Vancouver to Los Angeles in 6 days! 4,700km Round Trip

We had a crazy idea to just leave town for a few days and head from Vancouver to Los Angeles. 

We are 5 friends who share the same passion for riding! We decided to take 6 days to do this 4,700km trip. Packed our stuff and got on the road!

You can also watch the short 4 min video of the trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3dErdR3lmU&t=179s

The bikes we used were:

2017 Honda Africa Twin (mine)

2013 Kawasaki Ninja 300

2009 KTM 690

2016 Yamaha R3

2015 Yamaha FZ-07

Day 1: Vancouver to Portland

We left Vancouver B.C. at 5 pm on a Thursday, June 13th. We decided to ride to Portland, Oregon where we had rooms booked at a hotel. Total ride time was about 7.5 hours with border wait, gas and food breaks.

For the most part, the ride was smooth, it was getting dark around 9ish so we had some nice daylight riding. We somehow ended up at a military base and were as confused as the guards so we quickly decided to turn back through an opening in the road divider. After that, we ended up in a very sketchy area of some town and got lost. Luckily found the highway with the help of a gas attendant!

Very surprised the Africa Twin fit through it. Arriving at the hotel around midnight we just wanted to get to bed as it got extremely chilly for June riding weather.

Day 2: Portland to San Francisco

This was one of the make it or break it points for everyone. It was the longest stretch of riding coming down and we did not know what to expect. It got extremely hot after passing northern California that we had to hide under trees to cool off. I believe the temperature got up to 43 degrees at one point. 

If you are travelling from Oregon into California there are fruit checkpoints, they asked us and waved us through within 30 seconds! 

Gas stations available basically everywhere for the most part. The KTM had the smallest tank and needed fueling every 180km (it ran out of gas at one point.. I will explain here later) so we had to comfort of getting off the bikes after a few hours or so which definitely helped the ride.

Entering San Francisco we had a few fun things happen. First of it got extremely cold again to the point where I turned on my heated grips .. in June! We rode on the main highway I-5 at some point in the ride we got swarmed with small flies that stuck to your bike and clothes. They smelled absolutely horrific to the point where we had to pull off to clean our helmets, but even then it couldn't get the smell out.

The rider of the R3 took off ahead of us and later catching up to him his license plate bracket came apart we were botching the license plate to the bike on the side of the highway in the middle of the night. We gave up and Zip Tied it to his backpack which he rode with during the whole trip.

Arriving in San Francisco we checked into our hotel around 1 am. This was by far the longest ride coming down and we were all so extremely tired. 

Day 3: San Francisco to Los Angeles

Even though we were tired from the day before. This was definitely the most exciting part of our trip, we rode the Pacific Coast Highway into Los Angeles! 

After taking a few photos and videos at the famous Golden Gate Bridge we decided to take the coast highway down! Absolutely worth the extra few hours instead of taking the main highway.

Beautiful twisty roads and scenery while having the ocean breeze around you. This was our favorite part of the trip and well worth it! No traffic, roads are clean, cars pull to the side to let you through for the most part. Really cool spots to stop and take photos and grab a bite to eat!

Coming into Los Angeles we decided to take the twisty hill roads above LA, as our hotel was located in Woodland Hills. It was a spectacular way to end Day 3 of our trip!

Day 4: Los Angeles

We took this day to explore the city. We are car and motorcycle enthusiasts so we went to the Fast and the Furious house, Bobs Market, and for lunch, we took Coast Highway through Malibu to grab lunch at Neptune's Net! I definitely recommend it! Lots of bike parking and the seafood was great! Be careful with traffic, you can lane split but its still super busy!

Day 5: Los Angeles to Grants Pass, Oregon

This was our toughest and most entertaining day of riding. We left L.A. at around 8 am and were going to take it easy to Grants Pass Oregon our halfway point back home. It was about a 14-15 hour ride if not longer. It was tough. 

My recommendation take is easy don't rush, lots of traffic at some points and make sure you have enough gas! Some stretches are long without fuel. Super nice roads and scenery take it all in!

After riding about 8 hours together we decided to split off, I stayed behind with my friend on his KTM and the others took off to ride fast. We ended up running out of gas 3km away from the gas station! Luckily the Africa Twin had handgrips for the passenger to hold onto so I "towed" more like pulled the KTM and my friend at a very fast pace of 10 km an hour. People were extremely helpful and a fellow KTM Adv rider was getting traffic to go into the left lane while we struggle on the side of the highway! Thanks!

We got gas had a healthy McDonalds feast with burgers and pies (celebrating our fuel journey!) We realized at this point the KTM cant go further than 190km on a single fuel tank.

Few gas stops down the road we met up with the other guys and continued our journey up north! It got so hot that our bikes were reading 46 degrees, we pulled off at a gas station and sat there pouring water for an hour waiting for the sun to go down! Couple leg sunburns from where the boot and pants divided and we were on our way!

Arriving in Grants Pass extremely exhausted we ended up passing out right away!

Day 6: Home Stretch!

We left Grants Pass and had a long day of riding ahead but we were going home so we took it easy. Nice scenery through Oregon and coming to through Washington. 

Taking it easy and enjoying the last bit of our trip. Be careful of the semi-trucks around Grants Pass area tight turns and it gets a bit iffy! Closer to Seattle there was a lot of traffic but we managed to get through it fairly quickly.

Safe riding!