Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Scott Brady’s Overlanding 101: Travel Simple, Travel Far

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Scott Brady’s Overlanding 101: Travel Simple, Travel Far · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overlain Journal podcast. Today's episode
0:07
Speaker 1: is a little bit different. I'm joined as usual by
0:10
Speaker 1: my co host Scott Brady, but today you're in the
0:13
Speaker 1: hot seat.
0:17
Speaker 2: I also wanted to take a brief moment to thank
0:20
Speaker 2: all of you for listening to the Ovalan Journal podcast.
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0:42
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0:50
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0:53
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0:57
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1:03
Speaker 2: go to Overland Journal dot com and use the Code
1:06
Speaker 2: Overland podcast at checkout. Again, that's Code Overland Podcast at checkout,
1:12
Speaker 2: and I'll give you twenty percent off. I sincerely appreciate
1:15
Speaker 2: your support.
1:17
Speaker 1: That's because Scott just released a new book called Overlanding
1:20
Speaker 1: one oh one. It's a compact, deeply practical guide that
1:23
Speaker 1: distills decades of global travel into something you can actually use,
1:28
Speaker 1: so whether you're planning your first trip or have already
1:31
Speaker 1: crossed a few borders, I think this is going to
1:33
Speaker 1: be a great book that people pick up a lot from.
1:35
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, Matt. I appreciate the opportunity to talk
1:38
Speaker 2: about it. It's been a labor of love. It took
1:41
Speaker 2: about seven months of my life to get the thing written,
1:44
Speaker 2: a lot of very late nights, probably too many late
1:47
Speaker 2: nights planning.
1:48
Speaker 1: All of the greats and overlanding now have their book.
1:51
Speaker 1: You finally have yours. You joined Chris Scott, you joined
1:53
Speaker 1: Tom Shephard. I think that this book is phenomenal. It's
1:57
Speaker 1: become my new bedside reading, and a lot of it's
2:00
Speaker 1: familiar to me because I may have learned everything from
2:02
Speaker 1: you already to begin with, but I'm still learning. And
2:05
Speaker 1: the cool thing about this book what I like is
2:07
Speaker 1: it balances this line between being a reference book, but
2:11
Speaker 1: there's some narrative to it, and a lot of the
2:13
Speaker 1: skills are presented through experience and through travels, which I
2:16
Speaker 1: think is really cool. I think it's laid out nice
2:19
Speaker 1: and the photography is.
2:20
Speaker 2: The designer did a really nice job. For example, the
2:23
Speaker 2: Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide that Tom Shepherd and has produced,
2:28
Speaker 2: and Jonathan Hansen has been a part of that for
2:30
Speaker 2: the last decade or so. We actually brought in the
2:34
Speaker 2: VDAG through Expeditions West. We actually partnered with Tom to
2:39
Speaker 2: buy a bunch of books. Tom's Guide is truly exceptionally technical.
2:44
Speaker 2: I would call it like a three to zero one book. Ye.
2:46
Speaker 2: So if they're great compendiums to each other, the advantage
2:51
Speaker 2: the overlanding one on one has is just is more
2:54
Speaker 2: environments that I've traveled in, whereas the advantage that Tom's
2:59
Speaker 2: has is much more based on expeditions, expedition planning, expedition teams.
3:05
Speaker 2: It's just extremely His is extremely detailed, and it is
3:09
Speaker 2: how you plan an expedition around the world. And then
3:13
Speaker 2: Chris Scott's book, which he actually has many of them,
3:17
Speaker 2: but he's got like an overlander handbook, and that one.
3:21
Speaker 2: I love the fact that he includes so many more
3:23
Speaker 2: routes in there. So he actually his is great in
3:27
Speaker 2: the sense that I want to go travel northern Africa
3:30
Speaker 2: and you go to that section of the book and
3:32
Speaker 2: it talks about like how to plan for northern Africa
3:35
Speaker 2: and considerations that are around northern Africa, So they are
3:39
Speaker 2: all quite different. My experience pales in comparison to those
3:43
Speaker 2: other two gentlemen. They're incredible mentors and inspirations for me personally.
3:48
Speaker 2: So I feel lucky to be at the one on
3:51
Speaker 2: one level.
3:52
Speaker 1: I think you're a little bit higher than.
3:53
Speaker 2: The one on one level now maybe a few points.
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the book it's not really like a
3:58
Speaker 1: highlight reel of just trips, like it's more of a
4:01
Speaker 1: distilled philosophy that really comes through it. There's this kind
4:04
Speaker 1: of concept of less is more that continues to go
4:06
Speaker 1: throughout the book, which I think is really important. I
4:09
Speaker 1: like that it's not just about by this stuff outfit
4:14
Speaker 1: your vehicle, like it's very about like it's it comes
4:18
Speaker 1: off as experienced to me.
4:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I made a real effort in there to be
4:24
Speaker 2: totally brand agnostic. Even the fact that there's a granade
4:28
Speaker 2: here on the cover is a nod to being agnostic
4:30
Speaker 2: because there's just not a lot of those out there.
4:32
Speaker 2: It's not a big seller, so it's not if I
4:35
Speaker 2: stuck a land cruiser on the cover. If I stuck
4:37
Speaker 2: a land Rover on the cover, it would start to
4:39
Speaker 2: become more of like the land Rover book. I don't
4:41
Speaker 2: want it to be that, so I like the fact
4:44
Speaker 2: that it's a more obscure vehicle. We considered the g
4:47
Speaker 2: Wagon on the cover, but Tom ran that so often.
4:50
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the g Wagon has a little bit of a.
4:53
Speaker 2: It can't have a weird But a couple of the
4:56
Speaker 2: parts of the book that I was so glad that
4:57
Speaker 2: they allowed to go through is I have this one
5:00
Speaker 2: section where I give example of one hundred and twenty
5:04
Speaker 2: thousand dollars budget, which people will spend one hundred and
5:07
Speaker 2: twenty grand on a vehicle all day long. If you
5:09
Speaker 2: bought a brand new ram and you put a camper
5:12
Speaker 2: in the back of it, and you modify it a
5:14
Speaker 2: little bit, you're gonna be one twenty one thirty one forty.
5:18
Speaker 2: But the example is by a two hundred series land Cruiser,
5:23
Speaker 2: you put about two grand worth of modifications in it.
5:26
Speaker 2: So basically some better springs and a coup couple minor things,
5:29
Speaker 2: some storage in the back, maybe a fridge, some camping gear,
5:33
Speaker 2: and then you get to travel for two years on
5:36
Speaker 2: the rest of the money. A KLR is another example.
5:39
Speaker 2: A Nissan Frontier with a go fast camper is another example.
5:42
Speaker 2: I did really work hard to try to make sure
5:45
Speaker 2: it kept coming back to you don't need something expensive.
5:50
Speaker 2: There's a great shot in there, a lowest price. And
5:52
Speaker 2: she rode across Africa on a two fifty motorcycle and
5:57
Speaker 2: you can just see like the joy in her face.
5:59
Speaker 2: She's forwarding some river or whatever in a motorcycle that
6:02
Speaker 2: probably cost her twenty five hundred pounds.
6:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad that the Grenadier made the cover
6:09
Speaker 1: because that's also the vehicle where you completed your big project,
6:12
Speaker 1: which was becoming the first to properly cross all seven continents,
6:15
Speaker 1: And that's the vehicle that you finished that endeavor.
6:18
Speaker 2: In true And it's also to a nod to any ass.
6:22
Speaker 2: It's the only car company that exists that makes only
6:26
Speaker 2: overland vehicles, so that's cool. So an overlanding it is
6:31
Speaker 2: very much an overlanding one oh one car like you
6:33
Speaker 2: can go buy that a stock vehicle like I used.
6:36
Speaker 2: I drove it all the way across Africa.
6:38
Speaker 1: So what this podcast is about is we're going to
6:40
Speaker 1: use some examples from the book as a guide to
6:44
Speaker 1: making this a bit of a condensed overlanding one oh one,
6:47
Speaker 1: so people can get not only an idea of what
6:49
Speaker 1: this book is about, but also hopefully we can enlighten
6:53
Speaker 1: and teach more people about things. So I think we
6:56
Speaker 1: should start, like in your mind, start with the basics.
6:59
Speaker 1: What is a over landing, Scott Brady.
7:02
Speaker 2: I still like the definition that Jonathan Hansen and Graham
7:06
Speaker 2: Jackson and I came to in probably two thousand and
7:10
Speaker 2: seven or so, which is vehicle based adventure travel or
7:14
Speaker 2: vehicle dependent adventure travel. I still get definition a lot
7:19
Speaker 2: because it includes a vehicle. It can be a motorcycle,
7:21
Speaker 2: it can be a fool drive, it could be a
7:23
Speaker 2: Diesel Mercedes, and it includes adventure, which means you're not
7:27
Speaker 2: just doing a road trip. There's some definition around that
7:29
Speaker 2: in the book too. A road trip is kind of
7:31
Speaker 2: like what you do when you're traveling with your family
7:34
Speaker 2: to go see Disneyland, and maybe you see some sites
7:36
Speaker 2: along the way, but the goal is to make it
7:38
Speaker 2: to Disneyland, or the goal is to make it to
7:40
Speaker 2: the family reunion or whatever. So you don't want to
7:42
Speaker 2: say vehicle based travel because it's a little too broad.
7:46
Speaker 2: It's too broad, So you want it to be vehicle
7:49
Speaker 2: based adventure travel. Adventure travel is a very clearly defined category.
7:54
Speaker 2: I think language is really important. It helps us define things.
7:57
Speaker 2: But it isn't four wheeling, it isn't camping, it isn't
8:00
Speaker 2: car camping, it isn't road tripping. Overlanding is very much
8:04
Speaker 2: a vehicle centric adventure travel.
8:08
Speaker 1: And I think one of the other things that you
8:09
Speaker 1: do well in the book is you start to really
8:11
Speaker 1: talk about the history of where this all happened. Yeah,
8:14
Speaker 1: I guess this all goes back to the Cambridge Oxford.
8:18
Speaker 2: The most notable I would say so absolutely. I mean
8:20
Speaker 2: that inspired an entire nation. Yes, And the fact that
8:24
Speaker 2: they did that in stock Land Rover with wagonies they
8:28
Speaker 2: probably were I think they were from the fifties, I
8:31
Speaker 2: believe so, they probably were series ones. And the fact
8:34
Speaker 2: that David Attenborough was involved in that project. I just
8:38
Speaker 2: love that. I just absolutely adore that man and everything
8:42
Speaker 2: he's tried to do for the world. So the fact
8:44
Speaker 2: that he was involved with something that I'm so passionate
8:47
Speaker 2: about early in his career is just amazing to me.
8:50
Speaker 1: What do you think is another formative vehicle based expedition?
8:54
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll take just one quick second to back up
8:57
Speaker 2: about sixty years or so of Ben's as a character
9:01
Speaker 2: that people just need to know who she is. She
9:04
Speaker 2: was the financier. She was like the business mind behind
9:07
Speaker 2: Mercedes Benz, so she was the one that arranged the financing.
9:10
Speaker 2: So she was very much the money person behind the engineer.
9:13
Speaker 2: And they ended up getting married and all those things happened.
9:16
Speaker 2: But at one point in time, basically because she owned
9:18
Speaker 2: the car, because she financed the whole thing, she takes
9:21
Speaker 2: this car it was like in the eighteen eighties and
9:24
Speaker 2: she drove it. It's the first overland trip. It was
9:28
Speaker 2: like seventy miles, which think of the adventure that would
9:31
Speaker 2: have been. And she drove it seventy infrastructure nothing, nothing,
9:35
Speaker 2: and she would have to go into special places to
9:37
Speaker 2: get the right fuel, and it was just it was
9:40
Speaker 2: an incredible thing that she did. And I love the
9:42
Speaker 2: fact that it was like a big screw of the
9:46
Speaker 2: world kind of a thing it would have been. And
9:49
Speaker 2: I love the fact that she just did it. So
9:53
Speaker 2: the pioneer of overlanding is Bertha Bens. So next time
9:57
Speaker 2: one of those old Mercedes Diesel sinans going by, Yeah,
10:00
Speaker 2: So I really I like that and I would say
10:03
Speaker 2: after that, the most notable one that comes to mind
10:06
Speaker 2: for me would have been Tom Shepherd's crossing of the
10:10
Speaker 2: Sahara from west to east. And what makes it even
10:15
Speaker 2: more amazing is this was pre GPS, so they were
10:18
Speaker 2: using sun compass, they were using sextants, they were using
10:23
Speaker 2: agavigating on the ocean, yes exactly, it was like an ocean,
10:26
Speaker 2: and they had very few maps that actually showed anything
10:29
Speaker 2: about the interior. That was it was so difficult to
10:33
Speaker 2: find a blank spot in the map, and he did.
