Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Van Life vs. Overlanding: Working Remotely, Building the Right Rig, and Ethical Stealth Camping

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Van Life vs. Overlanding: Working Remotely, Building the Right Rig, and Ethical Stealth Camping · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I am here with my
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: co host Matt Scott, and we're going to talk about
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: something a little different today.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: What are we going to talk about, Matt Van.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Life hashtag very trendy hashtag van Basically, if you were
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: to take Zoolander and make it into overlanding, that would
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: be van life. It's very trendy right now, very and
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: very hot right now.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I like that you have your everybody's got their own clothing,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: They've got their own version of sparkling water. And everything
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: is desaturated. Everything's desaturated, Okay, I see. Even the photography
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is desaturatedtography. And we've got some cool people with us.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We've got Chris Cordes, who has worked with us for
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: eight years, started off as a as an intern out
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of Embry Riddle University here in Prescott and is one
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of our editors. He manages Expedition Portal, so all of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: that great content that you see on the poor is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: curated by Chris. He's an authority on the overlanding subject
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and has traveled extensively around the country in many international
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: trips as well. We're very fortunate to have him on
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the team. Really master of his craft, and he has
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: also started traveling over the last couple of years full time,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk to him a little bit more about that.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And Chris, who do we have with you today?
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: My girlfriend Brittany, who's probably a bigger expert on the
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: van life than I could ever be. She's been doing
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: it for a while and is really integrated into the
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: whole community.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you for being with us, Brittany.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: When I first saw your van parked in the Overland
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Journal parking lot, probably almost a year ago now, I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was like, that is such a cool van. It's one
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the original it's very comfy. Yeah, and it's also
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: one of those original style sprinters, so it's not the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: super modern one, it's the super cool one. And another
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: thing that makes that van even cooler for this podcast
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: is it was actually.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Where we started.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we recorded the first three episodes of the Overlaine
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Journal podcast in Britney's van. So we all owe you
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: a debt of gratitude and thank you for being on
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the podcast.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Britney, you bet so.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Brittany, tell us a little bit about what inspired you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to live out of a van, and how long have
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you been living out of your van?
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: So I would say just travel in general is what
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: inspired me to do. So I lived in southern California.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: I rode trips everywhere from San Diego on the weekends
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: whenever I could, doing as much hiking and backpacking outdoor
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: activities as I could, and to a point, you can
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: only do so much within a two to three day weekend.
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: And I did everything that I wanted to do within
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: about an eight hour drive of San Diego. And so
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: I started looking at maybe I need to move, looking
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: at other places to live, and then I stumbled upon
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: this van life community who the premise of it is
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: really just to get you closer to where you want
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: to be, and that was kind of what started it
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: and inspired me to do so.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And that makes a lot of sense. So you're you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: were already spending a lot of time outdoors, and the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: van allowed you to stay more connected with the outdoors
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeap, oh, that's very cool.
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: More comfortable than a Tacoma.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And Matt and I have both traveled extensively out of wagons,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and I think even about the Expedition seven trip, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the vehicle was really only a place to sleep.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It was not a place to live now.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: And I think that's what's so appealing about a van
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: or about van life, is you get to a point
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: where you've been on the road for a while and
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: you need that time to yourself. You need to be
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: able to, you know, shut the door on the world
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: and kind of look in or just just get away
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: from people and watch Netflix or read a book or something.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And exactly the van is is really perfect that.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, if you talk to any experienced overlander, usually
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: once they've been on the road for a year two years,
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: there's always that endless pursuit of interior space. It's the
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: place to reset to live your life when you need
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: a break from everything else so that you can go
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: back to enjoying the journey that you're on.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And Dan mentioned that Dan Grek mentioned that his next
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: vehicle he wanted to have more interior space, and I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: believe that he acknowledged that the sportsmobile that was with
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: him in Africa, it went everywhere he went in his jeep.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It got essentially the same fuel economy because it was
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a diesel, but it was literally a home, that these.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: People were able to have that respite.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: That.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Removal from the environment.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: That when I think about my travels on a motorcycle
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: or I think my travels in a wagon, you're in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the environment all the time.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yep. And that is a nice difference.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And the intention of this podcast is not to say
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: that there's any difference between van life and overlanding. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: think that the one thing that might be a slight
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: difference is that overland travel tends to include more remote travel,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: whereas there are a lot of people that travel in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a way of saying van life that they may never
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: leave a paved road, their vehicle isn't suitable for that,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: or maybe they just a gravel road. For them, it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the ability to live and wander and travel, whereas oftentimes
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: overlanding by intention is the goal to get remote. And
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that's where you can see that crossover occurs. So this
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is when a van is also getting remote, getting off
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the grid, able to operate off the grid.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: That's when you start to see that parallel.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: And oftentimes I think that overlanding when you have a
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: very specific purpose or a very specific trip. It's I'm
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: driving from Alaska to Argentina, or something like that. In
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: van life, you may not necessarily have a destination or
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: even a said amount of time. Overlanding is the same way,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: I guess, to a certain extent, it can be. The
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: van life thing is much more. I'm choosing to live
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: my life in a vehicle and for the freedom that
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: it allows me.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a good that's a good distinction.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes I think of my own overland trips. They almost
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: always have a destination in mind. I'm trying to get
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to Zambie or I'm trying to get to South Pole
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: or Indiana.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Let's not forget exactly last destiny exactly. Well, so, Brittany,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about your van.
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: I think that Chris that honestly, But okay, answer that question.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Does it have a name? Yeah? I want to know
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: did you give it a name?
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: So I'm not a person who names vehicles, and Chris
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: is a person.
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: Who names that.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I think everything.
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: Testering me about it, and it came down to, if
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: you're gonna make me name it, it's going to be
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: something silly like Wayne, and.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: So Wayne the van it is.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Wayne's a pretty van life name. It's pretty yeah, very much,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: very very trendy.
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: It actually works out really great.
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: The first when we left our very first trip, Wayne,
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: you think of just the party animal party on Wayne
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: and our very first trip we had taken.
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: We got on the road and it started raining.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: I turned the windshel wipers on, and the windshield wiper
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: completely wrapped around the mirror, and then when I went
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: to open the door to fix it, it completely snapped off.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Oh no, And it was kind of like, Okay, well,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: this is party on Wayne.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things with van life is
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: that the van is more of a tool. I feel
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: sometimes overlanders have a little bit.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: More identity wrapped up in it. Yeah, you know they
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: how do you said?
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I think part of van life is being a little
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: bit stealth, right, Ye, being able to stealth camp. But
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: you've spent a lot of a lot of time and
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: care and effort on the interior on your van. That
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: was one of the things that I noticed. You did
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: that yourself, I want to say.
