Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Six Years of Solo Adventure Travel with @hifromashley

Transcript

Six Years of Solo Adventure Travel with @hifromashley · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the overland Joinal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with Ashley k Now.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Ashley has traveled solo around the world for six and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a half years. Three and a half years of that
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: was flying and traveling. In the last three years she's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: been cruising around the Americas in her Toyota Tacoma with
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a camper on the top, bow in bed, like a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that we would all love to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: travel on. And you have seen a lot of things,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and you you've been able to travel slowly and really
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: explore the Americas. So thank you for being on the podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Today, thank you for having me.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: You're welcome, and a special thanks to Nitto Tire for
• 0:46
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• 1:54
  Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks nidto. So like first question, I remember
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit of your story of how you got started.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: You basically sold some stuff and decided to go take
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that time and travel.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: What was that impetus for you?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: What was the thing that really fired you up to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: say I'm going to change my life completely and start traveling.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of pillars as to why
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: I want to travel, like the basics of seeing beautiful places,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: love to learn.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Love to eat new foods.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: But the ultimate like driving force was my dad passed
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: away when I was twenty seven, and just like every
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: Sunday at the dinner table, stories about him traveling all
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: over on his motorcycle, and I just got so many
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: phone calls after he passed from people all over the
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: United States like I met your dad here, and like
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: just all these incredible stories and just started to snowball and.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Like what are you waiting for?
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Go start making your own stories, and just about this burning.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Like I have to and I can't let go of it.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: If not now, when and just this urgency like if
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I don't do this now, I'm never going to do it.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And we have no idea what tomorrow holds, regardless of
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: where we're at in life. Let's talk a little bit
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: about your dad. So what were some of your dad's
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: travels that you found the most inspiring.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, I don't think many of them are PG. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: he is just wild, crazy, free spirit. But as a kid,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: I grew up with my dad.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: He raised me. I was the only girl on both
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: sides of my family, so grew up doing all boy things.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, pit bikes, dirt bikes, boats, jet skis, literally anything
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: with a motor We drove it and broke it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And my dad raised me as his favorite son.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: So we would go camping randomly and it was just
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: like my favorite childhood memories come home on Friday, pack
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: your bag, sport.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Where are we going? I have no idea. Just get
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: to an intersection, pick a direction, and we would end.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Up on like Amish farms, learning from them, camping in
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: Minnesota or way up north or down in Illinois, and
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: just never knew where we're going, what we're doing, but
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: just the greatest memories.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: What were some of the you would say the top two, three,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: four or five things that you learned from your dad.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It sounds like he wasn't afraid to just go. But
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: what were some of the other things that you learned
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: from him that RPG.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Everything, humanity, not judging anybody, everybody's the same. And then
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: as far as like overlanding, traveling by vehicle.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I wasn't allowed to drive my.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: First car until I could change the oil, change the
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: flat tire, rote the tires, and.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Honestly just being like a little bit of a maguiver.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Sometimes if something.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Breaks, you might need to take a bolt from something
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: that's optional to replace it on something you need. And
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: I don't think my dad answered a single question I
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: ever asked him my entire life, like why is this happening?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: He can be like, why do you think this is happening.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Okay, can you please just answer this one question or
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: me this one time, but really forcing me to critically
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: think all the time, stop and pay attention, observe what's happening.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that would be an incredible amount of confidence
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: to set off on a trip like you've done solo
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: in a truck driving.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Through the Americas.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: The fact that you overcame all of these smaller challenges
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: earlier in life.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Showed you how I can do the big stuff too.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that was really confirmed for me.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's probably twenty twenty, twenty twenty one.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: I went on a three week road trip through the
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: United States with a friend of mine from England and
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: he's a sailor. Yeah, highly skilled critical thinker, and we
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: quickly sorted out.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Like I'm the driver, I'm the navigator.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: And we got a flat tire on that trip, and
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: yours truly changed the tire.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, yeah, I could do this,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: you could totally.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. And what made you decide to not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: go with a motorcycle since you'd seen your dad travels
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: so much in a motorcycle, what made you decide to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: do a four whole drive as opposed to a motorcycle
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: because I.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Was traveling with my dog.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so pretty much built everything around the comfort of
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: my dog.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I think we all do that though with dogs. I think,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know that dogs really need that,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: but we think they do.
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  Speaker 2: They do, they do. They're the best. Yeah, they really
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: are amazing.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So you you left on this trip with your dog,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, Yeah, and then talk because a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: lot of people would like to travel with their pets.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So traveling through the America is how did you set
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: that up?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: What kind of documentation did you need? What kind of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: vaccinations did you get for your dog?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's a lot.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: I had every single medical record for him printed out
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: from the day I adopted him until the day we left.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately, Porter had seizures starting the trip.
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  Speaker 2: So a lot of documentation.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: He had three medications that he required every single day.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: So it was a lot to navigate. Crossing into Mexico
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: is very easy.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing is required.
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  Speaker 4: Once you get into Belize, Guatemala, you need to go
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  Speaker 4: to the vet get a house certificate. They just want
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: to make sure that all the vaccinations are up to date.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Some countries.
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  Speaker 4: Do you require a rabies vaccination within thirty days one year? Okay,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: so there was a couple of times he got vaccinated
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: for rabies twice in one year. Yeah, but it was
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: really tricky with him going to the vet because he.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Also had to have extra checkups.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: And medication management, which was honestly really difficult in a
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  Speaker 4: lot of countries, Mexico and Colombia specifically, the medication that
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: he took for seizures was a narcotic and that required
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: special vets with special paperwork.
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  Speaker 3: Oh interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Were you able to ultimately find it?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, for sure.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see buying narcotics of any kind in
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  Speaker 1: Columbia might be challenging.
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  Speaker 4: People think that it's really easy and that you can
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: just walk in, but that's just really not the case.
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  Speaker 2: It couldn't be further from the truth.
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  Speaker 3: Oh interesting, very very difficult.
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  Speaker 2: Nicaragua was the absolute best.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, stocked up on all of his medication and that
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: was happy days.
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  Speaker 1: And did you did you find that there was any
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: difficulty traveling from through the borders with those medications for
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: your dog as long as you had proper documentation.
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  Speaker 4: No, they never looked at him at the border. Nothing,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: just the health certificate. That's it, and payment if it
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: was required.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think the only actual vet who really.
