Feature Destination Highway: 

DH12
Happy Camp to Willow Creek
Highway 96

"I've been riding for 45 years in NorCal, and Washington and BC for 27 years. Thanks for these great books that help me to 'ride like a local!' " –Jim C

" DH NorCal and its Companion Map gave my son and I the best trip ever last summer, and we thought we already knew the roads in Northern California! This year we're going to Utah and Arizona, and without DH books or any knowledge of these two states, its proven to be quite an exercise. It makes me appreciate your efforts all the more." –Barry W

"We had a couple of local Californians follow us and ask how we knew about these roads. They'd lived there for years and had never found them!" –Taxguy

"Thought I'd let you know I'm in love with DHWA! I live just north of Seattle, and me and my BMW love the TEs you've found for me in my own Snohomish County backyard!" –Doug V

"Wow! I lived in the Bay Area and should have had DH NorCal or DH BAY AREA....many times! You know your stuff!!" –Chuck F

"Just got the book and really like it. And I've been riding in the Sierras for 40 years!" –Dale H 

"I'm a 66 year old native from the Seattle area and as such, thought I knew all the roads Washington has to offer. Hah! Yesterday I went about 25 minutes from from my home and enjoyed roads I'd never been on before!" –Bill

"I just retired and moved to Eureka, NorCal. I have found roads in the area using your book that even the locals don't know about!" –Jerry C  

"I'd ridden through most of BC for over twenty years and thought that I had seen pretty much all of it, that is until I picked up a copy of DHBC. I didn't have a clue about how many fantastic roads I was missing until using your book. Great job!" –Dave T

"The parts that cover the area in NorCal that I know read like a local wrote them." –Jeff D

"We even had a couple of local guys outside Sacramento ask us where a particular road came from/went to!" –Chris P

"Don’t ride like a tourist, ride like a local"?

Just the usual corporate bumpf, right?? Actually it's much more than that. As the above quotes confirm, it really does describe our entire philosophy and explains why we came up with the Destination Highways concept.

Does the following sound like your last bike trip?

You’ve put aside the time.  Logged countless hours on the web, searching for info on good motorcycle roads.  Sketched out a route based on (questionable) advice from the sport geezers forum.  Your bike is prepped and ready for action.  Now, armed with an all-purpose map or atlas, you’re off for a little bikeotherapy.   

Of course, you wonder about some of those out-of-the-way roads that look like they might be good.  The same way you wonder about all those tempting side roads you just LOOK at as you go by that don’t even show on your all- purpose.  You know, the ones shooting off those major highways that you always seem to spend so much time riding because you don’t know where the good nearby roads are. 

You don’t ride any of these mystery roads of course.  Because when you have in the past, you ended up wasting precious time and gas on dead-enders, boring nothings, navigational nightmares or pieces of crap rather than finding the great roads you were looking for.

Then you return home.  Sure, it was a great trip – they always are.  But the memories are tarnished when you tell some buddy where you were riding and he points out that instead of riding that major highway with all the rest of the traffic, you could have been on a sweet, curvy, scenic, traffic-free alternative.  Or worse, he told you about it before you left, but you never found it.

In fact, now that  you think about it, only half of your trip was great because of the good roads you stumbled on, and half was just okay (other than being on your bike of course) because you spent far too much time on so-so roads or major highways and interstates since you had no idea where the good roads nearby, if there were any, might be. 

Why do you have that less-than-peak experience?  Well, due to the fact that in areas you're not familiar with, you tend to "ride like a tourist".  That’s because the maps you use are designed to get you from one major city to another as fast as possible in a car, rather than showing you good motorcycle roads (which they often don’t even show at all).  Even if you have GPS or spend a fortune on local maps, or buy every atlas you can, you still won't know which roads are the ones to take and which aren’t.  We've all been there, right?

And because you don’t know where the good local roads are and “ride like a tourist”, you generally log many more as-the-crow-flies major highway miles that have you three jurisdictions from where you started after only three days, wondering how you got so far so fast on so many uninteresting roads.  You can struggle against this as much as you like but the maps you use tend to do that to you because that’s what they are designed to do.  when you “ride like a local” with our books, you'll still get those 300 mi (480 km) in a day that you wanted but instead of being that distance away from where you started, you might only be 100 mi (160 km) from your starting point.  We’ve even ended up back at the same spot. 