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: Right partially.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: So, I actually purchased the van in Phoenix from a
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: guy named Brad who works and builds in flips vans,
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: so I had seen his work done before I knew
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: that it was going to be good construction. So he
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: had done a lot of the basics, and then when
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: I purchased it, we took it back to my parents' house,
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: and my dad and I basically redid all of the cabinetry.
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: My envision was to utilize every single centimeter of space
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: that I could, and that required basically redoing the entire cabinetry.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: Relocating electronics, relocating the fridge, adding new cabinets that weren't
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: there before. It was a redesign basically of what was
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: already there and what's interesting.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Over the last week or so, in preparations for this podcast,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos on van
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: life and it looks like you have an emphasis towards
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the bed being set up all the time and then
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the big garage in the back, whereas I see other
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: vans that tend to focus on this kind of aisleway,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a long galley and then a convertible table to a
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: bed scenario. What led you to choose to have the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: full time bed garage system.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I have many toys.
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I have a lot of friends who have chosen
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: one or the other, and there's even a lot of
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: conversions out there that are Murphy bed so you can
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: have both a lot more easy than just the drop
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: down table.
• 9:20
  Speaker 6: Our choice was that way because we have a lot
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: of toys.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: I love being outdoors, and a part of outdoor activities
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: is that you have to have gear. So I have
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: backpacking gear, we have snowshoes, we have snowboards, we have
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: everything that we own.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Surfboards, rock climbing gear, and you name it, we basically
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: stuffed in it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: That's really cool, Yeah, and that wouldn't really be feasible
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in that long galley style connect.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: When you have the couch and the table that drops down,
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: you lose a lot of that storage space and a
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: lot of people end up running a roof box or something.
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which everybody sees the drop down kitchen table bed
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: and they go, Man, wouldn't that be nice to have
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: that seating area where you can hang out. But when
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: you're literally dropping that down and recreating a bed every
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: single day from morning and night, it gets old quickly,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: and you lose so much storage space.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And my experience even around the Expedition seven stuff, the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: more that you have to set anything up. It's the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: reason why we actually didn't run a trailer or a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: roof tent is the fact that I could leave everything
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: in the vehicle. It was kind of like that garage style.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: So they were high roof land cruisers where you could
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: have all of your gear in the same spot and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: never have to mess with it. And we actually left
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the beds set up in the back, so you get
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: tired at the end of the day, you just crawl
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: out of the driver's seat into the bed and you're camping.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You're sleeping. So that's an interesting point and I think
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it's an important one for people to remember. In fact,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I remember Alan Feld from Sportsmobile, who's a long that's
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a longtime van company, one of the oldest from the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and he told me that everybody wants to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: buy the long galley aisleway style, but the one you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: want to actually live with is the one that has
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a permanent bed set up.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it really depends on your lifestyle when
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: you're choosing a layout. I mean, I have friends.
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: That love the table because they love.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: To entertain, and they chase after meetups all around the
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: country so that they can be within other people in
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: this community and then they can all sit around the
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: table and play cards or have dinner, have potlucks, things
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: like that when it's raining outside, and shove everyone in
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: the van and you have room for that. We don't
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: really have entertainment spaces because we have the bed, but
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: for our life and the way that we do, it's
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: really only the two of us in the van.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Although when we were at Overland Expo we would have
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: three or four, quite a few people in there.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: In the van.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And the way that you've got that passenger seat that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: turns around and it gives a spot and you work
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: from the road.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: So I had traveled a lot, like I said, primarily
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: three day weekends, lots of road trips, and that was
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: because I had a full time job, and for me,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: in order to live this lifestyle and just live in general,
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: I need to have a job and a stable income.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: I had already tried the whole let's sell everything you
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: own and just see how long you can last.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: To move to Thailand, which is a pretty significant jump.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I jumped, and I traveled Asia for a
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: few months and eventually ran out of money and had
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: to come home. And so I decided I wasn't going
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: to do that again. So I do work remotely. I'm
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: a program portfolio manager for a financial tech company. We
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: work primarily with software development, and within that SaaS space,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: I don't I'm not client facing. I'm only internal, which
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: makes it a lot easier to be on the road.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: A lot of my internal employees they know that I
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: live in a van, so I don't have to explain
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: that on every call. But I do a lot of
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: video conferencing calls and stay connected that way.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very cool.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think one of the questions people always
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: have about van life, about overlanding, about you know, extended
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: length travels, is how people are, how they're affording to
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: do it. I mean, obviously there is the method that
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: is sell everything you own and keep going. Some people
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: are just fortunate enough to either just just to have
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the money. I mean, when you go to these communities
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: and when you go to these meetups that you talk about,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: what kind of jobs are commonplace within that that circle
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: of people.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, I would say that a lot of the
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: jobs that people in the band life community hold are
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: the same jobs that everybody else holds. The difference is
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: that technology these days has enabled people to do those jobs.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: From early and while Some people may just look at
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: that as an opportunity to work from home. Other people say,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I can do this job from anywhere in the world
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: or anywhere in the US if you aren't allowed to
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: travel internationally for work and be able to do it
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: that way, you know, I.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Mean, do you find that having to work while you're
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: on the road and while you're traveling takes away from
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the experience. I mean, I know on some of my
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: longer trips where I've tried to, you know, work from
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: the road, for example, I always, I don't know, I
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: always get really frustrated because it's like you want to
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: have the you know, you're you're traveling so you can
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: have the experience, and you're working so you can afford
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: to travel, But then the working gets in the way
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: of the experience and you end up you know, I mean,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I found I ended up just like sitting in coffee
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: shops the entire time. I'm like, I'm very familiar, you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: with the coffee shops of the California coast kind of thing.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't want to speak for Brittany here,
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: but I would I would definitely say that you have
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: to look at it differently. You cannot look at it
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: as I'm traveling. You have to look at it as
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: I'm living the same life that I would be at home.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: The difference is that at five o'clock when I get
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: off of work, my backyard's a new place. I can
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: go mountain biking, I can go explore the area. But
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: if you really want to experience a place, you're not
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: going to be able to do it in the same
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: amount of time that you normally would. You can't take
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: a week and go to the northern California coast. You
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: have to spend a month as you Yeah, you kind
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: of have to pace yourself. I mean, obviously you have
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: to have internet. That's the caveat of all of this.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, do you find that the internet connectivity is
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: pretty good? Or I mean do you use like a
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: cell phone booster? Do you have satellite internet? I've always
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: looked at satellite internet.
