Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Journey of a Young Overlander: Peter Van Stralen's Epic Adventures with X Overland

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Journey of a Young Overlander: Peter Van Stralen's Epic Adventures with X Overland · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Drill Podcast. I'm your
0:08
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined I'm a good friend.
0:12
Speaker 2: Peter man Strelan.
0:13
Speaker 1: Peter, thanks for being on the podcast. I did not
0:17
Speaker 1: know much about you until the start of this trip.
0:19
Speaker 1: We'd only met once before actually, yeah, in South Africa
0:22
Speaker 1: before you guys started.
0:24
Speaker 2: One of the APEX series is down there in the South.
0:27
Speaker 1: But the more I've gotten them to know you, the
0:29
Speaker 1: more I've enjoyed our friendship. And you are the definition
0:32
Speaker 1: of an old soul at twenty three. We've had some
0:35
Speaker 1: great conversations around philosophy and history, and you have an
0:39
Speaker 1: interest in travel, and you're a long time creative. So
0:43
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of things for us to
0:45
Speaker 1: talk about today. So thanks for being on the podcast.
0:48
Speaker 1: Happy too, Glad we can talk. Yeah, that's a lot
0:50
Speaker 1: of fun of the last sixty three is that's right? Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: it has been quite the journey.
0:56
Speaker 3: Experience the Great Smoking Mountain Jeep Invasion with Hon Kok
0:59
Speaker 3: Dina pro Tire on expedition Portal dot com. An impressive
1:02
Speaker 3: event with the tendees from all over the country and
1:05
Speaker 3: a parade of jeeps that stretched all the way through town.
1:08
Speaker 1: So to bring the listener up to speed. Peter and
1:11
Speaker 1: I are part of the team for the xobl and
1:14
Speaker 1: APEX series and we have been making our way down
1:19
Speaker 1: the length of West Africa. So we are just now
1:22
Speaker 1: able to record some podcasts after we got through the
1:25
Speaker 1: very challenging roads, bureaucracy, and the security issues of that
1:31
Speaker 1: central that equatorial region of Western Africa. So let's start
1:36
Speaker 1: off with kind of Blake, what has been your impressions
1:39
Speaker 1: of the trip so far. I mean, this has been
1:41
Speaker 1: a big journey.
1:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been huge in particular, like I kind of
1:45
Speaker 4: helped build the trucks I was in Montana, so we've
1:47
Speaker 4: been start to finish on the milestones from leaving Montana
1:50
Speaker 4: to the east coast of Canada, the very top of
1:53
Speaker 4: Europe and nordcap and then now to be here is
1:55
Speaker 4: pretty surreal because there's just it was such a huge
1:59
Speaker 4: undertaking when we were in the initial planning phases and
2:02
Speaker 4: to actually have made it here there were so many
2:04
Speaker 4: concerns over a vehicles and tires and people, the challenges
2:08
Speaker 4: that were there. To have overcome them to this point
2:12
Speaker 4: now in the Namib Desert feels really really good.
2:14
Speaker 5: So I've really really been enjoying the strip.
2:17
Speaker 1: And how cool that you've been able to be a
2:20
Speaker 1: part of every mile of this twenty five thousand mile
2:23
Speaker 1: own expedition and at such a young age. I mean,
2:26
Speaker 1: it's let's go into a little bit of your history,
2:30
Speaker 1: because I think that that's going to be important for
2:32
Speaker 1: the listener to know this is not your first rodeo.
2:37
Speaker 1: You have actually traveled extensively since you were in your
2:40
Speaker 1: early teens. So let's talk a little bit about how
2:44
Speaker 1: that process started for you as a traveler. Give a
2:47
Speaker 1: little bit of history and your family and what resulted
2:50
Speaker 1: in you being able to start exploring the world at
2:53
Speaker 1: such an early age.
2:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, growing up, grew up in a business family, hard
2:58
Speaker 4: working dad and mom. My father and his brother started
3:01
Speaker 4: a landscaping business when they were sixteen and seventeen years old,
3:04
Speaker 4: maybe seventeen and eighteen, and just started working their butts
3:07
Speaker 4: off over twenty thirty years. And during that time, you know,
3:11
Speaker 4: busy life in business for my dad and for my mom.
3:14
Speaker 4: They were both really in the working together all the time.
3:18
Speaker 4: And as a family we worked, but it was a
3:21
Speaker 4: dad gone at five am and back at eleven at night.
3:23
Speaker 4: That's when we'd have dinner and all that, So we
3:26
Speaker 4: had time together as a family, but not a lot.
3:28
Speaker 4: And for my parents that was something they valued above
3:31
Speaker 4: everything else, was time, especially with their kids. So I'd
3:35
Speaker 4: the good fortune to be able to have such great
3:37
Speaker 4: parents where they made it their life mission essentially to
3:42
Speaker 4: be able to take a three.
3:43
Speaker 5: Month road trip with their kids.
3:44
Speaker 4: And at the time of them creating that dream and
3:46
Speaker 4: that goal, it was impossible, like almost laughable for them
3:49
Speaker 4: just due to the amount of work that they were doing.
3:51
Speaker 4: But there came a point around twenty fifteen where my
3:54
Speaker 4: father's business got acquired and he suddenly had the time.
3:57
Speaker 5: To go do this three month road trip.
3:59
Speaker 4: So we actually started our journey just on a trip
4:02
Speaker 4: out to the East coast like Halifax, in a twenty
4:05
Speaker 4: four foot motor home towing our jeep.
4:07
Speaker 5: So we had a blue jeep which.
4:09
Speaker 4: Was my mom's daily driver at twenty twelve jk arctic
4:13
Speaker 4: condition actually jeeps just a daily driver, dropped me off
4:16
Speaker 4: at school from kindergarten up to eighth grade, and went
4:20
Speaker 4: on this three month road trip together. But somewhere along
4:23
Speaker 4: the line, probably after we were leaving Halifax, my dad
4:26
Speaker 4: and mom sat us kids down and asked us if
4:28
Speaker 4: we wanted to keep traveling, if we wanted to like,
4:31
Speaker 4: if that was something we were interested in doing.
4:32
Speaker 5: And at that point, you know, walking.
4:34
Speaker 4: Around beaches and having fun with my brother and sister
4:37
Speaker 4: and with my dad and my mom, it was something
4:39
Speaker 4: that we all desired to do. So we just continued
4:41
Speaker 4: from there and it turned into now at ten years
4:45
Speaker 4: on the road, nearly full time.
4:47
Speaker 1: Now, now let's bring the blisser up to speed on
4:50
Speaker 1: what's the name of your family's kind of did you
4:53
Speaker 1: guys have a YouTube? And I've not watched any of
4:56
Speaker 1: this because I wasn't aware of it until this trip,
4:58
Speaker 1: but what's the name of the travels? So people can
5:01
Speaker 1: go back and see some early Peter Victory.
5:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, there's some early stuff on there.
5:06
Speaker 4: It's the Epic Family road Trip, So it's on Instagram
5:09
Speaker 4: and YouTube. And the cool part to that was, I mean,
5:12
Speaker 4: there's a lot of early footage, but it's really just
5:14
Speaker 4: raw and real because we did this trip just for ourselves,
5:17
Speaker 4: you know, my parents did just to have time with
5:19
Speaker 4: the kids before we reached a point where we started
5:21
Speaker 4: going off our own way, So they wanted to spend
5:24
Speaker 4: every moment together if possible, doing cool things and allowing
5:27
Speaker 4: us to experience something unique in the world, broaden our
5:30
Speaker 4: horizons both you know, mentally and literally by seeing many places.
5:35
Speaker 5: Around the world.
5:35
Speaker 4: And that's what the Epic Family Richard was all about.
5:38
Speaker 4: But we actually didn't start it until after our first
5:40
Speaker 4: major kind of expedition, if you will, after we built
5:43
Speaker 4: out the jeep. We had done the motor home for
5:46
Speaker 4: about a year around every state and province was our goal,
5:48
Speaker 4: and we did that, but then we.
5:50
Speaker 2: Kept on state in the United States and every province.
5:53
Speaker 4: In Canada, every driveable state, so we didn't do Hawaii
5:55
Speaker 4: but forty nine I guess of the fifty and then
5:58
Speaker 4: every province within Canada. Yeah, we made it to in
6:01
Speaker 4: the RB which was quite a quite a ride for
6:03
Speaker 4: that first year, but especially when we Alaska was one
6:06
Speaker 4: of our last states that we did as a family.
6:08
Speaker 4: And once we got up you know, northern BC, the
6:11
Speaker 4: Yukon and then into Alaska, we started seeing so many
6:14
Speaker 4: people on adventure BIKESGS twelve hundreds and all these built
6:18
Speaker 4: out overland rigs and we hadn't been exposed to that yet.
6:21
Speaker 4: But during that time we got a lot of exposure.
6:23
Speaker 4: We met and talked to a lot of these guys
6:24
Speaker 4: on bikes. Men in particular, I was always attracted to
6:26
Speaker 4: the gs's and that style of travel as a thirteen
6:30
Speaker 4: year old that looked amazing. It looked like modern day
6:32
Speaker 4: cowboys just living out of saddle bags. So we got
6:35
Speaker 4: this desire in our heads, in our hearts to go
6:38
Speaker 4: further afield than what a motor home could take you
6:40
Speaker 4: or a stock vehicle could sure, So coming back from
6:43
Speaker 4: that trip, we actually worked on learning as much as
6:46
Speaker 4: we could. We went to our first expo, Expo East,
6:49
Speaker 4: and started learning about overlanding and built out our g
6:53
Speaker 4: to the point where we then shipped it across the
6:56
Speaker 4: ocean to New Zealand and started our first six month
6:59
Speaker 4: road there. So we did six months of overlanding and
7:02
Speaker 4: camping in New Zealand, and it was at the very
7:05
Speaker 4: end of that trip that we decided to start YouTube
7:07
Speaker 4: and actually documenting it seriously.