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: Examined him was the health certificate leaving Panama going to Colombia.
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  Speaker 2: Other than that, they just want.
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  Speaker 4: To check his records to make sure he has his vaccinations,
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  Speaker 4: the weigh them, maybe.
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  Speaker 2: Check the temperature. Okay, take your money and you're on
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  Speaker 2: your way.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, I've never traveled through the Americas with
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the dog, but I've talked to people who have and
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: they actually found that it was beneficial. Oh yeah, in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways. I mean security, of course, But
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of folks in Central America
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: are a little bit intimidated by dogs or they view
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: them like maybe they had a bad bunch of them,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: had a bad experience when they were kids or whatever.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: But how did you find locals interacted with you around dogs?
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Everywhere is a little bit different, for sure, some parts
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: of Central America, some parts of Mexico, they are really
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: afraid of dogs, especially black dogs.
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  Speaker 2: And Porter was a black lab mix.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, were so dangerous.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, looks very, very, very dangerous.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: But in a lot of those areas they use dogs
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: as a security system. Sure, so if a dog barks,
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: danger is near, somebody is near your property. But overall, honestly,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: just the best experience. It's such a conversation starter. Porter
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: was a very very well behaved dog, not aggressive, never barked,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: but like if there.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Was food, he was there.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: Loved people, loved children, super friendly. So I met so
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: many more people because of him.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And I would think that other travelers that are like
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: from the US, for example, or even from Europe, they
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: probably loved getting a chance to see a dog. Oh yeah,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: it's like a safe dog to pet and everything. Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: I have so many videos of Porter sitting underneath dinner
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: tables of other families.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: Like looking at me like he doesn't know me, and
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: he's like, I'm going to get some steak over here,
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: leave me alone.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know you, And he did.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: He had brown eyes and he would just sit and
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: just stare at people.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: One time caught him. Took a fairy.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: From Plata Carmen to Cosmeo and friend of my friend
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: of a friend and I went got our tickets, came back.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Porter was sitting at this lady's truck and she was
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: feeding him her whole entire steak torta and I was
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: like Porter, he just like side eyed me, like, what
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: are you doing, lady, get out of here.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I'm getting steak dinner. Yeah, I'm busy. But he was
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: really incredible to travel with, just the best.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And that ended up being like a really challenging time
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: for you because his health continued to decline. As I recall,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: how did you work through that? And I know that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: he was such a big part of your experience, how
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: do you help others work through that fear of losing
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: their animal when they're traveling.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: I think the biggest thing for me is like, I'm
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: so incredibly grateful that he got really sick in Colombia.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Dogs are family members in Colombia, so the.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Vets were incredible there, like understood fought for like eight
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: to ten weeks before he passed away.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm gonna start crying, but yeah, they.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Had they had a whole funeral for him. Yeah, wow,
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: like everything nice display flowers all around him, candles, like
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: they said a whole.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Prayer for him, just like so much thought and care.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I was like, that would have not happened if we
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: just stayed in the US.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Probably not.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So I was really grateful for that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And is that where he's at now is in Colombia.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Now he's in the truck.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's in the truck. He's with you. Yeah, I
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: love that, Okay.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Oh I love that he continued to be able to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: travel with you.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Well, let's pivot a little bit from that. Sorry, No,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: it's good.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: But it's also because it's a reality of traveling with
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: your dogs.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And we all get it because we love our animals.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: One of the hardest days of my life was when
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I lost my malmute and it was just like, it's
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: it's indescribable. You understand it. Yeah, and many that are
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: listening understand it. They become a part of our family,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a part of our life. But how cool to be
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: able to experience all of that with him.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: So and I'm so happy because if I would have
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: dragged my feet and waited until I checked every box,
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: bought every single piece of gear, he would not have been.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Able to live his last years just out in nature, loving.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Life, exploring the world.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: I like by the end, he barely ate any dog food,
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: which is like beef, liver, chicken liver, liver, pat steak.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: He ate everything, living his best life. Absolutely, and it
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: sounds like you were too. Let's back a little bit,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: so talk to us about, like, what was that one
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: moment where you know you're in your corporate job or
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: whatever and you're doing the regular day to day American life.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Something had to have flipped.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Certainly inspired by your dad, but something had to have flipped.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: When did that change happen?
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: How did you make that happen?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Chairs like office chairs?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: So I worked in corporate healthcare and at the time
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: it was the seventh largest US healthcare system, okay, And
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: every year we would get rays and then budget would come.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: You could submit a request what you would like for
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: your department, education, work party, pizza party, stuff like this,
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: and I would ask for chairs every single year because
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: our office chairs were maybe twenty eight years old, wrapped
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: up with duct tape.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: We have to sit in these for eight hours a day.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: And I was just like, okay, I'm asking for chairs again, respectfully.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: And September rolls around. You start getting the emails what's approved,
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: what's not approved. We got further education, zip up jackets
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: and a pizza party and no chairs, And it was
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: very bad timing because that same exact week there was
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: a pr campaign going out about how we spent almost
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: eight hundred million dollars on charity, which is great, but
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I feel like you should also be taking care of
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: your employees that allow you to donate millions of dollars.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: To charity, especially sitting like you said eight hours.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: In a chair.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I was working at home before COVID and
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: that was really popular.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: So half at home, half in office.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: It's like, if I can afford a sit to sand
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: desk and a nice chair on my salary, I think
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: that can happen at work for all of us. And
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: that was just kind of the last straw, like we
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: are not valued here as employees. Why am I sitting
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: here every day in an office working, working? Like I
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: just need to get living my life seeing places. Another
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: major factor for me is I was in a really
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: bad car accident when I was twenty one. So the
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: technical term, I have a vascular necrosis of my right talis,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: which means the bone in the center of your ankle
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: that controls all of your movement.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Mine is just dead. Oh wow.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Osio arthritis really restricts my movement, like I can't hike
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: long distances, do a lot of that stuff. So I
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: have a really deep fear that by the time I retire,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: I won't really be able to walk well. So that
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: is like if not now when?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, And I do love that concept of like
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that earlier life or midlife retirement phase where because the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: reality is is you're not guaranteed retirement. Now.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I think about my parents.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: You know, my dad worked for forty plus years, they
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: were married for fifty years, and they finally retire in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: their sixties late sixties, and my mom gets Alzheimer's and
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: then they never got the chance to do all of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: those things that they had worked so hard and saved
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: so hard.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: To be able to do. Yeah, so I hear that
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: thank you.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: That sucks, but rut a reminder in my mind that
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: take the time when you can. And it looks like
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: you made the decision that you're going to find a way.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, reverse retirement. Now I have to figure out what
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: When I grow up.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know growing ups over it it is. I've
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: avoided it. I've avoided it a great cost.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: But yeah, my dad was the same way. He never
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: he passed when he was fifty seven. Yeah, never saw
