. I’ve been talking to my friends and family, and I’ve lost a few things, a few things have not gone exactly according to plan, but other than that, the bike is running well, and traveling across the United States is always interesting.

Miller: What has not gone according to plan so far?

Callan: Well, actually, before I even left Oregon, I thought I was pretty creative in the way that I packed my motorcycle, and I had developed these tool tubes that were basically plumbing PVC parts that were four inches in diameter and had threaded caps on them. And because the bike, it vibrates quite a bit, one of those caps actually vibrated off and I lost a few pieces of equipment out the back of it, so I ended up removing those because I thought that they were a liability.

Miller: And you got new tools, I assume?

Callan: Well, yes, I’ve ordered them on Amazon. They’re en route. It was part of my water filtration kit and a few other minor pieces of equipment.

Miller: All right, let’s go even further back. When did you first get the idea to do this?

Callan: As I mentioned in the first dispatch that I wrote previous to leaving, back in college I took a job up in Alaska at a cannery, and when I was up there, it was really my first time out of Oregon, and when I got up there at the salmon cannery, I wanted to do something different for the summer. I’d been reading a lot. I’ve been inspired by Jack London and I ended up in Alaska. And when I got to this cannery, I really was just expecting a lot of blue-collar cannery, Alaskan seafood industry workers. But when I got there, it ended up being about 150 kids from abroad that were the same age as me in college. They were from all around the world, mostly Eastern Europe, but Africa, South America, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, all these kids that were my age. And I just was not expecting it at all.

And during that summer, it really just changed my perspective on the world to be among these people from around the world, and I wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know more about their culture. And when I got back down to Corvallis, I just kept thinking about wanting to go abroad and see these people and see the world because it had such an effect on me. And then the more research I did, how can I do this, I just kept going down rabbit holes, a motorcycle seemed like a great way to do that. And then, being in the Valley Library with all those books and atlases and maps at my disposal, I just started looking at them and kinda came up with a plan.

Miller: Can you tell us about the motorcycle you chose?

Callan: Yeah, sure. So I chose the Royal Enfield Himalayan, which, to be honest, has raised a few eyebrows. It’s not a $20,000 BMW, but I chose it for a very specific reason. Royal Enfield in general has been being manufactured for well over 100 years now, and when manufacturing stopped in Great Britain, it continued on in India. And I just kind of fell in love with this brand because of its simplicity. It’s easy to work on, it’s utilitarian, it will get you there. And, yeah, it’s a bit smaller of a motor, but I really love it and it’s really fun to ride, it’s really easy to ride, and when I stopped in India, I thought it would be prudent of me to stop there cause that’s where it’s made and the availability of parts there, it’s going to be cheap and they’re going to help me work on my bike there.

Miller: They might even suggest ways to carry tools.

Callan: Yeah, better ways than a PVC plumbing part.

Miller: You’ve worked as a geologist for the last dozen or so years. Over the course of that time, how much were you thinking about this trip that you are finally on?

Callan: Every day,

Miller: Literally, every day,

Callan: Every day. I had been thinking of this trip since before my first job. I mean, my first job… It’s how life goes. My first job, my plan was, OK, I’ve graduated, now I can get a job and save up for this trip. And then, of course life gets in the way of that, the relationships and responsibilities. But this dream never went away. This thought never went away. It was constantly there.

Miller: I was racking my brain to think about what I have thought about every day for the last 30 years, and I think food may be on the top of the list. And then, I don’t know, but not a gargantuan travel plan that then I actually put into motion. What was it like when you told your boss, “I’m quitting?”

Callan: Oh, I mean, like I said in my first dispatch, I was really nervous because I was doing very well at my company and him and I had talked about a lot of plans for the future. And in a way, I felt a bit dishonest coming to him telling him that I was quitting, because when I first got hired at the company, I wasn’t like, “Hey guys, I’m gonna be quitting this job in three years, so be ready for that.” You know, of course there was a lot of career development involved.

But when I sat down and actually made the call, I was very, very nervous, but I was really, really quickly relieved because he said, “That’s really cool. I’m happy for you, we support you, we’re here for you when you get back. And I wish I were doing that too.” So, it was a nice moment.

Miller: Hopefully your one-time and maybe future colleagues are not listening, but how passionate are you about geology compared to seeing the world?

Callan: I mean, I would place them in different categories. I think geology is not my main passion in life, and I think it would be dishonest if I didn’t say that. What I’m about to embark on and writing an in-depth study of culture and geography and locations and people, I’m far more passionate about that. I think geology is really cool. It’s a great science. It really is. I mean, if I were to choose a science all over again, I would still choose geology, but it’s not my life’s passion. Let’s just say that.