7:09
Speaker 5: I was fourteen at the.
7:10
Speaker 4: Time, and before that it was really creating these short
7:13
Speaker 4: little videos and things just for the grandparents, our Opa
7:15
Speaker 4: and oma, yeah and family to see where we just
7:18
Speaker 4: went to. You know, we just kind of packed up
7:20
Speaker 4: and left as a family and then kept.
7:21
Speaker 1: Going, first of all, sticking five people into a JK. Wrangler, Yeah,
7:25
Speaker 1: especially like nearly grown children. Yeah, that in and of
7:28
Speaker 1: itself is an expedition.
7:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:31
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about how Because starting
7:34
Speaker 1: how old were you when that trip to New Zealand happened.
7:37
Speaker 2: I was fourteen. Yeah, so that's very young.
7:40
Speaker 1: You know, you're barely a teenager and you're traveling with
7:43
Speaker 1: your siblings and your parents, and you're you know, you're
7:47
Speaker 1: literally living together, traveling together twenty four hours a day.
7:51
Speaker 1: What were some of the things that you found that
7:53
Speaker 1: it changed you as a young person during that experience.
7:58
Speaker 4: Definitely patients. That'd be the first thing, I'd say. Just
8:00
Speaker 4: being in such close proximity with your siblings. I mean
8:03
Speaker 4: there was three of us in the back, my older
8:05
Speaker 4: sister she was sixteen, and my younger brother twelve. There's
8:09
Speaker 4: not much room too, you know, for space, and at
8:13
Speaker 4: that age in life, that's kind of the that's the
8:15
Speaker 4: typical thing, right you want your own room and your
8:17
Speaker 4: own space. So we all learned, especially like with my
8:20
Speaker 4: sister and my brother, have great respect for them, how
8:22
Speaker 4: to be patient with each other, how not to argue.
8:25
Speaker 4: We definitely had moments of arguing, but we learned how
8:28
Speaker 4: to overcome the little small things that typically play a
8:31
Speaker 4: good youth, you know, like of pride and selfishness and
8:35
Speaker 4: just being quick to anger and all that stuff. So
8:39
Speaker 4: that was one of the main things that being stuck
8:41
Speaker 4: in one jeep kind of taught, and then also being
8:45
Speaker 4: careful that that whole initial trip was very much a
8:48
Speaker 4: learning stage for all of us, but I think for
8:51
Speaker 4: us kids, because you learned how to live out of
8:53
Speaker 4: We got three sixty Leader Patagonia bags, so my sister,
8:56
Speaker 4: my brother, and I lived out of sixty Leaders for
8:58
Speaker 4: about six months. So we learned quite a few things
9:01
Speaker 4: on that trip. But I think a lot of it
9:03
Speaker 4: besides all of the physical things of just learning about
9:06
Speaker 4: different countries and cultures, was definitely just the philosophy that
9:10
Speaker 4: travel kind of instills in a person of you know,
9:13
Speaker 4: being mindful of what gear you take, And for me,
9:18
Speaker 4: it was patients patients like what we experienced here in
9:20
Speaker 4: West Africa, you know, dealing with bureaucracy and all that stuff,
9:23
Speaker 4: and then open mindedness to basically any situation that you
9:26
Speaker 4: come into. You learn a lot of that stuff, and
9:28
Speaker 4: at a young age it was I think a really
9:30
Speaker 4: great thing to be exposed.
9:31
Speaker 1: To, no question, and I could see how you were
9:35
Speaker 1: able to handle the bureaucracy and the challenges of West Africa.
9:40
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want anyone listening to think that
9:43
Speaker 1: it's something that can't be done or something that it
9:45
Speaker 1: takes like a like an uber overlander to go do
9:48
Speaker 1: West Africa. It doesn't. What it really takes is attention
9:52
Speaker 1: to detail and planning and then a lot of patients
9:56
Speaker 1: because things just don't go to plan and it. Yeah,
10:01
Speaker 1: it requires a lot of open mindedness to the fact
10:05
Speaker 1: that you're in a different culture. They do things different,
10:08
Speaker 1: and we may do in the United States or in
10:11
Speaker 1: Germany or wherever else. They're operating on a different timetable
10:14
Speaker 1: and it's their country. They get to do it however
10:16
Speaker 1: they want. Yeah, so we're as travelers, as tourists, we're
10:20
Speaker 1: basically at the whim of these officials and that requires
10:24
Speaker 1: a lot of patients. So you learning that at such
10:28
Speaker 1: an early age, no doubt helped you.
10:30
Speaker 2: On this journey.
10:30
Speaker 4: It certainly did, and I think a great perspective on
10:33
Speaker 4: dealing with the bureaucy as well. You may have mentioned
10:35
Speaker 4: it earlier in the trip. Was a lot of these
10:37
Speaker 4: countries have a much harder time getting into our countries. Sure,
10:41
Speaker 4: sometimes they may even not have that opportunity to just
10:43
Speaker 4: go and travel to our countries, be it economical or
10:47
Speaker 4: to dealing with the same thing visas and other things.
10:49
Speaker 4: So to have the opportunity to be able to drive
10:52
Speaker 4: through and travel through the DRC to Congo everywhere else
10:56
Speaker 4: is amazing enough that I think if you're sitting there
10:59
Speaker 4: for a couple extra hours and you want to just
11:02
Speaker 4: take a minute and breathe a bit, and then you'll
11:03
Speaker 4: be in the country exploring.
11:06
Speaker 1: I think the more patients you also demonstrate to the officials,
11:09
Speaker 1: the less suspicious you look. I think that a lot
11:13
Speaker 1: of travelers get themselves in trouble.
11:16
Speaker 2: By checking in all the time. What's going on? How
11:19
Speaker 2: come it's taking so long for an official?
11:21
Speaker 1: That just seems like suspicious behavior, right, like that you
11:24
Speaker 1: you don't understand their culture, or that there's something nefarious
11:28
Speaker 1: about you.
11:29
Speaker 2: Why are you in such a hurry?
11:30
Speaker 5: Right?
11:31
Speaker 2: Why are you trying to get this thing done? So?
11:33
Speaker 2: What are you trying to hide? And a lot of travelers.
11:36
Speaker 1: Miss that cue, that that anxiety and that stress and
11:42
Speaker 1: that impatience shows to an official out of order. Imagine
11:45
Speaker 1: if someone rocked up to the US border from Mexico
11:49
Speaker 1: and they were like, how come this is taking so long?
11:51
Speaker 2: You know, why don't you just let me in? Like
11:53
Speaker 2: what what are you doing?
11:55
Speaker 5: What? You know?
11:55
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that would be?
11:57
Speaker 1: You would be in secondary and you'd be lucky to
11:59
Speaker 1: ever get into the That's very true. So I think
12:02
Speaker 1: a lot of times people they put their own expectations
12:07
Speaker 1: for efficiency or whatever onto someone else, and all that
12:11
Speaker 1: does is either irritate the other person or make them
12:15
Speaker 1: suspicious of your intentions.
12:17
Speaker 2: So I think we did a great job.
12:19
Speaker 1: As a team of being as calm and collected as
12:22
Speaker 1: we could be yea, given the situation. Definitely, and some
12:25
Speaker 1: of them were super challenging, Like the DRC was very
12:29
Speaker 1: challenging because we actually made it through the border ten
12:34
Speaker 1: kilometers away from the border by the time they stopped
12:37
Speaker 1: us and turned us back right back to the border,
12:39
Speaker 1: right back to the border for a bunch of changes,
12:41
Speaker 1: and we barely made it in.
12:42
Speaker 2: I mean, we're lucky to have.
12:44
Speaker 5: Made it in.
12:44
Speaker 1: And then we ended up needing an escort for the
12:46
Speaker 1: entire time. Basically had minders with us about the entire country,
12:51
Speaker 1: so it.
12:52
Speaker 2: Was all very challenging.
12:54
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about how you guys set
12:57
Speaker 1: up your vehicles. It sounds like you guys started off
13:00
Speaker 1: with a JK and then you moved up to some jls.
13:03
Speaker 1: What were the significant changes that you and your family
13:08
Speaker 1: decided was important going from a JK to a jail
13:13
Speaker 1: or maybe even two jils.
13:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's a We kept our original JKA. It's
13:18
Speaker 4: called Bandy, it's what we named it. That one was built,
13:22
Speaker 4: you know, originally with the intention to travel US five.
13:25
Speaker 4: And I'll also say our overlanding builds are very much
13:29
Speaker 4: about like long term travel and especially with cooking, cooking
13:33
Speaker 4: and camp life being the primary focus of the entire build,
13:36
Speaker 4: including how the suspension was built and everything else was
13:38
Speaker 4: to carry cast iron and heavy weight and a lot
13:41
Speaker 4: of food for a bunch of kids and you know,
13:43
Speaker 4: a family living out of the back of one jeep.
13:45
Speaker 4: So the blue Jeep was very much our utility vehicle.
13:48
Speaker 4: So the back of it was still slide out fridge,
13:50
Speaker 4: a couple of racks that essentially carried a bunch of
13:52
Speaker 4: Do you remember what those front runner boxes are called,
13:55
Speaker 4: those plastic wolf boxes, just front runner wolf boxes in
13:58
Speaker 4: there full of cast iron utensils, plates and cutlery, et cetera.
