Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / The Journey of a Lifetime: Doug and Stephanie's Inspirational Overland Adventures

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The Journey of a Lifetime: Doug and Stephanie's Inspirational Overland Adventures · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:10
Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by Douglas and Stephanie Hackney.
0:14
Speaker 1: I've known Doug and Stephanie for coming on twenty years now.
0:18
Speaker 1: They were a big help in the foundation of Overland
0:21
Speaker 1: Dural and Expedition Portal. As successful entrepreneurs themselves, they're also
0:27
Speaker 1: very well traveled. They've traveled numerous continents two up on
0:31
Speaker 1: a BMW motorcycle. They've done a bunch of open water sailing,
0:35
Speaker 1: and ultimately they drove amid Subishi Fuso FG down the
0:39
Speaker 1: length of the Americas to USHWAYA. We have a great conversation.
0:43
Speaker 1: We were cut a little bit short on time due
0:46
Speaker 1: to some travel requirements, but I hope to have them
0:48
Speaker 1: back on the podcast soon. So please enjoy my conversation
0:53
Speaker 1: with Doug and Stephanie Hackney and a special thanks to
0:56
Speaker 1: Treder for their support of this week's podcast. One of
1:00
Speaker 1: the age old problems of vehicle dependent adventure travel is
1:04
Speaker 1: something that you probably don't think of very often, and
1:07
Speaker 1: that's insurance. If you've put a lot of money into
1:10
Speaker 1: your truck, chances are that those modifications aren't covered by
1:13
Speaker 1: your current carrier, but now there's Tredder. They fill in
1:17
Speaker 1: the gap between what your car insurance company thinks your
1:21
Speaker 1: truck is worth and what it is actually worth to you.
1:24
Speaker 1: You don't have to switch your carrier, and you can
1:27
Speaker 1: use regular insurers that provide the stock stuff while treader
1:31
Speaker 1: insures the cool gear. Head to treader dot com and
1:36
Speaker 1: check out their easy five minute quote process to see
1:39
Speaker 1: if Tredder is the solution for you. Again, that's treader
1:43
Speaker 1: dot com, t R e dd Er dot com. Thank
1:48
Speaker 1: you again for the support Tredder.
1:51
Speaker 2: We're speeding. Doug and Stephanie, thank you so much for
1:59
Speaker 2: being on the podcast.
2:00
Speaker 3: It's great to have you here.
2:02
Speaker 2: This is an absolute joy.
2:03
Speaker 1: I have to say you guys, both of you have
2:06
Speaker 1: been a part of my entire journey through overlanding. You've
2:11
Speaker 1: both provided me with so much information, advice, insights on
2:17
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur, on being a traveler, and just the
2:21
Speaker 1: conversations that all of us have had around campfires and
2:25
Speaker 1: at overland expos and time together like we did tonight
2:29
Speaker 1: we got to go out to have dinner here outside
2:31
Speaker 1: of Austin. Those things are all incredible memories for me
2:36
Speaker 1: and I would not be where I am today.
2:38
Speaker 2: Without a lot of your support.
2:40
Speaker 1: So you guys were really a big part of the
2:43
Speaker 1: success that Overland Journal has had, that our industry has had,
2:47
Speaker 1: because you guys provided that kind of feedback and support.
2:50
Speaker 2: To so many entrepreneurs as this industry was coming off
2:53
Speaker 2: the ground. So it's a real honor to have you
2:55
Speaker 2: guys on the podcast.
2:57
Speaker 4: Thank you. I just wanted to be here.
2:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's a couple of things that
3:02
Speaker 1: come to mind, and because I know a few of
3:04
Speaker 1: the stories, because again.
3:05
Speaker 2: We've spent a lot of time around the campfire.
3:07
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I remember being so
3:11
Speaker 1: interesting as I got to know you, Doug, was you
3:14
Speaker 1: were an entrepreneur that you were working flat out, but
3:18
Speaker 1: you found.
3:19
Speaker 2: These ways of escape.
3:21
Speaker 1: And one of the early things that you did was
3:24
Speaker 1: a BMW M five And I remember this conversation that
3:29
Speaker 1: you had with yourself.
3:30
Speaker 2: Around that car.
3:31
Speaker 1: What made you realize that you didn't want to pursue
3:35
Speaker 1: fancy cars, fast cars, that you actually wanted to have
3:38
Speaker 1: travel and experiences be that cornerstone.
3:42
Speaker 2: Of your life.
3:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one of those rewards. I've always been
3:45
Speaker 4: a car guy since I was a little kid. So
3:47
Speaker 4: I was deeply immersed in all that my whole life,
3:52
Speaker 4: and I once I had worked and we got to
3:55
Speaker 4: a point where we had a decent outcome with the business,
3:58
Speaker 4: and so that was like my gift to my self
4:00
Speaker 4: was the M five. But I was the reason why
4:02
Speaker 4: I got that instead of some flashy sports car. Was
4:05
Speaker 4: I already had sports cars, but I wanted to like
4:08
Speaker 4: the Q ship. It was more fun to me to
4:10
Speaker 4: be driving something than unless you were a real car person,
4:13
Speaker 4: you didn't know what it was. It was just a
4:15
Speaker 4: four door sedan right sitting at a stop light next
4:17
Speaker 4: to a family and another four door sedan. Nobody knew
4:19
Speaker 4: anything was going on, but it was so it was fun.
4:22
Speaker 4: I like that stealth aspect of it as an inside joke.
4:25
Speaker 2: That was a machine. That was a machine that was fun.
4:29
Speaker 1: But I remember the first time that I encountered at
4:32
Speaker 1: M five was I was I was going to the
4:34
Speaker 1: Bond Rock School to learn to be a little bit
4:36
Speaker 1: better driver, and during a lunch break, this M.
4:40
Speaker 2: Five just starts tearing around the track, Smoke from the tires.
4:44
Speaker 1: The thing is sideways more than it's straight, but with precision,
4:48
Speaker 1: and the vehicle comes around and it pulls up and
4:50
Speaker 1: it parks out where we're all standing there.
4:52
Speaker 2: Now spectating, and the thing has tempplates on it.
4:55
Speaker 1: This is an Arizona at the bond Rock Course, and
4:58
Speaker 1: now steps Bob bond Rock.
5:00
Speaker 2: It was his new car. He just picked the thing
5:02
Speaker 2: up from the dealership and he flogged it up. He
5:05
Speaker 2: flogged it on the racetracks.
5:06
Speaker 1: I had always wanted an M five myself, But I
5:10
Speaker 1: remember one of the things that you told me is
5:11
Speaker 1: that when you went out into that in that car,
5:15
Speaker 1: it was everybody was just talking about the car. They
5:18
Speaker 1: would sit down for lunch and all they wanted to
5:21
Speaker 1: talk about was the car. There was not any real
5:23
Speaker 1: experiences that were coming from loaning it.
5:25
Speaker 4: Correct, you know. That was after we I wanted to
5:28
Speaker 4: I needed a little break. That's from after the hard run.
