“Travelling has always been transformative; motorcycling the Americas – taking in Antarctica to the Arctic – was pure frontier. It was the gruelling satisfaction of big distance riding that made the journey hard but euphoric – the hard is what makes it so great. I adored how the motorcycles magnetised people to us. You make contact, share, learn, and grow. It’s integral to what makes me happy.”
Hello there! British born, I’m Lisa Morris and my partner is Jason Spafford. While my family’s ancestry is English through and through, Jason’s includes some Viking heritage too. Interestingly, his family lineage shows that his surname used to be Sporthoth before it was Spofford, which eventually became Spafford. Undeniably, we’re self-proclaimed wilderness-seekers at Four Wheeled Nomad. Remote exploration is the driving force, enabling our skillset as content creators. After combining our love for diving and photography since childhood, during a decade of experiencing the world below the waterline, a change was eventually overdue. With a lifelong passion for taking pictures still in focus, we hung up the fins and decided on a big one. Long story long, sold our cottage in the country, pared down possessions to a few boxes, and packed what we thought we’d need on two dual sport bikes to take in Antarctica to the top of Alaska. We’ve lived a few trips, but this one took the prize – a life-changing adventure ensued lasting over four years. Jason’s beautiful captures of terrain less trammelled can be found on Instagram. Equally in need of a creative outlet, I freelance for publications worldwide with tales from the trails in the hopes of inspiring people to consider their relationship with nature. Currently, a Cape-to-Cape expedition we’re calling The Mega Transect from Northern Norway to South Africa sees us in White Rhino, our Toyota Hilux house-on-wheels. We never defined success by our income or our postcode, and neither of us seemed cut out for domesticity, so we decided to live our life on the road. We didn’t have children and we weren’t married, so why not swap the life conventional for the ride of a lifetime. I think it (this challenge) begin when I bought Pearl, a factory-lowered ‘01 BMW F650GS found on eBay, because I liked the colour. It matched my helmet, much to Jason’s exasperation. Amusingly, Jason used my bike as our pack mule and saved his ’08 BMW F800GS for “tech” as he calls it – a camera, its lenses, and a drone. “If I want to be better wife material, this is how I do it”, I thought as we rode onto the container ship destined for Uruguay. Not quite sure how but I managed to ride Pearl from the bottom of the planet to the top. Minimal ride time under my belt necessitated a giant leap of faith into the unknown. Not exactly a natural rider, I learned heuristically while doing my utmost not to wrap myself around a lamppost, wind up in a ditch or wheelie my bike into a catastrophic catapult. One of those three happened, routinely! Indeed, the challenge to blindly trust my steed in the soft stuff incurred countless “offys” at slow-speed. As was having the confidence to take Jason’s sage advice and control at the reins. This was a bone of contention for him, which led to some initial discomfort, but such is life on the road when your riding skills differ. You get back on your bikes, and you ride it out together because you need to, and you want to. It’s the single most empowering thing I’ve done to date. Magically, the bikes defined the trip, what we yearned for, who we were. It’s the gruelling satisfaction of big distance riding that made the journey hard but euphoric – the hard is what makes it so great. Throughout long, beautiful days in the saddle, I adored how the motorcycles magnetised people to us. You make contact, share, learn, and grow. It’s integral to what makes me happy. I’d rather be candid and relay that any human that’s passionate about saving our environment gets my vote. Greta Thunberg in particular – she represents our future, and as we’ve destroyed 40 per cent of the world’s species already, now is the time to impact positive change on the Earth, and become increasingly eco-centric.”
London to Dubai: 