14:02
Speaker 5: That was the blue jeep.
14:03
Speaker 4: It had a rooftop tent and an airb awning out
14:06
Speaker 4: the side which had like an annex.
14:07
Speaker 5: Room in there.
14:08
Speaker 4: That's where me and Dan would sleep, and the rooftop
14:09
Speaker 4: ten generally is where Carolyn would sleep. And we had
14:13
Speaker 4: a trailer for a lot of our early travels. So
14:15
Speaker 4: getting the jl later in twenty nineteen, we were all
14:19
Speaker 4: too big to travel in one jeep at that point.
14:23
Speaker 4: I think I was seventeen and definitely a lot taller,
14:25
Speaker 4: same with my sister, so we couldn't fit in one vehicle.
14:28
Speaker 4: And we also wanted to expand and remove the trailer. Sure,
14:32
Speaker 4: we wanted to try traveling without a trailer. Trailers are
14:34
Speaker 4: great and it really did help us take gear out
14:37
Speaker 4: of the jeep and put it somewhere else.
14:38
Speaker 1: That's the only way you could travel with five people exactly. Really,
14:41
Speaker 1: I mean to be candid, I mean, other than if
14:43
Speaker 1: you're living like a backpacker exactly, that's hard to sustain
14:47
Speaker 1: for months and months at a time, yep.
14:49
Speaker 4: So getting the jail was with that in mind, and
14:52
Speaker 4: we built it fairly similar, except with the JL we
14:56
Speaker 4: also added a full goose gear seat delete in the back,
15:00
Speaker 4: the sixty percent seat delete sleep platform. Sure, so we
15:02
Speaker 4: did that with a fridge slide behind the one seat
15:05
Speaker 4: that we had left, and that was where my sister
15:07
Speaker 4: then moved into.
15:07
Speaker 5: That room.
15:08
Speaker 4: Was actually a really sweet set up in there for her,
15:11
Speaker 4: and then another rooftop tent on the roof of that one.
15:14
Speaker 4: So they were generally minimalist builds, just a roof rack,
15:19
Speaker 4: rooftop tent and that was pretty much it. Maybe in
15:22
Speaker 4: a haunting sure, And then very much of the build
15:25
Speaker 4: was focused on liveability.
15:27
Speaker 1: Camp life, Camp life, did you find that you camped
15:31
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the time or eighty percent of the time?
15:33
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean when we would go out in the jeeps,
15:36
Speaker 4: we would sometimes go for six months or a year
15:38
Speaker 4: around the US and Canada and be camping at least
15:42
Speaker 4: eighty five percent at the time, like as little as
15:45
Speaker 4: possible anywhere else, and it it felt amazing.
15:48
Speaker 5: I loved it.
15:49
Speaker 4: I actually didn't like sleeping in hotels, Like, once you
15:52
Speaker 4: got used to your your tent and everything, you miss
15:54
Speaker 4: it as soon as you're in a hotel other than
15:56
Speaker 4: a shower was excellent.
15:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of how these trucks are.
15:59
Speaker 1: They're so comfortable that other than the lack of I
16:02
Speaker 1: mean a hot shower at least once a week is
16:05
Speaker 1: pretty easy, yes, and then doing laundry. So I think
16:08
Speaker 1: that's kind of been our tempos. We try to find
16:10
Speaker 1: once every seven to ten days. We tried to find
16:13
Speaker 1: a place to do some laundry, get a good shower,
16:16
Speaker 1: just so we could stand being around.
16:17
Speaker 5: Each Yeah, exactly, yep.
16:20
Speaker 4: So with us, the when we would stop somewhere more
16:23
Speaker 4: established would also be you know koas in the US
16:26
Speaker 4: a Koa and New Zealand it was top Tens I
16:28
Speaker 4: think they were called. And that way we could still
16:30
Speaker 4: camp out of the vehicle, which was our preferred way
16:32
Speaker 4: of living, but you can have access to the showers
16:36
Speaker 4: and facilities that were there. So that made that fairly
16:39
Speaker 4: easy to hit that once a week or that makes sense.
16:41
Speaker 5: For the ladies a couple times a week.
16:44
Speaker 4: And we also carried with us on demand like pro
16:47
Speaker 4: pain heated showers with a shower cube or in that
16:50
Speaker 4: awning Annix shower.
16:51
Speaker 5: You need to totally.
16:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, because sometimes you're working on the vehicle or there's
16:55
Speaker 1: a winch recovery and your muddy and like you got
16:58
Speaker 1: to be able to clean up after that. You know,
17:00
Speaker 1: hygiene is important, particularly in the long haul. You could
17:04
Speaker 1: just develop a lot of problems, like health problems from
17:08
Speaker 1: not staying on top of hygiene. Like humans don't need
17:12
Speaker 1: a shower every day. I mean, it's nice if we
17:14
Speaker 1: get to, but you don't need to. But it is
17:16
Speaker 1: probably a good idea to be, you know, checking for
17:19
Speaker 1: ticks and you just those kinds of things where you
17:21
Speaker 1: get you pay attention to your body with a little
17:23
Speaker 1: bit of hygiene. Like just this morning, me, you know,
17:26
Speaker 1: shaving my head and trimming my beard and you know,
17:29
Speaker 1: and then I realized my skins getting a little dry,
17:32
Speaker 1: and you know, put on some beard oil and like
17:34
Speaker 1: it just it's nice to take fifteen minutes totally and
17:39
Speaker 1: just pay attention to your body a little bit.
17:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, wet wipes are king. I love that.
17:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was definitely the method over the years
17:48
Speaker 4: of travel was wet wipes to be able to give
17:50
Speaker 4: your face a shower at the very least after dusty
17:52
Speaker 4: days and then lotion and clean up. But yeah, and
17:56
Speaker 4: another note on like hygiene is me as a type
17:59
Speaker 4: one diabetic. I have to keep that in mind, and
18:01
Speaker 4: that was something I have been extra on top of
18:04
Speaker 4: throughout this African portion. Just make sure you I always
18:06
Speaker 4: wash up as much as I could, keep yourself clean
18:09
Speaker 4: and bacteria.
18:10
Speaker 1: Free, because the wounds can be a little more difficult
18:13
Speaker 1: to heal.
18:13
Speaker 5: Yep.
18:14
Speaker 4: That and just I mean, you're injecting yourself sure on
18:17
Speaker 4: the daily, so you don't want to be putting, you know,
18:19
Speaker 4: if your skin's really dirty.
18:20
Speaker 5: If you're touching tons of people's hands.
18:22
Speaker 4: It's great meeting people and everyone shakes your hand here,
18:24
Speaker 4: but you don't know where their hands have been, just
18:27
Speaker 4: like they don't know where yours have been. But then
18:29
Speaker 4: if you go and start touching insulin vials and needles
18:32
Speaker 4: and injecting into your leg, you could cause yourself a
18:34
Speaker 4: problem pretty quick.
18:35
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that a little bit.
18:36
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there are some people that are listening
18:38
Speaker 1: that either have type two or type one diabetes. You know,
18:42
Speaker 1: you've made a commitment to yourself that it's not going
18:45
Speaker 1: to keep you from experiencing life and adventure in the
18:48
Speaker 1: way that you want to.
18:49
Speaker 2: And technology has come a long way, and you know.
18:52
Speaker 1: Fingers cross and prayers, you know, to the universe that
18:56
Speaker 1: eventually that there's going to be a cure for that,
18:59
Speaker 1: which looks like it's possible. But for you traveling right now,
19:03
Speaker 1: especially on such an ambitious expedition like West Africa, let's
19:08
Speaker 1: just go into some of the ways that you have
19:10
Speaker 1: been able to do that as a type one diabetic.
19:14
Speaker 4: It's weird to say, but thankfully I was diagnosed while
19:17
Speaker 4: on the road. It made it a bit more difficult
19:19
Speaker 4: for myself because it was harder to notice. So the
19:21
Speaker 4: prediagnosis was a bit extreme. But it was actually while
19:25
Speaker 4: we were traveling as a family through Yosemite, and that
19:28
Speaker 4: was where it was like I reached a point where
19:29
Speaker 4: I wasn't functioning as I normally would, very noticeably, and
19:33
Speaker 4: my dad, you know, rushed, My dad and my mom
19:35
Speaker 4: rushed just to the hospital, and I was diagnosed with
19:37
Speaker 4: type one diabetes.
19:38
Speaker 1: And from how long because basically the beta cells stopped
19:42
Speaker 1: working correct?
19:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, how long does it take?
19:45
Speaker 2: How long does it take for that process to occur?
19:48
Speaker 4: I don't know from start to finish, but roughly a year,
19:52
Speaker 4: I think, is what I remember hearing in the hospital.
19:54
Speaker 4: Your type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease at least
19:58
Speaker 4: they believe it to me. So you're immune system, for
20:01
Speaker 4: whatever reason, starts to see your beta cells, which are
20:03
Speaker 4: insulin producing beta cells on your pancreas in your body
20:06
Speaker 4: as foreign and attacks them and kills them off. So
20:09
Speaker 4: when even when I was diagnosed though, and then my
20:12
Speaker 4: blood sugar was through the roof and all that, I
20:15
Speaker 4: still add roughly twenty to thirty percent of my beta
20:17
Speaker 4: cells producing insulince. So it's what's known as a honeymoon phase.
20:20
Speaker 4: And then it over the next six months they said
20:22
Speaker 4: those would be killed off and you'd be out of
20:24
Speaker 4: that so called honeymoon phase. So it's yeah, about a
20:27
Speaker 4: year to year and a half, I believe, is the
20:29
Speaker 4: time that it takes for that to happen. But being
20:31
Speaker 4: diagnosed on the road, I was in the middle of
20:33
Speaker 4: doing stuff I love.