5:30
Speaker 4: But it's like to build a business. And I pushed, push,
5:33
Speaker 4: pushed for about twelve fourteen years, and I just needed
5:37
Speaker 4: a break. I'd been riding since I was ten, and
5:40
Speaker 4: we've done this a lot of off road. I got
5:43
Speaker 4: into off road after my sport bike got hit got
5:46
Speaker 4: rended by another motorcycle, and while that was being rebuilt,
5:50
Speaker 4: my old friend Avery Ennis said, we're gonna trade this
5:54
Speaker 4: dual sport thing. It's really a lot of fun. I've
5:55
Speaker 4: been getting into that's a lot of fun. So I
5:57
Speaker 4: got a dual sport bike that got me into off
5:59
Speaker 4: road riding. And then I got hooked up through Avery
6:02
Speaker 4: to a bunch of people rids in southern California, and
6:06
Speaker 4: I ended up doing a bunch of riding with them,
6:07
Speaker 4: some big trips down the length of Bah from the
6:10
Speaker 4: border down to Cago every year, and that got me
6:14
Speaker 4: off into a whole different world. And then that's with
6:19
Speaker 4: that same group, and Steph and I did some rise.
6:20
Speaker 4: We did it a ride in Central Mexico where we
6:23
Speaker 4: went two up on a d R. It was so fun.
6:26
Speaker 3: It was sound yea, and on that little tiny DR.
6:32
Speaker 3: I think we put a tool pack on the back
6:34
Speaker 3: to make the seat long enough.
6:35
Speaker 4: So yeah, it was really fun, and I wanted to
6:40
Speaker 4: I wanted a way where I could share some of
6:42
Speaker 4: the When you ride off road with a bike that's
6:45
Speaker 4: reasonably capable, you can get up into some places where
6:48
Speaker 4: nobody else can see that except people on foot or
6:51
Speaker 4: a mountain bike or somebody that's really wants to be there, right,
6:55
Speaker 4: so you see all these amazing places, and you have
6:57
Speaker 4: all these wonderful smells and sights and so on and experiences,
7:00
Speaker 4: and I wanted a way where I could share some
7:03
Speaker 4: of that with Steph. So that's we built this big
7:07
Speaker 4: GS eleven fifty and we went all over the world
7:10
Speaker 4: on that and then places where we couldn't get that
7:12
Speaker 4: bike into easily, we'd rent something local for that part
7:16
Speaker 4: of the world or that continent or whatever. Our first
7:18
Speaker 4: trip was to Africa, so we went to Africa for
7:20
Speaker 4: a couple of months or whatever it was. We came
7:23
Speaker 4: back from that trip to Africa, it was a first,
7:26
Speaker 4: our first trip overseas. We'd built that bike for that,
7:30
Speaker 4: for this whole year of adventure and stuff, and I
7:33
Speaker 4: came back from that trip and we had some experiences
7:36
Speaker 4: on that trip that really changed us. I'm sure you
7:38
Speaker 4: can identify with this. We came back to different people
7:41
Speaker 4: than when we had left. And part of that for
7:44
Speaker 4: me was I've been a car guy my whole life.
7:46
Speaker 4: Everything was all about cars and motorcycles and all that
7:49
Speaker 4: kind of stuff and toys and all that stuff. And
7:51
Speaker 4: I joined this M five owners group and we'd go
7:55
Speaker 4: out and flog our M five's around the mountains around
7:58
Speaker 4: southern California. When we came back, there was one of
8:01
Speaker 4: these coming up. So I went out and did the
8:03
Speaker 4: drive with all the guys and we went to lunch.
8:06
Speaker 4: We always went to a big lunch, and the whole
8:08
Speaker 4: back the room is full of thirty forty of us harmony.
8:11
Speaker 4: They were during the lunch. I got up and went
8:14
Speaker 4: to the restroom, and when I came back from the restroom,
8:17
Speaker 4: I was walking through all these five owners, and that's
8:20
Speaker 4: when it hit me that I no longer really had
8:23
Speaker 4: anything in common with all these people. I had lost
8:26
Speaker 4: that thing that resonated. And that was true for not
8:30
Speaker 4: only that aspect of my life, but for both of
8:34
Speaker 4: us really, for you could just take that vibration and
8:37
Speaker 4: just extrapolated out across our life as a whole. So
8:41
Speaker 4: that's really what led that, not the five thing, but
8:44
Speaker 4: that this phenomenon of you come back a changed person
8:48
Speaker 4: and everything about you is different. It took a while,
8:52
Speaker 4: so then we did other trips for that next year
8:54
Speaker 4: or year and a half or whatever, motorcycling all over
8:57
Speaker 4: the world, and that's when we came back and sold
9:02
Speaker 4: and gave away everything, sold everything and then had it
9:05
Speaker 4: out and six months abbatical turned into ten years and.
9:09
Speaker 1: Steph, for you, what were some of the things that
9:11
Speaker 1: you enjoyed most about traveling on the BMW, Like, what
9:16
Speaker 1: were some of the things that you think you would
9:18
Speaker 1: have done different maybe, or what were the things that
9:20
Speaker 1: you liked the most about that kind of travel.
9:23
Speaker 3: I think because I was a military brat, right, so
9:25
Speaker 3: I had traveled a lot in my life, but to
9:29
Speaker 3: what I would call very civilized places, right, and in
9:32
Speaker 3: an environment that was not really adventurous. So when we
9:36
Speaker 3: got that bike and Doug first told me we're going
9:38
Speaker 3: to Africa and we're going to do all of Sub
9:40
Speaker 3: Saharan Africa. And he handed me these two bags which
9:43
Speaker 3: were basically the size of camera bags. He said this
9:46
Speaker 3: is for all your stuff. And I said for my
9:49
Speaker 3: clothes and he said, no, all your stuff, everything. And
9:52
Speaker 3: I remember I cried.
9:54
Speaker 4: I was like, you got to be kidding me.
9:56
Speaker 3: I can't fit everything I need for seven eight weeks
9:58
Speaker 3: in this. And when you make that first trip to
10:02
Speaker 3: a place like Africa that you've never been to and
10:04
Speaker 3: all you've ever seen are national geographics, right, you have
10:07
Speaker 3: this vision and what it's going to be. And that
10:09
Speaker 3: first trip we did with a group. Right, So we
10:12
Speaker 3: had our bike shipped over and it was brand new.