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: a day of retirement. Sure, and that's I don't want
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: that to be my story.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well so you, but you took the initiative to
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so how did you? How did you go from
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: you know, they aren't valuing me as an employee, they're
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: not valuing my employees. They're not sending us what we need.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I need to make a change in my life. What
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: came next? How did you get from there to starting
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to fly around the world.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: I feel like I just started sellingthing. I had a
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: whole house full of items, attic, three bedroom house, full basement, sure, garage,
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: boat house full of everything you could possibly consume. Just
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: started selling everything. I got a consulting job. I would
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: bartend major events, weddings, football games, stuff. I've worked fifteen
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: hours a day every day for almost four years.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Saved all your money.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was just like, I don't actually know what
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna do with all of this money, and just
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: social media watching other girls who were traveling the world
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: full time, and I was like, Okay, maybe I'll do that.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: It's possible.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, saved a bunch of money, put in my letter
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: of resignation, and the week, the last week of work,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: I almost took it back. I was so terrified, Like,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: am I really doing this? I went to college for this, right,
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: am I'm going to leave my whole life behind. I
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: was like, Okay, let's just do one year. We're just
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: going to go to French Polynesia, sail around the islands,
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: go scuba diving, free diving.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't work out, just come back home. And
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: what the worst case scenario is you got to.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Go live a little island life for one year and
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: then I go back to work. Yeah, not anything so scary.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, didn't you decide? Did you decide to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: sell your home or rent your home for income? What
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: was your plan on that?
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: So when I left the first time, my aunt and
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: my dog stayed in my house, Okay, And I feel
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: like I always knew I was eventually going to sell
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: the house.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: But that was my childhood home. Okay, So it was
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: really hard.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: That would be difficult.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so many memories. And I grew up in a
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: time where kids were not really allowed inside.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: We have to be outside playing. So my whole neighborhood
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: very small.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: We live on a peninsula. Everybody knows everybody. Everyone in
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: that neighborhood helped raise me take care of me.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: As a kid.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: And yeah, it was a really really hard time. And
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: I was in South Africa doing like a three month
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: photography course through the parks and stuff like that, and
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: my aunt got really sick ended up in the ICU,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: so I had to fly all the way back home.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: And on that flight that was it. I was like,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: not a single ounce of my being feels like this
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: is home. Yeah sure, and it's time to sell this,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: like prepare everything, sell it and figure out the next adventure.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: But it also sounds like your dad, the way that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you describe him, he would have wanted you to do that.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, he wanted you.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: He would have wanted you to see the world.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Credible.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: So you make this big leap.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that you would have done different or
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: other than maybe doing it earlier? Like what would be
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: what would you have done a little different that that
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: might help others that are listening navigate through that process.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: I feel like the only thing I would have done
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: differently as far as overlanding would be to buy a
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: toilet and.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: A cooler or an electric cooler fridge. Yeah, because I
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: left with nothing, Okay.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: Like I had a little mini made vintage cool like
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: lunch and a truck bed tent.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I didn't get a toilet or a domatic until Colombia.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I know I'm obsessed with them.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: So just toilets are nice to have in your vehicle.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: There's nothing normally that everybody everybody, Yeah, you get some
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: bad food, or you have you know, just it's so helpful,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: or you got a camp in the gas station parking lot,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: which you have to do sometimes it's so nice to
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: have a toilet is life.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: And I got really sick in Peru, and I could
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: not have imagined that experience without.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: A toilet exactly.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that is a definite game changer. I'm not.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Just go with absolutely what you need, the bare minimum,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: but just go the most important part.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: But timing wise, do I wish I would have left earlier? Possibly,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: But I have to trust.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: The timing of life and the path that it presented.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: A really big believer that everything happens for a reason.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, so then so you did you do
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the trip around French Polynesia.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: I was there for three months, traveled to three different islands.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: The sailing plan didn't really work out, so contingency plan
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: went into effect. I rented a room from a lady
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: two hundred dollars for three months.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: It came with her son as a roommate, so he
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: was supposed to take care of the outside, and then
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I took care of the house.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: She was really OCD.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: Wanted to make sure her house was clean while she
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: was gone, and that works out really well. I left,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: went back to the States, had to apply for my visa,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: send my passport, all of that stuff, and literally the
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: day after they accepted it, everything in the world shut down.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: So they held my passport an application until the end
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: of June.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Originally they said that you're.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Still in country, You're still in the US.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I had to return for that.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: Originally they said that they would send us our passports
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: back and keep the application. But at a certain point
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: they were like, if you want your passport back, we're
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: going to have to cancel your application.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Bermuda opened up July first, so I was like, passport please,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I'm out of here. I just quit my whole career.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I can't still be at my house. But it was
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: really good being home.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: I got to do so many projects that were on
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: my to do list, Sure, which in turn helped me
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: sell my house.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it all worked out. But yeah, so.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Then you went to the Caribbean.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: I went to Bermuda and then back to French Polynesia
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: for another three months, diving, free diving, swimming with whales,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: the wall of sharks, all.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: That really cool stuff.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Now when you were doing that, was your goal just
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to have as many experiences as you could or were
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: you thinking about I want to start to document this
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: or it sounds like you have a love for photography
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as well, So how did that all. Was that just
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: part of the experience or were you thinking this might
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: be something that I could do professionally or what was
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: your thoughts around the photography.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: I'm not really sure, to be honest, I had a
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: camera before traveling, but never had time to actually use it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: And I feel like going to French Polynesia that was
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: the first time I actually got to even learn how
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: to use my camera properly. Sure, and really fell in
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: love with underwater photography.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: It's very challenging. I've never done it, but I mean
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: other than with my iPhone, but I love it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: It's just such a different world that, I mean, maybe
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: one percent of the world population gets to experience and
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: so peaceful and I love sharks and whales and stuff
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Was that was that scuba diving or and free diving? Okay, amazing?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And then did you end up doing.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Any sailing at that point in time?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Not very much, very much.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: There's a lot. It's been interesting to see how many
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: folks in our industry have either come from sailing into
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: overlanding or from overlanding into sailing.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: The skills kind of overlap a little bit, it seems like.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: It, Yeah, or just the general wanderlust, I suppose.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, navigating all of that stuff kind of ties together.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Have to be very self.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Reliant totally, especially when you're in the middle of the ocean. Yeah,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you got to figure it out. There's there is no
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: triple A. There is no triple darling.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: That's a game. Takes care.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So let's kind of round out your travels
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that you were doing before you got into your Tacoma.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: So you did sounds like some of the Caribbean, French, Polynesia,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: where else did a little bit of Africa.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: Sounds like a little bit of Africa, Egypt, Germany, a