10:36
Speaker 2: And it's not to say that humans had never been
10:37
Speaker 2: where he traveled, but like it was very much a
10:40
Speaker 2: terra incognita, like people just didn't know what it was.
10:44
Speaker 2: So his expedition is one that still leaves me wide eyed.
10:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just interesting. There's all of these people that
10:50
Speaker 1: have laid the foundation. I think in North America you're
10:53
Speaker 1: a big part of that. But it all goes back
10:56
Speaker 1: to travel. I think, sure, we talked about what is overlanding,
10:59
Speaker 1: and to me, it's really just traveling cars with a
11:03
Speaker 1: little bit of grit, a little bit of dirt that yeah,
11:05
Speaker 1: you don't have to, but I think that makes for
11:06
Speaker 1: a better Instagram if there's an element of it that
11:09
Speaker 1: you have to put a little bit of work in.
11:11
Speaker 2: Sure, I like that.
11:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's maybe the difference between that family road trip
11:16
Speaker 1: to Disney World and an overland trip, right, yeah, But
11:21
Speaker 1: how does somebody get out of the door.
11:23
Speaker 2: I think the most important thing is to start off,
11:25
Speaker 2: you need to know what you don't know, or a
11:28
Speaker 2: few things that you don't know. And I really recommend
11:30
Speaker 2: people take whatever car you have, and if you have
11:33
Speaker 2: camping gear in the garage, use the camping gear that
11:36
Speaker 2: you already own, or borrow it from someone, or worst
11:39
Speaker 2: case scenario, if you don't have any and you don't
11:41
Speaker 2: know anybody that has camping gear, you can rent it.
11:43
Speaker 2: You can rent camping gear from ARII and a bunch
11:45
Speaker 2: of other places, and go out and see if you
11:49
Speaker 2: and your companions even enjoy doing it, find out what worked.
11:54
Speaker 2: I really liked that, or actually I really didn't like
11:56
Speaker 2: sleeping on the ground or whatever, and then start to
11:59
Speaker 2: fill in the gap with things. So I believe the
12:02
Speaker 2: best way to start is to go do a very
12:04
Speaker 2: local trip. That way, if something goes wrong, if the
12:07
Speaker 2: stove doesn't work or whatever, you can.
12:09
Speaker 1: Just I don't want to say, aren't cut out for it,
12:11
Speaker 1: but some people theis isn't their thing totally.
12:13
Speaker 2: You don't know until you do it.
12:14
Speaker 1: And I think it's also important if you're traveling with
12:16
Speaker 1: your partner, both people have to enjoy doing it. We've
12:18
Speaker 1: all seen those trips where one person enjoys it, she
12:21
Speaker 1: enjoys it, he hates camping. Yeah, and it doesn't usually
12:25
Speaker 1: go well. You said, rents it totally.
12:27
Speaker 2: I played pickleball, and I was like, yeah, this isn't
12:29
Speaker 2: for me. I like it. No, but we play. I
12:31
Speaker 2: get it. I am clearly the outlier.
12:33
Speaker 1: You'll have to come with Laura and I. We play
12:35
Speaker 1: what's called of my own creation. It's called no rules pickaball.
12:40
Speaker 2: That sounds fun a little bit, and are always.
12:42
Speaker 1: Try to get right next to the people that are
12:44
Speaker 1: really into pickaball too seriously, and then we just throw
12:49
Speaker 1: numbers out. It's like you step with your left foot first,
12:52
Speaker 1: five thousand points, five thousand points to me, okay, I
12:58
Speaker 1: would probably be into that. That one's kind of fun
12:59
Speaker 1: because it about running around and chasing the ball. This
13:01
Speaker 1: is a great transition into the fundamentals of overland travel.
13:05
Speaker 1: It is not complex, but it's not simple. And a
13:10
Speaker 1: lot of these things can be daunting if you're someone
13:13
Speaker 1: that is new to overlanding and they're really inspired by
13:18
Speaker 1: what they see. Maybe they've seen some ex overland videos
13:21
Speaker 1: or they've seen the myriad. There's hundreds of travelers out
13:25
Speaker 1: there doing some really great stuff. Sure, but starting can
13:28
Speaker 1: be challenging, right. There's a lot to figure out. You
13:30
Speaker 1: have to figure out the driver training, the off road
13:33
Speaker 1: because if you're going to be going places that aren't
13:36
Speaker 1: paved when you're going remote, you need to know how
13:38
Speaker 1: to get your vehicle out and how to do it safely.
13:41
Speaker 1: And you have to know all this stuff about camping
13:43
Speaker 1: and vehicle maintenance and border crossings, and there's a lot
13:46
Speaker 1: to it. Or if you're say in the United States,
13:48
Speaker 1: that's great too. You don't have to figure out the
13:49
Speaker 1: border crossings.
13:50
Speaker 2: And there are some really great resources for training. There's
13:53
Speaker 2: full blown overland trainers, which is great overland experts. Becky's
13:58
Speaker 2: comes to mind, Nina Carlow's one of the best four
14:01
Speaker 2: whel drive recovery trainers out there. There's lots of great trainers,
14:06
Speaker 2: but you can also go to something like an overland
14:09
Speaker 2: expo and there are a lot of basic training classes there,
14:13
Speaker 2: or like the new big thing that's coming out in
14:16
Speaker 2: July up in Montana that is entirely focused on training
14:22
Speaker 2: and experience and connecting with other travel very much a
14:25
Speaker 2: sense of community. So I think that there's some resources
14:29
Speaker 2: available that are a little less expensive. You can also
14:32
Speaker 2: find a local club or another traveler that's willing to
14:35
Speaker 2: go with you for the weekend and can help you
14:37
Speaker 2: get started with the basics.
14:38
Speaker 1: As much as overlanding isn't necessarily four wheel driving, That's
14:43
Speaker 1: where I got my start was through a four wheel
14:45
Speaker 1: drive club totally. It's like sixteen and I had a
14:48
Speaker 1: Discovery one land Rover, not because I was wealthy, but
14:51
Speaker 1: because I couldn't afford it jeep and it was like
14:53
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred dollars. But I learned so much from
14:56
Speaker 1: those people. It was the Chicago land Rover Club, not
15:00
Speaker 1: a particularly off roady or overlandy spot, but so many
15:03
Speaker 1: people took me under their wing.
15:05
Speaker 2: Great example.
15:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, like wherever you are in the world, there are
15:09
Speaker 1: people these four wheel drive clubs or Facebook groups or
15:13
Speaker 1: however it really manifests these days that, Yeah, there's just
15:16
Speaker 1: some really good stuff out there.
15:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I would say Overlanding in North America is
15:20
Speaker 2: one of my favorites because it removes that compulsion to
15:25
Speaker 2: need to go see that special museum or to interact
15:28
Speaker 2: with that tribe or whatever. You get to just focus
15:31
Speaker 2: on getting really remote and oftentimes really challenging terrain. So
15:36
Speaker 2: I find that to be a lot of fun for me.
15:38
Speaker 2: So I think North America does have a much more
15:41
Speaker 2: like four whel drive skills forward overland travel.
15:46
Speaker 1: We're definitely going to talk about the international stuff later
15:49
Speaker 1: in this podcast, but just to focus a little bit
15:51
Speaker 1: more on domestic overland it is more oriented towards for
15:56
Speaker 1: wheel driving. It is because the places that you're going, like,
15:59
Speaker 1: we have so much expansive open public land that it's inevitable.
16:04
Speaker 2: Right.
16:05
Speaker 1: We're not necessarily saying that you're going to be overlanding
16:08
Speaker 1: on the Rubicon or something, but sometimes there's some obstacles.
16:11
Speaker 2: That you, oh, for sure.
16:13
Speaker 1: That's where that having that solid foundation of four wheel
16:17
Speaker 1: drive expertise training is going to pay dividends in the
16:22
Speaker 1: long run.
16:22
Speaker 2: And it's surprising even on a graded gravel road, there
16:25
Speaker 2: could be a tree down and you need to operate
16:27
Speaker 2: your winch, or there could be someone who slid into
16:28
Speaker 2: a ditch and needs to be recovered, like you had
16:32
Speaker 2: this happen. You went back into a campsite and it
16:34
Speaker 2: rained through the night, and it ended up getting sodden
16:37
Speaker 2: and you had to do a very complex recovery of
16:39
Speaker 2: an eighteen thousand pound truck to get out of it.
16:42
Speaker 2: It's interesting how I remember even Doug Hackney telling me
16:45
Speaker 2: about the only time he ever used his winch and
16:46
Speaker 2: anger in South America was when he got stuck in
16:49
Speaker 2: a campground, same situation that it just kept raining for
16:52
Speaker 2: days and days, and he went to move and he
16:54
Speaker 2: had to winch himself out of the camp spot.
16:57
Speaker 1: I think we're having some skills on the four whel
17:00
Speaker 1: drive side. Translates to international travel, is you're able to
17:04
Speaker 1: go more places. Confidently. There is a risk to going
17:08
Speaker 1: remote in Bear's Ears or wherever, no doubt, pick a spot.
17:12
Speaker 1: In the United States, you have so many expansive places,
17:15
Speaker 1: but the consequences are usually pretty low.
17:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, outside of a flash flood, it's pretty.
17:20
Speaker 1: You're going to be able to get some help eventually.
17:22
Speaker 1: Right when you're traveling to some of these places, you
17:25
Speaker 1: crossed Greenland, which is gnarlier than an Arctica.
17:28
Speaker 2: That much more difficult.
17:29
Speaker 1: There's no support infrastructure. But so many of those skills
17:32
Speaker 1: that you develop come from.
17:33
Speaker 2: The four wheel drive world, right yeah, in four wheeling,
17:36
Speaker 2: A good four whel drive trainer will teach you about
17:39
Speaker 2: being gentle with your inputs, so that mechanical sympathy. We
17:43
Speaker 2: always want to be preserving the asset. I call it
17:46
Speaker 2: preserving the asset, but the asset is the motorcycle or
17:48
Speaker 2: the four whel drive or the car or whatever. You're
17:50
Speaker 2: preserving that so it can get you through your trip.
17:53
Speaker 2: You don't want to flog it every day. It's not
17:55
Speaker 2: recreational sport. You want to just tone everything back, be
17:59
Speaker 2: a little more gentle, be a little more mindful of
18:01
Speaker 2: the vehicle. Do your daily and your weekly checks, which
18:05
Speaker 2: is also in the book, a full checklist, and you
18:07
Speaker 2: can even find it on my For those that don't
18:10
Speaker 2: want to invest in the book, you can find some
18:12
Speaker 2: of these checklists on Scott Brady dot com Forward slash lists.
18:16
Speaker 2: Cool and there's somebody.
18:17
Speaker 1: To know you had a website.
18:18
Speaker 2: I do. I'm sorry, that's how I got my email. Oh.
18:21
Speaker 1: On the concept of training, medical training is also something
18:25
Speaker 1: that I think just a basic at a minimum, like
18:28
Speaker 1: a basic first aid course, yes, I think is really essential.
18:33
Speaker 1: When you're remote, things just happen. Oh you're eating weird
18:38
Speaker 1: Let's say you're international, you're eating weird food. You need
18:41
Speaker 1: to know, Okay, like maybe I need some cipro, maybe
18:43
Speaker 1: I need this. There's actually I saw this company that
18:46
Speaker 1: does like full travel kits.
18:48
Speaker 2: Like they look really good and they you have a
18:50
Speaker 2: conversation with a doctor, you prescribe everything for you. But
18:54
Speaker 2: you brought up such an important point, Matt. Everybody thinks
18:57
Speaker 2: it's going to be like a broken arm, or it's
18:59
Speaker 2: going to be something like that.
19:00
Speaker 1: It's going to be an infected cuticle, is what it's
19:02
Speaker 1: going to be.
19:03
Speaker 2: It's going to be a GI issue, or it's going
19:05
Speaker 2: to be a tooth problem. So like when you come
19:08
Speaker 2: on a trip, make sure you've got antibiotics, make sure
19:11
Speaker 2: you have antibiotics appropriate for GI if you have some
19:14
Speaker 2: kind of other infection, or appropriate if you have an
19:18
Speaker 2: absess or a problem with your teeth, and a way
19:21
Speaker 2: to deal with that when you're remote. A lot of
19:23
Speaker 2: times and this is unfortunate advice, but you hear it
19:26
Speaker 2: all the time, is someone will say only buy the
19:29
Speaker 2: medical kit at the level of training that you've received,
19:32
Speaker 2: and I completely disagree with that, because there's doctors in
19:36
Speaker 2: the world and a doctor might drive by, or a
19:39
Speaker 2: nurse might drive by, or some other medical professional that
19:43
Speaker 2: can help you. Or if you have starlink, you can
19:47
Speaker 2: hop on FaceTime you can get walked through how to
19:49
Speaker 2: use those things, and the next thing, you've just run
19:52
Speaker 2: a nasal fare engeel and you're a hero. I'm not
19:55
Speaker 2: saying that it's that simple, but the idea is if
19:57
Speaker 2: you don't have it, then you I missed that opportunity.
