I have always loved driving. I grew up driving a lawn mower around in the summer, and got my licence as soon as I was old enough. I bought a car when I was sixteen and drove all over the country roads and into the nearby city, hanging out with friends at the beach or driving to work. When I wasn’t driving anywhere I would even just sit in my car, it felt like a safe space for me.
Where I grew up in Canada the roads were pretty straightforward and simple. The city was not very big, and didn’t have too many confusing intersections. But it was big enough to have lots of traffic and lots of different kinds of driving situations. I lived a ten minute drive from town, but I often worked downtown. I got a good exposure to country and city driving from an early age, which has been great for me. I’m just as comfortable driving at 135km/h down a highway as I am crawling through big city gridlock.
When my family moved to Nicaragua I was eighteen, and I bought a small motorcycle as soon as I could. My Dad also owned a couple of pickup trucks, which all had manual transmissions. I learned to drive manual. A dying art these days. Many North Americans have only driven with an automatic car.
My little 125cc Yamaha motorcycle was the source of a lot of very good memories for me. I would recommend getting a motorcycle to anyone looking for a cool mode of transportation. I went exploring all over the dirt roads in the hills of Western Nicaragua. Some of the roads were made of brick, but for the most part they were just packed dirt, which was incredibly dusty in the dry season. I would ride on the beaches and bunnyhop over the little dunes left behind by the outgoing tides. I went to places you couldn’t access by car. My brother and I had all kinds of adventures riding around together, him on his own bike.
I came back to Canada when I was nineteen, and I bought an old Honda SUV from my Dad that he had left behind when we left for Nicaragua. I proceeded to drive it out to Vancouver, from Ontario. It’s a few days of driving, and I made the most of it. I hardly had any money, but I stayed with friends where I could and eventually found a job in Vancouver for the Summer.
I later drove back to Ontario, and then with a friend to Montana for a few weeks. Highways in the USA are fun to drive on, they often have higher speed limits than in Canada. Before my trip to Montana my mechanic advised me not to go, my car was not in great shape. I consulted my friend and we decided that whatever happened would make for a great story so we took off. We didn’t have power steering and the wheels were almost ready to come flying off the car, but we made it out west and back with no major issues.
I moved to Ireland recently, and here they drive on the opposite side of the road. I haven’t had a chance to drive here yet, but it still catches me a little off guard every time a car comes up the road on the opposite side I’m expecting. It’s a little hard to wrap my head around after spending my whole life one way. Some of the roads here are so narrow as well, there’s really only space for one car to go by. One car often has to back up for the other one to get through. I’m so used to wide roads with multiple lanes and big shoulders. Here if you pull off the road you’ll either hit a stone wall or fall down an embankment. The drivers here seem quite cooperative though.
I have always loved driving. People all over the world have places to go, and driving gets them there. The vehicles and roads are different everywhere, and that’s part of the joy of exploring the world.