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: lot of Mexico, and then a pretty extensive trip around
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: the US doing like national parks and stuff like that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: And still before you got your truck.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, moving pretty slow.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: I think I spent six seven months in Mexico, six
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: months eight months in Bermuda, and then I went back
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: to French Polynesia four times, so one year.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah sure, But yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I'm a slow traveler, so I try to max out
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: every country.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: If you give me three months, I'm going to.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Stay three months. If it's rare though, to find travelers,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: especially Americans traveling that travels slow, yeah, it's very, very rare.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I just love living in a place.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: I like knowing where everything is in the grocery store.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: The guy at the local tienda.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Knows my name.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I like feeling comfortable and really living where I'm vacationing.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: The coffee shop finally figures out how to make your
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: order perfectly every morning.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is. I go to this place, not this place.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: This place has better breakfast, this place has good lunch
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: specials like I love that.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I love knowing all of that sound well, it sounds
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: like it sounds like food and cuisine is a part
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of the joy of travel for you. So and what's
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: spurned that? I mean, in fact, it's great to eat
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: good food. But is that something you'd specifically look for
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: or is it just another part of the trip.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: I think in the beginning it wasn't really something that
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: I looked for because.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I was a vegetarian in for like a decade.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, I would try dishes that were local, like if
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: they had meat or fish, I would still try them,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: you know, like I've had guinea pig, grasshoppers, all of
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: that unique stuff.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: But I wouldn't go to McDonald's or Burger Key.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: And I feel like after I started eating more meat.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Again, I was just like, where can I get a steak?
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Where can I get a really good burger? And then
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: just really dove in more.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: But I've always been obsessed with finding like the best
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: French restaurant in every place that I go to, Peruvian Mexican,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: like who is.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: The best tacos? And like my maps are out of control.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Glima ended up being like quite the little foodie scene.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Where else did you find that was like that?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I mean I found some great food and Bogata and
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of course Argentina's got a bunch of great food, but like,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: where else did you find? Were there any surprises along
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the way of like really great food.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you find like a really small town and there's
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: like a Peruvian chef or a front chef, and you're like, Okay,
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna eat good and it's really random, but I
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: feel like my top three for food Mexico, Peru, Colombia
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: in that order, and Mexico spoils you with good food.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And super cheap, like really really fair prices. Yes, great
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: tacos Peru as well.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Peru and Mexico are on the same.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: You can be in the middle of nowhere, hours away
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: from a city and there's just somebody selling Lunch of
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: the day what.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Is it, Lomo satato or whatever statos and that's basically
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: like French fries and chicken, but it's super.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: A mix between Peruvian and Asians.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: It's like a stir fried beef or chicken with tomatoes
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: and onions, but it's the sauce that they put on it.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: It's like cracked. I don't know what is in it,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: but you're just like more please, more please, and then
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: a side of rice and fries.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, but amazing.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: But you can get lunch of the day soup salad
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: that dish like five dollars. I'm like, yes, please every day.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: This is making my life easier and amazing.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Have you have you found when you went through Central America?
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Did you find that the food was pretty good? When
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I went through, I went through a long time ago,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and I did not find that the food was so great.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: What was your experience in Central America?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: It's pretty boring food rice beans, rice beans, rice beans, plantains.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some chicken.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Breakfast can be pretty good. Costa Rican breakfast was really good.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: In Guatemala. The absolute best quarantias corn tortillas.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I've ever had in my entire Okay, okay.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Corn is religion there amazing.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: I also had a lot of really good traditional food.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: It was like invited into a locals home around Lake
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: of Teaitlin, and that was a really really cool experience.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: I can't remember the names of the dishes, but they
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: catch these like little tiny sardines kind of lake and
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: the whole process is cooking them for almost twenty four
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: hours in a soup. Always amazing, and you would never
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: be able to find that in a restaurant.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: How amazing to have that experience.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: And did you find that because you were spending so
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: much time that you really started to learn the language
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and the culture and starting to get into, you know,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: some of their celebrations.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: We able to experience a lot of that.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's always a celebration going.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: It seems like America, and it's really amazing.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: And Deadlos Martos. I mean I've never really I mean
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I've been tangential to it, but I've never been able
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to really dig into it.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Were able to experience some of that.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a key highlight of the trip, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: like I really prioritized timing that correctly. Many people think
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: that it's like Halloween, but it's not.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Is a very special holiday and it's.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: About remembering your family members.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: And honoring them ones who have passed and celebrating them.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It's not a sad holiday overall.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: It's really about celebrating them and inviting them back into
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: this world. I feel like it was really cool for
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: me because I was driving and I just got to
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: drive through all of the fields. All of the time
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: in preparation it takes for this holiday. They are planting flowers,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: growing them for months, harvesting all of them. It's so
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: much time, energy and dedication. It's really mind blowing. And
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: I went with a friend of mine his wife had
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: passed away.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I think it was about two years. So I lost
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: my dad, he lost his wife, And it was really.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: More of an emotional spiritual experience for us just to
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: observe and be more or less part of it.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I really loved that, having your own healing
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: from that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little cry and we all need.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Celebrate that's important. Yeah, yeah, it really is important to cry.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: I feel like people kind of shy.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Away from that, but like I almost cried on stage
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: today and here now, but it's important.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, not a week goes by that someone doesn't
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: reach out to ask how they can help support the podcast.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: We are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: when you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a year. It also gives you access to our digital
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: archive and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: images and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: So if you go to Overland Journal dot com and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you subscribe to the magazine, use the code Overland Podcast
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and that'll get you twenty percent off. It's only available
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to our podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and then you help us to maintain that independent, employee
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: owned journalism that we have been famous for, so it
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: allows us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: way you can help out too. I produced a book
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: last year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding One oh one.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: been distilled down into print form with great lists and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: beautiful imagery, So you can find that at your local bookstore.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Overlanding One on one. And thank you all for listening
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: and for supporting us so much throughout these years. That's
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: part of the human experience, and we don't want to
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: shut that down.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: No.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: It's a way that we express memory, loss, all those things, joy.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So many things can be expressed in that way, for sure,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Think loss and love are probably the two things that
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: connect all human beings.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Throughout the entire world.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we can all relate to that for sure.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. So you do all these cool trips Asia, Caribbean, Africa,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: all of that, and then what was the switch that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: flip that made you think I want to get Tacoma
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and I want to start driving through the America's What
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: was the switch that flipped on that?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: How did that start?