20:01
Speaker 2: Like even when we did the sailing, we had to
20:03
Speaker 2: have everything to even do minor surgeries. I hoped to
20:07
Speaker 2: God I was never going to have to cut anybody open.
20:10
Speaker 2: There's no alternative. There's no alternative because you're in the
20:12
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere, and that can happen oftentimes with overlanding too.
20:15
Speaker 2: Don't break the bank on a kit, but have something
20:17
Speaker 2: that's fairly comprehensive that can address most of those major issues,
20:21
Speaker 2: including gastro intestinal and anything related to dental. You need
20:26
Speaker 2: to be able to address those two things.
20:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the emergency stuff is like the
20:32
Speaker 1: there's the emergency thing and then there's the things that
20:34
Speaker 1: are going to happen, which is going to be the gi.
20:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, super common. And another thing that is quite common
20:39
Speaker 2: too is a vehicle can catch fire. There's been some
20:44
Speaker 2: very dramatic videos like that on YouTube where an Overlander's
20:48
Speaker 2: out remote, he's in his jeep, wrangler gets a bunch
20:51
Speaker 2: of spinifects or brush and stuff under his jeep, catalytic
20:54
Speaker 2: converter catches it on fire next to the jeeps burning
20:58
Speaker 2: into the ground. And that's why in the book we
21:00
Speaker 2: talk about a ditch bag. It's something that we use
21:03
Speaker 2: as sailors. But you want to have something like that
21:06
Speaker 2: in your car. It's got your epurb or it's got
21:08
Speaker 2: your your inReach device or whatever in there. It's got
21:11
Speaker 2: some maybe your first aid kits hitting that as well
21:14
Speaker 2: a little bit of shelter just so that way if
21:16
Speaker 2: you had to grab one thing. I remember when I
21:19
Speaker 2: was one of the first trips I did up to
21:21
Speaker 2: Tuck Tuck Tuck, and I was driving on the frozen
21:24
Speaker 2: Mackenzie River.
21:25
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you did it. They didn't have the all season.
21:27
Speaker 2: The all season road and you'd see one of these
21:30
Speaker 2: ice road truckers coming towards you and it's literally a
21:33
Speaker 2: bow wake of ice, and what can happen is if
21:37
Speaker 2: it can, you can where both of your bow wakes,
21:40
Speaker 2: which you know mine was Mine was a heavy tacoma
21:44
Speaker 2: that didn't stop well on the ice because that had
21:45
Speaker 2: a trailer behind it. If you hit that at the
21:48
Speaker 2: wrong time and it breaks the ice, you can end
21:50
Speaker 2: up going in the water. So again you're probably not
21:52
Speaker 2: going to die. You're going to be able to get
21:54
Speaker 2: out before the vehicle falls in. Yeah, descends into the dark.
21:59
Speaker 2: But what you do when it's minus forty and all
22:02
Speaker 2: you've got is whatever T shirt you had on in
22:04
Speaker 2: the cabin because it was super warm because you have
22:07
Speaker 2: a heater, so run the heater a little bit lower.
22:10
Speaker 2: Wear a jacket like plan just you don't have to
22:13
Speaker 2: be extreme about it, but have a jacket on it's
22:16
Speaker 2: minus forty outside. Have your bug out bag rightly exactly.
22:20
Speaker 1: I think times when that's more important when you're driving
22:22
Speaker 1: in a frozen river. That's probably important. When you're doing
22:25
Speaker 1: the stuff that you've done in Antarctica Greenland, that kind
22:28
Speaker 1: of stuff very important. I don't personally have a bug
22:31
Speaker 1: out bag. Maybe I should. With the thing I do,
22:33
Speaker 1: or a simple one is I have one of those
22:35
Speaker 1: Garmen in reaches perfect. But I quite specifically didn't buy
22:40
Speaker 1: the one that pairs to the phone. I bought one
22:42
Speaker 1: that I can type on the screen. I likes a GPS.
22:45
Speaker 1: I like that smart because if I have Starlink. A
22:48
Speaker 1: lot of people have starlinks these days, even on smaller
22:50
Speaker 1: vehicles with the Starlink Mini.
22:52
Speaker 2: But they're attached to the car.
22:54
Speaker 1: They're attached to the vehicle, and they're attached to the
22:56
Speaker 1: power source. And honestly, when it comes to vehicle failures,
23:00
Speaker 1: electrical failures that cause fires are way more common than
23:05
Speaker 1: for sure. Sure we're going to get more into that
23:07
Speaker 1: on the vehicle itself. So I'm gonna I'm gonna steer
23:10
Speaker 1: the conversation.
23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think that's a
23:12
Speaker 2: really important point, Matt Is. In the book we do
23:15
Speaker 2: talk about a bug out bag or a ditch bag.
23:18
Speaker 2: Have some version of that. Yeah, and it can be
23:21
Speaker 2: something very.
23:21
Speaker 1: Separate to the adventure.
23:22
Speaker 2: That's right. Have some water in there, have a way
23:24
Speaker 2: to communicate, maybe have a map in there. Actually going
23:27
Speaker 2: we have a cycle for Dak, our greyhound you got
23:30
Speaker 2: all times it has a soft surface, some water and
23:33
Speaker 2: Doak must survive. So navigation is the next thing I
23:37
Speaker 2: want to dive into. We live in this world where
23:40
Speaker 2: you can tell chat GPT to plan you an overland
23:42
Speaker 2: trip and then you put it into Gaya or on
23:46
Speaker 2: X and Onyx tells you shows you photos of everything.
23:49
Speaker 2: That stuff's all good for North America. Yeah, when you
23:53
Speaker 2: start to travel internationally, you still always have Google Maps.
23:56
Speaker 1: Like Google Maps is amazing, but yeah, that's ubiquitous. Now
23:58
Speaker 1: you need to have some fundaments of navigation. Sure, I
24:01
Speaker 1: think that's really important. Some people just really suck at navigation.
24:07
Speaker 2: So when I'm outdoors, I don't have any issues with it,
24:09
Speaker 2: but I can get turned around in cities, whereas other
24:12
Speaker 2: people are really great in cities. They really have an
24:14
Speaker 2: easy time with it. So just recognizing that human beings
24:18
Speaker 2: like have a natural sense of wayfinding it is. It's
24:22
Speaker 2: in there.
24:23
Speaker 1: We're like little homing pigeons, which is not as Yeah.
24:25
Speaker 2: They'll do twenty miles in a day and come right
24:27
Speaker 2: back to the same spot. Probably not always, but most
24:30
Speaker 2: of the time. So we do have some natural skills
24:33
Speaker 2: around wayfinding. So there's ways to improve that and to
24:36
Speaker 2: make yourself be a little more effective instead of just
24:39
Speaker 2: used staring at the screen. Maybe I remember Sinway and
24:42
Speaker 2: I did a really great trip outside of Prescott and
24:45
Speaker 2: we decided to bring no cell phones. We brought a
24:49
Speaker 2: couple point and shoots and no GPS, so we had
24:52
Speaker 2: to use the atlas and gazetteer. And it wasn't that hard,
24:56
Speaker 2: Like you just pay attention, you just saw this is clearly,
24:59
Speaker 2: I'm clearly at this turn. I'm gonna market on the map.
25:02
Speaker 2: I was there at this time, and then it okay,
25:05
Speaker 2: you can run the little ruler and it should be
25:07
Speaker 2: about a mile and a quarter to the next turn.
25:09
Speaker 2: And like we had the best time, thinking we were
25:12
Speaker 2: gonna get lost, we ended up not getting lost. We
25:14
Speaker 2: got probably a little uncertain.
25:17
Speaker 1: Service roads around this area that you can really get
25:21
Speaker 1: yourself turned around. And they're they're not running in a
25:23
Speaker 1: grid system. So I think for navigation for me, like
25:27
Speaker 1: I'm a map geek. But where I noticed people struggle
25:31
Speaker 1: is they don't pay attention and they don't orient themselves.
25:35
Speaker 2: Oh sure, that makes sense.
25:36
Speaker 1: So if you're the one navigating and you're not paying attention, I.
25:40
Speaker 2: Think that's most of us. I don't pay attention a
25:42
Speaker 2: lot of the time. So just the other day Garman
25:45
Speaker 2: was trying to route me through Wickenberg to come from
25:47
Speaker 2: Phoenix back to Prescott because they just open that new
25:52
Speaker 2: bypass route, but it's not in the maps yet, so
25:55
Speaker 2: it thinks the traditional route is closed. So it was
25:58
Speaker 2: gonna route me through, and I just followed what it
26:01
Speaker 2: was saying. I would have taken an extra hour to
26:02
Speaker 2: get to the office.
26:04
Speaker 1: I like to tell people plan your trip extensively, do
26:08
Speaker 1: the research, know where you're going, but then I have
26:12
Speaker 1: the backup, but try to do it without it.
26:14
Speaker 2: And because some fun.
26:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun, and it's a lot of times it's
26:17
Speaker 1: oh I make the first left, I make this second.
26:20
Speaker 2: It can get complicated, and that's what I love about rallies.
26:23
Speaker 2: The rebel Oh yeah, where they they can't have any GPS,
26:28
Speaker 2: And you talk to these women that have done this
26:30
Speaker 2: incredible adventure and they were most proud of the fact
26:33
Speaker 2: that they didn't get lost, or that they found their
26:35
Speaker 2: way back or whatever.
26:36
Speaker 1: We'd be screwed.
26:37
Speaker 2: I don't. I've learned those things, but they have expired.
26:40
Speaker 2: Like I am not either efficient at it or remember.
26:43
Speaker 1: I've chased the rebel rally a few times. This is
26:46
Speaker 1: actually the tenth anniversary with Emily Miller starting.
26:49
Speaker 2: That one of the coolest events in the world.
26:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the coolest people in the world.
26:53
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have the patience for it.
26:56
Speaker 1: I think that competition is way more technical and way
26:59
Speaker 1: more challenging, and then a lot of people really actually
27:02
Speaker 1: understand until you've been there and you've followed it.
27:06
Speaker 2: It's no joke. Yeah, it's awesome. So now navigating is
27:09
Speaker 2: an interesting one because it used to be that there
27:12
Speaker 2: was a problem with what was called selective availability. I've
27:15
Speaker 2: written about it in Overland Journal in other places where
27:19
Speaker 2: the US military could shut off GPS, and it was
27:22
Speaker 2: just only a few years ago actually, that the government
27:26
Speaker 2: removed that clause. I didn't actually know that until I
27:29
Speaker 2: was doing research for the book selective availability. It doesn't
27:33
Speaker 2: mean that they couldn't think about the millions of Americans
27:36
Speaker 2: that are traveling around trying to get to the hospital
27:38
Speaker 2: or whatever, and the government shuts off GPS satellite.
27:42
Speaker 1: There's no skill set for it.
27:43
Speaker 2: That's right. So selective availability isn't a problem, But electronics
27:47
Speaker 2: still fail. So have a couple backups, have some redundancy,
27:51
Speaker 2: and bring a paper map along.
27:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are like non aligned countries where GPS
27:55
Speaker 1: this doesn't work. If you travel in Russia it's Glownass.
27:59
Speaker 2: And they have their own GPS system, but our GPS
28:03
Speaker 2: works there.
28:04
Speaker 1: It does it interesting. I follow this guy, Camperghini. He's
28:07
Speaker 1: driving across like Russia, a Kazaksanda and stuff. GPS doesn't
28:10
Speaker 1: work there. It's a recent thing. They could be a
28:12
Speaker 1: recent thing, but I think moving to another fundamental carrying
28:16
Speaker 1: the tools that you need and their covery gear that
28:19
Speaker 1: you need. So I'm going to start with tools. It
28:21
Speaker 1: is important to be able to fix your own things.