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: Name it, We've got it.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: In general, yeah, I mean having internet is very key
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: for primarily my job, but also for a lot of
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: what Chris does. He could do his writing and his
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: photography and whatnot from anywhere, which is what we primarily
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: end up doing on the weekends. But my job requires
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: me to be logged in and available and ready to
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: take calls.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: You're at a desk nine to five.
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: Ye, yep, I am on my laptop, typically a lot
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: of video calls. We use hotspots, We use a we
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: boost for cell signal.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I think right now we have an AT and T
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: Verizon Sprint hot spot, plus a sky roam which operates
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: on various networks depending on what country you're in, plus
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: US a wee boost and gar antenna. So I mean
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: we've basically covered the spectrum on If one provider doesn't
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: have service, someone else most likely will. And it's really
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: not as expensive as you think it would be. I mean,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: it depends on what plan you go with.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I mean internet at home it's expensive.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, and you're not paying a mortgage, which I
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: mean there is going to be things that will be
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: more expensive living on the road full time. And I
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: mean I think about when I'm traveling internationally, it costs
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: me ten dollars a day to keep my cell phone
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: connected in the same fashion that it does here because
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I don't swap sims, So it is expensive.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I mean it's you.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Know, over three hundred dollars a month just for me
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to keep my cell phone connected switched to Google Fly.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I thought it, well, I had it, you had it
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: for everybody. Yeah, I think it works great internationally. I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: don't think it works that well domestically because you're they
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: only have the Sprint T Mobile networks.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: It's perfect for me because I hate when people call
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: me sorry my phone didn't work.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Well, Chris, tell the audience a little bit about what
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: your typical work schedule looks like. And I mean you
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: being a journalist, you really in your job is a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: travel journalist, so it fits.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: It seems to fit perfect.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would say that my typical work
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: week is pretty close to Britney's at this point. I'm
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: going to spend most of my weekdays at the desk writing,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: answering emails, editing photos. But the weekends are when I
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: get to go out hit the trail and capture all
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: the content that for the life that we live, whether
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: that's rock climbing or last week and we went surfing
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: in Baja, the exceptions obviously being we do media trips,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: so sure, being able to find airports to fly out
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: of and try to schedule your life around that is
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: always a crazy time.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and I mean from my perspective as the publisher,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of upside to us
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: for you being on the road like that because you're
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: always interacting with new people, You're experiencing new events that
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: we would maybe otherwise not go to. You are able
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: to interact with companies that are located throughout the country
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that would be very expensive for us to fly people to.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of advantages that I believe that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: you provide to us as an organization. And I think
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that when people are starting to travel like this or
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: looking at the van life is find a way to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: add additional value through your travels, and that's one way
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: one way to make that happen, I think.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, even the amount that I'm able to interface
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: with our consumers, our readers, our listeners now has been fantastic.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: I met one man when I was in Nova Scotia
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: who just happened to be an Overlain Journal subscriber, recognized
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: the truck and he and I ended up grabbing a
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: beer and hanging out, and it led to a five
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: day trip that we did all throughout the interior of
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Nova Scotia on trails that I probably would have never
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: found without someone who had grown up there.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The power of local knowledge. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, every time it surprises me because we have our
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: local trails that we love and that nobody really knows about.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And then everybody else has got those two and if
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you can interact with those folks. For me, when I travel,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: because I don't travel as long as you guys do,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe a couple months at a time. I
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: do try to do three full days of work a week.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: And when I mean full days, it's like I get
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: up at six and I work until eleven or midnight,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and then I also work seventy hours a week typically
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: when I'm home. That way I can allow for longer
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: chunks of time to travel. So I think there's a
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: lot of different ways to do it. The important thing is,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I believe, is to be reasonable about what you expect
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to do. I think that a lot of folks expect
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to be able to translate their job towards travel without
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: making adjustments, and they always expect they can get more done,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: or they don't solve the technology problems early on. It
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: becomes very frustrating if you want to be traveling and working.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I think that that's I don't think that's a reasonable expectation.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I think if you want to travel and for disaster,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I think it is. I have found in my own
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: life that that's very frustrating to try to do that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: So I make sure that I'm way ahead on everything
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: when I leave and then I literally stop.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: What I'm doing is get into the experience. I get a.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Hotel and I park there for three days and I work,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and then I check out of the hotel and I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: get back in the vehicle, and then I go out
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and I adventure and I capture content and I shift
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: into a different mode.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: Right And essentially that's van life right there. I mean
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: we are parked, we get our work done, and then
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: at the end of the day where we want to be.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: The biggest thing that I would say for anybody who's
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: looking to transition to a van life for a life
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: on the road and whatever vehicle they may choose, is
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: try it at home first. Get used to it, get
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: used to working from home and being away from the office.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: It's also an easier way to work with your employer
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: to convince them to try out working from home. Working
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: remotely thing. If you're productive and things are going smoothly,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: it's going to be a natural next step for you
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: to be able to propose why can I do this
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: on the road.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: That's that's a great piece of advice, and that's essentially
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: what you did with us. You did it in smaller
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: chunks first, and then more and more time away, and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: now we have good ways to measure your success that
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: allow you to do it from essentially anywhere, which is
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: which is very cool. Now, do you guys find that
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you guys recently took a vacation. Did you find that
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you that you needed to take a vacation from van life?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, yeah, so sure, walk us through what that
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: looks like.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: Well, the vacation we took wasn't necessarily a vacation from
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: van life.
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: It was just a different version of it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we well, where did you go? You
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: can't lead into vacation without saying where you went? Yeah,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: so I wouldn't necessarily call it a vacation, So we don't.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I wouldn't say that we really take vacations.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: Our goal is to travel and travel in a way
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: that we couldn't ordinarily do with our jobs and for
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: this trip, that meant going to Nepal and going backpacking,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: so our goal was too.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys went to Nepal. Yeah, I thought you
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: were going to be like can I went to Michigan.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: That wasn't a vacation like Okay.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't have been e there.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: But yeah, we went to Nepal and we backpacked a
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: portion of the Annapurna circuit and it was wonderful and
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: awful on certain days and definitely a thorough travel experience.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: But I wouldn't call it a vacation from van life.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: You're still worried about where you're going to find water,
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: where you're going to sleep that night, and you're still
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: sleeping well, much less comfortably than we do in the van.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I'll say that I think I'm in the same program.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: To me, the idea of like going and sitting on
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a beach in Hawaii, that literally sounds like torture to me, that.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Sounds wonderful day. Yeah, I and everybody's different.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: When is the last time somebody delivered you a pina
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: colada in a pool?