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Just life?
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: I put my house out for sale, had a bunch
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: of showings, walk throughs, open houses.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And no offers. It's like, oh am I making a mistake.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: And then I actually wanted to just travel around the
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: US in some time a van.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: So I found like a Ford Econa.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Line Yeah, sure, the E series, Yes sure.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: A guy in Vermont was selling it and everything was
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: done to it mechanically, dana sixty four wheel drive, and
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: I was like, I want that van. Wasn't very pretty,
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: I didn't care. We kept in contact. I had enough
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: cash to buy it, but it would be all of
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: my cash, sure, and I didn't know when I would
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: get an offer, how long it would take to close.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: So we were just waiting to see what happened.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: He sold the van.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: On Sunday afternoon and Monday morning I got a cash
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: offer out my house. So I was like, Okay, you
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: just have to trust the timing of life, and everything
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: is happening for a reason.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know. Dawn and Andy, two
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: rogue wanderers. I think is their Instagram.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: They have a tacoma. They're traveling around the world. They're
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: in South America now, they've done all of Europe, Africa, Asia.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: They went to China, shift over to Chile. They followed
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: me on Instagram and I think sent me a message
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: from my South Africa posts and.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I was like, what is this truck and camper? What
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: is overlanding?
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: So it's like on YouTube down the rabbit hole, Okay,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: like what is this four wheel drive?
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: I like getting as far away from people as possible,
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: So we're gonna need four wheel drive. And where can
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: I change my residency to? How can I do this?
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: What do I need? Just consuming hours and hours and
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: hours and hours of YouTube content reading blogs, I changed
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: my residency to South Dakota.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: My truck was the only four wheel.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: Drive, six foot bed tacoma within eight hundred miles, so
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: bought that, gathered up a tent, and just all of
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: the basics that we would need and went to Baha,
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: kept doing a little bit of research, found four wheel
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: Camper in Wisconsin was the only dealer talked to him.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: He recommended the bow in bed and.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everything kind of just fell into place.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, your truck looks super cool. It's beautiful, it really,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a rat trug. For those that are
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: listening and watching, we might as well give your Instagram
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: out right now so people can check it out.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: What's your Instagram's high?
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: From Ashley? Hi? From Ashley.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's got lots of cool photos over truck.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: It's a rat Tacoma, super cool, bow in bed, great
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: four will camper on the back and photos of it
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: all around the Americas, which is really neat. So you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: that's it's cool that it shows you did a bunch
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of research because you ended up with in this community,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: what would be one of the most ideal combinations. Very
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: common for people to use Tacoma's because they're so reliable.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Very common for people to use four campers because they
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: hold up. Yeah, and they also have good resale when
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you go to sell one. And then Bowen would have
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: been really new on the markets when.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: You really knew at the time that was twenty twenty three,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: so I don't even.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Know how long they were in business.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Sean from four wheel Camper in Wisconsin was like, yeah,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: check them out.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: He gave me the name. I wrote it down.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: I went and I looked at their Instagram and I was.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Like, this is amazing.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and look at all of this storage. I am like,
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: OCD organization. I love numbers, data research, like that's my brain.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Sure, So I was like, this is incredible.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: I had a meeting with them over the phone and
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: sent them like an eleven thousand dollars deposit.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: I never even saw it. Wow, that was probably the
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: scariest part.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I would think. So, yeah, sending someone eleven grand, Yeah,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: totally like a company eleven grand.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It turns like that turns out that was a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: good decision. So so you get all this squared away,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: you start moving through Mexico and it's how long did
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you spend your truck in Mexico.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: I think we were in Mexico for only three four months, because.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: You had already spent a lot of time.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: I have kind of lived all over Mexico for a
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: good amount of time, so I had done Baja before
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: mainland is a little bit trickier versus Baja. Like eighty
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: percent of Baja is public wild free land. Yeah, sure,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: twenty percent is owned and then mainland is the total opposite.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: Eighty percent is owned in private and twenty percent is free.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: So it's difficult to find camping there.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially going south.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: It's hot, it's humid. You just want some air conditioning
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: and a nice shower.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Sure. Unfortunately, accommodations are pretty cheap, yes, So like if
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: you need to get into an air conditioned hotel, it's
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: not not a big deal.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: They are everywhere, and you can find a pet friendly airbnbs.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: And hotels all over Latin America.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And by this point in time, had you completely stopped
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the consulting stuff, ye, so now you're just traveler, yes,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: focusing on traveling.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I pretty much stopped consulting as soon as I left
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: the US, Okay, And that was both a combination of
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: a personal choice and I was doing consulting for level one.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Trauma centers in the United States. And there was a
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: hack on London's.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Healthcare system in the mid two thousands to late two thousands,
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: and after that, US hospitals didn't really want independent contractors
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: or consultants working outside the US. That makes sense, but
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: it worked out really well because I was able to
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: be fully present for every moment of traveling.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any other obligations.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: I could just you want to go have beers with
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: the guys on the dock, Yeah, I can do that.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: I can do whatever I want anytime of day. And
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: that was really this is the best chapter.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Of my life.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I think they I love this definition of wealth because
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of course society defines wealth usually around having really expensive
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: things and lots of money. But I actually love this
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: one definition of wealth, which is being able to do
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: what you want to do when you want to do it.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Mm hm, I mean that is true.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: That is the richest rich you can possibly be.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: So I know a lot of very wealthy people, and
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: they have to answer to other people, and they can
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: just even their.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Own stuff, yep, their own stuff and their own you know,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: stock market ticker. They're like paranoid over all of it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: So how wealthy are you?