10:15
Speaker 3: We had it all custom done to make it really
10:18
Speaker 3: great for this kind of travel. And we got there
10:20
Speaker 3: and that initial thing is, Oh, we're really going to
10:23
Speaker 3: go do this right. And you're out there like a
10:27
Speaker 3: week or a few weeks, and you think we don't
10:30
Speaker 3: need to be in a group, and this is this
10:32
Speaker 3: is really cool and it's not what you envision. It's
10:35
Speaker 3: going to be right. And while we were there, we
10:38
Speaker 3: had lived in San Diego, and San Diego had horrendous
10:41
Speaker 3: fires and we happened to stop in the maybe in
10:45
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere, and I went into this the
10:47
Speaker 3: bar of a hotel to get some water. And I
10:50
Speaker 3: walked in and here a CNN and a guy is
10:53
Speaker 3: standing in the bay in San Diego and he's saying
10:56
Speaker 3: and San Diego is on fire, and literally the sky
10:59
Speaker 3: is of red behind him and I'm looking and I'm thinking,
11:04
Speaker 3: that's where we live, right. So everything we owned, our house,
11:07
Speaker 3: everything we'd worked so hard for it was there. And
11:11
Speaker 3: my first thought was, Wow, what would we do it
11:15
Speaker 3: all burns up while we're here. So I came out
11:17
Speaker 3: and I told Doug and he said okay, And then
11:20
Speaker 3: the next two hours of writing we just talked through
11:23
Speaker 3: our headphones, like what's important in life and what would
11:28
Speaker 3: we do? Would we replace all our stuff? And by
11:30
Speaker 3: the time we got done with that and got to
11:32
Speaker 3: the first the next hotel, we both just looked at
11:35
Speaker 3: each other and said, it's gone or won't replace it,
11:38
Speaker 3: and we're just going to keep doing what we're doing.
11:40
Speaker 1: What a change in perspective, Yeah, because in California asked something.
11:44
Speaker 1: California really pushes you in onto the hamster wheel.
11:47
Speaker 2: It really does. It does, and most people stay on
11:50
Speaker 2: it their whole life.
11:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a beautiful place to live. And we enjoyed
11:54
Speaker 3: the chapter there. I had grown up there off and
11:57
Speaker 3: on through my childhood, so it was very comfortable. And
11:59
Speaker 3: I think that's the things. You get comfortable, and then
12:02
Speaker 3: you make money and you spend money, and you get
12:05
Speaker 3: on that hamster wheel of generating cash and spending cash
12:08
Speaker 3: and it just becomes what you do. And that break
12:11
Speaker 3: and that sort of being forced to look at what's important,
12:15
Speaker 3: what do we want to do with the rest of
12:17
Speaker 3: our lives? That changed us. And I had mentioned to
12:19
Speaker 3: you that we had some family members and friends where
12:22
Speaker 3: who their lives ended very quickly, very suddenly, and we
12:26
Speaker 3: just kind of looked at each other and said, is
12:29
Speaker 3: this all there is? Or could we go do something else?
12:32
Speaker 3: And that Africa trip on that bike, that was it.
12:36
Speaker 3: That completely changed the tribectary of what we were going
12:39
Speaker 3: to do for the next chivel the.
12:40
Speaker 2: World and the world also changes.
12:42
Speaker 1: We certainly change as travelers, but the world also changes
12:45
Speaker 1: so quickly. I remember sitting with you guys looking at
12:49
Speaker 1: your photographs of Damascus in Syria, and it looks nothing
12:53
Speaker 1: like the moment that you were there in time in history.
12:57
Speaker 1: Will it be beautiful again? Probably when you were there,
13:00
Speaker 1: it was probably as beautiful as it is ever going
13:04
Speaker 1: to be.
13:05
Speaker 4: That's very true of Aleppo certainly. Yeah. When we first
13:08
Speaker 4: came back, people would ask us, Hey, where would you
13:10
Speaker 4: go back to again? And I would typically tell them Syria,
13:13
Speaker 4: just partly for the shock value. With very few Americans travel,
13:17
Speaker 4: if they go overseas, it's often to a gated ball
13:20
Speaker 4: inclusive resort or something like that. They don't have the
13:23
Speaker 4: chance to really immerse in another culture. Whether that's one
13:26
Speaker 4: advantage of motorcycle travel is you must interact with the
13:29
Speaker 4: locals when we went out in the truck. It's very
13:31
Speaker 4: easy to cocoon yourself in the truck, yes, but the
13:34
Speaker 4: bike you have to eat, you have to sleep, so
13:36
Speaker 4: you're always interacting with the locals. And when you're in
13:40
Speaker 4: that part of the world, hospitality is part of the culture.
13:44
Speaker 4: It's a maxim it's a mandate of the culture and
13:47
Speaker 4: the religion to welcome travelers, and we were welcome. Welcome
13:52
Speaker 4: doesn't begin to describe what it was like to travel
13:55
Speaker 4: in that part of the world, not just Syria, but
13:56
Speaker 4: that part of the world as whole. We had wonderful
13:59
Speaker 4: experience as in Syriam, and some fantastic people, made some
14:02
Speaker 4: great friends, and then of course later some of that.
14:05
Speaker 4: We've got a picture of us at Palmeira. We've got
14:09
Speaker 4: the bike parked and we're standing next to it, and
14:12
Speaker 4: what's behind us was later destroyed. So this is the
14:15
Speaker 4: lesson is if you want to see something in the world,
14:17
Speaker 4: you need to go, and you need to go now,
14:20
Speaker 4: because there's no guarantee that place will be there later
14:23
Speaker 4: for you to go see circumstances. Borders can be closed,
14:27
Speaker 4: wars can break out, your own health can change, and
14:30
Speaker 4: your circumstances can drive that. That's what some of these
14:33
Speaker 4: things that happened to our family and our friends that
14:37
Speaker 4: drove us to our decision to leave or part of
14:40
Speaker 4: that right, people that had planned and waited for this
14:42
Speaker 4: great chapter we're at the age now. This chapter we're
14:45
Speaker 4: in now is typically where people have worked and saved
14:49
Speaker 4: and script and planned and cut out things and collected
14:52
Speaker 4: the scrap book and then the research and got maps
14:54
Speaker 4: of highlight our lines all over them and stuff waiting
14:56
Speaker 4: for the day when now we're retired and now we
15:00
Speaker 4: can go. And we had seen so many examples in
15:03
Speaker 4: our lifetimes of friends and family that had all that
15:07
Speaker 4: and then one or the other of them health wise,
15:10
Speaker 4: financial situation prevented them from realizing that dream. And we
15:15
Speaker 4: didn't want that to be us. So we decided to
15:19
Speaker 4: go out early when we were young and we were healthy,
15:22
Speaker 4: and our life circumstances, our family circumstances with our kids
15:26
Speaker 4: and our parents at that time, we had this window
15:28
Speaker 4: of opportunity, so we decided to take it.
15:31
Speaker 2: So we did.
15:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about that with my own mom, My
15:34
Speaker 1: mom and dad, they saved their whole life and my
15:37
Speaker 1: dad had a successful career and within just a few
15:40
Speaker 1: years of retiring, she developed Alzheimer's.
15:43
Speaker 2: So it's just it.
15:44
Speaker 1: You don't know, and it's and a lot of times,
15:48
Speaker 1: our parents and generations that came before us, they are
15:51
Speaker 1: a proctor of life lessons. They do help us see
15:55
Speaker 1: what's important and what we need to change. And for me,
15:57
Speaker 1: that was a really important lesson seeing what my mom
16:01
Speaker 1: and dad went through and reminding myself that, like, if
16:03
Speaker 1: you want to do something, you better make a plan.
