The woman aiming to be the youngest to travel the world by motorcycle

(CNN) — Born into a family of motorcyclists, Bridget McCutchen was able to witness firsthand the thrill that riding a motorbike could bring from a very early age.

The 22-year-old, who grew up in Northern Wisconsin, got her first bike when she was around 19 and soon began heading off on trips to the likes of Baltimore and New York.

But the notion of riding around the world hadn’t ever occurred to her until her older brother pointed out that she was still young enough to beat the record for the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe on a motorcycle.

McCutchen, whose longest road trip had been from Wisconsin to Washington, says she dismissed the idea at first, but it kept coming back into her mind.

“After a while, I was like, ‘why not?’ The only reason I didn’t think I was going to do it was because I was scared of it,” she tells CNN Travel. “I was telling myself, ‘no.’ And then I decided to tell myself, ‘Yes.’ So here we are.”

Record challenge

Bridget McCutchen is trying to beat the record for the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe on a motorcycle.

Courtesy Bridget McCutchen

In order to become the new record holder, McCutchen is required to adhere to a list of specifications, including using the same motorcycle for the entire journey and avoiding staying in one location for over two weeks.

McCutchen will also need to ride overland across the Equator at least once, while the journey must be a minimum of 24,900 miles (40,075 kilometers) in order to qualify.

After saving as much money as she could, McCutchen set off in August, spending her first few weeks “bouncing around the States,” before heading over to Baja and crossing over to mainland Mexico by ferry.

She’s traveling with a riding partner, Kiva, who she met a few months ago, during this section of the trip, and says they often cause a stir when they arrive in a new place and pull off their helmets.

“A lot of the time people are very surprised,” she says. “Like they expect men to be riding these motorcycles.”

“In a car, you’re in a bubble moving through the world,” she says. “But on a motorcycle, you are subjected to everything, for better or worse. Sights, smells, sounds. Everything matters to you more.

“You are exposed to everything, and it’s so much more engaging. It’s…