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: I can't Yeah, I can't think of when that happened.
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: To come to my Dad's pool party.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: But I do.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I do find that when I take a vacation, I
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: want to go someplace like the Nepal One sounds perfect
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: where I'm out of my routine, I'm not using a vehicle,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm backpacking. One of the trips that I've been
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: looking at is doing some polar skiing stuff because it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: would be so different and but also a challenge where
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: it is an escape. I find that when I can
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: reset mentally from my job, that's when that vacation effect happens.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean our vacation effect, I guess on this
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: trip was the fact that we were so busy worrying
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: about not dying because we were so out of shape
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: for the for the this was my first backpacking trip,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: I should say that. Sure, so I kind of dove
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: in head first, and that disconnect from all social media,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: from all digital technology, and then coupled with the only
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: thing I can think about is making it up this
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: two thousand foot gain so that I can sleep tonight
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: and not freeze to death on this mountain. It really, Yeah,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: it resets the way you're thinking. So it sounds like
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: vacations and maybe even a time in a home all
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: of those things are just as important for someone that's
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: fan lifing is someone who's overlanding. I do find that
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: it's nice to just grab an Airbnb. I love to camp,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: but I don't want to camp every single night. It's
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: nice to come and reset, get connectivity, get work done
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: that allows.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Me to travel.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not in a position where I can just travel
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: full time and not work, so I do find that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: that's also a nice relief from being in the vehicle
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: all the time, which which leads me a little bit
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to van life in general. I did some research on
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the history of van life.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Vans.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: In fact, it all came from caravan, which is a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: very old term. It's been around as long as the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: English language. It's this idea of a group of camels,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a group of travelers, a group of vehicles caravanning. That's
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: where van came from, was from caravan and the actually
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the first van that was ever made was made by
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Ford in nineteen seventeen. It's a model TT Forward which
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: had this enclosed rear storage area, it had a heavier
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: duty rear axle, it had additional payload. We'll put a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: picture of it in the show notes because it's actually
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: super cool, very cool looking. And you can see why
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: if you look for images of the Ford TT for camping.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: There's all of these cool camping accessories. People added campers
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to it and they have tents coming off the side.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So none of this stuff is new. They've been doing
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: it since the first Ford was available that you could
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: turn into a van, So I think that's it's actually
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: really neat And this is not the first generation to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: do it either. In the nineteen sixties Volkswagen vans, people
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: lived out of them. They travel as a Yeah, they
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: traveled around and cool and like bitch and Volkswagen vans,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and they camped out and they hung out at music
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: events and they did a lot of the same things
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: that are being done today. So you know, it's easy
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: for us to say, oh, overlanding is this new thing.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It's not a new thing. It's just become a very
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: popular thing. Ban life is not a new thing. It's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: just become a very popular thing in recent years. But
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: people have been van lifing since the first van came off.
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: The assembly and we're still out there.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is true.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: We've run into our fair share, But I think, yeah,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: the biggest difference of ban life then versus van life
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: now is that modern technology has enabled working professionals to
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: participate in that full time.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's no longer Chris Farley van down
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: by the river.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: No, it's financial advisors and people in one hundred to
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: two hundred thousand dollars Mercedes sprinter vans.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And I actually run into those more often than I
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: run into someone who is barely getting by in a van,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: because I think it is still expect if it's expensive to.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Put really expensive.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: It's expensive to put fuel in the vehicle, it's expensive
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to buy the vehicle to start with.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Even your van, Brittany, which is what year.
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: Is it two thousand and six, so.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: It's a two thousand and six, it's still a thirty
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: five to forty thousand dollars van, yeah, and which is
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: much more expensive than most vehicles of the same vintage.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: If you were to look at a two thousand and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: six four Runner or a two thousand and six Grand
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Cherokee would be a fraction of the price.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Well, and it's thirty five to forty with everything built out, sure,
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: but you know it's that's the stuff that you're going
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: to need to go get out there.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And a new van that has all will drive or
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: low range and other accessories that allow it to get remote.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Those are one hundred and twenty to two hundred thousand plus.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I mean the base model and correct me if I'm wrong.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You might no map.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: But the base model new Sprinters I believe are sixty
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: three thousand dollars.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know the exact price.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: I will say to sixty if their old drive, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: I will say.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: We've been looking recently at the Winnebago rebels. You know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: some people will kind of comment, oh, it's a Winnebago
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: and quality, but I think that a lot of the
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: components are there, and most importantly, you can actually go
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and you can you can buy one, and you can
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: you can participate in van life tomorrow if you want to.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: These specialty van companies are booked out a lot of
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: lead time a year, two years for a lead time.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Well, even if you're going to do it to yourself,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: it's a minimum of three months of work.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're we're driving a Mode four
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: by four from Storyteller Overland right now. That's actually what
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: we brought from California, and it was We picked it
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: up at a dealership and it was ready to go
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: and add everything that you could need in every system
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: that you can need, hot water and shower and toilet
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: and disappealing. Yeah, and in front of those range and
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: went off into the desert. What do those cost? I
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: believe they're about one. Yeah, And I think that they
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: are expensive without a doubt. But when you look at
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: the prices of RVs in general these days, and then
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: financing options for them, it becomes relatively affordable very quickly
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: for many people.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And I do think that's an important identifier, is that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you can go buy a new van and you can
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: finance it. I would be very careful to ever recommend
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that someone do that. I think that people should always
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: be buying what they can pay cash for. But if
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you're looking at I'm not going to live in a home.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: This is the life that I've always wanted, and I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: can get it at a low interest rate, it may
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: be something worth considering. But the other idea is maybe
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you start with a much less expensive van, which is
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: like what you guys did, that allows you to save money,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: pay the van off that you're in, and then use
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that to leverage up to newer models without having to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: pay the profits of a much larger financial corporation.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: So absolutely everyone always asks what does it cost to
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: live in a van? And that's just a such a
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: vague question really, I mean, it really depends on your
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: lifestyle and everything that you need for comfort in that
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: you do normally. But if you have a van that
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: you've already paid off, then I don't know, you're paying
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: for gas and groceries. Yeah, and so it depends on
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: how much you drive and what you normally eat.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: If you're gonna if you're gonna buy an astro van
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: for four thousand dollars and build it out with the
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: basics and you're in, you know, another two three thousand
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: dollars and then wander around the country, it's going to
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: be really really cheap.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I secretly love astro vans totally, like they're kind of cool.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you ever saw it, but Tim
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: O'Neil did a video will it Will It Drift in
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: astro Vans?