28:24
Speaker 1: But vehicles are considerably more reliable than they have been,
28:28
Speaker 1: so my toolkit continues to get smaller. I think over
28:33
Speaker 1: time that's fair. There's vehicles, like when I travel in
28:36
Speaker 1: the Earth Roamer, I carry a lot of stuff because
28:40
Speaker 1: the consequence is really big if that thing gets stuck
28:43
Speaker 1: somewhere from a failure. But I find that with tools,
28:46
Speaker 1: people often bring too much, and also with recovery gear
28:50
Speaker 1: they bring too much. It's really easy. I made a
28:52
Speaker 1: living selling recovery gear, but I like to think I
28:56
Speaker 1: was on the more minimalist side of that. I do
28:58
Speaker 1: see some people that it's they have the back of
29:01
Speaker 1: their jeep and half of it is recovery gear that
29:03
Speaker 1: they don't know how to use. It's like the medical kit,
29:06
Speaker 1: right that the equipment is only as good as the training.
29:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and oftentimes what happens is as people add new pieces,
29:14
Speaker 2: like maybe they decide, oh, I'm going to get soft shackles,
29:17
Speaker 2: then they don't pare down their number of screwpin shackles.
29:21
Speaker 2: So continue, go through your kit once a year. Just
29:24
Speaker 2: spread it out in the garage. Make sure that everything's okay,
29:28
Speaker 2: nothing's been damaged, nothing's been soaked by oil and breaking
29:32
Speaker 2: down the polyester or whatever. Do a physical examination and
29:36
Speaker 2: you may find, oh, shoot, this is underrated for my
29:39
Speaker 2: new vehicle, or this is way I just bought a Samurai, which,
29:42
Speaker 2: by the way, there's a tin top Samurai downtown Prescott.
29:45
Speaker 1: Right now, get the newer ones like you and Charlie
29:47
Speaker 1: drove thro there's alsothing a Pajero Mini or Micro Yeah,
29:54
Speaker 1: those are sweet.
29:55
Speaker 2: So you just make sure that the recovery gear is
29:57
Speaker 2: appropriate to the vehicle and go through and check it out.
30:00
Speaker 2: If you're driving a vehicle that is all metric, maybe
30:03
Speaker 2: don't bring all the SAE along with it.
30:06
Speaker 1: That's the cool thing I'm learning. I'm building the toolkit
30:09
Speaker 1: now for the Grenadier, and almost everything is torques, which
30:14
Speaker 1: means I need like very minimal tools, sure, which is
30:18
Speaker 1: really cool. Most of its torques unless it's on the chassis. Yeah.
30:20
Speaker 1: When you take a good four wheel drive course, you're
30:22
Speaker 1: gonna learn a lot of this stuff. And there's a
30:24
Speaker 1: lot of information on vehicle based recovery. For me, the
30:27
Speaker 1: biggest thing is safety. Safety. Your vehicle getting stuck is
30:30
Speaker 1: one thing causing harm to yourself because you're trying to
30:33
Speaker 1: get your vehicle unstuck. Is it risk?
30:35
Speaker 2: That's to your point. People are just in a rush.
30:38
Speaker 2: They feel they're nervous, they feel embarrassed because they got stuck,
30:42
Speaker 2: or they're afraid that they're going to be late to something.
30:45
Speaker 2: It's called an accident. An accident happened, you got stuck.
30:48
Speaker 2: It wasn't intentional. It happens, but please slow down. That's
30:52
Speaker 2: when you see the vehicle get it's tipped onto its
30:54
Speaker 2: side and they tip it back over on all four wheels.
30:57
Speaker 2: But nobody thought to put the parking brake on, or
31:00
Speaker 2: to yeah it's or to put it into first gear
31:03
Speaker 2: or whatever. They never thought about that, and then the
31:06
Speaker 2: vehicle rolls down the hill and sometimes brings the other
31:09
Speaker 2: vehicle with it. So just really going through methodically coming
31:14
Speaker 2: up with a plan, voicing the plan to others so
31:16
Speaker 2: everybody knows that they're on the same page.
31:19
Speaker 1: So we're going to start talking about more of the
31:20
Speaker 1: vehicle stuff now. I think the biggest thing if you're
31:24
Speaker 1: going to pay attention to one thing for this whole
31:27
Speaker 1: kind of segment that we're going into, it's choosing the
31:30
Speaker 1: right vehicle. Because there's so many people that they just
31:34
Speaker 1: start with the wrong machine.
31:36
Speaker 2: Very true, they start with the wrong machine or they're
31:40
Speaker 2: not willing to compromise to keep that vehicle being.
31:43
Speaker 1: A suitable choice.
31:44
Speaker 2: So if you have a mid sized truck that has
31:47
Speaker 2: maybe an eight hundred or nine hundred pound payload and
31:51
Speaker 2: you really want to put a camper in it, it
31:53
Speaker 2: starts to be the wrong vehicle for the job. So
31:55
Speaker 2: you're way better off selling that vehicle. It's still worth
31:59
Speaker 2: a ton of because it's not been heavily modified. It's
32:02
Speaker 2: not now unique to you selling that vehicle and buy
32:06
Speaker 2: a three quarter ton or a one ton full size
32:08
Speaker 2: and then getting an appropriate camper. There are mid sizes
32:12
Speaker 2: that can carry campers, or there's really light campers. So
32:15
Speaker 2: it's about having the right tool for the job. For
32:18
Speaker 2: international travel, wagons tend to still be the best tool
32:23
Speaker 2: for the job. Most people tend to avoid campers. Most
32:26
Speaker 2: people tend to avoid trailers. I'm not saying that you
32:29
Speaker 2: can't do it with either one, but think of every
32:31
Speaker 2: toll road you're now paying for an additional axle. It's
32:33
Speaker 2: more difficult to ship the vehicle when you go down
32:36
Speaker 2: the wrong way in an unfamiliar city and you're in
32:39
Speaker 2: a one way street going the wrong way and you're
32:40
Speaker 2: now trying to back up either a stressed big camper
32:43
Speaker 2: or a trailer trying to back up, or like an
32:46
Speaker 2: example in the book, which is funny because it doesn't
32:48
Speaker 2: happen to most people, but I was charged by an elephant.
32:51
Speaker 2: Like if I had a trailer behind the g wagon,
32:53
Speaker 2: it would have been a real problem. So being able
32:56
Speaker 2: to reverse efficiently out of a situation is always a
32:59
Speaker 2: good idea, whereas having a trailer in North America can
33:02
Speaker 2: actually be a great solution. You can leave it at camp,
33:04
Speaker 2: you can go exactly or there are places where a
33:08
Speaker 2: trailer is a great idea or a truck camper is
33:10
Speaker 2: a great idea. You know, Matt Pryor is doing his
33:14
Speaker 2: trip and he has a Grenadier with a Patriot super
33:16
Speaker 2: small trailer, which is I think so suitable to the car.
33:20
Speaker 1: That with his wife's with him and his two young
33:22
Speaker 1: kids are with him, I'm like, wow, like that this
33:24
Speaker 1: scenario of the wrong way down the wrong road in
33:27
Speaker 1: an old city.
33:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, could you imagine. Fortunately, he's a very experienced traveler,
33:32
Speaker 2: so I think that helps a lot. But yeah, definitely
33:35
Speaker 2: buying the right vehicle for the job, or just accepting
33:38
Speaker 2: the limitations of the vehicle you have and enjoy it.
33:42
Speaker 2: Don't spend the money. Really, the number of people who
33:45
Speaker 2: have done incredible journeys in too will drive Diesel Mercedes Sedans.
33:50
Speaker 2: If you go to any of those countries, you go
33:52
Speaker 2: to Kazakhstan to Djikistan, they're all driving around and too
33:55
Speaker 2: wil drive Mercedes Sedans. You don't need some crazy expensive
34:00
Speaker 2: overlane vehicle to do that. Like, of course, if you
34:02
Speaker 2: have the resources, then enjoy it. But if the goal
34:06
Speaker 2: is to travel, make sure you can fund the trip,
34:08
Speaker 2: as opposed to just having a really cool car that
34:10
Speaker 2: now sits in the driveway.
34:11
Speaker 1: You just you need something that has I'm not going
34:14
Speaker 1: to say that you don't need the capability of a
34:16
Speaker 1: wrangular rubicon. Most times it's nice to have locking differentials
34:19
Speaker 1: and all of that kind of stuff. But what you
34:21
Speaker 1: really need is you need a robust chassis, a robust
34:25
Speaker 1: vehicle that is reliable. And like you said, that's not
34:28
Speaker 1: always a truck or an suv or station wagon. Sometimes
34:31
Speaker 1: by our version of station wagon it is a Mercedes
34:34
Speaker 1: E class station wagon. There's still very durable, serviceable vehicles.
34:40
Speaker 2: Nobody will even know you're there.
34:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think so they have advantages. Just something
34:44
Speaker 1: cool about that. I think to continue preparing the vehicle,
34:47
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to talk about the modifications to
34:50
Speaker 1: the vehicle. Oftentimes it's like light bars before tyrod ends.
34:54
Speaker 1: Is actually what really matters is making sure that vehicle
34:58
Speaker 1: is serviced, yes before hand. I was recently talking to
35:01
Speaker 1: a traveler on the Pan am and they had to
35:03
Speaker 1: do their rear brakes on their jeep and they had
35:06
Speaker 1: to get tires. They ended up spending more money on
35:08
Speaker 1: the tires, end up spending more money on the breaks.
35:11
Speaker 1: Make sure that the maintenance if you're doing the Pan
35:12
Speaker 1: American highway and you're going to do twenty five thousand miles,
35:17
Speaker 1: consider what is what's going to have to be done
35:19
Speaker 1: at twenty four thousand miles. If your brakes are already
35:23
Speaker 1: they're going to it's going to be cheaper to do
35:25
Speaker 1: at home and way easier, way cheaper.
35:27
Speaker 2: And then just on the modification side of it, if
35:31
Speaker 2: you're going to be traveling the Pan American find out
35:34
Speaker 2: what size tire is going to be typically fitted to
35:37
Speaker 2: a Highlux, to a Prato, which is going to be
35:40
Speaker 2: a two sixty five seventy or seventeen or a two
35:44
Speaker 2: sixty five seventy five or sixteen. So pick one of
35:48
Speaker 2: the two and you're going to be able to find
35:50
Speaker 2: tires in any country expensive it won't be, and you'll
35:53
Speaker 2: even be able to find less expensive versions or whatever.
35:56
Speaker 2: But if you want that, like I happen to like
35:58
Speaker 2: really exotic tire side is same, same this weird tire size.
36:02
Speaker 2: Minds a two eighty five seventy five or seventeen super
36:06
Speaker 2: obscure size yours is even yours is a little better
36:10
Speaker 2: because it's a commercial truck size. But for the most part,
36:13
Speaker 2: like you don't want some crazy exotic tire size, or
36:16
Speaker 2: you got to carry a bunch of extra spares, or
36:18
Speaker 2: you've got to be prepared to air freight some stuff in.
36:21
Speaker 2: So if you launch off on your trip and you've
36:23
Speaker 2: got two sixty five seventy five sixteen's on there, you're
36:26
Speaker 2: gonna be able to find tires anywhere, Yeah, anywhere.
36:33
Speaker 1: It all comes back to simple vehicles, right.
36:35
Speaker 2: Simple vehicles and simple modifications for sure.
36:38
Speaker 1: So all of these modifications are great. I'm going to
36:43
Speaker 1: go back to the four wheel drive training aspect before
36:45
Speaker 1: we go into the ten commandments of over the modification.
36:50
Speaker 1: You have to know how to do this stuff right,
36:51
Speaker 1: like a well trained driver, and a near stock four
36:55
Speaker 1: wheel drive will almost always outperform a un train driver
37:00
Speaker 1: in a highly modified.
37:01
Speaker 2: Four whel Yeah, absolutely so the places I've seen Dave
37:04
Speaker 2: Hereton take stock trucks.
37:06
Speaker 1: Is generally the simpler you keep it, the better. So
37:11
Speaker 1: we're going to go into our ten commandments here.
37:14
Speaker 2: Which we did a fun podcast at one point.
37:16
Speaker 1: I think this all came from the podcast, So this
37:19
Speaker 1: is a good transition. Number one, Complexity is the enemy.
37:23
Speaker 1: Simplicity equals reliability. Number two, weight is also the enemy.
37:29
Speaker 1: Travel light to go further and break less. Three and
37:34
Speaker 1: sure peak suspension performance prioritize ride quality and control over height.
37:40
Speaker 1: So the less complex a vehicle is from an aftermarket perspective,
37:47
Speaker 1: in my experience, the more reliable it will usually be.
37:51
Speaker 1: And a lot of it comes back to the electronics,
37:53
Speaker 1: but it's weight that is the biggest thing.