16:05
Speaker 2: It's important, if it's important to you.
16:07
Speaker 4: You've probably experienced this too in your travels that when
16:10
Speaker 4: we were out and we would meet people out around
16:13
Speaker 4: the world and they would ask us what we're doing
16:14
Speaker 4: and so on. The older people and the younger people
16:18
Speaker 4: would be so enthusiastic, Oh, you got what you're doing
16:21
Speaker 4: is fantastic, this is great, and so on. But the
16:24
Speaker 4: people in the middle right, not so enthusiastic. And that's
16:29
Speaker 4: you probably experienced this a little bit too. But we
16:32
Speaker 4: when you make this choice, choices have consequences. Choices create chapters.
16:36
Speaker 4: Life is composed of chapters. And when you make a
16:39
Speaker 4: choice like this, we're going to go travel full time
16:42
Speaker 4: for as long as it let our health holds out,
16:45
Speaker 4: as long as our money holds out or as long
16:47
Speaker 4: as it makes sense, right, and for most people that
16:50
Speaker 4: turns out to be three years, three ish years, and
16:53
Speaker 4: then okay, we did this, and now it's the next thing.
16:56
Speaker 4: Might be a different form of travel or different whatever.
16:58
Speaker 4: But when you make that and you walk away, keep
17:02
Speaker 4: in mind we were living in the San Diego area,
17:06
Speaker 4: in one of the nicest cities around San Diego, near
17:10
Speaker 4: the beach, in beautiful home. We were very fortunate, we
17:14
Speaker 4: worked very hard, we had great friends and all that.
17:18
Speaker 4: It was like the idyllic life. It was the American dream.
17:22
Speaker 4: We're married before. So when we got married, we had
17:25
Speaker 4: at least two of everything, combining all this together, and
17:28
Speaker 4: we walked away from all that. And especially the people
17:32
Speaker 4: in the middle of those age bands, they really struggled
17:35
Speaker 4: with that because they were both typically both couples are
17:38
Speaker 4: working like crazy, striving to get to what we had
17:43
Speaker 4: where we were, and here we'd reached the top of
17:46
Speaker 4: the mountain and here we are coming back down that
17:49
Speaker 4: mountain saying, yeah, it was okay, but we want to
17:51
Speaker 4: go do something different. And they're crawling and sliding down
17:55
Speaker 4: the rocks trying to get up to that peak, and
17:57
Speaker 4: it was really difficult for many people in our lives.
18:00
Speaker 4: That changed. It will change the relationships that you have
18:03
Speaker 4: with other people, and that's part you just need to
18:06
Speaker 4: be ready for that. It's part of the trade off
18:08
Speaker 4: you're going to make.
18:09
Speaker 1: We made.
18:10
Speaker 4: We left at the peak of our earning potential, so
18:12
Speaker 4: there was a financial cost to pay, and there's career
18:16
Speaker 4: costs to pay and all that, and this is just
18:19
Speaker 4: one of those costs that you are going to pay
18:21
Speaker 4: if you make this choice. To us, in balance, it
18:25
Speaker 4: was the right choice and them were words outweighed some
18:28
Speaker 4: of the costs that we had to pay.
18:29
Speaker 1: One of the experiences that you two have had together, Stephanie,
18:33
Speaker 1: one of the things that come to mind for me
18:35
Speaker 1: is like, how do you feel.
18:37
Speaker 2: Like it changed your guys's relationship?
18:41
Speaker 3: Well, I think we talked earlier about it's going to
18:43
Speaker 3: make or break a relationship. I think that oftentimes when
18:47
Speaker 3: we've spoken into overlanding groups, we've talked with couples who
18:51
Speaker 3: maybe pulled us aside and said, how did you guys
18:54
Speaker 3: do this? And oftentimes, most often it's a guy wanting
18:58
Speaker 3: to go do this and he's dragging his wife along,
19:01
Speaker 3: and the guys will say to me, how do you
19:03
Speaker 3: get a woman to want to do this? Or how
19:05
Speaker 3: did he gets you talked into this? And I've always said,
19:08
Speaker 3: what if that person really doesn't have the driver, the desire,
19:12
Speaker 3: or at least the openness to the idea, it's probably
19:16
Speaker 3: not going to end well.
19:17
Speaker 2: And it's not fair to person either. YEAHCT somebody.
19:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think as you get older, people get
19:23
Speaker 3: set in their ways and they get set in what
19:25
Speaker 3: they like. And oftentimes what I see is that even
19:29
Speaker 3: if both couples have high power jobs and work a
19:32
Speaker 3: lot of hours, they get to a point, and especially
19:34
Speaker 3: for women, if they have family around, grandkids around, they
19:38
Speaker 3: really want.
19:39
Speaker 2: To be there for them.
19:40
Speaker 3: And so sometimes they get to that point where the
19:42
Speaker 3: guy's like, Okay, I'm ready to go off and do
19:44
Speaker 3: the thing, and she's I really just want to be
19:46
Speaker 3: here with my grandkids. And there's nothing wrong with either
19:48
Speaker 3: of those scenarios, sure, but it doesn't always work for
19:51
Speaker 3: the couple. Yeah, And Bib always said, you need to
19:54
Speaker 3: just sit down and talk through the scenarios and be
19:57
Speaker 3: really open and honest and give each other permission to
20:01
Speaker 3: say I'm done, because you could go out and try
20:04
Speaker 3: it and it's really great for a year. It's really
20:07
Speaker 3: great for two years, or it could be six weeks
20:10
Speaker 3: out of the driveway and one of you decides, you
20:12
Speaker 3: know what, this doesn't work for me. So it's important
20:14
Speaker 3: to have that conversation before you go. Sure, so it's
20:18
Speaker 3: not yeah, so it's not a shock, and so that
20:20
Speaker 3: you know how you're going to handle that. Yeah, we
20:24
Speaker 3: were going to go on a sailboat. That was really
20:26
Speaker 3: Doug's vision was to do this on a sailboat. And
20:30
Speaker 3: I'm definitely afraid of drowning. I get seasick the whole deal,
20:33
Speaker 3: and I thought, Okay, I can do this. I got
20:36
Speaker 3: certified because I thought the more in control I feel,
20:38
Speaker 3: the better I'm going to feel about this. And ultimately
20:41
Speaker 3: I couldn't do it. But we had talked about scenarios
20:45
Speaker 3: and what was most important at that point when we
20:47
Speaker 3: had that extremely difficult situation that I just cannot go
20:52
Speaker 3: by ocean. We're going to have to figure out something else.
20:54
Speaker 3: Doug was willing to be open and say, hey, how
20:57
Speaker 3: else could we do this? And it doesn't always work. Yeah,
21:01
Speaker 3: So I think that it's very important that you as
21:03
Speaker 3: a couple be honest with each other. But then you
21:06
Speaker 3: as an individual, be honest with yourself and allow yourself
21:10
Speaker 3: to change, because you are going to change through this process.