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, certainly you could be rich, but not wealthy,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and I think there's lots of people that are rich
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: that aren't wealthy. So it sounds like you found a
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: way to be able to do what you want to
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: do when you want to do it, and that is
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I think the rarest form of freedom.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pleat freedom.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're doing it with your dog, which is
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: pretty rare.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: That was really rewarding.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really happy I got to do that.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then so now you move through Central America.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Was there any what were some of the highlights of
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Central America. I try to bring it up in all
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: of these podcasts because I didn't. It's not that I
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: had a bad experience in Central America. I just found
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: that Mexico I liked so much more. In South America
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I loved even more than that. So I always try
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to like draw out a couple of the high points
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to make sure we talk about Central America.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: I feel like we've chatted about this before. Yeah, we're
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: like every continent.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: You either enjoy or you endure.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: And Central America is absolutely beautiful. There is a lot
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: packed into a small space. I do think for overlanding,
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: it's just the climate. You can't escape it very many times,
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: Like there are not a lot of mountains to get out.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Of the heat. I do think it is.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: Well designed for backpackers overlanding. I probably still would not
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: skip it overall, even though there were challenges with the climate. Yeah,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: because there's so many parts of the country you would
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: never see as a regular tourist.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Sure, and I think that's the coolest part.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I had a great experience in Guatemala getting to this
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: super remote Mayan civilization of Humol, and it was like
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: a proper fourhel drive route. We camped like in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: big square between all of the pyramids, and the pyramids
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: still had vines and trees growing out of them.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was absolutely magic.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: But it was like this one week moment in what
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: was months of travel. So yeah, it's always good to
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: find those little spots that people love in Central America.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: Guatemala has a lot of four wheel drive only trail
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: totally that I could not even go on.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: With my truck. They're like, you are too big.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you will think in the mud and we will
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: not be able to recover you. And there are a
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: lot of really amazing overlanding guys from Guatemala. Yeah, some
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: of the kindest, coolest people I've ever met.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Nice honestly, Yeah, great great country, great travelers, and surprisingly
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people from all over the world.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Like I like, one of my better friends is these
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: French but he lived in Guatemala for like, you know,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years. There's something so you get kind of
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that little melting pot that Guatemala is.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: I think anybody that really travels around the world and
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: has been to Guatemala, it's just like the hidden gem
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: of Central America.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: It's so relaxing.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: There's just an energy throughout the country where you want
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: to just stay and press pause.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: I found that to be the case for sure.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And Costa Rica has some of that, but it's just
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: much more expense have been much more gentrified. It's got
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of like a heavy dose of America in it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: And Australia and Europe.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: I found Costa Rica overall, like, don't get me wrong,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: it's beautiful. There's a little bit of wildlife, beautiful beaches
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: if you surf. It's really designed for tourism. Fly in,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: see it, check it out.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Leave.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: I love meeting locals, indigenous people, and I found Costa
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Rica to be a bit sad with all of the gentrification.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: Basically there's only two roads that the indigenous people live
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: on south of San Jose and.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: The road doesn't connect.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Oh wow.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I met a guy in Costa Rica who wrote
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: a whole book on it.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Oh wow. So yeah, what's that one peninsula on the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Pacific side home Peninsulasa Peninsula.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, like the Southwest regions. Yeah, really way better.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really local, low key.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot more wildlife as well.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Just south of that. I did a really remote eco
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: lodge called Rafiki. There were some South Africans that started cool, say,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: that's like right on the right on the river, and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you get the ride horses and you know,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: but you couldn't do it with as a regular tourist
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: because it's like a mission to get back in there,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: like some people do that they fly in and then
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: it's like days of travel to get finally back into
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: this place.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: But it was awesome.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so there definitely were some highlights in Central America.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: So how did you how did you ship around the gap?
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: The Darien Gap containership container shipping? Yeah, into Barankia or
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: in the Cartagena or Yeah.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: I went from Cologne, Panama to Cartagena, Columbia.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: And that was another aspect of the whole builds.
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: It's like, how big am I going to be height
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: length while I fit in a container. Yeah, is a
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: major expense to this type of a trap for sure.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: So that was another major factor before buying the truck
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: and camber and everything.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And you hit in a you fit in a high
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: cube container.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm only two point two meters tall.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, the fan cover nice. Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: So you make it to Columbia, your pop starts getting
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit sick, so you you shifted gears to
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: focus on him.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And how long did you end up spending in
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Columbia total?
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: I was there just under six months, so extended my
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: visa and permit for the truck to stay for porter
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: to get like that care and then yeah, press pause
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: after that, and returned to Columbia again for like another
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: three months after.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: That, I think. And then where did you head to next?
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Ecuador?
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Kalapoos and Ecuador had gone through some stuff.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: It's always gone through some stuff.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: When I was there, it was like not going through
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: some stuff, so it was super chill. It was really nice,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: beautiful roads. Yes, and there was a lot of optimism
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: in the country, like the Ecuadorians are. They're definitely like,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: can we get through this stuff? So we can because
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: they're all like very industrious and like they really wonderful people.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: They're on the dollar. It's really easy to travel there.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Did not have a bad time at all, and I
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: was there during a state of emergency, so I can't
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: remember exactly how many states they have in Ecuador, but
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: eleven of them were under state of emergency, so you
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: had a curfew, a lot of military checkpoints. But it
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: really didn't impact my travels at all.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: But yet they're kind of going through some stuff.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: Southwest Columbia is always going through a little bit of
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: stuff as well, Like did.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: You do the Columbian Death Road Trampoline of Death? So cool?
