Hi Minedo:

First, welcome to the HUBB community.

About leaving your motorcycle for a long time in the USA (or any other country) while you depart the country without it - it can be done, certainly, and many people, myself included, have done this many times, there is no way to do it legally unless you store it in a customs bonded warehouse, which is a very expensive and impractical solution for a motorcycle. The reasoning behind this is that the country you are visiting is allowing you duty-free import of your vehicle for touristic purposes, on the understanding that you will be exporting it when you leave the country. Leaving it behind when you go would change the transaction from a "temporary tourist import" to a "normal importation" that would then be subject to duty, taxes, possibly even conformation to safety and emissions standards, etc.

So, what you have to do is begin your trip by having the motorcycle enter a country that is not meticulous about tracking importation of tourist vehicles. As Mark stated in his post above, Canada is such a country - so it is far better to ship to Canada and then ride into the USA, because the Americans are less inclined to carefully inspect and record tourist vehicles entering via a land border crossing from Canada than vehicles entering by sea or air from another (more distant) country.

When you enter the USA from Canada, if questioned, advise the border control people that you plan to tour the USA for a little while and then return back to Canada. Don't mention anything about leaving the USA without the motorcycle.

Personally, if I were you, I would plan to store the moto in Canada, rather than in the USA. Canada is far less concerned about this kind of thing than the Americans are, although it's not legal to leave a tourist vehicle behind in Canada either. Plus, your airfare costs might be a bit lower because you will be arriving from your home country and departing to your home country from the same Canadian airport - you won't need to buy an 'open jaw' ticket.

As for where to store the motorcycle while you are gone, what I have always done when I have stored my Canadian motorcycle in Europe over the winter is to just find a motorcycle dealership (any brand) and ask them if they offer storage of motorcycles on a monthly basis. Most motorcycle dealers do offer this service, except perhaps those dealers in the center of large cities where real estate is expensive and space is limited. The advantage of storing your moto at a moto dealer is that they can keep your battery charged by plugging in a battery maintainer once a month, and also accomplish any services needed (new tires, oil changes, etc.) while the moto is in storage.

Michael