21:14
Speaker 3: And really that's the goal. You want to be open
21:17
Speaker 3: and change and grow and learn. And if you're somebody
21:21
Speaker 3: who just wants things to be as they are, I
21:23
Speaker 3: think it's going to be pretty challenging.
21:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I may want to pick a different hobby. Yeah,
21:27
Speaker 2: that's one of the things that I've always appreciated about
21:30
Speaker 2: you two.
21:31
Speaker 1: And this is not to say that times like that
21:33
Speaker 1: aren't very challenging, But anytime I've seen you guys make
21:36
Speaker 1: a significant shift, whether it be in your professional lives
21:40
Speaker 1: or in travel or whatever, you guys have always found
21:43
Speaker 1: a way to hold each other close like that. The
21:45
Speaker 1: goal was to keep yourselves as a unit together.
21:48
Speaker 2: To work it out.
21:49
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that it wasn't difficult, but just
21:52
Speaker 1: what that took a lot of courage for you, Doug
21:54
Speaker 1: to say, this is something that I really wanted to do.
21:56
Speaker 2: But Stef's more important than a sobot.
21:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the end, but he can do that. Yeah,
22:01
Speaker 4: in the end. I loved her and loved her more
22:03
Speaker 4: than I left sailing, which is saying a lot.
22:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's true that is the thing that's important.
22:09
Speaker 1: And along those lines, Doug, why don't you share something
22:14
Speaker 1: that you're most proud of Stephanie for how she's evolved
22:17
Speaker 1: in your travels together.
22:20
Speaker 4: Oh, being able to go out on the bike with
22:24
Speaker 4: those two little pan your liners, going from big closets, Yeah,
22:31
Speaker 4: and all the stuff in business travel.
22:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:33
Speaker 4: And at that point, Stuff's idea of camping was a
22:36
Speaker 4: hiatt in the woods and she was still Yeah. She
22:43
Speaker 4: had the openness and the courage and the sense of
22:46
Speaker 4: adventure enough to get on the back of a motorcycle
22:50
Speaker 4: with her crazy husband and go bop around the world
22:55
Speaker 4: on it and go out and learn and be different
22:59
Speaker 4: and have that courage to this is that we had
23:02
Speaker 4: moved back to the town that she grew up in,
23:05
Speaker 4: so talk about being comfortable in your space and stuff,
23:08
Speaker 4: and she could have easily, I said more than once,
23:10
Speaker 4: she'll never leave the zip code that we heard the
23:13
Speaker 4: rest of our lives in the zifcode. And instead she
23:17
Speaker 4: had the drive and the desire and the openness to
23:20
Speaker 4: go to is that courage to push your limits, to
23:23
Speaker 4: push yourself out of your comfort zone, right, because that's
23:27
Speaker 4: where the rewards come if you stay within your comfort zone.
23:30
Speaker 4: You're not risking anything, so there's not going to be
23:32
Speaker 4: any reward, right risk reward and that risk to push
23:35
Speaker 4: yourself out of what is comfortable every day and so
23:39
Speaker 4: on and beyond that journey of discovery and not just
23:44
Speaker 4: discovery of the outside, but it's mostly about a journey
23:47
Speaker 4: of discovery of what's inside, and.
23:49
Speaker 1: That really informs our decisions going forward. We're doing things
23:52
Speaker 1: we love with people we love. Life's going to be pretty.
23:55
Speaker 4: Decent, doesn't get any better.
23:57
Speaker 3: But you think you have to have the trust. I
24:00
Speaker 3: would not have done that. I can think of other
24:02
Speaker 3: people I dated, sure never would have happened, but I
24:06
Speaker 3: trusted Doug. And when you're doing that kind of travel
24:10
Speaker 3: and some of the places were you're trusting that person
24:12
Speaker 3: with your life, but you also have to trust yourself.
24:15
Speaker 3: You have to trust that I've been through a lot
24:17
Speaker 3: of tough things. I've had a lot of change in
24:19
Speaker 3: my life and I'm just going to do the thing.
24:22
Speaker 3: But when you're going out with a partner, there has
24:25
Speaker 3: to be trust there, and I think you still have challenges.
24:28
Speaker 3: We've been through couples counseling. We worked together for a
24:31
Speaker 3: lot of years. That was challenging at times, but it
24:34
Speaker 3: always came back to what's the most important thing. And
24:37
Speaker 3: even when you're out traveling right, you can have really
24:40
Speaker 3: wonderful days and then everything goes horribly wrong, and it's
24:44
Speaker 3: how you deal with each other, and you can be
24:46
Speaker 3: at each other's roads and an hour later be sitting
24:50
Speaker 3: watching a sunset with a cocktail saying, Wow, we made
24:53
Speaker 3: it through that, and it makes you stronger.
24:56
Speaker 1: I want to thank all of you that are listening
24:59
Speaker 1: for your support of the Overland Journal podcast. There are
25:02
Speaker 1: times that our listeners reach out and ask for ways
25:06
Speaker 1: that they can support the podcast directly, and the best
25:10
Speaker 1: way to do that, the very best way to do
25:12
Speaker 1: that is to subscribe to Overland Journal. The print magazine
25:17
Speaker 1: can be accessed on our website digitally and you'll receive
25:21
Speaker 1: a beautiful one hundred and thirty to one hundred and
25:24
Speaker 1: fifty page book five times a year, which is all
25:27
Speaker 1: of the very best overland adventures that are occurring in
25:31
Speaker 1: the modern day. Historically, we do in depth evaluations of
25:35
Speaker 1: equipment that's featured as field tested and also our famous
25:40
Speaker 1: main gear reviews, where we still declare and editor's choice,
25:45
Speaker 1: very detailed pros and cons very deliberate testing of equipment
25:49
Speaker 1: in the field all the way around the world. So
25:52
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to Overland Journal by going to Overland
25:55
Speaker 1: journal dot com and for our podcast listeners, just for
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Speaker 1: all of you listen, we actually have a twenty percent
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Speaker 1: off code and that code is Overland Podcast. So if
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Speaker 1: you use the code Overland Podcast, you'll be at twenty
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Speaker 1: percent off your next work. Thank you again for all
26:11
Speaker 1: of your support.
26:13
Speaker 2: You guys have done that. Steph, it's been so awesome
26:16
Speaker 2: to watch.
26:17
Speaker 1: Also your career, the things that the restarts that you've
26:19
Speaker 1: had starting your own businesses and building them up and
26:23
Speaker 1: like some of the stuff you were doing in the
26:24
Speaker 1: crafting world was incredible and that takes an enormous amount
26:27
Speaker 1: of courage. To Doug's point, the executive positions that you
26:30
Speaker 1: still hold within leadership, within the companies that you work for,
26:34
Speaker 1: that all speaks to your courage not only for travel
26:38
Speaker 1: but for life, and that I think gives a lot
26:41
Speaker 1: of opportunities going forward.
26:42
Speaker 3: Thanks.