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: That was It is fantastic. Yeah that was.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: I think they like welded the diff or something cool
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: like that. Yeah, no, that was. That was a great video.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that because we always want to be
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: very transparent in our advice. I think it's a mistake
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: for people to go out and spend a bunch of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: money on something that puts them in financial shackles again
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: like they had with a home. So that's why I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: think what you've done, Britney is so notable. You bought
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: an affordable van that's well within your capability to pay
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: for it. I do think that take advantage of the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: opportunity to get out of a mortgage, out of rent,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: buy an inexpensive van. Also see if you like it,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: because then you don't have the depreciation of something new.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: If you buy a new, a brand new sprinter with
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a full build out for one hundred and sixty thousand
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: dollars and you decide a couple months later that it
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't work for you, you've taken a huge depreciation hit there.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: You've just paid for somebody's vacation house hit exactly. So
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: now this is a of course, I'm telling you my
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: personal advice. But start with something that's affordable that while
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: you're making an income, you're starting to put that money away.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And then you take the van, you make some improvements,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: you sell it for a profit. And you take that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: profit plus the money you saved, and then you move
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in to a nicer vehicle. I mean, what you guys
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: have done is you have a vehicle that's worth at
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: least as much as what you paid for it because
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the van have has gotten more and more popular, so
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it's highly in demand.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And then you guys are going.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: To leverage that towards your next build, which is going
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: to be what Chris.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Well right now, we're currently rebuilding the interior of the Excursion,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: and it's a little bit of a compromise on the
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: interior space. It's not as big as a van, mostly
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: in the height, but it has the four whel drive
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: capability that we're looking for and the range that we're
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: looking for, and it checks all the boxes for us
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: to get further off the grid without paying a huge
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: payment on new vehicle, like you're saying, and.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you own the truck and you're now reducing your
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: vehicle expenses by half because you'll be getting rid of
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a vehicle and you'll be able to take that money,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: invest it, save it, and then eventually you take that
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: plus your excursion, which is going to.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Be worth a lot of money.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: They're not making those anymore, and they're very popular, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: then you leverage up into whatever that next thing is.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So I think those that are listening, we don't. We
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: never want to give the impression that you go out
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and spend a bunch of money on something you can't afford.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I think that that's always a mistake. I think people
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: always regret it. There's a momentary feeling of euphoria that
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you have this brand new, super fancy vehicle. If you
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: can't afford one hundred and fifty thousand dollars vehicle cash,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't be financing it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: And I think that probably it's a safe bet that
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of our listeners are going to think that
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: they need to get a four wheel drive. Four whel
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: drive vans, even used ones are very hard to come by.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: They're very expensive right now, and I would just if
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: you're looking to get into van life, I would encourage
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: you to consider looking at a toohel drive. Plenty of
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: people have driven around the world in tooel drive vehicles.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Lord knows that the VW buses have been to every
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: corner of the globe. And you look at travelers like
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Brad and Sheena from Driven to Drive, who took a
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: tooel drive van again down to South America.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, the Ward had a great adventure the world
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: on two wheel drive vans. I mean think about it.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Every adjecate delivery, every address that is capable of receiving packages,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: it comes in a sprinter van.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: We went down a this crazy dirt road in Nepal,
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: I would hesitate to even call it a road, and
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: we were in a four wheel drive and we thought
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: that we were pretty cool and that we were really
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: you know, challenging the vehicle. And sure enough, not two
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: minutes later, a bus two wheel drive bus came down
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: and did the exact same route. And I think that
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: when you visit other countries, you'll be able to see
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: just how capable a two wheel drive can be with
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: the right driver.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: And I think I was chatting the other day around
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: this idea that with each level of capability, it provides
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the access to a more remote location. So there are
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: advantages to four will drive and all whel drive. So
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a tool drive van will be able to get you
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of places that allow even allow you to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: get further away from other people that are boondocking. But
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: there's some risks with that, especially if you don't have
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: experience around self recovery. The next advantage is an all
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: will drive van, which is how many of them are
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: delivered now. The Ford new Ford Transit in particular is
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: a good example of that. That allows you to get
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: a little further maybe down some sandy tracks, things that
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: would challenge a tool drive vehicle. It allows you to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: get out onto a beach if you want to, which
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: is also really nice. And the idea of adding that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: capability is especially in a van platform, because I don't
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: want anybody to be misled into thinking that these things
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: are designed to do the rubicon. You've got to get
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: up into the the eagle hout conversions to be able
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to have capability that allows you to do remote technical terrain.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: So most of these all will drive full drive vans.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: What it allows you to do is get a little
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: further off the beaten path, a little further away from
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the crowds, truly boondock, which lowers your expenses. So there
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: are definitely some advantage to the fold drives, but I
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: don't want anybody to think because they're still very low vehicles,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: they have very long wheelbases, terrible breakover angles always there.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I always question when people are turning these things into
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: rock callers. Like when I see a sprinter on thirty fives,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of like, why you have You're spending a
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: lot of money to have something that's less capable than
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: like a stock for runner.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Right, they still can't articulate, they're still very tall, they're
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: still very and a lot.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Of the times the conversions in these things cost another vehicle,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the conversion like an eagle hout conversion, although it's
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: extremely well done, properly engineered, uses all Mercedes components, but
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: it's ninety thousand dollars, so it costs more than the van,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and more than a tool drive van, a brand new
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: tool drive sprinter, more than the van to get it
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: converted to this low range locking differentials type of thirty
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: seven inch tires. And that was the most capable of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the ones that I've driven. But I did drive a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: stock stock sprinter a few years ago, and it struggled
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: on even just a basic trail. It really struggled. A
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: lot of tire spin, a lot of scraping, and a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: lot of spotting, and a lot of very very close
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: paying attention. Which you've got your house, how much, how
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: much risk do you want to expose your house to? Right, So,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's important to recognize that you're
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: not going to create a land cruiser or a g
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: wagon out of a van. That you may have to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: go something like what Chris and Brittany are doing with
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the Excursion to get that level of capability. But if
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: you're in a van, I don't think that all will
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: drives a bad idea because if you like to go skiing,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: if you want to go out onto the beach, I
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: think that all will drives a great solection.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: I love the idea of just the four wheel drive
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: sprinter and keeping it relatively stock. Yeah, put some good
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: tires on it and speak in my mind, yeah, there
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: we go.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: There.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: It's a vehicle that will force you to prioritize the
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: travel and not the trail.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: I think I think vans are you know, when they're
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: four wheel drive equipped, I think they're they're for getting
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: you out of or getting you through soft surfaces.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I don't think they're really for much more than that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree mixed mixed surfaces on established roads,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and that established road could be a second and deary
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: road that maybe has some erosion and other little issues
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and some sandy crossings, but that's pretty much what you're
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: dealing with. Value of the gods, Oki Dougway, Like, we
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: had some friends who were recently in Death Valley and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it snowed while they were there, and the passes on
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: either side became impassable for a two wheel drive. And
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: that's where the all will drive four wheel drive van
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: really is where it pays off well. And that kind
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: of leads to a question, what would you consider to
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: be the ultimate van right now? Like if you, guys,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: if I could give you a blank check and you
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: guys could go buy any fully prepared van, not make
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: it yourself, go write a check, which would.
