Scootin’ to Alaska: A Travel Memoir

Do you dream of Alaska? How would you get there? A plane? A car? What about a scooter? Stuck in the rut of daily routine and feeling that there must be something else to life, Jason Forster and his brother, Mike, sense the call of the open road and set out to travel 4,000 miles through some of the most spectacular and rugged landscapes on Earth, a journey from the suburbs of Detroit to the wilds of Alaska. Their rides? A couple of tiny, wobbly, overpacked motor scooters—inexpensive and unreliable machines from China, each boasting a 49cc engine and a top speed of 30 mph (on a good day). Their equipment? A mountain of supplies, including a tent, a couple of sleeping bags, a busted cell phone, and enough beef jerky to feed a family of grizzly bears. Their weapons? Enthusiasm, naïveté, and a blissful ignorance of the improbability of their quest. A half-baked idea? Oh no, it’s fully baked. From homicidal truckers to gentle Harley bikers, from chilling wildlife encounters to the magnificence of mountain ranges, Scootin’ to Alaska bounces through euphoria and betrayal, fear and tranquility, loneliness, exhilaration, deprivation and despair, to ultimately a better understanding of the road less traveled. With humor, insight, a keen eye for the extraordinary, and a knack for observation, Jason Forster takes the reader along for the ride and reveals some basic truths about our age and ourselves.