26:43
Speaker 1: So, same question for you, what are the some of
26:45
Speaker 1: the things that you're most proud of done for and
26:48
Speaker 1: his travels or his journey as a traveler, I.
26:50
Speaker 3: Think being open to having the plan not work out,
26:56
Speaker 3: so we had the sale boat plan. And during our
27:00
Speaker 3: we've been married almost thirty years, there's been a lot
27:02
Speaker 3: of plans that were put in place that didn't work out.
27:05
Speaker 3: And being able to just say, Okay, we're going to
27:07
Speaker 3: shift gears, We're going to go do the next thing.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:09
Speaker 2: I love the fact we didn't say pivot. Yeah, no,
27:14
Speaker 2: so much better.
27:15
Speaker 3: We'll also never hear me say win win for Synergy
27:19
Speaker 3: to get too many years in the corporate people always
27:22
Speaker 3: say to me, how come you don't do your lectures
27:24
Speaker 3: be a PowerPoint? I said, I have done all the
27:27
Speaker 3: power presentations. I'm ever going to do him my life wants.
27:30
Speaker 2: To see any of them. Nobody wants to see any
27:32
Speaker 2: of Yeah.
27:33
Speaker 3: So I think I think being open and and I
27:36
Speaker 3: think being able to say I don't know. I think
27:39
Speaker 3: that's probably the best thing about Doug. And I think
27:42
Speaker 3: you're very much this way too, that somebody will come
27:44
Speaker 3: to you with a problem and they want you to
27:46
Speaker 3: fix it. And he was a consultant for many years,
27:49
Speaker 3: so people come to you with problems. That's what your
27:51
Speaker 3: role is, sure is to solve problems. And he would say, yeah, sure,
27:55
Speaker 3: no problem. Maybe having no idea how he's actually going
27:59
Speaker 3: to do it, but he'd think it out. And I
28:01
Speaker 3: think that's that's something to really admire because not everybody
28:04
Speaker 3: can do that. That's a gift and it's something he
28:07
Speaker 3: honed over the years. And that's something when you're out
28:10
Speaker 3: there and you're problem solving, right whether your vehicle breaks down,
28:13
Speaker 3: or the hotel you thought you were going to stay
28:15
Speaker 3: at it doesn't exist anymore, or you think you're going
28:18
Speaker 3: to bring your bikes into Jordan and know, by the way,
28:21
Speaker 3: you don't have the right paperwork and you're standing in
28:24
Speaker 3: the middle of the desert and you've got to figure
28:26
Speaker 3: out how you're going to make it happen. So I
28:28
Speaker 3: think that's he's very resourceful.
28:31
Speaker 1: I think that adaptability is a hallmark of a good
28:34
Speaker 1: traveler and a good an entrepreneur.
28:36
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, sure, there's a lot of When we came
28:40
Speaker 4: back and I was back doing entrepreneurial teaching and stuff,
28:45
Speaker 4: one thing that I would tell my students is that,
28:49
Speaker 4: because they're very curious about this whole it took ten
28:51
Speaker 4: years off and travel the world, because that's what everybody
28:53
Speaker 4: is working toward, right. I told them that full time travel,
29:00
Speaker 4: meaning you're out. You're not coming back. You're not coming
29:02
Speaker 4: back every two weeks. You're out. You're traveling full time.
29:05
Speaker 4: That's your gig. That is the only thing I've ever
29:08
Speaker 4: found in life that comes close to the set of
29:13
Speaker 4: challenges and rewards that you get from entrepreneurship. Yeah, it's different,
29:18
Speaker 4: maybe a super set, maybe a subset, but there's a
29:21
Speaker 4: lot of overlap in that Venn diagram between those two things,
29:25
Speaker 4: full time international travel and entrepreneurship. Every day you have
29:32
Speaker 4: no idea. You might have a general framework of what
29:34
Speaker 4: you think is going to happen that day, of the
29:36
Speaker 4: set of challenges that you're going to need to overcome,
29:38
Speaker 4: but you've lived this for twenty years.
29:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, long periods of being terrified with short stints of
29:43
Speaker 1: beautiful subsets.
29:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, ranging from it's Thursday afternoon, how do I make
29:49
Speaker 4: payroll this week?
29:50
Speaker 2: Of course?
29:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And those are the things that I think
29:54
Speaker 1: have helped me, probably in both directions.
29:57
Speaker 2: Is travel has.
29:58
Speaker 1: Helped make me a little bit more resilient as an entrepreneur,
30:01
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship probably.
30:02
Speaker 2: Gave me the set of skills to say, why.
30:04
Speaker 1: Not let's throw on a helmet and go, Yeah, you
30:07
Speaker 1: guys ended up shifting from the motorcycle and you were
30:12
Speaker 1: looking at sailboats for a little bit, but then you
30:14
Speaker 1: ended up building one of the most epic overland builds
30:19
Speaker 1: of the history of overlanding, at least in North America.
30:21
Speaker 2: And I believe that all that stuff is still on
30:23
Speaker 2: expedition Portal dot com.
30:24
Speaker 1: Somewhere where you there were hundreds of thousands of views
30:29
Speaker 1: of that thread as you built fuso with a camper
30:32
Speaker 1: on the back. What kind of made you decide that
30:35
Speaker 1: was the type of vehicle that you wanted to build?
30:38
Speaker 1: What brought you to that point?
30:39
Speaker 4: Stuff mentioned We had planned and worked for a couple
30:42
Speaker 4: of years to get certified and trained to sail up
30:45
Speaker 4: to a fifty two foot in any weather condition on
30:48
Speaker 4: any ocean of the world, and so on, and then
30:49
Speaker 4: it just wasn't going to work. But I had already
30:52
Speaker 4: pushed the go button on the financial model. So every
30:56
Speaker 4: day the number is getting smaller down that had no house,
31:00
Speaker 4: we'd already sold the house and everything. If I had
31:02
Speaker 4: to come up with an option. And I was not
31:04
Speaker 4: a truck guy, that was a car guy and a
31:07
Speaker 4: motorcycle guy. I owned a farm for a short time
31:11
Speaker 4: in central Wisconsin and I had a bold, rusted out
31:14
Speaker 4: four wheel drive Ford pickup three quarter time as a woodhuller.
31:18
Speaker 4: We hauled the wood down out of the woods. That
31:21
Speaker 4: was it. That was my entire truck experience, other than
31:23
Speaker 4: my dad had to pick up when I was a
31:24
Speaker 4: kid and that kind of thing, and we had chucks
31:26
Speaker 4: on a farm. But I wasn't a truck guy. I
31:27
Speaker 4: was not an off road truck guy. But now I
31:30
Speaker 4: have to put this together. So I started off with
31:34
Speaker 4: a land cruiser. That was going to be it because
31:37
Speaker 4: when we were out around the world on the motorcycle,
31:40
Speaker 4: the only vehicle that we saw everywhere that was always
31:43
Speaker 4: working was a land cruiser. That's the truth, right, So
31:47
Speaker 4: the high Lux, right, So it was either a high Lux,
31:49
Speaker 4: which I think is probably the most populous vehicle because
31:53
Speaker 4: remember we were out in the bush. When we were
31:54
Speaker 4: out on the bike. We went to developing countries and
31:58
Speaker 4: we stayed as far out in the book is we
32:00
Speaker 4: could get. So we saw the either high looks or
32:03
Speaker 4: a land cruiser. So we came back and there's a
32:07
Speaker 4: Crystal sleep.
32:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:10
Speaker 4: So I tracked down Crystal, called him up, and what
32:14
Speaker 4: a wonderful human being. He spent hours on the phone
32:18
Speaker 4: with me convincing me that this is the wrong choice.
32:21
Speaker 2: And I was such an honorable guy.
32:23
Speaker 4: I was here. I am right. The clock's ticking. I'm
32:26
Speaker 4: going to send you a blank check. I'm going to
32:28
Speaker 4: sign it. Cristo. You do whatever you gotta do. You
32:31
Speaker 4: got to you got to get going, right. He's no,
32:34
Speaker 4: this is not the right choice for you. He gave
32:36
Speaker 4: me basically your lesson, right, which is, there's the types
32:40
Speaker 4: of vehicles, a live around the vehicle or a live
32:43
Speaker 4: in the vehicle. And based on our use case, what
32:47
Speaker 4: we had in mind, what we were because we're coming
32:49
Speaker 4: out of a boat scenario where we want our own head,
32:51
Speaker 4: our own galley, our own birth. And he's thinking living
32:55
Speaker 4: around the vehicle isn't going to work for what you
32:57
Speaker 4: guys want to do. You need to be thinking about
32:59
Speaker 4: like the next class of vehicle up right. So now
33:02
Speaker 4: I'm in a totally foreign world, right. So now I've
33:05
Speaker 4: got to look at like a mid sized truck the
33:08
Speaker 4: US market that's four wheel drive, and I need a
33:11
Speaker 4: cab over because I need to maximize the payload capacity
33:16
Speaker 4: because I want to lose the hood length and stuff.
33:19
Speaker 4: And you could either buy like an international line truck
33:23
Speaker 4: like you see like utilities used, you're still losing the
33:25
Speaker 4: hood length. But for cab over, for a factory cab over,
33:29
Speaker 4: the Fuso was the only one that I could get.
33:32
Speaker 4: And if I went up a weight class then I
33:35
Speaker 4: had to have somebody modify it to put the four
33:38
Speaker 4: wheel drive on it. And I wanted to keep the
33:40
Speaker 4: chassis factory if possible. So we chose that Fuso, and
33:45
Speaker 4: we were inspired by We stopped and saw them in Vancouver,
33:49
Speaker 4: the gentleman and his wife who took a Fuso and
33:52
Speaker 4: put a trailer camper on the back of it, a
33:55
Speaker 4: trailer camper on the back of it and took it
33:57
Speaker 4: around the world. That was our inspiration. But because it
34:00
Speaker 4: was a biite guy, I wanted to have a garage
34:02
Speaker 4: to put some little dirt bikes in. So we used
34:04
Speaker 4: a pickup camper and plopped that down on the back
34:08
Speaker 4: of the Fuso. And I knew a guy that designs
34:12
Speaker 4: and builds the Baja race vehicles, the pro trucks, the
34:17
Speaker 4: truck lass and he agreed to help fabricate this thing,
34:22
Speaker 4: and was, hey, we're putting the camper on the back
34:25
Speaker 4: of a truck. How hard can this be?
34:28
Speaker 1: I remember the minutia of fasteners and everything that you
34:32
Speaker 1: went into.
34:33
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
34:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that thing will be on this earth, or at
34:37
Speaker 3: least the components. Yea.
34:42
Speaker 4: So two major lessons there. I built that thing the
34:46
Speaker 4: last forty years, and we all really only needed it
34:49
Speaker 4: for four years. And I made the classic mistake of
34:54
Speaker 4: doing something one time. So I made all the rookie mistakes.
34:58
Speaker 4: I had no iteration available to me because of the
35:01
Speaker 4: compressed time frame. I couldn't iterate on this. I couldn't
35:04
Speaker 4: build it, learn lesson sell that one. Let's do another one,
35:06
Speaker 4: do it right this time. I didn't have time for that.
35:09
Speaker 4: I had to go out with what I made. So
35:12
Speaker 4: I'd never designed the truck before. I never designed an
35:14
Speaker 4: overlanding vehicle before. I took all the marine systems that
35:19
Speaker 4: researching in sailing and stuffed them into this conglomeration. This
35:24
Speaker 4: match up right, and then put it and then put
35:27
Speaker 4: it all together. Fortunately, we had a very patient friend
35:29
Speaker 4: in southern California that let me use his shop to
35:33
Speaker 4: do this project in and John Lee shout out, the
35:36
Speaker 4: most patient man on earth. It was a great build.
35:39
Speaker 4: I never laughed. So much of my well, left so
35:41
Speaker 4: much of my life, except with John when he'd come
35:44
Speaker 4: back and help and just be around. And with the
35:46
Speaker 4: Amish carpenters that I hired to do the renovation on
35:49
Speaker 4: that farm in Wisconsin. Yeah, two of that. They were
35:52
Speaker 4: the funniest group of people as a group that I've
35:54
Speaker 4: never been around. And John was just fabulously valuable as
35:57
Speaker 4: a friend and a support and so on through that. Anyway,
36:00
Speaker 4: at long last, after a lot of work, we finally
36:02
Speaker 4: got it put together. But I would always recommend, especially
36:06
Speaker 4: if your goal is the overlanding by a series built vehicle.
36:10
Speaker 4: If your goal is to build the vehicle and research it,
36:14
Speaker 4: and then that's the goal, which is okay, it's awesome,
36:17
Speaker 4: it's okay, But then make that your goal right, be
36:20
Speaker 4: clear about what it is that you really what's your
36:22
Speaker 4: food pellet in this is your food pellet the vehicle
36:25
Speaker 4: and the research and finding the right component and buying
36:28
Speaker 4: just the right thing and putting it on and getting
36:30
Speaker 4: the picture and all that, and that's okay, it's all good.
36:33
Speaker 4: Or is your goal is your food pellet? I want
36:35
Speaker 4: to get out there and see the world. If so,
36:37
Speaker 4: then fly to the continent. You want to go visit,
36:41
Speaker 4: buy something that's made and serviced there. Everybody on every
36:45
Speaker 4: corner knows how to fix and there's parts everywhere in
36:48
Speaker 4: between the corners, and go drive that continent, Drive that
36:52
Speaker 4: thing into the ground, rent repeat. When you're done with
36:55
Speaker 4: that continent, fly to a different continent, do the same thing.
37:00
Speaker 4: That's They're very few at the high locks. You're very
37:01
Speaker 4: few vehicles that are like World Universal.
37:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first was one of them.
37:07
Speaker 4: Enough.
