As August 7 is apparently National Lighthouse Day, I’m dusting off this old draft to offer a look back at the Iron Butt Association Lighthouse Tour certification that I completed in 2020.

I began riding to lighthouses for the IBA Lighthouse Tour certification in February of 2017. This is one of the gentler long-term certifications that the Iron Butt Association offers, where you have a year or longer to document visits to the required number of lighthouses. Grand tours like this take you down tiny little dead end roads that you may never otherwise visit. They allow you to take the time to absorb different parts of the history and flavor of the places you ride.

Starting with the modest goal of visiting 60 lighthouses in one year to achieve the Bronze level certification, I found I was enjoying the hunt so much that I wanted to keep going. The advanced levels of this certification would mean riding some long distances beyond my home region, requiring visits to either both oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and/or Canada (depending on which level you were aiming for). Once I’d captured my first lighthouse on the Pacific coast (following a 50CC ride), the “hard part” was done, so I’d thought. I simply needed to keep scooping up the numerous lighthouses on the east coast and Great Lakes to finish things out. My goal was Silver level (120 lighthouses in two years), but I missed the requirements when the two year mark arrived. It would have to be all or nothing – the Gold level cert, aiming for 180 lighthouses visited in under three years.

My riding activity died down a bit in 2019 after the IBR, and I made little progress on the Lighthouse Tour for the remainder of the year. It became clear that I would miss my February deadline and have to re-visit some of the local lighthouses from the beginning of my tour, in order to document them within a consecutive 3 year span.

With life responsibilities and the pandemic shifting around priorities, I missed my second three-year deadline (April 2020), and began the spring season with the daunting goal to ride to and document my final 83 lighthouses by the new (third!) deadline of August 7, 2020 (including re-visits to about 20 that had “expired” in Feb/April). The pandemic chaos turned out to be a mixed blessing in this effort. All the long-distance rally events I usually compete in were cancelled or postponed. While that sucks, it left me with more time and money to focus on the riding I needed to do to finish off this certification.

I got it done by late July after a determined effort, and it was with great satisfaction and relief I mailed off my application and packet of documentation to the Iron Butt Association.

Click here for a listing of past ride reports involving the Lighthouse Tour, in reverse chronological order.

Click here for a photo slideshow of all 192 lighthouses, in chronological order originally visited. These are my favorite photos of each one, not necessarily the photo used for documentation.

My Lighthouse Tour Tips:

• Start with a comprehensive GPX file of all 1700+ US and Canadian lighthouses from a site like poi-factory.com to import into BaseCamp (or whatever map software you use). Don’t get too excited when you see them all on the map – you’ll have to eventually eliminate maybe half of them as being inaccessible by riding/hiking.
• LighthouseFriends.com was an invaluable resource, especially the “Visitor Notes” which usually explain how to find the best viewing spots (though not always). I also read (or at least skimmed) the historical notes about every single lighthouse I visited, which helped me appreciate the location and history of the placed I rode.
• You will need a real camera with a good zoom lens to get a decent enough shot of many lighthouses. The percent of them that you can actually walk right up to is very small.
• I bought the Lighthouse Society passport book, but only got one stamp I think. Just don’t bother – most lighthouses do not have the stamps and those that do will likely not be open when you are there – or the stamp may be kept at a completely separate location!
• Regarding documentation – the IBA’s website description on what constitutes acceptable documentation has caused confusion among several riders on the IBA forum and others I’ve talked to in person. I took the belt-and-suspenders approach and used: photo w/flag, DBR within ~20 miles, and sometimes a Spotwalla.com link, if I had one for that day. I kept a master spreadsheet to keep all this information straight and easy for the IBA validation team to process.
• Plan extra time into every ride to enjoy the locations and allow for small roads with low speed limits. You may also need to do some on-the-fly navigation when trees, private road signs, or other factors block the view/access you were counting on to a particular lighthouse. Many lighthouses require a short hike to view and appreciate them properly.
• Develop convenient blind spots for “Private Road” and “Residents Only” signs that you may or may not have seen along your way. Unfortunately, many municipalities have allowed public access to these historic structures to be restricted by private developments or communities. Don’t be an ass, just get in, get the pic, and get out. My personal limit was that I would not trespass on private property owned by an individual (i.e. their residence). Day of the week and time of day play big factors in terms of bystanders you may see. A smile and friendly greeting to locals afforded me some prime opportunities as well. Everyone likes lighthouses.

 

Tour Stats

Lighthouses Visited: 192

Lighthouses Revisited: 20

Lighthouses Climbed: Only 1! 🙁

Total Elapsed Certification Time: 2 years, 11 months, 2 weeks, 4 days

Number of Receipts: 75

Number of States/Provinces with visited Lighthouses: 16 states, 3 provinces

Bodies of Water Visited: Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Champlain, Lake Oswego, Sebago Lake, Hudson River, Detroit River, St Lawrence River, Delaware River, Chesapeake Bay

Favorite Lighthouse Architecture: Buffalo Main Lighthouse, Buffalo NY

Favorite Lighthouse Location: Owls Head Light (ME) or Gay Head Lighthouse (Aquinnah MA)

Favorite Lighthouse Overall Experience: Making it to the Cap des Rosiers Lighthouse at the end of the Gaspe Peninsula (Quebec) during the 2019 Iron Butt Rally, after riding pell-mell across the country from Washington state. It was after sunset but before daylight had left the sky, which I needed to claim major points.

Most Difficult Photo: Indian Island Lighthouse, Rockport ME

Ugliest Lighthouse: Deer Island Light in Boston Harbor (but a nice walk and cool location)