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Loved that.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: That was crazy, that crazy desert. It's the co Yes,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: it is so small and it's so unusual. It's like
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: it's surrounded by jungle. Yeah, and then it must be
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: just like a rain shadow or something because it's a
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: desert with water, cactus and everything was it.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so much like digging and studying and research
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: going on there. They estimate that they could have people
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: studying that that desert for like the next.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Two thousand years.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I believe it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: It's incredible and is a dark sky zone so all
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: the stars every night, and.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: There's cool little campsites and eco lodges and pretty chill,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: like cool little spots that Yeah, I rode through there
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: on a motorcycle, so it was nice to find accommodation
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and everything. But I was super impressed with how beautiful
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that was.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one of my favorite parts of Columbia.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: And isn't it.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: It's kind of close to the Trampoline of Death road
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: kind of even between.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: There at Bogota.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right about seven eight hours south of time. But yeah,
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: you can either take the Trampoline of Death or if
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: you're going from Cali top down to Ebiales. There's a
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: lot of conflict going on, their protests, bombs in the street, there's.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: A lot of When I did that, when I did
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the Trampoline of Death, it was, Yes, when I did
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the Trampoline of Death, it was the day either before
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: or after that vote that they did around the park
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and all like, so like it was chill, yeah, because
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: nobody knew what was going to happen, so like it
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: was that one moment in time where it was super
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: safe to just be cruising, cruising around. Yeah, but that
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: trampoline is of death is really beautiful. And I have
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: a funny story about that. Like I rode this motorcycle
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: like all around Columbia all the way down to Peru,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: like all the way you lima and back and everything
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: like that, and I'm on the trampoline of death and
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: i have the closest to getting run over in the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: entire trip. It was a Ford truck from Idaho.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Of course, Like there's.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: This travels and he like blew the corner like way
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: out into my lane and I'm like, what are you doing.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: It's like either I'm going to eat the front of
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: your truck or I'm going off the cliff of death.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately that didn't happen. He like swerved at the last second.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, isn't that come on? Like what are
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the odds? Like the one car that actually almost kills
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: me on this trip is from Idaho, And I.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Feel like that's pretty accurate. I think you're right.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: I think you're right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: It's never the locals that you need to worry about.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they get in their flow, and if you
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: get into their flow, everything works.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everything really works.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: But I didn't have any problems driving like that.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: They're like I love crazy driving, and you just have
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: to pay attention to everything. I'm a really firm believer
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: that everybody should at least have to ride on two
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: wheels before they're allowed to have four wheels.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Yet have some empathy for motorcyclists.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Yes, oh, I use my truck to block the road
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: for bikes all the time and make sure or that
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: they're safe. But when you're on two wheels, you have
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: to pay attention to everything or right that, every direction,
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: what's on the road, five cars ahead of me, what's
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: the weather.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Doing, what's the wind doing? Everything?
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And like you should have to do that before
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: having the privilege.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Of being you know, if we were president for the days,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna do, if I ruled the world
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: of your first.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Declaration, first declarations, Yeah, I like that.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you make it. You make it out of
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Columbia into Ecuador, and did you go into Bolivia or Peru? Next?
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Peru?
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And that sounds like a foody zone for you, which
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: was cool.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: I just loved everything about Peru.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The people are wonderful and amazing. Some of them
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: are so very it's like like they're portable people like
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: you just like pick a couple of them up, you know,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: very so tiny.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Very short, close to earth.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I I was just so blown away by Peru.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: Columbia you have a few places where you get in to,
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: like La Guahira, Tatacoa, you have wide open, vast spaces
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: of nature. Again, Ecuador a little bit Central America, none
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: of that so much.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: But Peru.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, yes, space, Like I can breathe again,
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: I can look out never ending horizon. These mountains are insane. Yeah,
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: Like camping at this.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Glacial lake, I'm like, how is this real life? Right now?
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: I would never imagine I could ever do this in
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: my life.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Wow, it was.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Just so beautiful. I cried. Yeah, like I love this.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: This is incredible.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: When you get those moments where you're so overwhelmed by
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the nature of a place that it does bring you
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: to tears. I've had that happen many times, Yeah, in
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: my travels, And usually it's on a motorcycle, because there's
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: just something that's much more visceral about it, because the
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: smell for it bit more. Maybe what it is. Maybe
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you're a little more demanding, maybe you're a little more
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: exhausted and a little bit more open. Of all, I've
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: had a lot of life changes happen on motorcycles, so yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: they definitely they.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Stretch you a little bit for sure, push you.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: So you love Peru and then where did you go next?
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Down to Chili?
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: Okay, And at that point I was kind of trying
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: to beat winter, so I didn't spend very much time
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: in northern Chili, which is why I didn't go to Bolivia.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Also the fuel, Yeah, Bolivia. Yeah. I had a friend Charlie,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: who was on a moto.
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: He was in Bolivia as I was entering Chili thinking
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: about maybe I'll go there and do the salt flats.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: And people probably know Charlie on Instagram pretty well. He
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: is a crazy moto adventure guy from the UK living
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: in Canada. And he was like, oh, mate, it's no problem.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: You just drive past everybody and pull up to the
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: front of the pump your foreigner, they'll put you up.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, maybe that's easy. On a mike.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: I'm a whole unit.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah I can't do that.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I cannot do that.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: So I the group chat on what's up At the time,
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: the instructions were if you have four wheels. You have
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: to park around the corner out of side of the cameras,
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: take jerry cans, fill them up, go back.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: And I was.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Thinking, hmm, I get twelve miles to yelling. I'm absolutely
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: not doing that. That's gonna be half my day. It
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: can be half my day. I'm gonna be spilling it
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: all over the place. I'm not messing around with that.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: And I was trying to beat winter. Went down to
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: Mendoza and then stored my truck for about six months
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: and then came back.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: And Mendoza is a great place to when I when
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I left Mendoza, just parked the truck at the airport.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: I literally there was no daily fee, so I was
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: driving a land Cruiser, pulled the pulled the land Cruiser
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: into the airport parking lot, parked it underneath a shade cover,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: and came back like two and a half months later,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: fired it up and kept going on my trip.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I did not know that.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I found I don't remember how I learned that,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: but that was really helpful. Yeah, great food, incredible wine,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah I think. Yeah. I was supposed to be there
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: for the decar, but there was It was so hectic
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: with all of the people, the locals wanting to see
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the car that I skipped it and I just drank
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: all back until my teeth were purple.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: So I definitely odd on steak dinners with some delicious
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: wine almost every night.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so good. It was amazing good yeah, and great
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: great food. Wonderful people in Argentina, you know, just like
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: so warm and hospitable, and you really hope that they're
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: on the on the right track as a country, You
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: really hope. So they deserve that they'll get there. They
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: deserve that they sure do so. And then did you
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: end up making it all the way down to Ushuaia?