37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it was the delivery vehicle in pretty much
37:11
Speaker 1: every small village around the world. H Scott here, I
37:15
Speaker 1: just wanted to take a minute to talk a little
37:18
Speaker 1: bit about expedition portal dot com. Expedition portal dot com
37:22
Speaker 1: is our website and it's also our community forum. We
37:27
Speaker 1: are celebrating twenty years of expedition portal dot com this
37:30
Speaker 1: year in twenty twenty five, and there are nearly three
37:35
Speaker 1: hundred thousand members on the community forum that talk about
37:38
Speaker 1: incredibly diverse topics all around the world, unique vehicles, things
37:43
Speaker 1: like land cruisers and land rovers, and what to do
37:47
Speaker 1: at the border with Ethiopia and Africa, all the way
37:50
Speaker 1: to some of the favorite campsites and adventure stories.
37:53
Speaker 2: From the community.
37:54
Speaker 1: We also have the homepage which is filled with nearly
37:59
Speaker 1: six thousand articles that are all available to you for
38:02
Speaker 1: free right there on expedition portal dot com. We have
38:07
Speaker 1: two to five articles per day that go up on
38:10
Speaker 1: the website that written by our very experienced staff, which
38:14
Speaker 1: includes global travelers like Ram Bell and Ashley Giordano. I
38:19
Speaker 1: have many articles on there and many contributors like Dan
38:23
Speaker 1: Grek and others from around the world. So please take
38:26
Speaker 1: a minute and check out expedition portal dot com. It's
38:29
Speaker 1: a great way to support the podcast and to connect
38:32
Speaker 1: with the community.
38:33
Speaker 2: And like you've always said, Doug, it's go now, go light, go.
38:38
Speaker 4: Now, go sooner with less rather than later with more. Yeah,
38:41
Speaker 4: they sell stuff out there. Yeah, And we were in
38:43
Speaker 4: the truck for how long, for eleven months I think
38:47
Speaker 4: in South America, and we took eleven hundred pounds of
38:52
Speaker 4: stuff out of the truck that we had never touched
38:55
Speaker 4: and just gave it away.
38:57
Speaker 3: And then that would be my input on this is
39:00
Speaker 3: you have to think about, is your goal to go
39:02
Speaker 3: do four wheeling right? Is your goal to be as
39:06
Speaker 3: rugged a place as you can be, and that it's
39:09
Speaker 3: all about the driving right, Because for a lot of people,
39:11
Speaker 3: it is really about the driving and being as adventurous
39:13
Speaker 3: as you can be with the driving. For us, this
39:16
Speaker 3: was about going and exploring the countries and meeting the
39:19
Speaker 3: people and learning the cultures and finding the best place
39:22
Speaker 3: to buy bread and those kinds of things. And it
39:24
Speaker 3: was our house, so we were not going to risk
39:27
Speaker 3: it on roads that we thought might be impassable or
39:31
Speaker 3: we might get ourselves into trouble. Sure, because you're remote
39:35
Speaker 3: and you can't rely on Triple A to show up
39:37
Speaker 3: to haul you out.
39:39
Speaker 1: Your risk profile does changed quite a bit. It does,
39:42
Speaker 1: And that vehicle was such an inspiration to so many people.
39:44
Speaker 1: I remember all of us following you. I remember me
39:47
Speaker 1: following your journey. We got the chance to work together
39:50
Speaker 1: before you left on some training and that was such
39:53
Speaker 1: a joy.
39:53
Speaker 2: And I wish we had more time.
39:55
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to be hopping in a few minutes
39:57
Speaker 1: to do a couple last weeks dings for the new book,
40:01
Speaker 1: so I'm excited about that, and I wish we had
40:02
Speaker 1: a lot more time to talk. So we're going to
40:05
Speaker 1: have to arrange another moment to get you guys on
40:08
Speaker 1: the podcast.
40:08
Speaker 2: We'll go part two.
40:10
Speaker 1: Sure, so we can talk more about how your experience
40:14
Speaker 1: was in South America. You had one of the most
40:16
Speaker 1: crazy stories that I've ever heard in overlanding happen while
40:20
Speaker 1: you guys were down there, And maybe we'll be able
40:22
Speaker 1: to talk about that on the next podcast, and then
40:26
Speaker 1: what's next for you guys that you want to share.
40:29
Speaker 4: We've always wanted to go back out. We can't warning
40:33
Speaker 4: a sign here. When we came back, we ended up
40:37
Speaker 4: down here around Austin, Texas, which is a very sticky town.
40:40
Speaker 4: People get transferred in here for work and they won't leave.
40:42
Speaker 4: They'll quit their job before they'll leave. People come here
40:45
Speaker 4: for grad school, they love it so much they never leave.
40:48
Speaker 4: There's a lot going on, So it's a great area.
40:50
Speaker 4: We came in here. We just thought we'd try it
40:52
Speaker 4: for six months after we came back, and here we
40:55
Speaker 4: are over many sixteen years later or whatever, and I
40:58
Speaker 4: got back involved in doing a much startups and stuff.
41:01
Speaker 4: Got did startups and then got in this market segment,
41:04
Speaker 4: this career she's in now, and so we ended up
41:07
Speaker 4: like a lot of people where you get back in
41:08
Speaker 4: the comfort, but our long term goal is always to
41:11
Speaker 4: go back out. When we get into I supposedly retired
41:16
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago, but I just sent a
41:18
Speaker 4: proposal out for some management consulting yesterday. I'm still involved
41:22
Speaker 4: and keep my fingers involved in stuff. And when it
41:25
Speaker 4: gets to the point where Stuff really loves what she does,
41:27
Speaker 4: and she's really she's like the world expert on what
41:30
Speaker 4: she does now and she loves her market segment and stuff.
41:32
Speaker 4: So when when she feels like she's ready for the
41:35
Speaker 4: next thing, then we'll go back out and explore the world.
41:38
Speaker 2: Somewhere, go get some new stamps on the passports.
41:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's important that the last few
41:44
Speaker 3: times we went out and the last times we took breaks,
41:46
Speaker 3: it was all about things happening in the world around
41:49
Speaker 3: us or with people we knew that triggered us to go.
41:53
Speaker 3: And each time we did it, it happened very fast.
41:56
Speaker 3: So we're getting some messages at some point, I think
41:59
Speaker 3: we might have enough.
41:59
Speaker 1: To I love that you two have been an absolute
42:02
Speaker 1: inspiration to me. I count you with some of my
42:05
Speaker 1: closest friends. We've had a lot of memories together. We've
42:08
Speaker 1: known each other for coming on twenty years now, and
42:10
Speaker 1: it is truly an honor for me to finally get
42:13
Speaker 1: down to sit down and do the podcast with you,
42:15
Speaker 1: and I know that we're going to have a part too,
42:17
Speaker 1: because there's just too much to still talk about. So
42:20
Speaker 1: thank you both for being on the podcast.
42:22
Speaker 3: Thank you staving here.
42:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and we thank you all for listening, and
42:25
Speaker 2: we'll talk to you next time.