37:55
Speaker 2: I think. Yeah, for long term, complexity effects liability. Weight
38:01
Speaker 2: affects durability. So the more complex we make the vehicle,
38:05
Speaker 2: the more stuff we bolt to it or electronics to
38:08
Speaker 2: your point, you're going to have a greater chance that
38:10
Speaker 2: you're going to throw an engine code, or you're gonna
38:12
Speaker 2: have some electrical issue, or it's going to create like
38:15
Speaker 2: putting positivity something or other. And when that thing packs
38:19
Speaker 2: up when you're trying to cross a four lane road
38:22
Speaker 2: in Guatemala and now you have no throttle, which the
38:25
Speaker 2: throttle would never fail on a Toyota in any other circumstance,
38:30
Speaker 2: but for the most part, like a Tacoma is never
38:33
Speaker 2: going to not go when you want it to go
38:35
Speaker 2: unless you do something crazy like that to it. So yeah,
38:39
Speaker 2: complexity directly affects reliability.
38:43
Speaker 1: And then with suspension too. We've talked about this on
38:46
Speaker 1: the podcast before, but people always. I feel like there's
38:49
Speaker 1: a lot of marketing around suspension, like good suspensions great
38:54
Speaker 1: for a lot of technical terrain, going fast, that kind
38:57
Speaker 1: of stuff. But when you have your house in your car,
39:00
Speaker 1: you can only go as fast as you can go
39:03
Speaker 1: before coffee cup hits you in the head or something.
39:06
Speaker 1: There's just a different style of travel.
39:08
Speaker 2: And you want to get to the other end. You
39:10
Speaker 2: want to make it to the end of the continent
39:12
Speaker 2: or whatever. And we talked with Dave Hereton about this too.
39:15
Speaker 2: But now you've upgraded the suspension, but maybe the frame's
39:19
Speaker 2: not up to the task, or maybe the brakes aren't
39:21
Speaker 2: up to the tasks, or those tirod ends you talked about,
39:24
Speaker 2: now they're gonna buckle under a big impact.
39:28
Speaker 1: I find that vehicles with independent suspension are maybe the
39:32
Speaker 1: most finicky, particularly on the front. Beam axles. Solid axles
39:36
Speaker 1: are fairly easy to lift. You run into some geometry issues,
39:41
Speaker 1: but you run into larger geometry issues on an independent
39:44
Speaker 1: suspension vehicle in the front especially, you start running out
39:47
Speaker 1: of droop travel. You're sacrificing ride height for droop travel.
39:52
Speaker 1: Maybe you're gaining some more up travel, but then usually
39:54
Speaker 1: you're using a bump stop to limit up travel to
39:56
Speaker 1: fit a larger tire, and then you're running your CV
40:00
Speaker 1: at more extreme angles, so Toyota guys are constantly blowing
40:04
Speaker 1: those even with two inch lifts. And then you have
40:08
Speaker 1: these uniballs that you usually need to get everything back
40:13
Speaker 1: in line and get more track.
40:15
Speaker 2: Or dift drops, and then the dift drop puts additional
40:18
Speaker 2: stress on the front prop shaft. Those are all factors,
40:22
Speaker 2: and the cool thing is is every vehicle has an
40:24
Speaker 2: operating range. Find out what the operating range is for
40:27
Speaker 2: your vehicle. You never want to have less than seventy
40:29
Speaker 2: two millimeters of droop travel in an IFS because you're
40:32
Speaker 2: going to lose that critical component of rebound control in
40:37
Speaker 2: the front end. You're going to be bouncing off of
40:39
Speaker 2: those jounces or those limit straps, so you really want
40:43
Speaker 2: to be mindful of that.
40:45
Speaker 1: So our next three keep the engine stock power comes
40:50
Speaker 1: at the cost of reliability. Isolate and minimize all electrical modifications,
40:57
Speaker 1: avoid parasitic drains and diagnostic head and use quality tires
41:02
Speaker 1: with an appropriate tread pattern because tires are your first
41:06
Speaker 1: recovery tool. So I guess we talked about the engine
41:09
Speaker 1: thing a little bit bit. I think chips are the
41:12
Speaker 1: biggest thing. Like it's so tempting to want to get
41:14
Speaker 1: a little extra out of the engine.
41:15
Speaker 2: But yeah, we can get five hundred horsepower out of
41:17
Speaker 2: these Grenadier motors if we want to actually.
41:20
Speaker 1: Read an interesting thing on that engine, the B fifty
41:23
Speaker 1: eight that's in the Grenadier, on how it shares the
41:27
Speaker 1: block and the bottom end with the diesel engine, And yeah,
41:31
Speaker 1: you can get crazy horsepower out of them. Yeah, because
41:33
Speaker 1: you know it's in the Supra as well.
41:35
Speaker 2: It is, and that's three hundred and something horsepower, and
41:37
Speaker 2: the super pople.
41:38
Speaker 1: Are they're tuning into seven hundred to whatever you want
41:41
Speaker 1: to close deck block. It's crazy. Keep the engine stock.
41:45
Speaker 1: Like I'm sitting here and I'm even thinking, oh man,
41:47
Speaker 1: I really I could have the G sixty three of Grenadier's. No,
41:49
Speaker 1: don't do it. It's a bad idea. Electrical modifications are
41:52
Speaker 1: something that we've we feel quite strongly.
41:55
Speaker 2: And mostly because I've screwed that up so badly, Like
41:57
Speaker 2: I've done really poor jobs on like and then it
42:00
Speaker 2: gets frustrating. You're on your trip and that expensive thing
42:03
Speaker 2: you bought to monitor your hohosa, what's it? And it
42:06
Speaker 2: stops working and then the Bluetooth won't pair and you're
42:09
Speaker 2: super frustrated, and next thing you know, your starlink isn't
42:12
Speaker 2: working in the app whatever. It just ends up being
42:15
Speaker 2: so frustrating when all that stuff stops working. So keep
42:19
Speaker 2: it simple. And then really that modification just did to
42:22
Speaker 2: your Grenadier with watching your looking at your wiring, I
42:25
Speaker 2: was like, that is impressive.
42:27
Speaker 1: It only took modifying twenty vehicles over fifteen years to
42:31
Speaker 1: figure out that, but that was awesome. That was like
42:35
Speaker 1: Holy Colt tied into the factory, into a factory fuse.
42:39
Speaker 1: There's a factory terminal fuse that I'm using. I didn't
42:42
Speaker 1: even change that. All the wiring is sheath, all the
42:45
Speaker 1: wiring is captured with Oe's style connectors with wiring, I
42:49
Speaker 1: find it's always like the abrasion or it's things that
42:52
Speaker 1: aren't really secured or they're running a weird place, and then.
42:55
Speaker 2: They connections not done properly, not crimp properly, not heat,
43:00
Speaker 2: not something right.
43:02
Speaker 1: The simpler you can keep it unless you have a
43:04
Speaker 1: very good automotive electrician. The simpler you can keep your vehicle,
43:08
Speaker 1: the better. And now with these the goal zero jackery
43:13
Speaker 1: eco flow whatever the battery bank type things.
43:16
Speaker 2: They're great.
43:17
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people that's really all
43:18
Speaker 1: that they need. But I use in the scout tires
43:21
Speaker 1: are a big thing with an appropriate tread pattern. You
43:24
Speaker 1: do not really need a mud terrain tire unless you're
43:27
Speaker 1: going to places. I think in your book you put
43:28
Speaker 1: a very specific figure for rain amounts, which I thought
43:33
Speaker 1: was really cool. It was scientific. If you're going to
43:35
Speaker 1: Guatemala and you want to go to some ruin that
43:40
Speaker 1: you have a buddy that's going to take you to,
43:43
Speaker 1: there's something like we're inventing this mythical situation.
43:45
Speaker 2: No, it happened mudding.
43:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:47
Speaker 2: Two thousand and nine, we went to Whole Mole, which
43:50
Speaker 2: is a super remote Mayan destination. We needed mud tires
43:53
Speaker 2: for that.
43:55
Speaker 1: There's a place, there's a place for them. These hybrid
43:57
Speaker 1: tires that are somewhere between an all terrain and I'm
44:00
Speaker 1: mud terrain is very fascinating to me.
44:02
Speaker 2: Liking the more and more.
44:03
Speaker 1: That's what I went with on the Grenadier. Sweet paid
44:06
Speaker 1: for them. We'll see some more piping out of that tire.
44:08
Speaker 2: I like it.
44:09
Speaker 1: Just like a regular all terrain is really all that
44:12
Speaker 1: you need and leave with new tires. If you're at
44:14
Speaker 1: fifty percent and you're again you're driving around the world.
44:19
Speaker 1: You don't know when you're coming back. It's going to
44:21
Speaker 1: be cheaper and easier here.
44:22
Speaker 2: And remember you can get money for used tires. People
44:25
Speaker 2: are looking for fifty sixty percent tread life tires on
44:29
Speaker 2: your local Craigslist or whatever.
44:31
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go through the next three. Avoid
44:35
Speaker 1: roof loads. Lower center of gravity equals better performance and safety.
44:41
Speaker 1: Number eight, don't forget self recovery, build around traction boards,
44:45
Speaker 1: shovel and your best judgment. Nine secure the load. Rattles,
44:51
Speaker 1: break gear, and unsecured loads can kill. Ten. Prioritize quality
44:57
Speaker 1: and design over quantity. Every item should earn its place
45:01
Speaker 1: on the vehicle. That's actually four, but we'll go from there.
45:07
Speaker 1: Racks are fine, Yeah, I like having a roof rack.
45:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and explain, like to the listener why you and
45:14
Speaker 2: I have always felt like a roof rack is a
45:16
Speaker 2: good idea, but roofloads are less desirable.
45:18
Speaker 1: I like to have a roof rack, but I like
45:20
Speaker 1: to leave it largely empty. Firewood can go on there
45:23
Speaker 1: for a short distance. A kayak, the buddy that flies
45:26
Speaker 1: in that needs a place to put his bag. It's
45:28
Speaker 1: this kind of reserve capacity that.
45:30
Speaker 2: You have, or you're traveling with another you can move
45:33
Speaker 2: the gear up on the rack, you can fit them
45:35
Speaker 2: in the back seats.
45:36
Speaker 1: It's additional utility because oftentimes in an overland vehicle you're
45:43
Speaker 1: you're not like losing storage, but you're predetermining the storage.
45:46
Speaker 1: You have a certain amount of things that have to
45:47
Speaker 1: fit inside, and it leaves very little room turning in
45:50
Speaker 1: vehicle Parkinson's law. The thing that is interesting with roof tents.
45:55
Speaker 1: There's really nothing wrong with a roof tent. I think
45:57
Speaker 1: they're a really great option for a lot of people.
46:00
Speaker 1: But they'll put a one hundred and twenty pound roof
46:02
Speaker 1: rack and then they'll put the roof tent on top
46:06
Speaker 1: of the roof rack when they could just use crossbars.
46:09
Speaker 1: Especially a lot of these roof tents that have accessory
46:12
Speaker 1: ports and things now accessory tracks. I think it's just
46:17
Speaker 1: the more weight you keep low and the more you
46:19
Speaker 1: keep off of your roof, just the happier you're going
46:22
Speaker 1: to be. When the little kid pulls it, it's the
46:24
Speaker 1: driver's the ball coming into the ball coming and you've
46:27
Speaker 1: got to swerve. The kids going to look like oh
46:29
Speaker 1: why did that car flip over?
46:31
Speaker 2: And most of it, like a Forerunner has one hundred
46:33
Speaker 2: and forty pound roof fload rating maximum. The Grenadier's high.
46:37
Speaker 2: The defenders got three hundred pound roof defenders crazy. Two
46:41
Speaker 2: hundred series land Cruiser three hundred series land Cruiser has
46:44
Speaker 2: over two hundred pounds of roofload rating. But most of
46:47
Speaker 2: the time you can't really put that much weight up top.
46:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, being able to get yourself out of a sticky situation.
46:54
Speaker 1: So this next thing of self recovery is also really important.
46:58
Speaker 1: I like having a winch big fan attraction boards, but.
47:02
Speaker 2: If you didn't, because a winch can be expensive and
47:05
Speaker 2: requires training. So if someone was to build a recovery
47:10
Speaker 2: kit in your mind where they didn't have a winch,
47:12
Speaker 2: what would be some of the things that you'd have
47:14
Speaker 2: them add?
47:15
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's actually how I'm to use the Grenadier
47:19
Speaker 1: that I'm building right now as maybe the guide for this.
47:22
Speaker 1: I have paired my recovery gear back considerably. I do
47:26
Speaker 1: not have a winch. I have a set of good
47:29
Speaker 1: traction boards. They're Max tracks. I have an additional set
47:33
Speaker 1: I can throw on it right now running around town.