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: I returned and then started Patagonia, bouncing back and forth
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: between Chile Argentina, crossing the border, you know, half a
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: dozen times between the two, and made it to Ushuaia, Argentina,
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: end of the world on Christmas Day.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, amazing, yeah, amazing.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: And did you did you put any thought to pop
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: it on one of the cruise ships to art Uh
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Antarctica or anything like that?
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Did you think that I did?
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: I really did think about it. And actually a really
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: good friend of mine was hosting a trip. I think
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: it started January twentieth, okay, and I was like, whoa,
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: I could go and I got, you know, mate's rates
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: a little bit of a discount to go.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: But I just felt.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: So when you say Christmas, you mean just like a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: couple of months ago was wrapped up.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Christmas Day.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, because I finished the West coast of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Africa on the fourteenth of December. Nice, so we were
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: about the same. Maybe we made it to the southern
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: southernmost points in two different continents within a couple of
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: weeks of each other. That's so cool.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really cool, and I really loved Dyshuaia.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: It was not cool, It's what I thought it would
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: be either. Yeah, I had no expectation. I didn't know,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: but like, yeah, there's like great coffee shops, great restaurants,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: nice hotels. Yeah, all the pastries were so very much so.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: And then I went to like the Overlanders end of
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, there a week chunk.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, soaked it up.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: It was really cool because there's there's moorings out there,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: so like cruise ships, tall ships were coming through. There
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: was like a nat GEO research boat that parked out front.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: And I was like this is really cool, is real.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: I'm just going to soak this up because when am
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: I ever going to do this again in my life?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: And it was really amazing. I really loved it.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: You know. Actually, you've been a huge inspiration to so
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: many people. You know, let's talk a little bit about
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you took a huge risk to change your life,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: and you know in hindsight you can You've mentioned how
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: much it's made a difference in your life.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: What kind of what advice would you give to people?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: How would you help encourage them to have their own
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: version of that life changing moment? And maybe what are
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: some things that you've learned along the way that you'd
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: like to share with others.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Very good question, Very good question.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: I feel like no matter what you want to do
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: in life, it doesn't have to be travel, Like, if
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: you want to start the business or anything, you have
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: to prioritize it. You have to make sacrifices. Don't listen
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: to people but naysayers.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: I feel like.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: We are all raised the same, your parents, your aunts,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: your uncles.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: You know, what do you want to be when you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: grow up? And think big?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: Dream big, reach for the moon, shoot for the stars,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: and then you turn eighteen and you have all these
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: ideas and people are like, why would you want to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: do that? You can't do that, that's not realistic, you know,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: I don't know, Like, just tell those people to shut
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: the f up. Honestly, you cannot surround yourself with people
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: who are going to hold you back, and you really
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: need to surround yourself with people who are supportive. Find
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: whatever area you want to go, find the grumpy old man,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: get off my grass.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Type of guy or woman and ask them if.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: You are keen to learn. People are really willing to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: share their knowledge with you. So find the people who
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: have done it and genuinely ask, learn, appreciate.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: And just go.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: And you've been You're now that person that's done it.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: So you get to help other others learn how to
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: overcome those challenges and reach out for their own goals.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm happy to help. I really feel like
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I've done a.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: Lot, and I haven't really shared a lot over the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: years because I want to know what I'm talking about
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: when I.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Talk about it.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Well, and you do. I mean, you spent three years
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: traveling the length through the America's you know, I think
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: in total, I've probably spent three years, traveling the length
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: of America's over twenty years, So you know you have really.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Gone got rookie numbers blow us up.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: I need to I need to step up my game.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: You're incredible. You've traveled all over the place, but.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, I'm not stone skipping across
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: the surface. So I have I have experienced a lot,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: but I've not been able to go as deep. So
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: you being able to stop and really soak up the dad,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: listen where those or get into an area that you
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: really love and saying, hey, I'm going to rock up
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: in an airbnb for a couple of months. Yes, and
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: those are things that I haven't been able to do,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and so seeing you do that is an encouragement to me.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: It's an inspiration to me. What's next for you now
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: that you're back.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: To be determined?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Too.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Are you thinking about selling the truck or what's the way?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, I have a couple of ideas and I'm mulling over.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: I'll probably keep the truck for maybe one year. There's
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: really a lot of places in the US that I
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: want to see. I have a like a collector's addition
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: for the National Park passport awesome. So I'm really keen
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: to get back to my storage unit and get that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: and hit all of the national parks that I haven't
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: seen yet, and then I will most likely establish residency
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: in Spain. And my ideas for Europe are number one,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: Porsche makes a rooftop tent. Okay, maybe get a spicy
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: little Porsche, and then I would have an apartment like
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: a home base and just do two three week trips
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: around Europe or possibly a Toyota hyas van and which
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: live in that and travel around and also being based
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: in Europe, I can wait for really good flights.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Down to African nations.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: I really really really want to get back to Africa.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't it pull your soul?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: It is life changing in so many ways, and I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: want to get back there.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: So how do people follow? You've already shared your Instagram.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Let's share that again. So what's your Instagram?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: My Instagram and all of my social media is high
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: from Ashley and that is HI from Ashley.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Well keep doing what you're doing. Let us know how
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: we can support. We look forward to seeing some of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: your photography and hopefully having you admit some of your
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: stories to Overland Journal yeah, we'd love to. We'd love
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: to have you in the magazine, and we look forward
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: to having you back on the podcast after you go
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: move to Europe. Get your high as ye or porta PORI. Yeah,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: the portie would be pretty fun.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Pretty you really lean in that.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I get you what, Like you said, I mean, I'm.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: Still in my thirties, so I don't know if it
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: will be cooler in my forties or fifties, or if
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I should do it now.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: I think it gets less cooler, so I do.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, especially if it's a guy, a guy
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: by a portion, a portion in his fifties. That's pretty clatchy,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: pretty classic, cliche and classic. Yeah, exactly. So well, thank
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: you so much for being on the podcast, so much
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: for having me. Appreciate the opportunity, and we appreciate you
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: all listening, and we'll talk to you next time.