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: You have to say a van?
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Again?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: No, she knows that I have a Volkswagen problem. It's terrible,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: but no, I mean, I don't think that even money
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: is the issue that would prevent me from getting the
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: van I want. It's importation laws. The first generation Sprinters,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: the T one ends are remarkable vehicles. It's why we
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: have one. They were not available in four will drive
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: in the US sure, and nobody is really offering a
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: factory level conversion kit on them. So he gives you
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: a blank check and you want to buy a ninety
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: sprinter van.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, you guys are totally van like. Yeah.
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: I mean we love the van we have and we
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: definitely challenge it. And we did a full loop around
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: the country this year and we care vaned with the
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: excursion and with the van, and we pushed the van
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: to get to as far as it would go.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, here's the thing if you if you're in
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: a two hundred thousand dollars sprinter van or even one
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars sprinter van for transit and whatever it is,
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: there is a level of worry that is going to
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: come with taking that vehicle down places it shouldn't be sure.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: Level of worry that's going to be there when you
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: take it down to Mexico. When we went down to
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Baja like last week, we parked in the middle of
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: en Sonata and we slept in the van overnight and
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: nobody looked at it. Because it's an early two thousand
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: sprinter it looks like a delivery vehicle.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Right, Okay, I'd say issue with this, so everybody thinks
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: there it's a delivery vehicle. Try living in fruit like
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: I used to, and try living outside to tell you're yeah, yeah,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: there's there's so many. Like I guess my question from
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: that is, is stealth camping still thing? Because to me
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: it seems like the jig is up, Like everybody knows,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: especially in the West Coast indesirable locations, like if you're
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: in tel you're riding there's a white van parked in
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: the street, the cop is going to knock on the door, right,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: It's like that ship a sale.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, people, as soon as you see a white sprinterer van,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: now it's pretty much assume that there's somebody sleeping in.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: It's funny how at least my brain has been rewired
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: where I used to be like, okay, that's a plumber
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: or or or a carpenter or or whatever whatever trades.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: People are creative with it.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, I won't throw this person under the bus
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: and name them, but we know people who have traffic
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: cones and construction hats that they put in the front
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: seats at night so that people are convinced that it's
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: a construction van.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Or you could even put some logos on the side
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: like just plumbers.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, there's whole forum threads dedicated to creative
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: signage that people put on vans like magnets and stuff.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: That's kind of cool. It is interesting.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, we've kind of come to the conclusion that
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: even though my excursion certainly stands out, it's not going
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: to be the vehicle that people assume you're sleeping in.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: So for stealth camping in cities, it's actually a little
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: bit more advantageous than the sprinter van. What comes to
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: what I mean about the worry with the sprinter van
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: is more theft than anything else. The stealth camping isn't
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: so much an issue. But if you have a one
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars van and you've got lights on it
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: and a roof rack in surfboards, there's a pretty good
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: chance that you're going to get targeted for theft. And
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: we saw that when we were down in Mexico last week.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: In Mexico, I would just say is a very safe place.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I've never had any issues too. Yeah, we
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: did have friends who they parked their van and they
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: left it in the same place for twenty four hours,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: which isn't a good idea, and they were broken into.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that does happen.
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: It's just I think, yeah, it's less to do with
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: sleeping in the van and being stealthy. It's more we
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: like the van and the look of the van because
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: it doesn't have anything mounted on the outside that we
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: have to worry about getting stolen.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: And it's the old school drive train. New motors, new
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: diesel motors, especially with the diesel exhaust fluid and ultral
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: sulfur diesel, they struggle, especially if you're leaving the US
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: or North America. I think there's a lot to be
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: said for any older Mercedes platform. I mean I think
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: about how dur your bias. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: think about how durable my gew wagon has been. It's
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: been pretty amazing. I mean it's not that it's always
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: been reliable, but it's always been durable and always been amazing. Well,
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's always been for me. I
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: love it, but yeah, yeah, it's it's a bread van
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: kind of Well. That leads me to an interesting question.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: So around this stealth camping and everything else, what ethics
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: do you think need to be people need to be keeping.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: In mind around those things.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: As a as a van lifer, where you're you're now
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: living moving out of your vehicle, what do you think
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: are some of the things that you would like to
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: see some van lifers take more responsibility towards be more
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: mindful of, be more respectful of. How do you now
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: don't have a mortgage and you're maybe taking advantage of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a parking spot in front of somebody's home. What are
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: some of the things that you can do or even
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: camping remotely. What are the most important things that you
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: think people need to be doing to give back and
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: to make sure that they're not creating a negative impact.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I'll start with the respectful part. We
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: never park in front of somebody's house. We are always
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: looking for commercial districts that would otherwise be unoccupied spots
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: that we can park. We are very careful about being
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: in one area. We usually well, we will never stay
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: in the same spot more than one night in a row.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: As soon as it's six am, we're up, we're moving
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: the van, We're going somewhere else. We come in after dark,
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: and it's not a big deal. We just want to
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: have zero impact on this rounding area. But to be honest,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: I think that Britney is going to be able to
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: speak more or of this. She's been heavily involved in
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: the van life community, especially the work that the van
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: Life app has been doing in the San Diego area
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: dealing with a lot of these issues. Not sure if
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: you're ware, but San Diego has been a hotspot for
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: van life issues. The housing is expensive there and it's
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: become a very popular option and a lot of the
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: residents have noticed. So that's been a big legal battle recently, and.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Aren't they Also they're also dealing very much with homelessness
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: now as well, so I think it makes it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: A hot That's part of the regulations and the laws
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: that they're putting in place is that they are lumping
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: this van life community with the homeless community. And there's
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: a large difference between those of us who are living
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: in these expensive sprinter vans that we have put a
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: lot of time and money into maintaining and respecting our vehicle,
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: versus someone who lives in their vehicle because they have
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: to and they have it parked on the street for
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: weeks at a time. And from that, there's littering problems,
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: there's drug use problems that are all uprising within the
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: San Diego community, and they've created laws that said, well,
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: now you're not allowed to sleep in your vehicle in
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: the entire city.