47:35
Speaker 1: I only carry a pair of them. I have a
47:38
Speaker 1: two meter snatch strap, and then I've got a winch
47:43
Speaker 1: lined extension because that's a really small compact that can
47:47
Speaker 1: be a toe strap, that can be a static recovery strap,
47:50
Speaker 1: that can shure a winch extension. It serves more than
47:52
Speaker 1: one purpose. And then I have I think three or
47:54
Speaker 1: four shackles in there, and that's actually all I have
47:57
Speaker 1: right now because where I'm what I'm building that via
48:00
Speaker 1: four between the lockers and everything else that can i'm
48:04
Speaker 1: I can pull someone else out if somebody drives by,
48:07
Speaker 1: I have the tools needed to use their vehicle with
48:11
Speaker 1: my equipment to extricate myself. And most times I find
48:15
Speaker 1: that the recovery boards traction boards just do it for me.
48:18
Speaker 2: If that doesn't work, traction boards if that work.
48:23
Speaker 1: If I was doing this Squadmala trip, maybe I would
48:26
Speaker 1: want a winch, but then you don't always have trees
48:28
Speaker 1: and things to winch from. I think it's better to
48:31
Speaker 1: have it than to not have it almost always, But
48:36
Speaker 1: then I look back and I'm like man like, only
48:39
Speaker 1: on very specific trips have I ever pulled winch cable,
48:43
Speaker 1: like with the earth roam, where I like to have
48:45
Speaker 1: it because it just might sink.
48:47
Speaker 2: Who's going to pull you out? The local that comes
48:50
Speaker 2: by in a high lexer, there's no chance. They may
48:52
Speaker 2: try to be supportive, but like they're gonna end up
48:55
Speaker 2: damaging their truck or ripping something off or whatever. So yeah,
48:58
Speaker 2: you have some responsibility with an earth romer to have
49:00
Speaker 2: a upper way to extay.
49:02
Speaker 1: The majority of international travel, you're really not tending to
49:06
Speaker 1: seek out these trails that would be considered recreational four
49:11
Speaker 1: wheel driving because it's like a marathon, not a sprint.
49:14
Speaker 1: So you're talking about getting yourself unstuck. If you're in
49:18
Speaker 1: southern Utah even and you're on one of these roads,
49:20
Speaker 1: it's that. I think it's Ben night Clay.
49:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
49:22
Speaker 1: Sure, Sinway got majorly stuck and he's got lockers and everything.
49:26
Speaker 1: I think he has a winch too. You're going to
49:28
Speaker 1: run into situations like that, but a little prior planning
49:33
Speaker 1: and a little knowing when to say I'm not going
49:35
Speaker 1: to go down that road, which Sinway Xavier sub Stack,
49:38
Speaker 1: he did a really good that's a great one, did
49:40
Speaker 1: a good story on just like knowing when to turn around.
49:43
Speaker 2: I had a winch in the Grenadier for crossing Africa.
49:47
Speaker 2: And I used it once a week to test it
49:49
Speaker 2: and that was it. So I never but there were
49:52
Speaker 2: several times when I was close, like where I could
49:55
Speaker 2: have gotten stuck, and I was glad that I had it.
49:57
Speaker 2: I think that I'll probably la in country or something
49:59
Speaker 2: like that.
50:00
Speaker 1: I'll probably add a winch to mine eventually, but I
50:02
Speaker 1: just maybe I need it.
50:03
Speaker 2: No, you're not wrong, And if the trip that you're
50:07
Speaker 2: looking at doing, you probably don't need it weight. And yeah, payload.
50:11
Speaker 1: Takes away payload takes away fuel economy. But securing the
50:14
Speaker 1: load is really simple. Have a place for the thing
50:17
Speaker 1: that you're carrying with you, Like, don't leave the snatch
50:19
Speaker 1: block on top of your drawers or in the back seat,
50:23
Speaker 1: because when you hit the brakes, it's going to hit
50:24
Speaker 1: your head and it's going to be not fun. But
50:28
Speaker 1: the same goes for cases. And then I often find
50:31
Speaker 1: that with like roof tents, people will haphazardly attach them.
50:36
Speaker 1: Make sure that mounting system is really good.
50:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, check it with some regularity to make sure that
50:41
Speaker 2: those little nuts are not falling off the bottom of it.
50:44
Speaker 2: And then bungee cords should only be used under compressible loads.
50:50
Speaker 2: So if you're bunging down some pillows, some bedding things
50:55
Speaker 2: like that. Bungee cords are appropriate, but other than that,
50:58
Speaker 2: you want to be using a ratcheting strap to put
51:02
Speaker 2: it under a lot of tensions.
51:04
Speaker 1: So that straps are cheap cheap. I like using the
51:07
Speaker 1: max custom tie DOWNDS ones. They're made in the US,
51:09
Speaker 1: They're good whatever, I'll have them for a long time.
51:12
Speaker 1: You can get really cheap twelve bucks for a couple
51:15
Speaker 1: of years. Most of them are a five hundred pound
51:17
Speaker 1: working load. You're probably not going to get anywhere near that.
51:21
Speaker 1: So the last one is prioritize quality and design over quantity.
51:26
Speaker 1: Every item should earn its place in the vehicle. You
51:30
Speaker 1: had a quote about.
51:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, where that I changed and to make it appropriate
51:34
Speaker 2: for overlanding, But it's basically says that the vehicle isn't
51:37
Speaker 2: perfect when you've added the last thing to it. The
51:40
Speaker 2: vehicle's perfect when you've taken the last thing away. And
51:45
Speaker 2: I think we all go through that U shaped process
51:49
Speaker 2: where you start off very simple because you don't have
51:52
Speaker 2: any money or you don't know what you need, so
51:54
Speaker 2: you start off really simple, and then you go up
51:56
Speaker 2: this U curve and you end up like at peak
51:59
Speaker 2: over landing where you got all of the things and everything,
52:01
Speaker 2: and all your credit cards are maxed out, and then
52:04
Speaker 2: you come back down the other side of the curve
52:05
Speaker 2: and you end up taking a trip with very little
52:09
Speaker 2: because you've gained a lot of experience along the way.
52:11
Speaker 2: You know what you need, you know what you don't
52:13
Speaker 2: that it's like it's frustrating to rifle through the drawers,
52:17
Speaker 2: or the vehicle handles poorly, or you get terrible fuel economy.
52:21
Speaker 2: So you start to get much more simple, be very
52:24
Speaker 2: critical about anything that you put into your car. It
52:27
Speaker 2: is important for the listener to hear, but even Matt
52:30
Speaker 2: and I continue to learn these things. So I've watched
52:32
Speaker 2: you do that with your Grenadier and you deliberate, like
52:36
Speaker 2: you have the resources to send this thing to Tony
52:40
Speaker 2: up in Salt Lake and have them doll it up
52:42
Speaker 2: with all the coolest kit but you're choosing to do
52:45
Speaker 2: it yourself so you could service it when you're in
52:46
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere, and you're choosing to do a
52:48
Speaker 2: very minimal amount of modifications because you want to be
52:53
Speaker 2: intentional about it. We just had a podcast on intentional modifications.
52:56
Speaker 2: I'm doing that with the eleven fifty GSA that bought
53:00
Speaker 2: from you, very minimal modifications, very intentional.
53:04
Speaker 1: And that's a good example because the Grenadier is expensive,
53:07
Speaker 1: and I think it's important that, Yeah, these are the
53:09
Speaker 1: vehicles that Scott and I use and we're surrounded by.
53:12
Speaker 1: But this applies to the thirty five hundred dollars eleven
53:16
Speaker 1: fifty gs, that's for sure, right, This applies to a
53:20
Speaker 1: third gen Forerunner that you buy. They will all benefit
53:24
Speaker 1: from these things. Overlanding is not meant to be a
53:28
Speaker 1: display of your wealth or your taste or anything. It's
53:32
Speaker 1: meant to be a deeply personal experience. And don't let
53:37
Speaker 1: the stuff get.
53:37
Speaker 2: In the way. But you know what, there's nothing that
53:39
Speaker 2: signals harder than the guy that's got the stock vehicle
53:43
Speaker 2: that pulls into the same spot that you just with
53:46
Speaker 2: all of the farkle and gadgets and widgets and stuff
53:49
Speaker 2: like that.
53:49
Speaker 1: The Grenadier still has the stuff, right, It's just that
53:52
Speaker 1: vehicle was made to Yeah, it's good phrasings made for that.
53:55
Speaker 1: But I agree, there's always the kind of dusty archaeologist
53:59
Speaker 1: dude that in Southeast Utah they're always in third gen
54:02
Speaker 1: four runners with five hundred thousand miles on them, and
54:05
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand miles of them are on dirt.
54:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, they usually have very little body damage because they're
54:10
Speaker 2: mindful of how they drive them. Yeah, they just have
54:13
Speaker 2: a ton of experience, so it's for them, it's easy.
54:15
Speaker 1: So let's get into our last thing here, the journey.
54:18
Speaker 1: So the goal with this last kind of series of
54:21
Speaker 1: topics is to help you plan, execute, and then fund
54:25
Speaker 1: real travel, whether that's domestic or international travel.
54:30
Speaker 2: Some of the short ones are my favorites.
54:32
Speaker 1: We've been talking just like going camping and prescott Like
54:35
Speaker 1: we live in the middle of nowhere ish, it's growing.
54:38
Speaker 1: But the great thing about that is we can drive
54:39
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty minutes and still the lower campaign experience
54:42
Speaker 1: devil spot Choosing roots is probably the hardest part of
54:49
Speaker 1: planning the trip and then also learning to plan flexible itineraries. Right,
54:56
Speaker 1: you've planned some big stuff, like big complicated things. But
54:59
Speaker 1: what are you your tips for somebody? God, I feel
55:03
Speaker 1: like I'm I keep saying the PanAm, but it's just
55:05
Speaker 1: such a popular or Alaska or whatever. Like, when you
55:10
Speaker 1: set out to really choose a route, what's your first
55:13
Speaker 1: first step?
55:13
Speaker 2: The first step has to be having a conversation with
55:16
Speaker 2: your travel companions. Most of the stuff that's in the
55:18
Speaker 2: book is because I screwed it up, failed, or I
55:21
Speaker 2: made a mistake, or I created an unnecessary issue, and
55:25
Speaker 2: I learned from it. So I believe that the first
55:27
Speaker 2: thing that you got to do is sit down with
55:29
Speaker 2: your travel companions. If you're traveling with your family, know
55:33
Speaker 2: what does your daughter want to experience on a trip
55:36
Speaker 2: to Baja California. And you might find out her eyes,
55:39
Speaker 2: Like if you ask, her eyes might light up and
55:41
Speaker 2: she says, I've always wanted to see the whales, and
55:44
Speaker 2: now you get to be the hero, and it's cool
55:47
Speaker 2: to get there, Like it's a cool route to get
55:49
Speaker 2: out to where the Scammons lagoon. Yeah, super cool, and
55:55
Speaker 2: now she gets to experience that. And you and your
55:57
Speaker 2: son may say, Dad, I've always wanted to stand up
56:00
Speaker 2: paddle board, or I've always wanted to learn. Ask your partner, like,
56:04
Speaker 2: what would you most enjoy And I've always wanted to
56:06
Speaker 2: go to Toto Santos and there's this amazing Italian restaurant
56:09
Speaker 2: and there's this apothecary bar I've always wanted to go to.
56:12
Speaker 2: Or maybe she's always wanted to do the Baja one thousand,
56:15
Speaker 2: So you time it with the one thousand, you get
56:17
Speaker 2: to see see the race cars come by. Have those
56:19
Speaker 2: conversations with your family, find out what helps them stay comfortable.
56:24
Speaker 2: Instead of telling your kids what to pack, ask them
56:27
Speaker 2: what makes them feel comfortable. You might find out that
56:30
Speaker 2: they don't care about the clothes they wear, but they
56:32
Speaker 2: really care about their pillow. If you don't ask them that,
56:35
Speaker 2: a lot of times they won't say it. So bring
56:38
Speaker 2: the right pillow. Ask those questions. There's a list of
56:40
Speaker 2: questions in the book that I think is helpful for that.
56:42
Speaker 2: But ask those questions of your travel companions, and ask
56:45
Speaker 2: those questions of yourself. It is way too easy in
56:49
Speaker 2: a world of Instagram to try to replicate and experience
56:54
Speaker 2: that someone else has had, and they probably are replicating
56:58
Speaker 2: something that they saw someone else have. So find out
57:01
Speaker 2: what the experience is that you want when you go
57:04
Speaker 2: down there. Like you and I riff on this kind
57:05
Speaker 2: of stuff all the time, like the things that we
57:07
Speaker 2: want to be able to experience when we go to
57:10
Speaker 2: these places, and so have that question, ask that question
57:14
Speaker 2: of yourself, and you may be like I would love
57:16
Speaker 2: to have a week on the beach and then plan
57:20
Speaker 2: for that.