20:34
Speaker 5: We're actually trying to do.
20:35
Speaker 4: We just completed the ten mile hike around Yosemite, and
20:38
Speaker 4: then we're going to do and what is that Big
20:40
Speaker 4: Falls or Yosementy Falls that hike, and I just couldn't
20:43
Speaker 4: couldn't walk anymore, but the desire was still in my head,
20:46
Speaker 4: and I remember once I was recovered in the hospital
20:48
Speaker 4: and all that and there's all these things they're saying.
20:50
Speaker 5: You can't do. You can't scuba dive.
20:51
Speaker 4: You know, you can't be a commercial pilot, you can't
20:54
Speaker 4: join the military, you can't do stuff like that. I remember,
20:57
Speaker 4: it did worry me a lot. You can't eat a
20:58
Speaker 4: lot of things, is what it sounded like. You can
21:00
Speaker 4: eat whatever you want, but there's just that for a
21:02
Speaker 4: fourteen year old, there was a lot of restrictions suddenly
21:05
Speaker 4: placed on an extremely free life leading up to that point,
21:08
Speaker 4: and that was the part that scared me the most.
21:11
Speaker 4: The taking insulin and all that I thought was cool,
21:13
Speaker 4: and I still kind of appreciate all the technology and
21:16
Speaker 4: all that, but the restrictions were worrying because that that's
21:19
Speaker 4: just not a good feeling, especially at that young of
21:21
Speaker 4: an age, to be told you can't do something. So
21:25
Speaker 4: I just made it a point from the moment of
21:27
Speaker 4: diagnosis on to not let it stop me. So a
21:32
Speaker 4: month after diagnosis, went home, got a bit recovered, and
21:34
Speaker 4: we flew back out to the jeeps and climbed a
21:37
Speaker 4: mountain in Oregon, and from then on just continue doing stuff.
21:40
Speaker 4: I did scuba dive. I think you're actually legally and
21:42
Speaker 4: loud to now but even the time of me receiving
21:44
Speaker 4: my paddy license, I might have lied about that and
21:47
Speaker 4: got scuba dive certified.
21:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
21:51
Speaker 4: I slipped my mind and we continue traveling so much
21:54
Speaker 4: of our travels, pretty much all of our travels. I've
21:56
Speaker 4: been a Type one diabetic, so really learned in the
22:00
Speaker 4: crucible of travel, the fires of travel. All the mistakes
22:03
Speaker 4: I've made are innumerable at this point, but I've learned
22:06
Speaker 4: a lot from that and what to do. So prepping
22:08
Speaker 4: for this West Africa trip, I knew a lot of
22:11
Speaker 4: what to expect, but just made sure that I.
22:13
Speaker 5: Took more and was more on top of the game than.
22:18
Speaker 4: I was for most other places, because there's not you
22:20
Speaker 4: can only make so many, even little mistakes before it's
22:24
Speaker 4: a huge problem that you cannot fix in some of
22:26
Speaker 4: those areas, or at least not without great difficulty and
22:28
Speaker 4: inconvenience to the team.
22:30
Speaker 3: Head on over to expeditionportal dot com or our YouTube
22:33
Speaker 3: page and join us along with Han Kook Dina pro
22:36
Speaker 3: Tire at the Off Road Expo in Sunny Coasta Mesa, California.
22:40
Speaker 3: It was a great family event that showcased everything from
22:43
Speaker 3: jumping rally trucks to jeeps, pickups and expedition builds.
22:48
Speaker 2: That's been impressive.
22:49
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you Clay feels comfortable bringing you along
22:53
Speaker 1: because you're pay such close attention, which is not something
22:56
Speaker 1: that a twenty three year old is normally all that
22:58
Speaker 1: great app but you you take it very serious because
23:01
Speaker 1: you want this to be a part of your life.
23:03
Speaker 1: You want to be able to explore the world and
23:05
Speaker 1: you don't want to be limited in that way. And
23:08
Speaker 1: technology has come such a long way with the decks,
23:12
Speaker 1: communits and now the insulin pumps that can be installed
23:16
Speaker 1: and coordinate.
23:18
Speaker 2: Between the CGM and stuffs.
23:21
Speaker 1: Very very interesting technology that allows for that, and hopefully,
23:26
Speaker 1: through like some form of mRNA or some other form
23:31
Speaker 1: of technology development, that they'll be able to eventually regrow
23:34
Speaker 1: beta cells or get things working again in the future.
23:39
Speaker 1: But for me, it's been awesome to watch you work
23:42
Speaker 1: through that, and it hasn't I mean, you've been able
23:45
Speaker 1: to experience everything that we have. You've been able to
23:49
Speaker 1: maintain your fitness, and you pay attention to what you eat.
23:52
Speaker 1: You know, you maybe don't have a super sugary drink
23:55
Speaker 1: unless you need it exactly, and you keep really close
23:59
Speaker 1: eye on and it's pretty rare that your your device
24:03
Speaker 1: will be bat you because you're out of range, because
24:05
Speaker 1: you're right on top of it yourself.
24:07
Speaker 4: Yep, your body kind of knows now, yeah, totally you
24:10
Speaker 4: can feel it. But yeah, that I attribute a lot
24:14
Speaker 4: of that, like to travel my mindset with Type one.
24:18
Speaker 4: It would have been, I imagine, quite a bit different
24:21
Speaker 4: had I been living a more comfortable, easy lifestyle at
24:25
Speaker 4: a house for myself. I feel like that because we
24:27
Speaker 4: had already taken steps as a family and as a
24:29
Speaker 4: young person, I decided to do things a bit more adventurous,
24:33
Speaker 4: a bit more out of the box. So to get
24:35
Speaker 4: Type one it was more just an extra challenge. And
24:36
Speaker 4: in fact, I view it to this day as just
24:39
Speaker 4: like anything I can accomplish with this is a little
24:42
Speaker 4: bit more in my mind because I've got all these
24:43
Speaker 4: things I've also worked through, so it's like extra bonus
24:46
Speaker 4: achievements for myself, even in the small things and inspiring others, right,
24:51
Speaker 4: you know, I mean the fact that you know there
24:53
Speaker 4: are there are many people that have Type one.
24:55
Speaker 1: I mean there's even more that have Type two, and
24:58
Speaker 1: you can you're you're accomplishing everything that you want to accomplish.
25:02
Speaker 1: You've found a way to do that, and I think
25:05
Speaker 1: that's very inspired. It's inspiring to me. I have such
25:07
Speaker 1: respect for you and you're commitment to see in the world,
25:11
Speaker 1: and I think that that'll inspire others as well, I hope. So, yeah,
25:16
Speaker 1: that's pretty that's pretty amazing. Let's let's talk a little
25:19
Speaker 1: bit more about your next journey. So now you've got
25:22
Speaker 1: the two jeeps and you go and you spend How
25:25
Speaker 1: long did you spend in New Zealand? What did you
25:27
Speaker 1: think of New Zealand some of your favorite parts?
25:30
Speaker 4: New Zealand is such a good memory for me to
25:32
Speaker 4: look back on it it being one of the first
25:34
Speaker 4: trips and also such an incredible place. We spent six
25:37
Speaker 4: months in New Zealand in the jeep. We traveled between
25:40
Speaker 4: the North Island and the South Island, pretty much everywhere
25:43
Speaker 4: in between, on every side of the island, surfing.
25:45
Speaker 5: Here and climbing mountains here.
25:48
Speaker 4: And New Zealand for me is really, like really is
25:51
Speaker 4: one of the pinnacles of places to visit. New Zealand
25:54
Speaker 4: for me is really one of the best countries in
25:57
Speaker 4: the world. It's got a little bit of everything that
25:59
Speaker 4: makes North America in particular great like the big rocky
26:03
Speaker 4: mountains here and then the East coast kind of feeling
26:05
Speaker 4: in different places, big flat lands somewhere.
26:08
Speaker 5: It's got it all mashed into one.
26:10
Speaker 4: And then a lot more geothermal activity which gives you
26:12
Speaker 4: a lot of hot springs. So if you like surfing overlanding,
26:15
Speaker 4: there's a lot of great like more I would say
26:17
Speaker 4: of the kind of like what we're doing now. You
26:19
Speaker 4: can hit pavement and then dodge off onto some cool trails.
26:22
Speaker 4: It's not going to be like doing BDR length of
26:25
Speaker 4: trails through Colorado and Utah or something, but just an
26:29
Speaker 4: incredible travel experience through that country still to this day
26:32
Speaker 4: one of my favorite places because the people are easily
26:36
Speaker 4: one of the most friendly people on earth. The Maori people,
26:39
Speaker 4: like the local Aboriginal people of or Indigenous people of
26:42
Speaker 4: New Zealand, are incredible, a really really neat culture and
26:45
Speaker 4: a very friendly, awesome group of people.
26:48
Speaker 5: And then just the key.
26:51
Speaker 1: To historically they were significant. Yep, the hawka they do
26:57
Speaker 1: just on the all blacks and it's awesome. Teams is
26:59
Speaker 1: really love that. So that was an incredible and amazing culture.
27:03
Speaker 4: Incredible culture, incredible country to get to explore for that
27:07
Speaker 4: period of time continuously was a really, really great thing.
27:11
Speaker 4: And from there we went to Australia. This was without
27:14
Speaker 4: the jeep. The jeep was shipping home at this time
27:15
Speaker 4: because it takes about a month and a half to
27:17
Speaker 4: get from New Zealand. We rented a vehicle and flew
27:21
Speaker 4: to Adelaide. We had some family there, and then traveled
27:23
Speaker 4: to Great Ocean Road to Melbourne and saw the Twelve
27:25
Speaker 4: Apostles and a lot of beautiful sites in Australia, spent
27:29
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks in Indonesia and then went home
27:32
Speaker 4: and continued to travel with the jeep all around the
27:35
Speaker 4: US again. We essentially did every state once again, and
27:38
Speaker 4: outside of Hawaii, we went down into Baja on the
27:42
Speaker 4: peninsula there with a bunch of other overlanding friends and
27:45
Speaker 4: just continued to travel and travel and travel in the vehicles,
27:48
Speaker 4: gain experience and knowledge of how to how to live
27:51
Speaker 4: and thrive while traveling on the road in limited space
27:54
Speaker 4: vehicles like what a jeep is. Sure, and we're now
27:58
Speaker 4: at the point where a few years ago my brother
28:00
Speaker 4: and I then wanted to move from the jeeps to
28:03
Speaker 4: adventure bikes. So it took a while actually to decide
28:07
Speaker 4: on just what bike. It took a long time to
28:09
Speaker 4: save up, essentially from the time I was fourteen and
28:11
Speaker 4: my brother was twelve. We made the decision that that's
28:13
Speaker 4: what we wanted to do eventually, and saved up till
28:17
Speaker 4: we were actually at Clay's place in Montana and we
28:21
Speaker 4: decided on KTM six ninetyen euros and bought those.
28:24
Speaker 2: And I think I've ridden neither yours or your brother's bike.
28:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I believe his mine. Yeah that's awesome.
28:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, so those were those were a lot of fun
28:32
Speaker 4: and that opened a whole new door in the world
28:34
Speaker 4: of overland adventure. There's many things that are similar to
28:38
Speaker 4: just any vehicle based travel, but I think adventure bike
28:41
Speaker 4: travel is quite unique.
28:42
Speaker 5: It teaches you a couple extra things.
28:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
28:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's demanding, and it's also clarifying, simplifying of your life.
28:52
Speaker 1: I mean, you can have, even on a GS which
28:55
Speaker 1: is a big adventure bike, the entire extent of the
28:59
Speaker 1: contents the bike, all the boxes, all your gear would
29:02
Speaker 1: fit in the passenger seat of this truck. So you
29:05
Speaker 1: you just don't have a lot of space. So it
29:07
Speaker 1: just keeps makes life very simple.
29:08
Speaker 5: Yep. It does, so that was a lot of fun.
29:11
Speaker 4: It also exposes you to the elements, which is one
29:13
Speaker 4: of my favorite parts about it. We were told that
29:16
Speaker 4: by quite a few awesome people within the overlanding world
29:19
Speaker 4: who also travel on adventure bikes at different expos when
29:22
Speaker 4: we were young trying to get into it.
29:23
Speaker 5: We were too young to even get a license, but
29:25
Speaker 5: they were.
29:25
Speaker 4: Still talking to us like we were fellow at that point,
29:27
Speaker 4: and they inspired us with talking about like the change
29:30
Speaker 4: in temperature just coming up and down hills when you
29:32
Speaker 4: hit shadows and we come out into the sun again,
29:34
Speaker 4: and that sort of travel for me is also extremely
29:38
Speaker 4: rewarding and fun while overlanding. So we did the bikes
29:42
Speaker 4: and kind of here we are today. Through those travels,
29:44
Speaker 4: we met ex O Land.
29:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, like, how did you
29:48
Speaker 1: first get involved with xoverland and what was the first
29:52
Speaker 1: trip that you came along as a creative.
29:57
Speaker 4: So first time we had briefly met Clay and a
30:01
Speaker 4: few of the crew members occasionally had different expos. I
30:04
Speaker 4: believe there was an Expo East where they were there,
30:06
Speaker 4: I'm not quite sure about that, and definitely an Expo West.
30:09
Speaker 4: Walked up and nervously said hi to Clay and asked
30:13
Speaker 4: him for some advice. I remember my dad asking him, like,
30:15
Speaker 4: what could you tell especially my sister, she was the
30:17
Speaker 4: original creative on the epic family road trip side filming
30:20
Speaker 4: and taking photos, but what kind of advice would you
30:23
Speaker 4: give and travel and as a creative and documenting stuff.
30:27
Speaker 5: And he gave some excellent advice, so I stuck with us.
30:30
Speaker 4: We knew of them just through that brief little meetings
30:33
Speaker 4: here and there, but we actually as a family, we
30:35
Speaker 4: were traveling in BC, had just come off this crazy
30:39
Speaker 4: backcountry route in the mountains. We got drove over some
30:42
Speaker 4: avalanches and got stuck for three days up in a
30:44
Speaker 4: mountain passed. We almost hit the SOS button because we
30:46
Speaker 4: pretty much ran out of fuel up there, and we
30:49
Speaker 4: were just coming out of that when my dad got
30:51
Speaker 4: a call from Clay, and essentially Clay said he had
30:55
Speaker 4: been watching the YouTube over the years, watching it grow,
30:58
Speaker 4: watching us grow as kids, and he was asking my
31:01
Speaker 4: father and mother if they'd be okay with sending us
31:04
Speaker 4: over to the ex Hangar for a few months to
31:06
Speaker 4: do an internship with them and possibly a solo series.
31:09
Speaker 5: At the time, I don't know if you recall the
31:10
Speaker 5: x L series.
31:12
Speaker 2: Richard Nashley did one of them. I can't remember all
31:14
Speaker 2: the people who.
31:15
Speaker 4: Did yep, Richard Nashley's was amazing to Tuk to Yuktak.
31:18
Speaker 4: But yeah, So original intention was some internship and a
31:22
Speaker 4: solo series, either to Mongolia or to Iceland.
31:25
Speaker 5: So we flew down there.
31:26
Speaker 4: It was the kind of the height of COVID, but
31:28
Speaker 4: right before everything really truly locked down, and spent three
31:32
Speaker 4: months which turned into six months, and then our parents
31:35
Speaker 4: could make it and we stay there for another couple
31:36
Speaker 4: months with living with the Croft family, really getting to
31:39
Speaker 4: know them. I remember Cyrus as like a fourteen year
31:41
Speaker 4: old and all the guys two or three years apart,
31:43
Speaker 4: down young guys and spending that much time basically living
31:46
Speaker 4: in their house and with Clay and Rochelle and the family.
31:49
Speaker 4: From Clay and Rochelle, we learned a ton about the
31:51
Speaker 4: operating system within ex Overland, how they travel, how they film,
31:55
Speaker 4: and eventually went on our first trip on the Baja Special.
31:59
Speaker 4: So it was five parts series down to Baja. We
32:01
Speaker 4: did a bunch of diving, and at that point I
32:03
Speaker 4: actually wasn't a creative even it wasn't very much on
32:06
Speaker 4: my radar to be like a camera operator cinematographer in
32:09
Speaker 4: any way. So I was just along for the ride,
32:11
Speaker 4: learning how to drive and learning the XO way of overlanding.
32:15
Speaker 4: But it wasn't until after the Alaska series. The Nordic
32:20
Speaker 4: series was the first one that I came in and
32:23
Speaker 4: began shooting.
32:25
Speaker 1: And that's impressive because it seems like you've been doing
32:27
Speaker 1: it like since two You take it really serious, I mean,
32:31
Speaker 1: thank you. You really care about the shots, and you're
32:35
Speaker 1: really proactive around, you know, pulling cameras together and get
32:39
Speaker 1: getting out and getting the shot. It's become one of
32:43
Speaker 1: my favorite things now in life, like alongside travel.
32:45
Speaker 5: I think the two blend beautifully. Like being either a.
32:48
Speaker 4: Photographer or a cinematographer and doing overland travel. You drive
32:53
Speaker 4: yourself to places that lend themselves to a camera. It's
32:56
Speaker 4: just most of the time they're stunning, and if they're not,
32:59
Speaker 4: they're so horrible that you want to also document it
33:02
Speaker 4: for yourself for memory later. But I learned a lot
33:05
Speaker 4: on that first Nordic series because I had handled cameras
33:08
Speaker 4: within Epic Family road trip filming and doing other stuff,
33:11
Speaker 4: but within x overland it's you're not documenting in the
33:15
Speaker 4: same way traditional YouTube channels are like vlogging or just
33:19
Speaker 4: doing simple videos. It's much more of a documentary style,
33:22
Speaker 4: and Clay coming from a background within you know, cinematography
33:25
Speaker 4: school and directing and their Highland Productions is more of
33:28
Speaker 4: a film group. There was a lot, a lot I
33:31
Speaker 4: was exposed to just in those first two trips pre
33:33
Speaker 4: filming and then within By the time we made it
33:36
Speaker 4: to Nordic Series, I had just decided that that was
33:38
Speaker 4: the path that I wanted to take in life. I
33:40
Speaker 4: really both personally and then with X Overland, I really
33:43
Speaker 4: wanted to be a part of that film side, so
33:46
Speaker 4: I was given the opportunity Shocks I believe five of
33:49
Speaker 4: those episodes.
33:50
Speaker 5: As soon as we.
33:51
Speaker 4: Left Denmark to Faroe Islands and Iceland, I was documenting that.
33:54
Speaker 4: So I learned a ton. It was a ton of
33:56
Speaker 4: fun I was filming with Richard and since then it's
33:59
Speaker 4: a lot to learn from Richard. Yes, yes, he's an
34:01
Speaker 4: incredible guy. Takes that very serious, being mindful of the
34:06
Speaker 4: quality of work that he does. Yeah, very takes them
34:09
Speaker 4: very serious for sure. Yeah, there's a lot to learn
34:11
Speaker 4: from him on that front and overlanding.
34:13
Speaker 1: So if you were to give an aspiring YouTuber, someone
34:18
Speaker 1: who just wants to do a better job of documenting
34:21
Speaker 1: their family's journey, but would be you know, from the
34:24
Speaker 1: the capture side, would be you know, two, three or
34:27
Speaker 1: five little tidbits or recommendations you could give people, like
34:31
Speaker 1: around cameras and when to shoot and how to shoot.
34:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:35
Speaker 4: I think one of the most important things to keep
34:37
Speaker 4: in mind when you're documenting, especially as a family, is
34:40
Speaker 4: it's a unique enough thing even now, like the YouTube
34:43
Speaker 4: space is quite saturated, but like overlanding as a family
34:47
Speaker 4: and getting out internationally is still quite rare. And there's
34:50
Speaker 4: you know, there's hundreds, if not tens of thousands of
34:52
Speaker 4: families who also want to.
34:53
Speaker 5: Go and do that.
34:55
Speaker 4: I know I do, yeah, And as I get to
34:57
Speaker 4: that point in life, and one of the key things
34:58
Speaker 4: to remember while you're feel stuff is to film your family,
35:02
Speaker 4: not the thing that you're driving to. So you'll get
35:04
Speaker 4: to the Grand Canyon and then you're going to try
35:06
Speaker 4: to be National Geographic filming Grand Canyon. But National Geographic
35:10
Speaker 4: already did that way better with hundreds of thousands of
35:12
Speaker 4: dollars behind it, not a phone or a little camera.
35:15
Speaker 5: When you're starting out a YouTube channel.
35:17
Speaker 4: What's truly an inspiring thing to watch and something I
35:21
Speaker 4: would watch and many other people would watch, is the
35:23
Speaker 4: experience your kids are having, experience you're having as a
35:26
Speaker 4: couple or as a solo traveler. It's your experience at
35:29
Speaker 4: those places that's truly valuable and inspiring to others. Not
35:34
Speaker 4: necessarily the big canyon, which you know, I could look
35:37
Speaker 4: up right now and find incredible stuff.
35:38
Speaker 1: On or whatever you had for lunch. People don't care
35:40
Speaker 1: what you had for lunch. People care about how the
35:44
Speaker 1: trip is affecting you. Yeah, they're beginning to connect with
35:47
Speaker 1: you as a person, So give them some insights on
35:50
Speaker 1: how you're feeling. And you know, don't just say wow,
35:53
Speaker 1: this is beautiful. Explain why it's beautiful. Right this canyon.
35:56
Speaker 2: I never imagine this canyon was this deep or this wide.
36:01
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm at five thousand feet on the
36:03
Speaker 1: edge and it goes down a mile down almost to
36:06
Speaker 1: the river bottom.
36:07
Speaker 2: Like those kinds of things.
36:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, really describe what you're experiencing and avoid the platitudes
36:13
Speaker 1: and avoid the kind of the generic stuff like you know,
36:18
Speaker 1: a selfie or a what you have for lunch.
36:21
Speaker 2: People don't care about that.
36:22
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So getting getting more personal with the camera,
36:25
Speaker 4: I think is the main thing, and that's a lesson
36:27
Speaker 4: I'm still learning all the time with my own YouTube
36:29
Speaker 4: channel and with our families. It can be a difficult
36:32
Speaker 4: thing to expose your true feelings, as you were saying,
36:34
Speaker 4: to say more than amazing epic cool is hard because
36:38
Speaker 4: it requires you to think a bit more, to articulate
36:42
Speaker 4: a little bit more thoughtfully to the camera, which you
36:46
Speaker 4: know takes a bit of guts at first, if you're
36:50
Speaker 4: averse to cameras, if you're an introvert, which I find
36:52
Speaker 4: myself to be and it took a while for me
36:54
Speaker 4: to develop that. But if you can do that earlier on,
36:57
Speaker 4: make it more about your personal experiences in travel rather
37:00
Speaker 4: than the destination, that it can be a very valuable thing.
37:04
Speaker 1: People forget that vulnerability is a superpower, right, not only
37:10
Speaker 1: when you are interacting with the public by sharing your story,
37:13
Speaker 1: but with the people in your life. It's as humans
37:18
Speaker 1: were so afraid of vulnerability. But think of any time
37:21
Speaker 1: you've interacted with someone who was vulnerable with you. You
37:25
Speaker 1: immediately feel a connection to them, a deeper connection. You
37:28
Speaker 1: immediately respect them more, You immediately feel empathy towards them,
37:34
Speaker 1: and you want to be a part of their life
37:35
Speaker 1: because so many people put on a mask. They're like
37:39
Speaker 1: always trying. And that's what we talk about in the podcast.
37:42
Speaker 1: That's why we go a little deeper. Is that I
37:45
Speaker 1: make mistakes all the time. I have bad days. I
37:48
Speaker 1: feel alone sometimes when I travel, and sometimes I miss
37:52
Speaker 1: home and I wish I wasn't where I was, or
37:54
Speaker 1: I feel stressed or whatever, and we have to be
37:58
Speaker 1: open about that or else everybody's just kind of put
38:02
Speaker 1: on a show. And I think vulnerability is a superpower,
38:06
Speaker 1: not only for the creative, especially when your YouTube is
38:09
Speaker 1: about you. It's about you and your family, and it's
38:13
Speaker 1: about sharing who you are and what you're learning and
38:15
Speaker 1: how you're growing.
38:16
Speaker 2: And the more that you do that, the more vulnerable.
38:19
Speaker 1: We are, especially as creatives when we tell our stories,
38:22
Speaker 1: the more that we're open about how we're feeling about
38:26
Speaker 1: because everybody feels it, so they all resonate. They all
38:30
Speaker 1: have felt the day when they were insecure, or where
38:33
Speaker 1: they were afraid, or where they were uncertain if they
38:36
Speaker 1: were going to be successful or even going to make
38:38
Speaker 1: it to the end of the journey. And the more vulnerable.
38:41
Speaker 1: We are like that in an authentic way. The more
38:44
Speaker 1: that people will resonate.
38:45
Speaker 2: With it.
38:47
Speaker 5: Being human, letting yourself be human.
38:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, because everybody feels that stuff if we've been trained
38:55
Speaker 1: to not be open about it because somehow it'll make
38:58
Speaker 1: us uppear weak or make it suppure less interesting or
39:02
Speaker 1: less desirable to be around.
39:04
Speaker 2: But the exact opposite is the case. Yeah, the exact
39:07
Speaker 2: opposite is the case.
39:10
Speaker 5: Yeah. So, I mean, the only other thing I can
39:12
Speaker 5: think of.
39:13
Speaker 4: That's also an important note is you can watch other
39:15
Speaker 4: people for inspiration, you know, be at x Overland, Epic
39:18
Speaker 4: Family road Trip, the millions of YouTube channels that are
39:21
Speaker 4: out there to inspire you in a creative style or
39:24
Speaker 4: maybe where to go or what to do. But don't
39:27
Speaker 4: fall into the trap of trying to emulate someone else,
39:29
Speaker 4: because that person has already taken It. Was a lesson
39:33
Speaker 4: I learned from my father he does public speaking. Is
39:35
Speaker 4: people are always afraid to tell their own story because
39:37
Speaker 4: you might get something wrong.
39:39
Speaker 5: But the only.
39:39
Speaker 4: Person who knows you is you. You know everything about yourself.
39:44
Speaker 4: You can tell your story completely accurately. No one can
39:46
Speaker 4: say no, that didn't happen in your life. You know
39:47
Speaker 4: because you were there. So don't be afraid to tell
39:50
Speaker 4: the story about yourself, your experiences and all that, because
39:53
Speaker 4: that's new, that's something people may want to see, and
39:56
Speaker 4: you never know, you might inspire millions of people through
39:58
Speaker 4: your experiences. Even if you think they're normal, that's just
40:01
Speaker 4: because you've been living through them. Someone else might find
40:04
Speaker 4: that life changing.
40:07
Speaker 2: And the fact that you have learned those lessons at
40:09
Speaker 2: such a young age.
40:10
Speaker 1: It probably wasn't until I was in my late forties
40:13
Speaker 1: that I figured all that stuff out. So your way,
40:15
Speaker 1: your way ahead of the game man, absolutely.
40:19
Speaker 5: Due to nurture or nature.
40:21
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is quite a little roundabout we're
40:23
Speaker 1: going through here in Angola. The Angolan drivers are a
40:26
Speaker 1: thousand times more considerate than the Nigerian drivers.
40:29
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, if that was Nigeria, would have been stopped a.
40:32
Speaker 2: Mile it would have been a yeah, it would have
40:34
Speaker 2: been a complete gridlock.
40:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
40:36
Speaker 1: I have never in my life experienced drivers who had
40:41
Speaker 1: this idea that gaining an inch now even though it
40:45
Speaker 1: would cost them two hours later because of gridlock, so
40:49
Speaker 1: it was valuable.
40:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:50
Speaker 1: It was absolutely shocking to see how they would just
40:53
Speaker 1: fill up the oncoming lane in the hope that they
40:56
Speaker 1: could get a foot further.
40:57
Speaker 2: But because everybody does that, the entire thing is shut
41:00
Speaker 2: down for hours.
41:01
Speaker 5: Yep.
41:01
Speaker 4: And it's not just like our traffic does that. They
41:04
Speaker 4: blocked oncoming everybody oncoming to the our side. So it's
41:07
Speaker 4: a complete good luck, like they must recognize. I mean,
41:10
Speaker 4: I guess it's just you know, there's so many people
41:13
Speaker 4: in that country, two hundred million people, they must be
41:15
Speaker 4: just all clamoring for that extra inch over the next person.