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: Well, that lumps us in with those other people.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: And I think that the van life app is trying
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: to bring awareness that people that are in their vans,
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: which the type of vans and the way that we live,
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: are different from those other people. And one thing that
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: they do to give back is they arrange community cleanups
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: which are every other month and they go out within
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: the city of San Diego. We try to attend as
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: many as we can whenever we're in the area, and
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: they just clean up the beach and they make it
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: aware that this van life community is different and we
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: do give back and we do care about our environment.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean the van life community these days
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: is not the people living in the van down by
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: the river. They're working professionals and people who are contributing
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: to the local economy. People who are going to the breweries,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: the restaurants, buying fuel, people who often live and work
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: in these cities.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I think one of the challenges
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: too is a lot of I suspect that a lot
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: of the folks that are displaced, many of them still work,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: They just simply cannot afford to live anywhere but in
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: their vehicle, and you know, I certainly have a tremendous
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: amount of empathy for that. I left Los Angeles at
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen years old because I couldn't afford to live there.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I went into the military because I could not find
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: a job that would pay me enough money to be
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: able to live in that city. And you know, I
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: think that that's a real challenge, and I'm wondering how
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the van life community can help not only support the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: local cities that they're enjoying and occupying, but also to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: raise the standard of living and the level of opportunity
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: for the people who don't have that choice. And you
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: mentioned that, Brittany earlier before we started the podcast, and
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I think it was a really important differentiator. Is that
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: someone who's living in doing van life is someone that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: has the choice to do that. You could live in
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: an apartment or you could live in your van. You
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: have the choice to do one or the other, Whereas
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who are living in
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: their car that are actually more would be classified as homeless.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: They don't have a choice.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And I wonder if there's a way to really help
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: in both directions, help the community and also help the
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: people who don't.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Have a choice. Yeah.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: One thing that they are working on is educating those
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: people about being more respectful about their surroundings. And Chris said,
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: we always calmlate and we leave early. And if you
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: have to live in your vehicle, that's something that that's
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: a public parking space. I don't see the difference in
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: that parking space being occupied by someone who's in their
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: vehicle or someone who parked there for the night and
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: walked into their home. The difference is is are you
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: leaving garbage around your vehicle? Are you using are you
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: self contained in?
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, has there been any advocacy for like some
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: kind of self contained certificationation, you know, for van life.
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: I think that's something that they in New Zealand.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: That's that's a huge thing.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: We went down that we rented a sprinter van for
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: a few weeks, and you know, one of the big
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: things is that you had to be self contained certified
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: to camp in a lot of these places they were
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: fine for you to.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Manage gray water, blackwater.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, because that's that's the you know, the
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: unfortunate reality of living on the road is that all
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: of the excrement and the things that you know, come
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: out of you then have washing the issue. Yeah, and
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of a lot of communities have
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: really struggled with that. The small town I lived in
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: in Colorado, that was kind of the thing that would
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: constantly get brought up.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Is.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, we recognize that there's the there's the two hundred
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars sprinter with two ten thousand dollars mountain bikes
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: on the back.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: That is really the people staying here.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: But then there's also the the homeless people. Respectfully, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: again I empathize with the situation, but there is so
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: much grey area I think between that.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And I believe that that's a challenge that both the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: van life community and the over land community face. So
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: trails that ten years ago, like the Mojave Road, that
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: were hardly ever driven. And I remember the first time
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that I drove the Mojave Road, I drove for hours
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: without seeing tracks in the sand in front of me.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: They had been blown clean in.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: The weeks or days at least before someone else had
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: driven across.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Now it's the Mojave Highway.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: It is, And there are clubs and there are organizations
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: that will have hundreds of people, if not dozens of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: people show up to go use a public road that
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: can't handle that kind of abuse, and then of course
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: you add on top of that excessive speed and low
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: driver experience and you end up with a lot of
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: damage to the trail. I mean, we're even familiar with
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: some folks that have done trail damage to the Mojave
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Road because they were driving too fast, and those kinds
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of things happen. So I think, just like overlanders need
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: to take responsibility of like let's minimize or impact. Let's
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: make sure that the size of the group is appropriate
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to the conditions. I think the van life community can
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: also benefit from that, and maybe an app is the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: way to do it.
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: Maybe that app is the way to like, you're green,
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: that area is green, there's not enough people staying there,
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: there's enough, we're not creating too much of an impact,
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: like kind of like ways works for driving, and then
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: it starts to get to yellow once there's too many
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: people hanging.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Out of me.
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: You have that on.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: There's a trucker app actually that that does the exact
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: same thing, which look at truck stops that are in
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: the area. It will show you whether it's green, yellow,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: or red based on the number of spaces that are available.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: At that truck stop.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be a great way to minimize the impact, absolutely,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: and to show that the community is taking responsibility. And
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: then that just means, hey, I've got to go over
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: to this other spot where it is green and there
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: is space, so that way we're not overburdening the community.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I just went hiking in Sedona just the other day
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and I could not find a place to park for
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: a popular trail to hike. It was down every single
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: side street, parked in front of everybody. I don't know
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: why anybody would want to live in Sedona. Now you
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: cannot you can't escape it. There's like it's overrun by tourists.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Well, I think we're seeing this explosion in adventure and
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: outdoor activity popularity, and so hiking trails and off road trails,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: all of it is just becoming extremely crowded and we
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: have to begin looking at how do we manage this?
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just disperse the impact. The secret is go to
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: New Mexico. There's no one. That's true. Yeah, that's true.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Really pretty, it's beautiful. It is beautiful, and that's what's
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: going to be.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: It's people are going to have to take responsibility for
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: going to areas that where there isn't as much impact.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So without naming necessarily an exact spot, what's been some
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: of your highlights, like your favorite campsite or what. What
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: are some of the things that now that you've had
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a few years in the van and you've stayed in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: places as varied as you know, Eastern Canada to now
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: in Baja, what were some of the highlights. What were
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: your top two or three experiences?
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: Brittany, this is always a really hard question. We love
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: the big Northwest. I love waterfalls, I love red rocks anything.
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: I grew up in Minnesota, so I grew up generally
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: pretty outdoorsy, but I big waterfalls in red rocks are
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: something that is just far from anything that I grew
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: up with and spent time around. So anytime that I
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: can get in that type of landscape is what I'm
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: looking for.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: How about you, Chris, what were some of the highlights? Well?