57:21
Speaker 1: I think this is where the flexibility really comes in.
57:24
Speaker 1: Right from the people I've interviewed and talked to over
57:26
Speaker 1: the years, the ones that are the happiest have the
57:31
Speaker 1: most flexible itinerary. Now that generally correlates to an availability
57:36
Speaker 1: of time, like sometimes you just don't have unlimited time
57:40
Speaker 1: like that is the most valuable and expensive thing on
57:43
Speaker 1: the planet, right. I have just learned.
57:46
Speaker 2: Ask Warren Buffett how much you'd give you for another
57:48
Speaker 2: hundred years, He'd give you all of it.
57:50
Speaker 1: I always try to do too much. I always I plan.
57:53
Speaker 1: I tend to plan too much. I try to drive
57:58
Speaker 1: too much. I'm trying to pack as much into every
58:03
Speaker 1: moment on the trip as I possibly can and slowing down.
58:10
Speaker 1: The trips where I slow down and I do the
58:12
Speaker 1: least are generally the ones that are the best.
58:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm still learning that, Matt, and I think
58:18
Speaker 2: everybody is and.
58:19
Speaker 1: I you come from this like daily life in America
58:23
Speaker 1: is busy. You can fill every second of your life
58:26
Speaker 1: with something, whether that's you used to just sit and
58:29
Speaker 1: wait for something and you look around now that time
58:32
Speaker 1: is filled with Instagram or TikTok or whatever.
58:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's and Matt. I spent the first third of
58:38
Speaker 2: my career feeling like an impostor, like imposter syndrome. I
58:43
Speaker 2: felt like that I like these luminaries of the space,
58:47
Speaker 2: like I felt like I didn't know enough, and I
58:49
Speaker 2: was in this position that I felt like I had
58:52
Speaker 2: to demonstrate that. But I never backed off the throttle.
58:56
Speaker 2: So like, I pushed so hard in the beginning and
58:58
Speaker 2: that was probably enough, But I never stopped doing that
59:02
Speaker 2: until recently because I've been a little bit more aware
59:05
Speaker 2: of it. But here's the thing about flexibility. Either you
59:11
Speaker 2: choose to be flexible or you're going to have to
59:13
Speaker 2: be flexible, because the one thing that is guaranteed with
59:16
Speaker 2: adventure travel is the unexpected. So the people who suffer
59:20
Speaker 2: so greatly are the ones that somehow expect the world
59:24
Speaker 2: and serendipity and other people to bend to them. And
59:28
Speaker 2: that is not how it works. Making a decision to
59:32
Speaker 2: be an overlander, the first thing that you're deciding to
59:35
Speaker 2: do is to be flexible, is to be willing to
59:40
Speaker 2: allow for adventure to unfold and overcome those challenges. That's
59:44
Speaker 2: where all the great stories come from. That's where all
59:46
Speaker 2: the great memories come from is like overcoming those challenges.
59:50
Speaker 2: Flexibility is going to be required of you, whether you
59:53
Speaker 2: do it willingly or not.
59:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. The next topic requires flexibility, and that's vehicle logistics.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: So part of planning one of these trips, you're going
1:00:02
Speaker 1: to have to ship your vehicle. Yeah, and the container
1:00:06
Speaker 1: ship that has thousands of other containers does not care
1:00:09
Speaker 1: about your journey. The logistics company does not care about
1:00:13
Speaker 1: your journey. They have thousands of other customers that are
1:00:15
Speaker 1: much larger than you. Learning to be flexible with logistics
1:00:18
Speaker 1: and just even your personal travel. You're shipping to Europe,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: you're shipping to Africa, wherever you're going. Just be flexible
1:00:27
Speaker 1: like you're I think it's important when you're on this trip,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: this is your time.
1:00:31
Speaker 2: And invest in a good agent like it's It will
1:00:36
Speaker 2: always be worth the investment because if you get delayed
1:00:39
Speaker 2: four or five days, those hotel fees and the food
1:00:42
Speaker 2: that you had to pay for and the taxis back
1:00:44
Speaker 2: and forth to the port, you're going to more than
1:00:46
Speaker 2: cover the cost of the agent. The overland embassy do this.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: All day long.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: They know the game.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: I VSS is another good one. Cars.
1:00:56
Speaker 2: Cars, that's who used I've used.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: Cars if you think your overland vehicle expensive cars, ships,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: things like one of one ferraris all the time. That's
1:01:06
Speaker 1: a fascinating company. But just learn to be flexible and
1:01:08
Speaker 1: plan these things out, and I will tell you that
1:01:11
Speaker 1: they always cost more than you think that they will.
1:01:14
Speaker 1: Financing your adventure is an interesting one. We're not financial advisors,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't really listen to us on this.
1:01:21
Speaker 2: We're not playing one on the internet.
1:01:23
Speaker 1: We're not playing one on the internet. But these trips
1:01:25
Speaker 1: do take money, right, there's just no way around that.
1:01:27
Speaker 1: You have to buy the vehicle, and then you also
1:01:29
Speaker 1: have to live while you're not working and bringing in
1:01:33
Speaker 1: an income. So save.
1:01:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the it's the best way to travel. The
1:01:38
Speaker 2: best way to travel is to save for it. The
1:01:41
Speaker 2: least effective way to travel is to try to get
1:01:43
Speaker 2: sponsored to do it. There's about five people that have
1:01:47
Speaker 2: made that work on any scale, and there's about five
1:01:51
Speaker 2: thousand people who have gone into a great deal of
1:01:53
Speaker 2: credit card debt and not made it work. So I
1:01:56
Speaker 2: think that the sponsorship route is really tough. It's really tough.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: There's definitely people that have done it, like you said,
1:02:02
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of people doing this now, like
1:02:04
Speaker 1: I talk to a lot of people that kind of
1:02:07
Speaker 1: ask me about the sponsorship stuff, Like having previously been
1:02:11
Speaker 1: on that side of the industry.
1:02:13
Speaker 2: You sponsored people EXTRAX.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sometimes it's easy to get some free product or whatever,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: but there's always this concept that even I would fall into.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: It's like, why am I sponsoring your vacation?
1:02:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the challenge with most of this is it's
1:02:32
Speaker 2: a plea to pay for my vacation and it comes
1:02:34
Speaker 2: across dos that.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: So the people that we would work with, there was
1:02:39
Speaker 1: always an element of a business transaction that was happening
1:02:42
Speaker 1: behind it. It's amazing that you're doing these this great adventure,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: but don't forget that the adventures for you, right, And
1:02:50
Speaker 1: that goes two ways. One, don't compromise your trip just
1:02:53
Speaker 1: to get some free stuff or a little bit of
1:02:55
Speaker 1: money or this or whatever. You'll find that oftentimes saving
1:02:59
Speaker 1: and actually shutting off and being able to enjoy it.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: From everyone I've talked to, and we've talked to thousands
1:03:04
Speaker 1: of people that have these trips, that's always the preferable way.
1:03:07
Speaker 2: It takes a ton of time to get sponsorship, Just
1:03:09
Speaker 2: do that. Ask your boss if you can work some
1:03:12
Speaker 2: overtime or pick up another job on Saturdays and save
1:03:16
Speaker 2: the money and then you get the trip gets to
1:03:17
Speaker 2: be all about you.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: You get to just enjoy yourself exactly. The people that
1:03:21
Speaker 1: we did work with, to go back to that, they
1:03:24
Speaker 1: always had a like I said, it was always a
1:03:27
Speaker 1: business relationship in that, oh maybe we needed photos of
1:03:31
Speaker 1: a certain new product or whatever, but they had a
1:03:34
Speaker 1: skill that we needed, so then we would work with them.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: Like for example, we sponsored X overland. That wasn't just
1:03:41
Speaker 1: for the influence. That was because we got photos and
1:03:43
Speaker 1: video and oh yeah, and their professional travel and their professionals.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: A lot of people buy their first camera. They're doing
1:03:49
Speaker 1: this amazing trip. They're very excited. Maybe they don't know
1:03:52
Speaker 1: that people are doing this all the time. Yeah, it's
1:03:54
Speaker 1: a lot more common than you would think.
1:03:56
Speaker 2: It's just a huge lift to try to pay for
1:04:00
Speaker 2: an overland trip.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: You end up working with maybe the people you don't
1:04:04
Speaker 1: want to, and then your car looks like a Nascar sometimes.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it's coming from a position of privilege, but.
1:04:11
Speaker 2: You've been there, you went through that, You've experienced all
1:04:14
Speaker 2: of it, Matt. You realized, like it's tough, it's just difficult.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: You got to have some scale. Another option is get
1:04:22
Speaker 2: remote work, develop a remote working skill. There's starlink, you
1:04:26
Speaker 2: can work from anywhere in the world. Find a way
1:04:29
Speaker 2: to contribute content to magazines and websites. That's a great
1:04:34
Speaker 2: way where you're not even sponsored. You don't have to
1:04:37
Speaker 2: have any logos on your car. You're just getting paid
1:04:40
Speaker 2: for the content that you produce.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: And you have the skill to do that. Right in
1:04:44
Speaker 1: both of our positions, running when I was working for
1:04:46
Speaker 1: you and then running other magazines, like, you still have
1:04:50
Speaker 1: to have the skill of the photography and the writing.
1:04:52
Speaker 1: The world's best story with photos taken on an iPhone
1:04:57
Speaker 1: for written by a whoever that can't write, You're not
1:05:03
Speaker 1: going to get anywhere with it. Like, you still have
1:05:05
Speaker 1: to develop those skills. The remote work thing, I think
1:05:07
Speaker 1: is really fascinating, having something on the road to help
1:05:11
Speaker 1: sustain it's like that glide I would call it. You
1:05:15
Speaker 1: still have to save and start with some money. You
1:05:17
Speaker 1: have to. If you start with zero dollars in your
1:05:20
Speaker 1: account when you're leaving, that's probably not going to work
1:05:22
Speaker 1: out well for you. It's just a reality. You do
1:05:25
Speaker 1: need to put the work in to save.
1:05:27
Speaker 2: I think and people have assets that can work when
1:05:30
Speaker 2: you're traveling. You can airbnb or rent your home. Yeah,
1:05:34
Speaker 2: that can be a great tool. Try to maintain as
1:05:37
Speaker 2: much recurring income as you can find investment vehicles that
1:05:42
Speaker 2: allow you to maintain a monthly income from that. Rental
1:05:46
Speaker 2: properties are a great solution for a lot of people.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: Or travel by different means. Maybe if your goal is
1:05:54
Speaker 1: to have a new truck with a camp or this
1:05:56
Speaker 1: and this bolted to it, it may take a long
1:05:59
Speaker 1: time to get to that. If the goal is travel,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: buy like a twenty five hundred dollars jeep Cherokee XJY
1:06:05
Speaker 1: and just go because it's going to make it and
1:06:07
Speaker 1: it's going to be fine. Or you can go down
1:06:09
Speaker 1: from there and buy a motorcycle. Fuel cost is way
1:06:11
Speaker 1: lower and maintenance costs is lower, and then you can
1:06:14
Speaker 1: go from there and you can do a bicycle.
1:06:16
Speaker 2: People lots of people bicycle around the world. Stefano Melgarotti
1:06:20
Speaker 2: comes to mind, great friend of mine in Italy. Have
1:06:23
Speaker 2: mentioned him before on the podcast. He's been on the podcast,
1:06:26
Speaker 2: but he traveled the length of Affort, the length of Europe,
1:06:29
Speaker 2: the length of the Americas on a Yamaha a little
1:06:33
Speaker 2: small you little fuel injected two point fifty and he
1:06:36
Speaker 2: spent ten grand, not including the bike to do it. Yeah.
1:06:39
Speaker 2: Now he camped almost every single night, but he averaged
1:06:43
Speaker 2: about twenty five dollars a day, including putting fuel in
1:06:48
Speaker 2: his bike.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: So it can be done.
1:06:49
Speaker 2: It can absolutely be done. You just have to make choices.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: You're either putting the work in on the front end
1:06:54
Speaker 1: to have the money to do it the way you want,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: or you're putting the work in while you're doing the trip.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: That can be literally working, or that can be doing
1:07:03
Speaker 1: it in more frugal means. But there's always going to
1:07:06
Speaker 1: be some element of sacrifice. Yep, two things, because that's right.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: Our economy is based on an exchange of time for numbers.
1:07:14
Speaker 1: But let's hop to vehicle documentation and temporary important. This
1:07:20
Speaker 1: is one of the things that I really liked on
1:07:23
Speaker 1: the book is this is such a con It seems
1:07:26
Speaker 1: so complex to what documents you need to bring, what
1:07:29
Speaker 1: it's like to cross borders. And I would even carry
1:07:32
Speaker 1: this book with me having done this stuff, just as
1:07:35
Speaker 1: a reference to have something to go back through. So
1:07:38
Speaker 1: I'd love to get your what's the scoprty wisdom? One?
1:07:42
Speaker 2: I think that one of the best things to start
1:07:44
Speaker 2: off with is being organized, like just get an expanding
1:07:47
Speaker 2: file folder, a plastic one, preferably so it can something
1:07:51
Speaker 2: spills or whatever, you don't get your documents wet, and
1:07:53
Speaker 2: then have everything really organized, including all your copies. So
1:07:56
Speaker 2: have copies of all your documents, make sure all your
1:07:59
Speaker 2: documents are in order, or talk to other travelers who've
1:08:02
Speaker 2: been through that region recently and ask them what documents
1:08:04
Speaker 2: they were asked for that way, because I've gotten myself
1:08:07
Speaker 2: into some trouble because I just didn't know that certain
1:08:09
Speaker 2: things were required because people hadn't been traveling there recently.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: Talking to other travelers is a really key way to
1:08:16
Speaker 2: do that. But then you have to make a decision
1:08:19
Speaker 2: on are you traveling on a carna like for in Africa,
1:08:23
Speaker 2: for example, or are you going to travel on a
1:08:25
Speaker 2: temporary import. For all of the Americas, you can travel
1:08:28
Speaker 2: on a temporary import, and it's basically just you get
1:08:32
Speaker 2: stamped in. Your vehicle gets stamped in when you come
1:08:34
Speaker 2: in the country, and then you got to just very
1:08:36
Speaker 2: much make sure you stamp that car out on the
1:08:39
Speaker 2: other side. So normally people get in trouble around vehicle ownership,
1:08:44
Speaker 2: how the vehicle ownership is identified. Don't start a trip
1:08:48
Speaker 2: with your earth Romer in the name of your LLC.
1:08:52
Speaker 2: Make the name of your LLC your name. It should
1:08:55
Speaker 2: be Matt Scott LLC. Because the at the border crossing
1:09:01
Speaker 2: is he's gonna have no idea what LLC means, but
1:09:04
Speaker 2: he's certainly going to know that. It's not like matches
1:09:08
Speaker 2: got to match. There are places that you flat out
1:09:11
Speaker 2: won't get into, Peru being one, I got very lucky
1:09:15
Speaker 2: getting into Peru one time. Make sure if you want
1:09:17
Speaker 2: to take your right hand drive awesome land cruiser from
1:09:19
Speaker 2: Australia and you want to go take it to Saudi Arabia,
1:09:22
Speaker 2: you may want to check and see.
1:09:23
Speaker 1: If that's still possible.
1:09:24
Speaker 2: There's a Salvador.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's Astric really the big one because it's a
1:09:29
Speaker 1: block you get you can't get.
1:09:31
Speaker 2: You can have them in South America, but you can't
1:09:34
Speaker 2: ship a right hand drive into Peru by sea or air,
1:09:39
Speaker 2: and also Chile, so you got to know what port
1:09:42
Speaker 2: you can bring these things in and out of as
1:09:44
Speaker 2: a right hand drive. Do the research up front, and
1:09:46
Speaker 2: then the documentation becomes easy because you know what you need.
1:09:49
Speaker 2: You got extra copies of it. Make sure you've got
1:09:52
Speaker 2: your originals. Don't do any funny business. Like people do
1:09:55
Speaker 2: funny business all the time and they think they're going
1:09:57
Speaker 2: to get away with it. Sometimes they do, but then
1:10:01
Speaker 2: other times people get their vehicle impounded or it becomes
1:10:04
Speaker 2: a big problem. So just there's no reason to do
1:10:07
Speaker 2: any funny business. That's when you end up having to
1:10:09
Speaker 2: pay bribes and it's just bad press. It's bad pr
1:10:14
Speaker 2: for the next overlander that's gonna come behind you.
1:10:18
Speaker 1: It's always seems to be like the land cruiser guys
1:10:20
Speaker 1: that bring us seventy series in and it's a it's
1:10:23
Speaker 1: clearly a new truck and then it's registered as like
1:10:26
Speaker 1: a nineteen eighty five BJ seventy five or something, and
1:10:30
Speaker 1: then people lose their minds. If you pulled up in
1:10:33
Speaker 1: a brand new F one fifty and it was titled
1:10:35
Speaker 1: as a nineteen eighty five f one fifty, they're gonna know,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: They're gonna know these aren't like where some of these
1:10:41
Speaker 1: vehicles are a little more exotic to us in the US.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, it's always been the land cruiser guys
1:10:49
Speaker 1: that have the problems. And I have to say, they're
1:10:51
Speaker 1: all they're generally they will cry wolf, but they're always doing.
1:10:55
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of companies with land cruisers that
1:10:58
Speaker 1: do sheet that sell these vehicles as overland trucks. I'm
1:11:01
Speaker 1: not gonna like name names, but there's a couple and
1:11:04
Speaker 1: people have had issues.
1:11:05
Speaker 2: And here's the crazy thing. Is, like anything you can
1:11:07
Speaker 2: think of, just because of the number of countries I've been,
1:11:10
Speaker 2: I've had to do it. Like going into Ethiopia. It's
1:11:13
Speaker 2: the first time ever that someone has checked the engine number.
1:11:19
Speaker 2: Hundreds and hundreds of border crossings and no one is
1:11:22
Speaker 2: ever And so I'm crawling around where is this on
1:11:27
Speaker 2: the grenadier looking for this engine number? And thank goodness,
1:11:31
Speaker 2: not only could find it on the internet where the
1:11:34
Speaker 2: number was, but thank goodness, it matched what was on
1:11:37
Speaker 2: the paperwork, Like holy and like I should have checked that,
1:11:42
Speaker 2: Like lesson for me. Don't think of it though, yeah,
1:11:44
Speaker 2: because no one has ever checked the engine number. But
1:11:47
Speaker 2: the problem that they're having in Ethiopia is people were
1:11:49
Speaker 2: bringing in cars that are maybe just beat up, but
1:11:52
Speaker 2: the engine's okay and that, and they pull the engine
1:11:56
Speaker 2: out and then the car gets back out under some
1:11:59
Speaker 2: clapped out motor and that's sort of selling them on the.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: Black market for people reading a carne is a good idea,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: especially for Africa. Yeah, they're cheap for cheap cars, and
1:12:10
Speaker 1: they're expensive for expensive cars. You're basically putting up a
1:12:14
Speaker 1: bond of sorts that is a certain percentage of the
1:12:17
Speaker 1: vehicles value. That says, if I don't take this out
1:12:21
Speaker 1: and I don't do what I'm supposed to do, you
1:12:23
Speaker 1: then get this money. And usually it's not cheap.
1:12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it can be four hundred percent of the
1:12:29
Speaker 2: value of the vehicles. So if you're going in there
1:12:31
Speaker 2: with your Unicat one million euros, you have a four
1:12:35
Speaker 2: million euro bond against that car. Now, probably if someone
1:12:39
Speaker 2: can afford a million dollar Unicat, they can afford a
1:12:41
Speaker 2: bond like that, but it is it can be very expensive.
1:12:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the karnae is always based on the country
1:12:48
Speaker 1: that you're traveling through, which has the most expensive tariff levied.
1:12:52
Speaker 2: On them that vehicle. That's what sets the So.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: That's why a lot of travelers don't go to certain places,
1:12:59
Speaker 1: go to Ethiopia Boomerang. For those in the United States,
1:13:02
Speaker 1: it has shifted around quite a bit. Boomerang CARNA is
1:13:06
Speaker 1: now the US issuing authority it's been about twelve different
1:13:11
Speaker 1: companies in the last twelve years.
1:13:13
Speaker 2: And you can get it through cars dot Com in
1:13:15
Speaker 2: the UK. Call them up. They'll get your carne on
1:13:17
Speaker 2: any car any place in the world. And there's lots
1:13:20
Speaker 2: of good resources out there to get carnes. People think
1:13:22
Speaker 2: you have to get it from your home country, you don't.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: So with borders, there's paperwork, there's a process, but patience
1:13:29
Speaker 1: always prevails.
1:13:31
Speaker 2: It really does give them a break.
1:13:33
Speaker 1: So I think the most important thing, and the thing
1:13:35
Speaker 1: I want to end on, something that I think that
1:13:38
Speaker 1: you do really well, is the importance of being a
1:13:40
Speaker 1: gracious guest in someone else's country.
1:13:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, these are all things that I've learned
1:13:48
Speaker 2: the hard way, or I've observed the angry American yelling
1:13:51
Speaker 2: at someone in English that speaks French.
1:13:55
Speaker 1: Understand you when you weren't yelling at me.
1:13:56
Speaker 2: Exactly. Those are real and those things are real in
1:13:59
Speaker 2: the world, and it's a reflection on our country. It's
1:14:03
Speaker 2: a reflection on other travelers. So we do have a responsibility.
1:14:08
Speaker 2: And also, like we're being we're there by choice. They
1:14:10
Speaker 2: live there, that's their home. I'm this silly guy on
1:14:14
Speaker 2: a vacation basically, and I don't have any leg to
1:14:18
Speaker 2: stand on to be rude to that person, So I
1:14:22
Speaker 2: really don't.
1:14:23
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm like a mean person. But when
1:14:25
Speaker 1: I travel in a lot of different places, I often
1:14:29
Speaker 1: find that American life predisposes you to be a little
1:14:34
Speaker 1: more isolated. I've learned to talk to people more, I've
1:14:37
Speaker 1: learned to smile more, to be more friendly, just to
1:14:41
Speaker 1: interact more. There's this natural response that I feel a
1:14:44
Speaker 1: lot of people have, and I know that I certainly do.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: Somebody comes up to you in a foreign country, they
1:14:49
Speaker 1: must be trying to sell you something. Literally, in some place,
1:14:52
Speaker 1: people just are actually friendly. What's this guy doing here?
1:14:54
Speaker 1: I'm going to be nice to this person? Sure, that's
1:14:56
Speaker 1: a possibility. Or you're at a email, people are friendly.
1:15:00
Speaker 1: The world is generally a safe place.
1:15:02
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, no question. And come into it with a
1:15:07
Speaker 2: little bit of that student's mindset. Come into it with
1:15:09
Speaker 2: a little bit of innocence, and believe in the goodness
1:15:12
Speaker 2: of others. Be a rational optimist, I guess, is what
1:15:15
Speaker 2: I'm saying. So be rational in the way that you behave,
1:15:18
Speaker 2: but be optimistic that things are going to turn out well.
1:15:21
Speaker 2: And surprisingly they usually do.
1:15:23
Speaker 1: It's been so cool to discuss Jeez, just a fraction
1:15:28
Speaker 1: of this book. I know this is going to be
1:15:30
Speaker 1: one of the longest podcasts we've done in a long time.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: But there's so much of this information in Scott Brady's
1:15:35
Speaker 1: book Overlanding one oh one. I think most bookstores are
1:15:39
Speaker 1: carrying it. It's on Amazon, so you can I buy
1:15:41
Speaker 1: everything on Amazon. You can just go on Amazon right now.
1:15:44
Speaker 2: You can get it and in a couple hours in
1:15:45
Speaker 2: Phoenix if you order it. And there's also an audiobook version,
1:15:49
Speaker 2: So I apologize for our podcast listeners that have to
1:15:52
Speaker 2: hear my voice yet again, but I was the narrator
1:15:55
Speaker 2: on the book for the audio version, which is available
1:15:58
Speaker 2: through Audible.
1:16:00
Speaker 1: I'll have to maybe that'll replace Fraser.
1:16:03
Speaker 2: That'd be tough. You hear enough of you hear enough.
1:16:06
Speaker 2: It was super fun to do it. I'm very honored
1:16:09
Speaker 2: that Simon and Schuster and Adams Media even considered me
1:16:13
Speaker 2: for the book. That they pursued me was a genuine honor.
1:16:17
Speaker 2: And I'm on a multi book deal, so let's see
1:16:19
Speaker 2: what happens next.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely worth reading. Despite all the time that
1:16:24
Speaker 1: I've spent with you, I still pick things up. When
1:16:26
Speaker 1: I go through a chapter at night. I'm just so
1:16:29
Speaker 1: happy for you. Yeah, you're in there a couple of
1:16:32
Speaker 1: times too. Thanks everybody for listening to the Overlain Journal podcast.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: You can get this book on Amazon and at most
1:16:37
Speaker 1: major bookstores. It's called Overlineting one oh one. We'll talk
1:16:40
Speaker 1: to you next time.
1:16:41
Speaker 2: Thanks,