Questions

The Trip

• What is this trip actually for?  Is New Zealand the place in which something—attention, encounter, movement, friendship, curiosity—is allowed to happen?
• How much itinerary creates possibility, and how much itinerary begins to destroy it?
• What deserves more time: an extraordinary road, an extraordinary landscape, or an ordinary town in which something interesting has begun to happen?

The People :

• What conditions make an encounter more likely—campgrounds, cafés, pubs, small towns, staying two nights instead of one, simply not being in a hurry?
• How do I leave enough emptiness in the itinerary for somebody I haven't met yet to change Thursday?

Lingering :

• Can a day be a good trip day if almost nothing happens?
• Can a day spent washing clothes, drinking coffee, walking around town and talking to one person be as important as riding one of the great roads in the country?
• How much recovery does an experience require before another experience merely piles on top of it?
• What is the difference between resting because I'm tired and stopping long enough to actually notice where I am?
• Does boredom have a legitimate place in a great trip?
• What becomes visible on the second morning in a town that is invisible on the first afternoon?

The motorcycle:

• Is the motorcycle primarily transportation, part of the adventure, a social object, or the point of view from which the country is being experienced?
• When should a spectacular motorcycle road win over a more socially interesting town—and when shouldn't it?
• Does camping make us more available to the country, or can cabins, bunkhouses and little motels sometimes put us closer to people?
• How much hardship actually adds something—and how much is merely hardship?

The Itinerary:

• Why is this town still here?
• When should the itinerary be challenged?  When should it be refined?
• Am I constructing an itinerary to make sure the trip happens, or constructing one that knows when to get out of the trip's way?