Of course, some riders think they “know all the roads”.  Problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know.  In reality, you’re familiar with a few good routes and have told yourself that’s all there is.  And the farther away from home you are, the more you don’t know.  You hesitate to explore alternatives because you don’t know if they’re 24 carat or fool’s gold.  GPS isn’t the answer.  It’s great at telling you where you are but not so good at telling you where you should be.  Nor is the hit-and-miss “I just like to get lost” approach.  Problem with that is you miss way more than you hit.

We think life's too short and they're too many good roads you shouldn't miss to spend the limited riding time (and $$$) most people have riding ones that are not so good.  That’s why we came up with the Destination Highways™ concept, to give you something no other book, map, website, forum or GPS unit can give you: comprehensive knowledge of where all the best roads are (and what they’re like).

We ride the good and the not so good, so you get to ride just the good.  All clearly identified as well as rated and/or described in a way that lets you know whether it's going to be your kind of ride.  It's not about what we like in a road, we just give you the tools to find what you like, which varies according to what and how you ride.  And may even vary from day to day.  

Everyone from Ferrari drivers to Harley riders uses our books because they're designed to let enthusiasts "ride like a local" in the areas covered, even if they've NEVER ridden there before. 34,000 miles (54,000 kms) of research riding for Northern California, 28,000 miles (46,000 kms) for Washington and 25,000 miles (40,000 kms) for British Columbia guarantee it.

But “riding like a local” goes beyond just knowing where to ride.  It also means knowing where to stop.  You and your baby need fuel and maintenance.   Where’s the nearest gas when you’re hitting reserve?  Turn to the Destination Highways™ Local Maps.  Where’s the nearest bike shop to arrange for that back tire you’re going to need in two days —or that just went flat.  Check out the Regional Maps or Bike Shop listing

And what about you? Maybe you’re cruising along at lunchtime, wondering if there’s a nice pub on the water nearby.  Or perhaps it’s just getting late on a beautiful afternoon, you’re having a great day and want to keep going for a couple more hours.  But you’ve just hit a town and the “where am I going to eat/sleep” thoughts start to nag.  You don’t want to be riding tired and hungry four hours from now, so you stop.  Or get into an argument about whether or not to stop.

Unlike GPS, our detailed maps let you visually confirm at a glance not only what services are nearby but what’s down the road.  Call ahead to confirm if you need to, jump back on your bike worry free, and log that extra saddle time on more motorcycle roads.  Maximize your time on good roads that you'll like, and minimize the hassle of finding the things you need when you need 'em.

And what’s all this "local" knowledge worth to you?  How about less than the cost of a motel ($100), an installed rear tire ($229.00), a few tanks of gas ($66.00) or a dinner without paper napkins for two ($89.00). 

Make sense? That's why "Don't ride like a tourist, ride like a local!" is more than our slogan. It's what our books do for new and experienced enthusiasts alike and why they love them (see Testimonials).  And why many of them say, "Destination Highways books? Priceless."

"Our plan was to ride via the west side of the Cascades, trying to pick a route that wouldn’t take us over roads already ridden but more importantly, keep us off busy highways. I spread the DHWA Companion Map out, and VOILA, there were all kinds of red DHs and orange  TEs  between Sedro Wooley and Enumclaw, behind Seattle and well away from the interstate. So I plotted a route on our GPS using the map and book as a guide. It was WONDERFUL – we had a great ride, saw lots of new country (and for my husband who has ridden over 40 years in all 48 continental states and probably close to 1M kms – that was a first!) and managed to totally avoid the big city. We used both the book and map several more times on the trip to find and ride even more great roads. We rode DH2, 3 and most of 4 on two consecutive days – how much better can it get? Thank you again for your wonderful books and maps. We have them all, use them often and recommend them to everyone we meet!" –Judy W  (Like these riders from Kamloops BC, you too can "ride like a local" in WA, BC or NorCal, no matter where you're from.)

Want to buy DHBC DHWA DHNorCal and/or their Companion Maps?

Close window