Miller: So let’s get to the shape of that right now, the broad strokes of it. As you mentioned, you already got from Bend to the New York City area, and you and your motorcycle are gonna take separate flights to Cape Town. Then what? What’s the basic flow of the next two years?

Callan: Of course, this is highly subject to change, because you never know what you’re going to encounter abroad, especially on a trip like this. But the basic shape would be to get to South Africa, kind of get settled in there. I do have a set amount of days, a rough itinerary, but from South Africa, I’ll get there, get settled for about two weeks, probably. Meet the Royal Enfield team and get some advice from them. And then from there, I will head north along the West African coast, going through Namibia, Angola, up all the way to Nigeria, and then continue along the coastal countries until I get to Morocco.

From there I will get a ferry up to Spain, and then hopefully, visas, pending, get back down into Algeria and I really want to see the deep parts of the Sahara Desert, but that’s a tough country to get into. Then I will continue east until I get to Georgia and Azerbaijan and then cross the Caspian Sea and go through the “Stan” countries, where I’ll go through Mongolia, and then China, and again, permits and visas permitting, Tibet. That is kind of the central hinge of the trip. And then cross the Himalayas, down into Nepal, India, down into Indonesia, and then Australia. And then I will likely take a significant break while my motorcycle is shipped to Chile, and from there I’ll catch a ferry down to the tip of South America, in Ushuaia, and from Ushuaia, ride all the way to the tip of North America at Dead Horse, Alaska.

Miller: You’re going to be doing this trip at a time of a lot of anti-American sentiment, globally, and a lot of geopolitical tensions in so many of the regions that you have just described. How do you plan to navigate all of that?

Callan: Yeah, it is a very challenging time right now, I think, to be an American in some of the places I’m going through. As far as managing that, I have traveled abroad before and I have received anti-American sentiment before. I have never been in a dangerous situation where somebody’s threatening me, but I have been in situations where I get a lot of questions, and I think the main way I like to deal with that is just through conversation.

I like to ask them questions, they can ask me questions, and I think the way to kind of disarm people is just by remaining calm, listening, and engaging them like a normal person and treating them with respect. When you read the news, it can be very difficult to judge people from other countries, but when you actually sit down and talk to somebody one-on-one, things generally de-escalate pretty quickly.

Miller: Is there a place out of all the ones you just mentioned that you’re most excited to see?

Callan: Yeah, I think the one place in the world that has captured my imagination for the longest and the deepest, probably, is the country of Tibet. It’s just a very, to me, a mythical place, a very special place, and I think if I made it to Lhasa in Tibet I would be very, very happy.

Miller: You wrote in that first dispatch in The Bend Bulletin, the one that was about your plan and your departure, that you’re gonna be bringing Oregon with you on this trip. What do you mean?

Callan: Well, in my experience, I’ve lived and worked in a lot of different places. I grew up in Oregon. Oregon is my home. And I really think Oregon is a special place, and the people there are special, and what I mean by that is… Not that I deserve this title, but leaving the United States, I am going to be somewhat of an ambassador abroad. And I do think the values that Oregon represents and my connection to Oregon as a place, and the people is just something that I want to bring abroad with me. It’s my home, my family, my friends, the place that gave me my worldview. And if there was one place that I could live in the United States, it still would be Oregon, despite all the places that I have.

Miller: What do you want the people that you meet in 64 different countries to know about Oregon? What do you think you’ll be teaching them about your home?

Callan: Oh, I think that what I can teach them is that, number one, the United States is a very big place and a very diverse place, but Oregon is a very accepting place. I think my experience in Oregon is that people are interested in people from the rest of the world, and we would be happy if they came and visited us in Oregon. I think our connection to the landscape and the people and our stewardship of the land and our connection to it influences how, and this is my personal opinion, I think it influences how people in Oregon see the world. And I would want people abroad to also know that we value the land, we value accepting people, we value independence and freedom but have a shared sense of community as well.

Miller: And just briefly, how are you paying for this trip?

Callan: A lot of saving, a lot of saving.

Miller: From years of doing geology.

Callan: Yeah, basically, I mean, this is my personal savings, I’ve got a lot at stake here, but for me, it was 100% worth it.

Miller: Elijah, best of luck to you, and I look forward to talking again sometime when you are very far away from where you are right now. It was a pleasure talking with you. Good luck.

Callan: Absolutely, thanks for having me on the show.

Miller: Elijah Callan is a geologist originally from Bend. He’s not in Bend anymore. He is in New York City on the way to Cape Town, on the way to 62 other countries in the world.

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