Losing her job was an opportunity, not a tragedy.

Fresh off of a nine-month journey, camping off her 2015 Yamaha FZ-07 sport bike through 49 US states and three provinces of Canada, Tiffani Burkett wasn’t ready to return to a nine-to-five. She had picked up a freelance gig as a motorcycle journalist, she had met someone, and she still had a little bit of her dwindling life savings left in the bank.

Naturally, the only logical course of action was to to set her sights toward the next set of landlocked states in North America: Mexico. Despite growing up in Los Angeles, she had never been south of the border, didn't speak any Spanish (except for the swear words she learned in high school), and even without the recent political unrest, it seemed that everyone had plenty of stories to tell about cartels and crime and violence.

But if fear was enough to stop her from living out her dreams, she wouldn't be a motorcyclist in the first place. Whether it's dealing with broken-down equipment in the wild west city of Durango, a passport debacle in Costa Rica, or a last minute flight to help a friend race the North West 200 in Ireland, people are far better than the media implies, and what she finds is a wonderful journey through new cultures, new environments, and newfound strength in both herself and her growing relationship with her travel partner.

Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy: South of the Border is the second book in a series of memoirs. Originally published as a travelogue in Motorcyclist Magazine as Girl Meets World, this full-length memoir has been rewritten from the ground up to include the untold stories and the details that were a little too racy for the blog.

If you loved Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Round and Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels, you'll love Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy!