Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Adventures in Namibia and Insights from Richard Giordano of Desk To Glory

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Adventures in Namibia and Insights from Richard Giordano of Desk To Glory · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm driving across the deserts
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of Namibia here today with my good friend Richard Giordano.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: So Richard, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me. It's a perfect
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: mobile podcast studio as.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It's super quiet, we are climate controlled. I even have
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: my air conditioned seats going right now. Yep, I do
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: I had my heat of seats on for a while
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: with the air conditioning on full, so nice comfort for
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: the back.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: But I am feeling a little sick.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We have decided that most of us on the trip
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: have contracted the zema virus.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: Oh so I didn't know that's what it was.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I think you are patient zero.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: Was patient zero. I'm feeling great.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry about the sickness. Everybody else is now saying.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: The one thing that gives me confidence, though, is the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: fact that since you are patient zero, I can't reinfect
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you because you now have all of the all the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: pathogens under control.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: And if I do get sick, I'll just get more
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: more of those.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: You'll be super human by the time you back to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: get back to and I'll get some sort of Canadian flow.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: Head on over to Expedition Portal dot com or our
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: YouTube page and join us along with Han Kook Dinner
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: Pro Tire at the Off Road Expo in sunny Coasta Mesa, California.
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: It was a great family event that showcased everything from
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: jumping rally trucks, jeeps, pickups, and expedition.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Builds exactly we have had.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Of course, Ashley, your amazing wife, is one of the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: co hosts of the podcast, and so she's very familiar
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to the audience. And then we've done a couple podcasts
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: with you and Ashley, but we've never had just a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Richard podcast, which I'm super excited to do because you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and I get to get into the weeds and all
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the fun technical stuff. But I'd like to fill out
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit of your history. So let's talk about
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: where did you grow up, what first got you interested
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in travel, and what's some of your background that because
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I know you've got some engineering background, let's talk a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: little bit about your past and what kind of set
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you up uniquely to be one.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Of the most experienced overlanders in the world.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I tope top ten thousand, the most experience of overlandas
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: in the world. So I grew up in a little
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: town called Power River, BC, so on the west coast
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: of British Columbia. Town of twelve or fifteen thousand people.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: That's landlocked.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: You need a ferry to get in, you need a
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: fair to get out.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: That's cool. I like that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: I think maybe that was part of the reason I
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: wanted to travel. Is after growing up seventeen years we left,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: but essentially being stuck there for seventeen years, the need
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: to travel was quite high. And so immediately after graduate
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: high school, went to commost In College into a mechanical
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: engineering diploma. It kind of suited my I guess I
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: like math, I like sciences all the rest of it,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and I was reasonably good at them.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: So engineering was the path at that point. I had already,
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Tinkered on cars for years with my dad in the garage,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: so I like the mechanical aspect of it, and so
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: that led into mechanical engineering.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It wasn't long after that where I met Ashley.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: And we worked lived downtown Vancouver, and at some point
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: we thought, hey, we should travel. We're probably early twenties,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: and she said they are cheap plaights to Japan.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: Why don't we go to Japan?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I said, Okay, what a neat place to go to?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, five hundred dollars round trip, like to Narita from Vancouver.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: So that was the very first place we ever traveled.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: And of course.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Ashley, once again always being right, she said, why don't
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: we buy a nice camera for this trip?
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: And I was like, I don't know.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I was kind of in to photography when I was
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: in high school, but really hadn't done much of it
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: since I don't want to spend five hundred dollars on
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: a camera.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: It's too expensive.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And then she essentially forced me to do it, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: that us into years and years of travel and a
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: career in photography for me.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, listen to your wife.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: She's probably right, almost always, almost always right, one hundred
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: percent of the time, ninety percent of the time, exactly.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: That's cool.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And you guys have in my experience with working with
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: both of you, because you have done many articles for
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal, and of course Ashley is almost full time
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: with Overland Journal and Expedition Portal, so we've been able
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to work with you guys professionally throughout the years. And
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you guys have, i think, struck a unique balance of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: being industry professionals as opposed to influencers. I mean, there's
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: no question that you guys have large channels and people
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: follow your travels and they're excited to come along on
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the journey with you. But professionally, you guys focus on
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: being some of the best in the world at your craft.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: So like Ashley is.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: In my experience, she's one of the one of the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: finest editors that we have in all of overlanding, and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: then you're one of the best photographer cinematographers that we
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: have in the industry. So you guys have created like
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: genuine jobs within the space that allows you to make
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: enough money to actually travel, as opposed to an influencer
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that's desperately trying to get stuff for free or racking
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: up a credit card or you know, living off the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: proceeds of a home sale or whatever. There's a lot
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of that that goes on, and even more so recently,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the influencer economy has essentially collapsed. But because you guys
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: are professionals in the space, you've been able to even
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: now both of you are actively working as professionals in overlanding.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and some of that is skilled and some of
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: that is luck, and it kind of so we'll step
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: back a little bit. So when I was working as
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: a mechanical engineer and as she was working as a paralegal,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: we did that for about a decade and decided to
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: do our Pan American trip very last minute. Scraunged together
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: our old nineteen ninety toy to pick up through a
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: rooftop tent on it, and then traveled for essentially eighteen
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: months down the Pan American Highway. We didn't know anything,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: we didn't really have much money, and we just learned
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: a lot about ourselves and about cultures along the way,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: and it was the best thing we ever did with
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: our lives period. And then we came back twenty fourteen fifteen,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: and both of us thought the best thing to do.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Was go back to our old professional jobs and be adults.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Sure, I think we're around thirty at the time, maybe,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: and we both went back to our old jobs, but within.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I think it was within six months.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: For me, I was working for an HVAC company that
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: was working on very high end large homes like.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Twelve fourteen thousand square foot homes.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And after seeing a lot of the world that doesn't
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: necessarily have that sort of that wealth, I grew tired
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: of that very quickly when people were complaining, when clients
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: were complaining about their telewarmers not hitting.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Their towels fast enough.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I grew weary of the industry. And I
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: made a deal with myself. I said that if I
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: could get one project, one film project or one photography
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: project that would cover a few months of work, I'll
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: quit my old job and.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Start a new career path.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And that led into a project with can Girl racing
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: with Toyota Canada and with a good friend of mine
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: who's a cinematographer, and we went and filmed the twelve
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: minute film on the Baja one thousand, and that set
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: me off on a totally different career of cinematography and photography.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And so cool that.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: You know, Ashley's skills are complimentary in that she does
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of the editorial you support her with photography.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: But and up until very recently with ex Overland acquiring
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal and Expedition Portal, you had two of the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: bigger clients in the industry.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Yep, so you had some diversification there.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for a while and most of my so I
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: would say eighty percent of my work was done with
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Expedition Overland, so generally on the big trips, and for
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: a few years as social media manager, and then nine
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: of Ashley's work was all on Expedition Portal and an
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: overland journal, so we had and then we overlapped a
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: little bit. Now the entire thing is complete, all within
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: the Overland Collective, but yeah, it's been We've been very
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: fortunate to work with all of these like with you,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: with Clay Rochelle, with all these people who were highly
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: respected in the industry, and we learned a lot and
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: because like we were so fortunate, really appreciated the opportunities,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: we worked harder and we were able to work over
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: We were able to build it over at least the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: last ten years so that we could actually do all
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: of this work while traveling, while on the road, And
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: to be fair, I think do a better job because
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: we're on the road, because we're actually overlanding, and because
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: we have those experience.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: For us it's critical.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, Overland International requires anybody who's going to write
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: about a subject has to have a deep well of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: knowledge on it. Yeah, so that because our customer is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: our reader, so it needs it needs to have a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: person like yourself or actually that has been living it
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: for decades now.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it helps.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: It helps a lot, and it's it's nice to like
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: for Ash, she can write about it with confidence because
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: because we're doing it every single day. It's not she
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to research something from abroad and you know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: hope or interview other people and so on. She still
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: does that to round out stories, but for her to
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: have the confidence in what she's doing because we're there
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: and then I just have to follow it up and
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: round it out with photos. Is I don't know, it's
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: pretty pretty fantastic.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys both look at it through the right lens.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that you know, I want
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to compliment both of you on, and I think it's
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: important for the listener to consider, is you also need
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to have understand what your boundaries are in whatever career.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: That you're in.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, like I know, for my own failings, I just
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: became a workaholic because I just I just I took
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: on every opportunity and that resulted in.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Me not having any time left at the end of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the day.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Whereas you guys have done a really good job of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: saying this is what we do, but we don't do this. Yeah,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: we will work as hard as we can for you,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: but we're going to travel and see the world. Because
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it would have been very easy for us to load
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you guys up with so much work that either you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: were on a commercial project or you were working from
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: home in Canada. Yeah, sixty hours a week. You were
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: right back in the same in the same boat. But
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you guys have decided to say, well, we'll give you
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent of us when we're available, but otherwise
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we're going to go see the world. And you've been
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: able to do that because you had those boundaries in place.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, saying Noah is pretty powerful and yeah, but then
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: we do a better job on we say yes, Yeah,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Is the best thing. And we've learned that about you.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Tina knows that about you, guys, and I know that
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: about you, and Clay and Rochelle know that about you.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: The industry now understands it like it's part of who
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: you guys are is to be out doing the thing
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: in the world, which means that we get a little
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: bit less of your time.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: But what we do get is really high quality.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: You've had a lot of my time in the last
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: two months.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Not only yeah, not only we traveling together, we're tent mates.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Probably explains the reason why I have for the zema
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: virus or sorry about that again.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: But it's been really cool to spend time with you
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and see you know how the level that you operate,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: not only as a cinematographer but also as a photographer.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you man like that's very
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: difficult to do. How do you balance the need to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: take still photos with the the cinema cinematography requirements of video.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: That's a.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: It's an interesting one. Tricks that you've learned. Yeah, and
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I feel like over.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: The last five or six years, slowly like honing in
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: on the right percentage.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: But it depends.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: It changes every day because the main reason we're here,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: like the expedition overland, the main focus for Clay as
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: a director is the film and then a lot of
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: the time the partners they love the film and they
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: love the story, but they love the assets they can use.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: They love the photos.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: So I need to make sure that I can shoot
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: enough photos to tell a story while also filming enough
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: to tell that same story, and thankfully with Peter van
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Stalen here.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: That does help to have another shooter.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: He films like generally he's filming wide angle ACAM everything
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: that's happening, and then.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: I like to film all the details with a BCAM.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So you're sniping a lot with a longer length.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Exactly, so I can step away at times and pull
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: up the Stales camera and shoot, or once we're done filming,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I can get some time in there to shoot some
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: photos unless it's super important because all the partners have
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: specific requirements and I'll just have a conversation with Clay
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: ahead of time or with Peter ahead of time saying
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I cannot pick up a camera to film because I.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Need to be shooting steals of this sure and confirm
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that it is important to the team. If it is,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: I shoot.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: So like, lots of lots of communication between everybody is
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the main the main thing.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And it seems like you're stills kit is pretty pared down,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: like it's very much a travel photographers.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's basic.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: What are you so I shoot?
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I've been shooting cannon for a long time, so I
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: just have a Canon R five and R six s
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: mart two. She with a thirty five mil one point
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: four and a seventy two hundred dollar So like that
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: dumb lens at seventy two hundred two eight is four
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars Canadian lenses. It's the money maker, it is
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I And then my thirty five mil, the old thirty
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: five mil lenses. I've had it for ten years. But
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: it's kind of magic, kind of a nice street photography lens.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: So I just have those those two things. I try
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and switch lenses to my because they're always like in dusty,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: dirty environments or rain or whatever.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And do you bring a backup body or you just.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Those two, those those two are are what I go
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: with and.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: If I need And we have a couple of sony Yeah,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: we do sony bodies if needed, and we have been
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: in plenty of cities where I can always grab another
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: camera body if I really really really need. But yeah,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: so I think that's the thing is just constantly like
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: daily looking at our priority shot list and making the
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: decision of what's important when and where, and it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Changes constantly, Yeah for sure. Yeah, Because if I'm going
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: to focus on one or the other, they'll they'll be great.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: If I have to focus on both.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: They're both going to be mediocre, just like you can't
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: be great at all of it all at once.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: It's very difficult and it's good for people to know that. Like,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you have to give yourself some grace. If you're out
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: there trying to start your own YouTube channel or Instagram
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: am you know, effort and you're trying to do drone
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and stills and video.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: It can be done if you slow way down.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you have to slow down so far that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you're actually able to dedicate enough time to each one.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And most people can't do that. Most people can't travel
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: at that pace.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: And we filmed so actually, and I filmed our own
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: travels through the Creative Creator series, which is going to
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: be on Expedition Portal now, and it's twelve episodes from
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: us shipping our truck to England, make our way down
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: to Morocco, through Europe, the Balkans, across Turkey and into
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Central Asia.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: And if somebody watches it, they'll be like, oh, that's
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: a nice you know.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Twelve week trippy went on because all I could do,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: like you can just show snippets of your life, sure,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: otherwise you will film so often and so much.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: It's just so much work.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So those that are listening and watching the podcast, you
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: can actually see when we hop out of the truck
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and go to the t of Capricorn. Here in the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Milestones Expedition series that'll be on the X Overland YouTube channel,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and that follows the teams drive around the world, So
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: one hundred plus days crossing North America, crossing Europe, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: then what Richard and I just did together with the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: team of driving down the length of West Africa, which
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: was one of the most ambitious expeditions to date for
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: X Overland, and we learned a lot along the way.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a quick one.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can see you can see what we
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: experienced in that journey on the on the upcoming series
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that's going to be launching. Yeah, so let's yeah, let's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit now, let's kind of pivot towards
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: some of the other lessons that you've learned along the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: way with your travels. One of the things that I
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: respect also so much about Ashley and you is that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: you guys have never let gear or pretty much anything
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: stand in the way of going. You'll go with less money,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you'll go with maybe the not not the perfect car
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: or not the perfect setup or whatever.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: And that all that's an opinion, Scott, that's an opinion. Yes,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: please continue.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you went with what you had or you
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: went with what was available.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And but the goal was to go. And that's something we.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Talk about a lot in the podcast is the most
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: important thing is to go. So talk through how you
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: guys came to that decision, not once but twice with
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the red truck and then with the tundra. Sure to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: just say, you know, traveling is more important than the things.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: How did you guys arrive at them?
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: For sure?
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: That for us, whether we're backpacking or overlanding, the travel
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: is the most important part about what we do. And
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I mostly just don't want gear to get in my way.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: I hate the complication. I hate setting things up. I
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: hate taking.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Time to set up camp in any way, shape or form.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Sure that's changed over the years because when we first started,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: we traveled in on our little NIGHTE and night I
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: try to pick up with a soft shell rooftot tent,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and over four hundred nights in that tent, if you
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: do the math, we spent twenty four.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Hours over a year and a half setting up and
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: tearing down that tenture.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: So maybe it was from that experience where we learned that, yeah,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: having gear get in our ways not the best whip
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: going about it, but also it was our only option.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: We didn't know any better, so that's what we used.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: And eventually living and traveling full time out of our
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: little mini truck. We realized that as we combine that
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: with working from the road, we wanted to have something
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: with some indoor living space with a bed that's already
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: always set up that we don't have to like move
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the bed out of the way to get to the kitchen,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: we don't have to move the bed out of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: way to get to a table and chair or to
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: the dinett. Sure, and we always had always just had
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: visions of little seventy serious land cruiser and a little
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: like eurocamper or popped up of some flavor, And just
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: when we started looking for vehicles, there's just not a
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: lot of options like they're for a seventy series. You're
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: either buying a right hand drive vehicle or you have
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: to you have all the additional cost of getting one
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: elsewhere and outfitting it in like Arabian Peninsula or shipping
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: it home or you're buying one in North America that
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: somebody's already done that with, and it gets very pricey,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: very quickly. And the whole time, we had our two
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: thousand and eight to hat a Tundra sitting in our
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: proverbial driveway, air conditioning, five point seven liter, lots of power,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: very comfortable, decent enough payload for putting a light with
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: camper in the back.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: And that's the decision we made.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Because it was a truck where you spent sixteen thousand
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: dollars on seven years, amaze made it a lot easier
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: to make that decision.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was paid off, ready to go.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Yep, exactly, and I knew that, at least for that
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: time period. I knew what the maintenance was like, I
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: knew where the brakes were at, but the suspension was
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: up do I knew all of that, And Yeah, we
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: made the decision to go with an overland explorer vehicles,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: flaped camper, and then just took us.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Many of the additional things out of it, like a
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: water heater.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: We took the rear drawer out of our MIT's alloy
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: tray to save money, save weight. Sorry, we took back
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: seat out of the truck up lithium starting battery in
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: the truck, just to cut as much weight as possible
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and just minimize the things that we were bringing with us.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: It's surprising when a tailgate weighs, or what a back
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: seat weighs, and you pull those things out.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Of the truck and you get that back yeahs usable exactly.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: So once again we took something we already had, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: by doing that we were able to get on the
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: road within three months of making that decision again sure
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: and left Canada. I went through this, went through the States,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: down to Texas, shipped to England. Like I said, we
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: made it all the way down to northern Africa and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: all the way over. It's in Almadi, Kazakhstan at the moment,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: sixty thousand nishe kilometers into that trip and just keeps going.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: And anytime we've ever needed parts for it, they've been
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: at the Toyter dealer because that truck shore's so many pieces.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: With a two hundred series Lan Cruiser, which is sure everywhere.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And super robust to begin with, I agreed, Yeah, I
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: mean that engine alone is known for its reliability.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: It's not the most fuel efficient.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: But it's certainly not it's definitely known for its reliability.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, for you guys, I remember you were
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: up in the northern part of the UK in pretty
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: poor weather and you guys were able to work from
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the road. You had starlink and yeah, you could rock
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: up for a couple of days. It gets work done.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: If we were in Scotland, you know, days at a
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: time when it's raining, and if it wasn't raining, the
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: midges were out, so we spent lots of time in
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: side just getting work done, whether it's at any photos or
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: actually writing and having the inside living space which is
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: a home which is comfortable, and being able to thrive
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: instead of just survive which would have been if we
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: had a rooftop tent. Sure means that we could slow
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: down and wait out weather and just hang out on
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: one spot, not spend money on fuel just trying to
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: escape the weather.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: So looking back at your nineteen ninety pickup, yeap, what
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: were a couple of the things that you did to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that vehicle inversion one point zero that kind of persisted
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: in your future builds, like some things you thought you
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: did well in that one.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: That's a good question. Drive frame State Stock.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's the biggest thing because that little twenty
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: two hour you can live out wide open throttle all
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: day long and whatever temperature, whatever the grade is, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: certainly not fast. But never once did I ever see
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: that like thermostad like the temperature of that engine.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Never the needle just never moved. Sure once it just
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: it just works.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Let us sit for six months, come back, fire it up,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: do an all change continue on.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: And we've left that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: In Costa Rica for a year, for a year once
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: when we came home to make some money.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: And it routinely.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Gets left at in Calgary for six months at a time,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: eight months.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: At a time, and go back to it and it works.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: But that's like I said, dry train of stock.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: All of Like the visit an extended cab six foot
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: bed or is it a regular gap.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Stand a cab six foot bed, So you got.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: A little bit of storage behind the front seats.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: Yep, And I just put an alley box in the back.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I took the back seat out, which was not really
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: a back seat anyways. Seat yeah, one one piece of
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: foam and then just have a little off box back there.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: And that's pretty much all that has stayed the same
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: because when.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: We came home after our panameric and trip, I played
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: like a long range of America thirty three gallon tank
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: in it. I did a total kaos long travel. I
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: had to put a gold past camper on it and outfitted.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: The interior goose gear.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: And it is like my favorite truck to drive in
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: like southwest of the US or Baja and all the
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: like the back roads of BC. It kind of it's
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: the perfect like week to three week long vehicle or
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: vehicle to travel out of Floria one to three weeks.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And did you end up putting a locker in the rear.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: It has a limited slip in the rear from the slope. Yeah,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: And that was me.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: That wasn't for the Pan American I like not once
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: needed a locker or limited slip. It was only when
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: we got back and we were in the snow all
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the time in the winter.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: It was very, very helpful.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: Thanks to Hankok Dina pro Tire for supporting this week's podcast.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: Head over to Expedition Portal dot com and join us
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: as we take a closer look at an impressive jeep
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: gladiator build from the Jeep Invasion event and explore the
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: mountain terrain around Pigeon Orge, Tennessee.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Tell me how what's been your experience with the Go
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Fast campers. I've never owned one, but they're really intriguing
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to me. I think it's just such a neat company,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you know, made in the all of the stuff's made
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in the USA. They pay pay their employees properly. M
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you know, they have a good reputation. What what what
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: has it been like to kind of live out of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: or do longer travel out of such a lightweight, wedge
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: style camper.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think my favorite thing about it because we've
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: had one on the tun Run.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: We've had we currently have one on the on.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: A mini truck, and I love that they're fairly inexpensive
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: for what they are and they're very simple and I
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: haven't had any issues with you know, it just works
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: the same thing as it's exactly the same as the
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: mini truck.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Super simple that it works every time.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like the key for me, And yeah, traveling out
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: of it long term, I think in like inclement weather,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: because like if it was one person, it's it's easy.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: If it's two people as doable.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: If it's any more.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Than that, it's it's a little too small. Sure, but
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: like I said, if you're like I think for Southern Africa,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: I think for Northern Africa, I think for Southwest.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Like the three seasons.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Exactly, like if you're dealing with rain every like once
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: every ten days if that, or and if you're mostly
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: in warm temperatures, I think it's I think it's a
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: great option for living outside eighty percent of the time. Sure,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: and actually like being like experiencing where you are. I
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: think that's they do a really good job of building
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: something that's meant to like be comfortable enough when you
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: camped that camping isn't wearing you out, but it still
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: forces you to.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Live outside in a good way.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I noticed about the Overland
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Explorer Vehicles campers was the quality of construction, you know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: like the metal panels and how they're bent and assembled.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It seems like it is made to endure a lot
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of long term use. And also even though it's a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: pop top, to be as close to four.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Seasons as you can get. Yeah, how is that working
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: for you?
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I think it's It's funny like when you compare like
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: the Overland Explorer Vehicles campers to like a lot of
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: the European ones.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: European ones are very homey feeling, you know, they've got
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: the wood wood trim or wood floors.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And everything, whereas the OEV one is campers are a
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: little bit more clinical, you know, like you said, illuminum
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: pan powder, go to illuminum panels and so on.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: But they do have the bamboo countertops and tabletop and
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: so on.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: And but because of that, our still looks brand new
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: after a few years of use. And like I said,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: sixty thousand kilometers of travel, I think we have eight
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: hundred nights in it, so it's not those aren't rookie numbers.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And the fact the cool thing about a truck camper
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: like that, especially one that's high quality, is if you
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: decide you want a different truck, like maybe you want
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a newer Tundra or whatever, you just throw on another
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: tray bed and off you go.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And but yeah, it's been it's been really good.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Like you said, it's it's like a three and a
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: half season camper, let's say, because I was the pop
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: top campus is really really thick and insulated, and that's
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: also been good. We haven't had any issues with water
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: or dust or any of that just requires a breef
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: spray every year or so of water repellent.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it uses a DWR on the outside of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the material.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, so far, so good.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: And I've definitely leaned that thing into trees and it's
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: got plenty of pin stripes now. And but the whole
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: thing has kind of a or it has a like
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: structure is all aluminum, so it's kind of a little
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: aluminum exoskeleton that on all the.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Corners, theforced corners and stuff that.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Helps someone we're dragging it through trails that are a
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: little bit too too small.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: So let's let's talk about the travel side of it. Now.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: What's what's been your most favorite area that you have explored.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I asked Ashley the same question.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: But Pamir Highway, Okay, it was the most recent thing
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: we did. It was the main goal from the start
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: of this trip it's been three years.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Was to get to Central Asia.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: And when you're in Central Asia, you the Premier Highway
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: is the route to do.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: It's I just love that it's thirteen.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Kilometers from du Chambe to ash and skirts along the
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: border of Afghanistan. You kind of sneak away from the
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: city and you see what life is.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: It feels like you've gone back in time seeing what's.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Felt very medieval to me, like the the like the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Yamshun Fortress.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And like that.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: That whole lot On Valley.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: The walk On corridor was incredible.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so does that still require a special.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Visa for that?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, you need to have a permit through as
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: the Gabbau permit I believe, for the eastern side of
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: to take a span.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: And but so it's complicated enough to get there, like
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: it took us fifty whatever thousand kilometers to get there,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: and then you're far enough from all the major centers,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: so it feels like you're like remote quote unquote remote,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: but there's so many people around still that you can
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: still have all those cultural experiences. Sure, the food and
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: just the conversations and it's like watching how they farm
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: and it was harvest season when we were there.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: And you combine all.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Of that with the fact that it's like the worst
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: roads I've ever driven and not like a it's not
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: like as a technical ford by portrail.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: It's just supposed to it's a highway.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just old Soviet era concrete which is full
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: of potholes now.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And almost every bridge is washed out now every.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Bridge has walked out and or your and if you
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: don't have any of those issues, you're on some brutal corrugations.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of it is just just enduring
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: the slow pace. But we took two weeks.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: To do it, and those mountains, oh my gosh.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the with the Hindu cushi in the background.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it was one of the most
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: rewarding trips we had, or even sections of trips that
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: we had done, and I can't actually I don't exactly
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: know why. It's for those reasons, plus something that's not tangible.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And it's historically significant. You think about who is the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: first celebrity traveler, Marco Polo, right, and that he wrote
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: extensively about that region. In fact, it was his like
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: detailed descriptions of the sheep of the area that let
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a lot more credibility do his travels. It's now called
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the Marco Polo Sheet.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so it came out there.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see that it's so steeped in history,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: from the Silk Road to the Crusades to you know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: just the modern day shift from those being Soviet block
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: satellite states or countries to being now independent and Kazakhstan's
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: got one of the model democracies in the region, and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: so much has changed.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then so much is changing still on the
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: west side. So like from Deschambe, you drive in, like
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: start driving the highway, like I think it's M forty
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: one Mere Highway and it's it has a beautiful pavement now,
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: which is done by a lot of Chinese construction crews.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: And they're also building like electric car charging stations, so
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: things are changing fast.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And we got one guy.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: We've had we were like, I felt like it was
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: we're very fortunate to do it when we did it,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: because eventually it will all be paved, right, Yeah, you
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: know you're all there there we go.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're doing some passing.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I'm driving on the left side of the car, on
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the left side of the road, so Richard is actually
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: responsible for the decision of passing or not.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Think we also have Kurt up a few hundred meters
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: keeping an eye on what's going on.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: So not every day you get to have a professional
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: driver in the lead vehicle calling everything out for you.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: I like it.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so I think Pamire was was a highlight
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: and as we had farther and farther east, it feels like,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it's it's pretty.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Exciting so far from home.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's so uniquely different.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And even the food, you know, I remember the it's
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: like we hear it like a rice peeloft but they
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: call it plow in the region and like I just
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: at first I didn't care for it as much because
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the you know, the muttney flavor of the goat or
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the sheep.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: But by the end of the tre if, I was
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: craving it. Yeah.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: And Logmen noodles is a hand pulled Logmen noodles is
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: like one of my favorite things.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we went out for it. Was like actually asked, Okay,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: it's your birthday coming up. What do you want to
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: do for your birthday meet? I'm like, logmen noodles. These
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: are the cheapest things available. Do you want to do
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: anything else?
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I'm like, nope, available everywhere. Yeah, it's wonderful.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is a special part of the world
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and surprisingly it's like it is certainly traveled. But yeah,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised with the challenges that Africa's had and you know,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: some of the things even in South America or how
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: done South America, is that.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: The Silk Road isn't more popular than it.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Is and it's other than needing to transit through Russia,
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: it's very straightforward, especially after comparing it to West Africa,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: where we've had to get visas over and over and
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: over and over again into the embassy out of an
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: embassy stick or visa like back and forth.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: When for us travel from this year, we travel from
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Greece to Al Mahdi, and that the only difficult section,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: and by difficult, I mean just bureaucratically was that drive
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: through Russia for three days.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: From Georgia to Kazakhstan.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: And it was only because we had to go to
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Bliss Georgia get our get a visa for a.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Transit and you went to the embassy for there's a visa.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Center, y Russian visa center, and it was nice, straightforward
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: go through Russia. There's no GPS because it's all jammed,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: there's no internet, there's no self un coverage, so you're
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: kind of just going driving via offline maps is but
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: you know, you go the wrong way and somebody helps
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: you out and figure it out that that one, that
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: one little section was the only thing that was difficult.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: The rest of that that trip is very was for us,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: was very straightforward.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: And the host you know, it's they're so hospitable, kind.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Like, we have people pulling us over in Kazakhstan and
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: giving us watermelons. They're like, are you really from Canada?
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: A little Canadian flag on the back of our truck. Yeah,
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: here's have our melon.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: Have my melon?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Have this that? They so generous.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're wonderful.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: And then in regards to the tunder of fuelic on
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: me the fuel and catalakstands a very cheap, So yeah,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: I forgot all that.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I remember I was somewhere in New Zbekistan. We were
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: having dinner, and I'm trying to communicate with the proprietor
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: or the restaurant is there a hotel in the area,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And he was making all these like gestures that made
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: me think, oh, maybe it's not safe here, maybe we
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be staying here. But what he was trying to
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: communicate and eventually got through to me was no, there's
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: not really any hotels here, but we want you just
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to sleep here in the restaurant. So they let us
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: sleep in the boot because you're kind of in a
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: semi reclined kind of casual eating situation. So Charlie and
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I we just crashed out in the booth of the restaurant.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: And then the next and they didn't they wouldn't, they
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: would not take any money. They just like and several
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: of them slew up there, probably because they were keeping
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: an eye on us. And then the next morning I
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: woke up and there there are a lot of a
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: sedan had a flat tire. So I was able to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: break out my tire repair kid and the compressor and
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you know, fix their tire forum.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: And they thought that was awesome.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So like those little interchanges happened throughout Central Asia because
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: it's just such a deep part of their culture is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: being hospitable and opening up their homes and welcoming travelers.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It's part of their belief system.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: So yeah, when we were in al Madi where we
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: left the truck, we had a thirty minute drive to
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: the airport via the Yendex, so it's like Uber, but
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: it's like a Russian company. And we got to the
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: airport or I got to the airport and the driver
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: wouldn't accept any money.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: He's no, you're guests in our country.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I was like, isn't this aren't you isn't this isn't
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: this job based on tourism. It seems like you wouldn't
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: be charging anybody, so of course, like okay. Eventually it
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: was like, yeah, of course he accepted money, and it
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: was it was fine, partially because it was on an
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: app when he couldn't give the money back.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: But which is great. But yeah, people were absolutely wonderful.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: And of those countries, which one was your favorite?
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I love the I love the food in Kazakhstan and
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: like the Manga Stau desert, and Kazakhstan was wonderful.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: The Jikistan was a highlight through the premier highway and
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: we were.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it was a Bekistan with all the
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: history and so much picture.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Like the like the foundation of mathematics and stuff. I mean,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: just yeah, rat so cool.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: And then we didn't have an opportunity to spend too
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: much time in the Kyrgyzstan, but that's what this spring
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: slash summer before were hiking in the mountains there. So
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know, they all have their attributes that are
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: worthy of spending time experiencing.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so no favorite, I love I love the whole
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: region pretty good.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: So now you've got an interesting decision point, like where
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: do you go from here? And you don't need to
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: We don't need to have any spoilers on the show.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: But it would be a spoiler for me too.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know where we're going because you could continue
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to go east and into Mongolia and then into China,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: or you could drop back into the Arabian Peninsula, or
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you could go into Africa. There's so much that you
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: can do from that point, and if you think about it,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it makes sense. That was the soap cro that was
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the the spice trade. That was like you can reach
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: all of Eurasia from that one point where you.
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: Were at Hankook Dina pro Tire. Welcome to you to
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: visit Expeditionportal dot com and enjoy a series of adventures
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: from the Cheap Beach Event in Florida, the Broncos Stampede
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: and Jeep Invasion in Tennessee, and the off Road Expo
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: in California. Thanks Hon Cook.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Originally, the thought plant or the thought process we had
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: years ago.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: The plan was leave Canada.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Ship to England driving Bladivostock, get to Japan, ship home.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: But now that we're getting so close, we're like, we
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: don't want this to end. So the one thought is
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: up through Multi region of Russia, Mongolia, back down to China, Pakistan,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: maybe Aman from there, so like big loop, maybe go
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: to Japan and South Korea home.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: That's also an option. We have friends that just went
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: made their way to Allow.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: We know that there's a way through Vietnam and an
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: east home from there. But things are changing constantly, so
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: we just hold everything quite loosely.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And even on this trip, one of the countries we
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: went through they just had a military coup.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the countries that we went through, like weeks
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: before we got there, they were all having.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Elections which very contentious, all.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Sorts of trimoil.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: So yeah, hold everything loosely and we kind of go.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: We generally try to go east, but at some point
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: we might end up going west again. And Arabian Peninsula
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: is always high on the list. East Africa's away high
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: on the list. And one of the things that we
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: have learned over time, and especially while working on the
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: road or working remotely and for different projects, is that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: we do we do best when we travel in three
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: to six month increments and then work on another project or.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: Go home, just have a little bit of an ability to.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: Digest what we've experienced over those three or six months
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: and then come back fresh, because if we were just
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: doing it all on one shot, it would just become overwhelming.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Same for me. I couldn't.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do the homeless overlanding where you just never return. Yeah,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Like I like to travel for two to three months
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and then be home for six months or so and
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: then do it again.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's I feel like if we're traveling quickly,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: two or three months is good. If we're traveling slowly
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: up the up to six, but it depends.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Where we are and what we're doing. And yeah, and
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: usually by month for.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Usually is when both Ash and are like, Okay, we
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: need a break. We can do like a you know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: stay in one place for a week and just kind
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: of reset, or we have to start thinking about getting
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: out of here for a little bit.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, all right, we're gonna do a little lightning round.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Because we don't talk about gear a lot on this
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: on this podcast, but because you have so much time
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: using this stuff, for months or years on end YEP
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and you've really refined your approach. I'm going to kind
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: of ask you some questions around different systems in the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: vehicle currently, kind of what's your go to like size
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: or brand of tire and wheel.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, on the pickup, I've got a two eighty five
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: seventy five sixteen Toyot Artie Trail, so kind of a
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: hybrid tire. That truck has always had that tire size
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: always a thirty three, and the Tundras a thirty five
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: twelve fifty seventeen except actually now he's got a thirty
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: are three fifteen seventy five seventeen. Sorry only because that's
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: all it was available in Georgia, sure at the time,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: but that that truck's really good on a thirty five twelve.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Fifty it's a big, big truck.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I've been proponent of all trains for forever.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: I feel like they're usually the best bet because we're
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: in and out of all sorts of weather and snow.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Snow makes all the difference in the world web pavement exactly.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: But then I put I have Max's Razor MPTS that
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I bought on the on the Tundra.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: And I actually really liked them. Yeah, Like that's what
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: we were running all through.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: Central Asia, and man they wear out fast on the hot,
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: fast straight highways of kazakhs Van, but throughout the premiere
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: I actually pretty durable.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so yeah, so that's not really what's your
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: favorite suspension at the moment.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: I'm really liking our VP fifty ones ones.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Bypass, you know, with that doesn't make a bunch of noise.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: And adjustable compression and rebound, so that works out really
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: well on the Tundra. I might put empty sixty four's
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: on it if I was doing it again.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Just try them out, super simple.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: I like the fact of, you know, not doing maintenance
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: on things, yep, because I do a lot of that
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: on the mini truck.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Make that makes sense. And then how do you handle
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: fuel storage? You know, how do you handle range in
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: your tundra?
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: Since I hate Jerry cans and I hate fuel bladders,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: I just spent more money instead. I put it transfer
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: to forty six gallon main replacement tank in the tundra.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: So that is probably that's perfect.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: It's one of my favorite modifications we did because we
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: can got up to one thousand kilometers of range now
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: and we can skip gas stations that will whether I
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: am just lazy and don't want to fill up, or
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: whether we fill up somewhere where the fuel is inexpensive
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: and we can make our way through a whole country
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: without having to put in an expensive fuel.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: And I think that for an expedition vehicle when you're
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: truly going remote or like you guys are going through
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Central Asia which is very remote, unpredictable, I think a
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: thousand kilometers of range is key. I mean, we've had
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: countries where we have been able to get benzene or
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: unleaded here in yeah, West Africa. So it was a
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: good thing we had the range that we did. Yeah,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's been a really good.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: And the mini truck has a thirty three gallon tank
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: as well from a long range of aerica that is,
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: so that's nice. But that same same thing main replacement tank.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Just keep it simple, yep.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: And then my favorite thing about the Tundra one is
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: just like the stock feel pump and center just bolts in.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Everything just clips together. Comes with a secondary but we
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: call it the EBAP canister. Sure, so it's all everything's
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: all works all works. And then what are you finding
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: that you like for recovery? What's your recovery kit? Like
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: on I have Max Tracks minis and a couple of
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: shackles and a recovery strap, like a kinetic recovery strap,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: and that's it.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's for people to know that you chose
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to not have a winch. It adds a lot of weight.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: It's a lot my biggest So I had a ten
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: pounds warn winch sitting sitting on a shelf and just
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: chose not to use it because.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: Seventy pounds eighty pounds yea.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And then by not using it, I could use a
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: lithium starting battery that saved fifty pounds as well off
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: the front end and with you know, full size Max
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: tracks be a better option for the full size truck. Yes,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: but man, those minis get a workout. Plus they're using
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: for leveling every day.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Yep, we're And then you have a way to get
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you know, to work with another vehicle local or to
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: extract a local.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Yep, which exactly I haven't knock on wood.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: We haven't touched the recovery strap extract kids us pretty recent,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: pretty pretty commonly.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: But and how many of the minis did you bring
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: for so then you could really get like equivalent of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: two yeah, on one end of the truck, whatever end
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: is stuck them.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Most exactly that and it's good, like I can always
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: air down the logs. We have you know, AIRB twin
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: air compressor and I put an AIRBA air locker in the.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: Back too, so.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: We you know when things are getting a little bit
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: squirrely when you throw on the runner, like if I
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: have to get if I have to engage the air locker.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I should I know, I should have round it essentially,
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: that's right.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: You're gonna use the locker to get turned around and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: then go back out.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, I think just like I'm very conservative when
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: it comes to risk when it comes with that sort
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: of thing.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: You guys, you have your home with you and you're
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: just one vehicle yep.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: And sometimes we are out there.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: So we did Bachelovanni National Park along the border of
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Azerbaijan and Georgia, and you know, if something goes wrong
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: there there are ranger stations along the way, but that
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: could be up one hundred kulometers away at times.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: That's a long way to walk. It's a long waile
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: and we saw five vehicles on that.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Route over four hundred and fifty kilometers. So yeah, out
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: there by ourselves for a long periods of time.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: And what are you guys using for communication? How do
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you communicate in the back hand?
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Yes, we have starlink.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Starlink has been has worked everywhere gone except for Turkey
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: and Russia. And we also have an enreachment and old
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: delorm in reach that that's always uses back up or
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: when more backpacking.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: That is it.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the starlink is a game changer though in terms
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: of feeling comfortable being way out by ourselves because you
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: can always text family, you can always look up any
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: problems you're having with a vehicle, or if we have
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: any issues with any components, I'll find an instructure manual
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: download it troubleshoot.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Or if the weather's bad, can sit watch a movie?
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: We watch a surprising amount of Netflix, that's for sure.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the thing is like when the.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Weather's bad, or it's cold, or you're uncomfortable or if
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: you know, like recently, I had a mouse get into
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: into the wiring and for the knock sensor wiring harness
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: and cheat up the knock sensor wiring harness kind of tundra.
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: And.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I could worry about it, or I could just relax,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: watch some Netflix, chill out, and then solve the problem
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: the next day.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Sure, so make some tea, Yeah, have a tea.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Or a beer or a coffee, and you know, come
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: up with a game plan, make some calls, send an
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: email about parts of availability, and go from there.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: So if you were to give you to look back
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and you were able to sit down with your thirty
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: year old self at the start of all these journeys
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: and and give yourself some advice, what would be some
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: advice that you would give yourself or give some other
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: traveler that's new to wanting to go see the world.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: It's a good question.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: We were really lucky in that we were like financially
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: able to make it happen, and then we had a
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: support from our families and friends and and all the
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: rest of it, because without that it would be very,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: very hard. I think I think it's it's hard to
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: it's hard to go. It's hard to take the step
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: and leave. And that was became became very evident the
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: second time we left, because the first time.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: We didn't know anything. It was a lot easier. You know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: you you don't know all the problems that you can
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: have or what you.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Need even what you need.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: You to bring what you have and you go and
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: the second time, ten years later, not a big trip
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: we set. You know, we're second guessing. We're like, oh,
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: should we be doing this now? Should we spending time
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: with our family or parents while they're healthy? Should we
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: be or should we go now while they're healthy?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: And then and at least like at some point in
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: the future we'll have time to spend time with them,
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: help them if they when they get older. So like
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: all of these like random things are going through our
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: mind and I for me, the big my favorite thing
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: that we have done that.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: Keeps that actually helps us keep going is by.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Not proclaiming any big goals because options, Yeah, if we
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: were like, oh, we're going to drive around the world,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: like at some point, we're like, what happens if we
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: want to stop?
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: And or what happens if we want to make.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: A left turn instead of a right, or turn around
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: or go south instead of east. So doing it for ourselves,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: being happy with what we're doing without any obligations is
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: the I don't know, I think that is the most
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: helpful for us, a lot of freedom. Yeah, you don't
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: have to go on a big trip. It doesn't have
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: to take a year. Can don't want to.
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: It's I don't know.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I think for for us, we just we just did
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: it and did it our own way, and we're.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: Happy with it. So I don't know, I don't I
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: don't think I have any regrets or decisions the way
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: we did it. But it certainly doesn't work for everybody.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But I think I think that's the key lesson
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: that you guys have been able, both of you, is
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: just not to hold expectations too tightly. Let your guys,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: let yourselves be flexible as your careers develop, as opportunities.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: Come up, and even with So we're on an expision
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: of land trip right now for two and a half months.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: And I remember when Klay called me.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: Twenty sixteen, I think twenty sixteen, after Ashkon had done
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: our Pan American trip, and he asked if I wanted
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: to photograph their Pan American trip, and I was like, no,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: thank you, because I didn't want to do a trip
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: in twelve weeks that took us eighteen months. I just
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: didn't like I didn't feel like it aligned with what
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: I loved about the travel. Sure, and then but because
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: I'm allowed to change my mind next time he asked,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I said yes, because I was like, Okay, there are
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: benefits to both ways.
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: Hey, I can get paid to do.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: Something I love, and b I can learn learn what
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: it's like to travel fast with a team with multiple people,
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: with multiple vehicles and.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: They use a lot of new, you know, kind of
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: bleeding edge technology. Oh actually I really like this solution
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: or that solution exactly.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I gave myself the freedom to say no the first
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: time and yes the second time.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, yeah, and yeah it's fantastic. And that's been
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: years now.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: So just looking at the fact that we're you know,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: we just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: On this podcast, and we're moving our way.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Down towards Cape Town and Cape Ogolis and the southernmost
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: point of Africa. What do you think are some of
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: your personal takeaways from because you've been on.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: All of this twenty five thousand mile.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Just from nord Cap down to nord Cap down.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: So you did the European leg and then this segment.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this will be my south I think South Africa
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: will be my like thirty ninth country this year, pa
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: sports getting the workout, feeling tired.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: And you guys have been all the way up to Tuck,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: so you'll have Also when you reach Capagulis, you'll have
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: completed a circumnavigation of the planet on the latitudes.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't you have Yeh, that's close. I think I don't know,
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: I would think so.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of it that's weird.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe not the antarctica a portion.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I like takeaway you look for takeaways.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: I think that there's without the like.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: If this trip didn't happen, I would have no idea.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: I would have no idea whatsoever what was Afro like.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: And I appreciate that even though we did it fast,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: even though we didn't get to stop and see or
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: do the things that I normally would have wanted to,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: at least I got it like a taste with the agents.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: And as usual, it's not as scary as all make
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: it out to be.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: I never once felt like we were in danger or
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: somebody wanted something from us that was an uncomfortable situation.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the road, some of the.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Roads were bad, but you know, we never we didn't
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: need to air down for main like highways, they were
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: just slow sometimes when.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: They were runted out.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: But then we also had the Congo where it was
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: like a brand new road the whole length, like I
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: would have never imagined. You could just bomb through the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Congo at one hundred kilometers an hour, which because the
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: road was so good, we were able to do a
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: detour and go spend some time with the gorillas.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. It was amazing.
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: Definitely a highlight for sure.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's was a highlight for me.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I love North Africa, but then I got them after
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: doing West Africa.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: We end up in Angola and then maybe like love
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: the location that we're on now.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think my favorite thing about West Africa
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: is that if you're coming from Europe, what a treat
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: it would be to like exit just like just go
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: and go do it, experience it, and then you have
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: all of South Africa and Southern Africa and Eastern Africa
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: to go.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Explore, leave your car down there for a couple of years,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and then send it back.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's i a long long trip, but some
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: huge highlights along the way or like the or train
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: route amazing. Martian and spending some time Shingueti wonderful.
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's some good ones.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Richard.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: It's been such a joy to travel with you. I've
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: always had such tremendous respect for Ashley and you as
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: travelers and as professionals in the industry. You guys have
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: done so much to elevate overlanding and you always spread
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: the message of that this is possible for anyone or
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: just about anyone, and you.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Break down a lot of those barriers.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: You don't focus on the clickbait, you know, dangers that
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: people like to focus on, because that really isn't the
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: reality of overlanding.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: It's people are generally good around the world.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you go into it with a like open heart,
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: open attitude, and with a good attitude, you'll.
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: Probably get the same thing back. Surprisingly surprising, it works
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: at home too.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly works everywhere.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you Richard so much for being on the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: podcast with me today and for being such a great
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: travel companion down West Africa. And we thank you all
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.