41:19
Speaker 2: But fortunately it's not that way in Angola. Yeah, that's been.
41:23
Speaker 5: Awesome, extremely mild and beautiful.
41:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
41:25
Speaker 1: I mean, we drove through a checkpoint on this interview
41:29
Speaker 1: when the guy just gave us a bunch of thumbs
41:31
Speaker 1: up and waved the thought like any other country would
41:33
Speaker 1: have been, we would have been stopped showing our passports
41:36
Speaker 1: and walking out getting.
41:37
Speaker 2: Photo exactly exactly. All right.
41:40
Speaker 1: So you have all these big, amazing adventures with your family.
41:45
Speaker 1: You have your family's YouTube channel that sees some success,
41:49
Speaker 1: and let let's so the listener knows, like, what's the
41:52
Speaker 1: name of is it epic family road Trip?
41:54
Speaker 2: Is that all right?
41:56
Speaker 1: So you can you guys can check that out on
41:58
Speaker 1: YouTube and on so social media, and now you've been
42:02
Speaker 1: doing all of these big.
42:03
Speaker 2: Expeditions with Xoverland.
42:04
Speaker 5: Yep.
42:05
Speaker 1: That has to be creating things in your mind at
42:08
Speaker 1: twenty three, like what's next? Like what what are some
42:12
Speaker 1: of your goals? How do you want to travel next?
42:14
Speaker 1: Where do you want to go in the world.
42:16
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah.
42:17
Speaker 4: The opportunity of being with Xoverland over the years has
42:20
Speaker 4: been tremendous and I'm super grateful to Clay and Rachelle
42:24
Speaker 4: and the XO team to have been given this opportunity.
42:27
Speaker 4: I've learned so much creatively and as an overlander and traveler.
42:31
Speaker 4: It's given me a lot of ideas on how to travel,
42:33
Speaker 4: met a lot of incredible people, including yourself. I get
42:36
Speaker 4: to learn so much stuff from people like you, Richard, Kurt,
42:40
Speaker 4: Clay himself, and all the other guys that have been
42:43
Speaker 4: on say just Milestones alone. I mean, we had Andy
42:45
Speaker 4: Ellis here and his land rover and his experiences, and
42:49
Speaker 4: we had a lot of amazing people. So I've been
42:52
Speaker 4: collecting information and figuring out what i want to do,
42:56
Speaker 4: and as of right now, my hope is by the
42:59
Speaker 4: time we reached Cape down after seeing Cape Agaullis, maybe
43:04
Speaker 4: fly home see the family for Christmas, but then come
43:06
Speaker 4: back to South Africa and I'm in the process of
43:09
Speaker 4: purchasing my own land Rover number one ten, so I
43:15
Speaker 4: kind of got hooked on that. I've been very open
43:17
Speaker 4: on vehicles. We started with Jeeves. My parents have a
43:20
Speaker 4: F three fifty now like a Ross Monster truck, and
43:22
Speaker 4: we have bikes. I was never very vehicle like I
43:26
Speaker 4: need it to be one brand or the other. It
43:28
Speaker 4: was more just whatever made seem to make the most
43:30
Speaker 4: sense or that I loved the most, both esthetically and reliability.
43:34
Speaker 5: In some ways.
43:35
Speaker 1: Oh, it's super common for creatives to want land Rover
43:37
Speaker 1: because they look right exactly at any scene.
43:41
Speaker 4: They have such an incredible iconic look to them. And
43:44
Speaker 4: it may have been my time with Andy Ellis on
43:47
Speaker 4: the first part of the Milestone Strip through North America.
43:49
Speaker 4: We were chatting the entire time and I got hooked
43:53
Speaker 4: on the idea of a one ten. So that's my goal,
43:58
Speaker 4: to be clear. Also at twenty three, looking at vehicles
44:00
Speaker 4: and travel. Money is a major consideration on anything I do.
44:05
Speaker 5: Sure, and one of the beauties of.
44:07
Speaker 4: A Defender in South Africa is they are extremely cheap,
44:10
Speaker 4: three times cheaper than the nearest competition vehicle that's even
44:13
Speaker 4: equivalent in reliability and looks would be probably a seventy
44:18
Speaker 4: six land Cruiser I love. I love that truck as well,
44:22
Speaker 4: but even just comparing prices for me at this point
44:24
Speaker 4: in my life, the Defender makes a lot more sense
44:27
Speaker 4: in that regard where I'll have enough money to travel afterwards.
44:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a land Cruiser isn't three times more reliable
44:33
Speaker 1: than a three hundred TDI Defender for sure, right those are?
44:37
Speaker 1: I mean the two hundred TDI Defender that I use
44:40
Speaker 1: has been one hundred percent reliable. Sometimes the turn signals
44:44
Speaker 1: don't work, but like the engine starts every single time
44:47
Speaker 1: and it runs great. So and there's a lot of
44:50
Speaker 1: advantages to a Defender. I mean, people don't think about
44:53
Speaker 1: some of the nuances. But when you're driving a land
44:55
Speaker 1: Cruiser in South Africa, people want to take it from you.
44:59
Speaker 1: People are willing to stop you with a gun and
45:01
Speaker 1: carjacket right to get that land Cruiser to sell it
45:04
Speaker 1: for parts.
45:05
Speaker 2: Whereas no one's gonna carjack you for a lot of time.
45:09
Speaker 2: They're not, They're not gonna do it. Yeah, it's like
45:12
Speaker 2: the old.
45:14
Speaker 4: Farm vehicle, you know, the you've seen hundreds of those
45:17
Speaker 4: things on farms. Even on this trip, you see them
45:19
Speaker 4: everywhere as like the old generation's work vehicle.
45:21
Speaker 5: It's less desirable man, and.
45:23
Speaker 1: They're very simple and they're a joy to drive. They're
45:26
Speaker 1: surprisingly comfortable. You spend a lot I mean, you're a
45:29
Speaker 1: big guy, so you'll spend a lot of time with
45:30
Speaker 1: the window down in your armount, your munt just because
45:34
Speaker 1: everything is not quite right erganomically, but then somehow it is.
45:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's like just right for Africa. I
45:40
Speaker 1: think it's a great choice and you'll learn.
45:42
Speaker 2: How to work on it yourself and you'll be able
45:44
Speaker 2: to maintain it.
45:45
Speaker 5: So that was also one of.
45:46
Speaker 4: The major considerations that traveling with guys like Kurt especially
45:50
Speaker 4: and tor V. Spent a lot of time with him,
45:51
Speaker 4: and he's they're both incredible mechanics field mechanics in particular
45:54
Speaker 4: as well as travelers and overlanders. They're incredible field mechanics
45:59
Speaker 4: on vehicles as well as overlanders, And just watching that,
46:02
Speaker 4: I realized that that was one area that I am
46:05
Speaker 4: lacking in experience. I've done minimal repairs. Thankfully, the jeeps
46:09
Speaker 4: were reliable and for for once kind of event, they
46:13
Speaker 4: never had any major breakdowns that exposed me to doing
46:16
Speaker 4: that sort of stuff. So I also chose a Defender
46:19
Speaker 4: because they are they can be extremely reliable vehicles if
46:21
Speaker 4: you stay on top of and that gets you in
46:25
Speaker 4: and on your vehicle a lot of the time. And
46:28
Speaker 4: that was a lot of the advice I got from
46:29
Speaker 4: people who have them, including yourself, as you just have
46:32
Speaker 4: to be stay up on it, stay up on it.
46:34
Speaker 4: So that's something I actually look forward to with the
46:37
Speaker 4: process of purchasing a land Rover.
46:40
Speaker 3: Han Cook, Dina pro Tire welcome to you to visit
46:42
Speaker 3: Expeditionportal dot com and enjoy a series of adventures from
46:46
Speaker 3: the Jeep Beach Event in Florida, the Broncos Stampede and
46:49
Speaker 3: Jeep Invasion in Tennessee, and the off Road Expo in California.
46:54
Speaker 3: Thanks Han Cook.
46:58
Speaker 1: That'll be fun. And then what are your plans with
47:01
Speaker 1: the for travel? So pick this thing up in South Africa.
47:04
Speaker 4: My immediate plans will be to learn stick shift, so
47:08
Speaker 4: learn how to drive.
47:10
Speaker 2: I've done very little of that. I never had one.
47:13
Speaker 2: We all had to learn it, yep.
47:15
Speaker 4: So I'll be learning right hand drive most likely as well,
47:17
Speaker 4: which should be fine, totally ill are the same.
47:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. The stick is with my left hand, so
47:24
Speaker 5: I will see I'll be on the wrong.
47:25
Speaker 2: Side of It'll be fun. It'll be a fun way.
47:29
Speaker 4: So immediately just learn how to drive the vehicle. After that,
47:33
Speaker 4: my hope is to meet up with some friends there.
47:34
Speaker 4: We've got I know Christophe Elier from Get Out Go,
47:37
Speaker 4: he's an incredible guy. Adrian from We Will Roam, and
47:41
Speaker 4: a lot of other people in South Africa are amazing people.
47:44
Speaker 1: Space legitimate accomplished overlanders in the world or South Africa.
47:49
Speaker 4: So my hope would be to lean on their experience
47:51
Speaker 4: within their own country and their backyard so to speak,
47:54
Speaker 4: and go on some awesome trails and slowly outfit the
47:58
Speaker 4: vehicle to become a self sufficient and travel ready vehicle
48:02
Speaker 4: even though it is out of the box, just like
48:04
Speaker 4: completely with the fridge, the water systems, et cetera.
48:07
Speaker 5: Get it all up to date and ready to go.
48:09
Speaker 2: They don't they don't need much.
48:10
Speaker 1: And the cool thing about South Africa is you have
48:12
Speaker 1: access to Nibia, but Tswana exactly, Mozambique and Suitu and
48:18
Speaker 1: that's the plan. It's with Tawny. So you've got all
48:20
Speaker 1: of these places that you could go. There's a lifetime
48:23
Speaker 1: of trails and exploration just in South Africa.
48:26
Speaker 5: And I've struggled with that in my mind.
48:27
Speaker 4: So my plan is, especially after talking with you throughout
48:29
Speaker 4: this trip, is to hit the east coast.
48:31
Speaker 5: You know, we've just did the West coast.
48:33
Speaker 4: I would love to make my way up into Kenya
48:36
Speaker 4: and experience the East coast of Africa after doing the
48:38
Speaker 4: West and all that there is to that, specifically with
48:42
Speaker 4: the intention to then ship into the Arabian Peninsula, so
48:45
Speaker 4: ship to Aman, Saudi Arabia and all of that.
48:48
Speaker 5: So that's the that's the vision.
48:50
Speaker 4: And once up there, you know, follow Richard and Ashley
48:53
Speaker 4: and go into the stands and all that stuff through
48:55
Speaker 4: Georgia and all this beautiful countries. So create kind of
48:58
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly how I'll do that. I'll have
49:00
Speaker 4: to make sure I can make a living while doing that.
49:02
Speaker 4: I do know I can, but continue to work on
49:05
Speaker 4: that and make it either one big trip that just
49:08
Speaker 4: never ends except for a few flights home every once
49:10
Speaker 4: in a while, or or fly home to the bikes
49:13
Speaker 4: and travel on bikes and do things that way.
49:15
Speaker 2: But you'll learn as you.
49:16
Speaker 1: Go along exactly they may you may find that that's
49:20
Speaker 1: what you want to do.
49:20
Speaker 2: You may find that there's another check that they didn't stop.
49:24
Speaker 5: Is just a friendly wave and so wow exactly.
49:27
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the whole idea is for you to
49:30
Speaker 1: explore and to explore yourself exactly, to see what it
49:34
Speaker 1: is that you need and want life.
49:36
Speaker 2: And it may just be.
49:37
Speaker 1: A chapter, or it may be an entire lifetime of
49:40
Speaker 1: vehicle based exploration.
49:42
Speaker 5: You know.
49:43
Speaker 2: The cool thing is you get to decide, right, you
49:45
Speaker 2: get to decide what it is they want to do.
49:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I look forward to that process. It's going
49:49
Speaker 4: to be a big learning process for me because it'll
49:51
Speaker 4: be probably some of my first solo extraditions and in
49:56
Speaker 4: a place I love, but it's also kind of.
49:58
Speaker 1: A challenging area world to travel in some way, no doubt,
50:02
Speaker 1: And what an interesting place to capture content to write.
50:06
Speaker 1: It's so beautiful, magnificent place for that. One of the
50:10
Speaker 1: things that I love to ask on the podcast is
50:13
Speaker 1: some of your favorite books. And I know that you're
50:15
Speaker 1: very well read. A lot of the books that I've read,
50:18
Speaker 1: you've read, and you've read a bunch that I haven't,
50:20
Speaker 1: So i'd love to hear what are what's your you know,
50:23
Speaker 1: a couple recommendations, a couple of great reads that you've
50:26
Speaker 1: enjoyed through the years.
50:28
Speaker 4: We've talked a lot of like the Stoics and philosophy,
50:31
Speaker 4: but outside of those books, so I would recommend any
50:34
Speaker 4: of those meditations and all those first principles as I
50:37
Speaker 4: learned from you. It's a way to call that, and
50:39
Speaker 4: I've enjoyed those while traveling. It's been a great way
50:43
Speaker 4: to just feed the mind. That's your your feed yourself
50:46
Speaker 4: while traveling. But I think one of my favorite books
50:50
Speaker 4: was Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is Lawrence of Arabia's
50:53
Speaker 4: book about his Yeah, so it was his I don't
50:56
Speaker 4: know if i'd call an autobiography, but a story of
50:58
Speaker 4: what he did, written by himself health and his travels
51:02
Speaker 4: and adventures there as adult war. The sevens Dollars of Wisdom.
51:05
Speaker 4: It's an incredible, incredible story. I mean, if you've seen
51:08
Speaker 4: the old movie, I love that old movie. But the
51:11
Speaker 4: book is leag I mean, they can only do so
51:14
Speaker 4: much even in a four hour movie or however long
51:16
Speaker 4: that is. The book is leagues and bounds better than that,
51:18
Speaker 4: and it has so much insight from Florence himself, and
51:22
Speaker 4: he's a very vulnerable person in his own book in
51:25
Speaker 4: a lot of ways. For especially for the time, I think,
51:27
Speaker 4: as like a British officer and a gentleman, it probably
51:31
Speaker 4: wasn't fairly common to be as open as he was
51:33
Speaker 4: with a lot of things, and that was something I
51:34
Speaker 4: appreciated within his tales. He was very open about his
51:37
Speaker 4: own mistakes and shortcomings during his time during that war.
51:42
Speaker 5: But it's not just about war either.
51:44
Speaker 4: It's very much about things he learned and his adventure.
51:48
Speaker 4: So it was an adventurous book to me, and that's
51:50
Speaker 4: partially what inspired my desire. I think the Arabian Peninsula
51:54
Speaker 4: is one of the places I want to go to
51:55
Speaker 4: most in the world right now. Was from that book
51:58
Speaker 4: and from his travels there. So there's that book, The
52:02
Speaker 4: Endurance about Shackleton's expedition. That's an incredible book. I grew
52:06
Speaker 4: up listening to that book. Me and Dan will play
52:08
Speaker 4: it when we're camping together, like when we're in a
52:10
Speaker 4: ten together, we put on an audiobook and we fall
52:12
Speaker 4: asleep to that book. To this day, it's a classic
52:15
Speaker 4: with us, and that's one full of inspiring stories and
52:19
Speaker 4: through their incredible journey stories leadership and just teamwork and
52:23
Speaker 4: the way they blend it as a teams of there's
52:25
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff to take away from that.
52:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the greatest leadership tales that I've read.
52:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I've loved that one.
52:36
Speaker 4: The dig Tree, I'm not completely finished that to full disclosure,
52:40
Speaker 4: but that's been in another book about expeditions and travels
52:44
Speaker 4: that has been really cool, though kind of sad, the
52:48
Speaker 4: ending kind of likesconsin.
52:52
Speaker 5: Yep.
52:53
Speaker 4: So my sister read that and recommended it to me,
52:55
Speaker 4: and I've I've really enjoyed that book as I've been
52:58
Speaker 4: reading it. Those kind of I guess what I'm saying now,
53:01
Speaker 4: they're all going to be within the same vein because
53:02
Speaker 4: we're traveling, and that's where my mind goes immediately is
53:05
Speaker 4: to those stories of adventure and the adventurers who came
53:08
Speaker 4: before us, and we really opened up the path in
53:09
Speaker 4: a lot of ways, were.
53:10
Speaker 5: The first to do a lot of things.
53:12
Speaker 4: Sir Falcon Scott's his expedition in Antarctica that was really.
53:18
Speaker 5: Good, yep.
53:20
Speaker 1: But I think he came to a lot of realizations
53:23
Speaker 1: himself facing the end of his life and.
53:26
Speaker 2: How he expressed that. So those are some great recommendations.
53:29
Speaker 1: Thank you, And we're recording this podcast on Thanksgiving And
53:34
Speaker 1: for me personally, I just, you know, wanted our listeners
53:38
Speaker 1: to know how grateful I am for you. I'm grateful
53:41
Speaker 1: for the subscribers to Overland Journal. If it wasn't for
53:44
Speaker 1: the subscribers Overland Journal, we wouldn't have a podcast. And
53:48
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for all the feedback that we get from you,
53:51
Speaker 1: our listeners on ways.
53:53
Speaker 2: That we can improve.
53:54
Speaker 1: We still have so much that we need to do better,
53:57
Speaker 1: but we want to continue to tell a story of adventure,
54:00
Speaker 1: want to continue to bring on people that are inspiring
54:03
Speaker 1: like you are, Peter. You've inspired me, and we want
54:06
Speaker 1: to continue to share information in a very open way
54:10
Speaker 1: with our listeners so that way we can all become
54:13
Speaker 1: better travelers. So, Peter, I guess maybe we'll end it
54:15
Speaker 1: on what are you feeling most grateful for today?
54:18
Speaker 2: On Thanksgiving?
54:19
Speaker 1: Although you're Canadians, yeah, we had our Thanksgiving on this trip,
54:22
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't be grateful.
54:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. I'm half American, my mother's American, so.
54:26
Speaker 2: We actually celebrate. There you go.
54:28
Speaker 5: But I'm thankful to be where we are right now.
54:30
Speaker 5: We're in the mid desert.
54:32
Speaker 4: We've made it through the stuff that had us all
54:35
Speaker 4: on a higher stress level through West Africa, and we're
54:38
Speaker 4: still all together as a team with all three vehicles.
54:40
Speaker 5: I think that's a win.
54:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Peter. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful that
54:44
Speaker 1: you run the podcast with me today. I look forward
54:47
Speaker 1: to having you on in the future after some additional adventures.
54:50
Speaker 1: And we thank you all for listening and we'll talk
54:53
Speaker 1: to you next time.