At the start of the year, content creator Jess Stone was enjoying an epic motorcycle journey around the world with her beloved dog on the back of her bike and her husband Greg riding behind them.
But within months, everything had changed. In March, Greg was hit by a bus while riding along the Pan-American Highway – an accident that destroyed his motorcycle and left him with several broken bones.
Around two weeks later, Stone’s dog Moxie, a German Shepherd, suddenly passed away due to complications during a routine operation five days earlier.
“She just died,” Stone tells CNN Travel. “And we were not there. And the guilt that I felt and the grief that I had… My world just shattered.”
Special bond
Stone felt completely lost, and had no idea what to do next.
“Greg still had months of recovery left,” she explains. “His bike was totaled. And I didn’t have a dog.”
Up until that point, they’d all been on a multi-year adventure, GoRUFFLY Around the World, traveling across Central America, North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia, in a partnership with global nonprofit Girl Up – a girl-centered leadership development initiative.
Traveling with Moxie, who she’d had for around six and a half years, had made the trip all the more special, for Stone, and now her constant companion was gone.
Consumed by grief, she decided to organize a pilgrimage from Seattle to San Diego to visit people who were doing different activities with their dogs in order to learn about them and the special bond that they shared.
“It was so extraordinary riding with Moxie,” Stone explains. “We formed this special bond together. And I knew that there were other people doing different things [with their dogs] that also had that bond.
“So I thought, wouldn’t this be a good way to celebrate Moxie and to sort of work through my own grief.”
Motorcycle manufacturer Triumph provided Stone and her husband with new bikes, two Tiger 900 adventure motorcycles, before they set off in July.
They visited various activities and animals - including a dog show, search and rescue dogs, dog diving and even puppy yoga sessions - during the GoRUFFLY Pilgrimage, which lasted just under a month.
Once it was over and they started to come to terms with losing Moxie, Stone was keen to get back on the road again.
And she wanted a new canine companion along with her for the ride.
“I’m a dog person,” she explains. “I have a dog business. I have a cockpit and I love riding with my dog so I knew that eventually I needed to get a dog. It just had to happen.
At first she struggled to find a new pet, as “every dog that I saw wasn’t Moxie.”
She and Greg eventually decided on a White Swiss Shepherd and picked up a nine-week-old puppy, which they named Whimsy, in Los Angeles back in June.
The couple, who manufacture a motorcycle dog carrier, along with a range of outdoor dog gear, through their company Ruffly, in Guatemala, had a carrier made for their new pup and set about training Whimsy up for life on the road.
Starting over
Stone explains that getting a dog used to wearing goggles is one of the hardest parts of the process.
Thankfully, Whimsy was able to get the hang of things relatively quickly and “did not fuss.”
They also did a few practice rides with her to see if she could handle being on a bike for long periods of time.
“She did so well,” says Stone. “It was like she was born for this.”
Following a month or so of training, the trio set off from California where they’d based themselves while training Moxie, and began making their way to Nevada.
“Now I’m riding with Whimsy,” she says. “We’ve resumed our journey.
“We’re going to continue going south, following in the paw prints of Moxie and head down to the Antarctic.”
Although Stone admits that starting over up again with a new pup while grieving for the dog she lost has been tough, there’s nothing she enjoys more than being on the bike with a canine companion.
“As our hearts are continuing to heal, this is sort of a new opportunity to really love and recapture what we loved about doing this activity,” she says.
As Moxie was slightly older when they began traveling with her, riding with a puppy is a new experience for Stone.
She explains that they’ve worked out a rhythm in which they ride for four days, and then stop to work for three, which has been the “perfect mix.”
During their work days, Whimsy tends to “just hang out and sleep,” before they get back on the bikes and head out again.
“It’s different riding with a puppy than it is with an adult dog,” she explains.
“Moxie was a year and a half when we started. She was finished with her teething phase and she had a bit more staying power. Whimsy is like a fluffy puppy.”
They’ve had to go at a much slower pace with Whimsy, riding for shorter bursts of time, in order to allow her “space to be free” or “have a little nap.”
“It’s taught Greg and I to slow down ourselves,” she says.
Continuing cautiously
Stone learned to ride a motorbike on the side streets of Liberia, where she and Greg were living at the time, over 10 years ago, and took private off-road training lessons before setting off with Moxie in March 2022.
She had always been anxious about the trickier sections of the route, and although it was her husband who was hit by a bus, the experience affected her own confidence slightly.
“When I first got back on my bike [after Greg’s accident], I was pretty cautious,” she says.
“Every time I saw a chicken bus [a form of budget public transportation in Guatemala] as I was riding through Guatemala, I stayed far away.
“And it took me a while to get that confidence back. I realized that these things happen. But it’s very unlikely to happen to me right now, so I was able to get past that.”
However, Stone says that the experience of losing Moxie, as well as her husband’s accident, has taught them both to live in the moment more.
“Having Moxie pass away like that – it was so unexpected,” she recounts. “So we know that bad things can happen.
“And it just makes us try and enjoy every day that we have together now a lot more, because we know how fleeting I can be.”
One of the downsides to traveling with a dog is that they are pretty much limited to dog-friendly places, and tend to wild camp or stay in Airbnbs.
“Wild camping is fantastic,” says Stone, before explaining that they’ve been “crate training” Whimsy at campsites in preparation for their upcoming flight from Panama to Colombia.
“Because she can just be free with us and there’s nobody around.”
Currently in Nevada, they are slowly making their way towards Mexico, before traveling through Central and South America, where they’ll ride to the “tip” of Argentina, and then fly to South Africa.
“At that point, she’ll [Whimsy] be over a year old. And she’ll probably be able to do longer distances and longer times,” adds Stone.
New joy
From South Africa, they’ll travel up to East Africa, before “looping around Europe” and riding through Asia.
At this stage, they’ll ship their motorcycles, and return to Guatemala by plane with Whimsy.
Stone estimates that they’ll be on the road for another three years or so.
She’s been documenting the journey via Instagram, as well as a weekly YouTube series, and both she and Greg are thrilled with the support they’ve had since introducing Whimsy to their followers earlier this month.
“It’s just wonderful how everybody has sort of rallied behind Whimsy,” she says,
“Everybody was just so thrilled that we were able to sort of bring a new joy back into our lives like this and continue the journey with her.”
Stone admits that she’s still cautious about riding off road, and now understands that having Moxie on the back of her bike motivated her to keep going when she felt apprehensive
“I still have the anxiety of going down,” she says. “Of hurting my bike. You never know what’s going to happen, which we have obviously seen.
“I’m realizing that maybe Moxie made me just a little bit braver. She was the one who was always pushing me to be calm on the off roads. Because if I wasn’t calm, she would fuss.
“I find Whimsy is very similar in that as well. But I feel a lot braver now with these new bikes. I just feel a little bit more competent.”
While the trip hasn’t gone the way she expected, Stone is hugely grateful to have been able to continue on with the journey and is determined to reach her $100,000 fundraising target for Girl Up’s global empowerment projects.
Although things have not turned out as expected, she’s hugely grateful to have Whimsy along with her for the ride, and is enjoying watching her “experience everything new, learning how to ride, and going with us on all these crazy adventures.”
“Riding with your dog, it’s sort of become a way of our lives,” she adds. “We get so much pleasure out of doing it.
“As I watch Whimsy, I feel like my heart is light. It just makes me happy to share this again.
“Even if it’s not with Moxie, I’m glad that I’ve got this new co-pilot. I feel renewed.”