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: I think I love a lot of the place that
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: everybody else loves. You know, Baja is beautiful, the California coast,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: the Pacific Northwest. To switch things up, I would say
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: one of my favorite spots that you don't hear about
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: very often. Was definitely Newfoundland. Newfoundland's great. Yeahland was spectacular.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of traffic up there. The ferry
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: ride out there's awesome. It is very cool, and there's
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: some insane campsites that you know, you can camp on.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Cliff Edge is overlooking the ocean or in between some
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: really stunning mountains down in a valley on a lake
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: and there's no one around.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: That's funny because actually all four of us have been
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the New Like which is like just a place that
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: not very many people go.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Matt and I were there with the seven
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: years ago. It's a cool place. Yeah, it is a
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: very very cool place.
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: I just let the secret out though. Yeah, it's ruined
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: along with New Mexico.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: You know what's you know what's funny though, is even
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: though I'm never going to mention the truly special spots
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: that are special to me right where I don't I
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: don't want a bunch of people to show up, But
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: you'll mention a trail that is relatively obscure and difficult
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to get to, and you'll go back years later and
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: there's still nobody there. I think that people look for accessibility,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and they look for good weather, and it just means
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: that the Mojave Road is going to continue to get
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: abused because people won't drive the additional time it takes
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: to get into the northern part of another park or
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: another area.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: They just don't. They just don't tend to.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Like Death Valley doesn't see a lot of traffic because
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: it's that much further away, right than the Mojave Road
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is or Annsibarego or something like that.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the convenience factor, so mix things up a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: little bit.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Why I don't you guys tell me what is some
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: books that you guys have read the last couple of
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: years that you think that have been pretty definitive. We
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: try to ask guests that are on the show, like
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: we've been some impressive things that you've read.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: You know, it has nothing to do with travel or overlanding.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: But one of the books I enjoyed recently was the.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Book of Joy. It has the d Lama and it's
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: awesome too. Yeah. Did you listen to it as an
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: audiobook or did you read it? I read it. Yeah.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I'd also recommend maybe considering the audiobook because they hired
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: actors that basically have the same accent as those two.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: It's really great. That's a beautiful book. Yeah, that's a
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: really recommendation.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: We live in such a time of contention and turmoil
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: and especially coming up on elections. Now, reading that book
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: where you just have people from totally different parts of
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: the world, different religions, coming together and just talking about
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: life and joy and laughter and sadness and just the
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: experience that we all go through.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: It's Yeah, it's a great book. I would agree. I'll
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: have to put that on the list. How about you, Brittany, I.
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: Would say the last couple of years, definitely, with the
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: amount of road trips and things that I've gone on,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: I haven't gone the audiobook route. I'm much more of
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: a podcast person, so I like to nerd out on
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: science podcasts.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Nobody, what's your favorite? What's your favorite podcast?
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: Besides the Overlain Journal podcast. I really like Science Versus
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: and Undiscovered just silly questions that get answered scientifically, which
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: I think is really cool.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Wild Ideas is a great one if you like
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: the outdoors.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Oh cool.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: And I've started to listen to more also to learn
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: how to be a better podcaster. But one of the
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: ones that I've I've really started to listen to regularly
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: is doctor Peter Peter Attilla. He's a doctor that specializes
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: in lifespan so it's not just about living to be
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: one hundred, it's about living as healthy for.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: As long as possible.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: And he's he's also a race car driver, and he
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: has a bunch of similar interviews. He's into watches and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: other stuff that I like as well, and he's a
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: great host, and he brings on some really thoughtful like
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: thought leaders, medical thought leaders, and it's a great podcast.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I'd highly recommend people check it out. So how about you,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Matt's what's been your recent read or? You know, I
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: don't really do many audiobooks, and I don't do many podcasts.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of a luddite stuck in the nineties that
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: listens to grunge music.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: I have to say that I still really like paperback books.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: My my life is so digital, my life is so
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: connected that for me, I don't want to have the
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: screen in front of me, I don't want to have
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: the computer on at night. I still read books, and
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: I and I read travel books because they're a great escape.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Right now, I've really been on a big Paul Throw thing.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Some of you may know Scott and iergond to Namibia
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Next week Africa theme. So I have ye just just
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: finished reading The Last Train to Zona Verde. Who I'm
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Southern Africa, you know travel Journey by Paul Throw and
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: I really great suggestion. I really enjoy that for those
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: of us that aren't audiobook enthusiasts. And do you have
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: a new gadget? We do our gadget of the week
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: kind of thing, anything that you're digging on, and start
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: with you guys, because I have been on a spending freeze.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Oh you know, Chris, anything recent that you've been digging on.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: Based on living in a van, we picked up this
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: thing called an Omnia oven and it's basically this little
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: donut shaped and that sits on top of your camp
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: stove or any propane stove and acts.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: As an oven to cook things. So it was really cool. Yeah,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: we've really been digging it. We use it every day.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: You can get a silicone liner for it so you
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: don't really have to use much water to clean it.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: And we've cooked brownies, pizza, nachos, chicken wings, cinnamon rolls.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I had, I had Britney cinnamon rolls in at Overland
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Expo East.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: That was amazing.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we we just served cinnamon rolls in Baja to
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: the van group and it was finally a crowd favorite.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: I would I would like it to be noted that
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: I did not receive any seminar roles.
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: You got to come early, I guess.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you do. There wasn't very there was only four
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: or five of them that would fit in there. But
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that was really cool.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we've we've since devised new ways to double the capacity.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. And Brittany, how about you.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: You'd asked me earlier about something that we like in
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: the van for kind of a van hack, and you know,
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: we have very limited space and we keep all of
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: our clothes and packing cubes and try to compress as
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: much as we can in there. But then you have
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: to put clothes on that are very wrinkly, and we
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: have a don wrinkle release spray and it is great
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: and it smells good and really works really well.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: So so it's made by the company Dawn, and you
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: just you kind of put it up the shirt or
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: whatever on.
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: A actually put on get you stand like a mannequin.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: Actually work because it's great. I'm all, yeah, that was
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: my big thing. So I can't stand wrinkley shirts. I
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: used to iron even my T shirts, and it's actually
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: done a really good job in keeping me sane.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Well that's cool.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we have to laugh about the overlaning community.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that is funny about the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: overlining community was Lacroix in any form of any form
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: of like flavored sparkly water.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Entry level sparkling water.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Well it is because I have now found what might
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: be the the Tom Shepherd grade.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, you tell me your sparkling water and I will
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: reveal my secret.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: So I found this company in Colorado and the name
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: of the sparkling water is dram Apothecary, and I am
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: not going to disclose how much they cost each because
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I would be embarrassed to do so. But they also
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: make bitters and other things for like really nice cocktails.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: But it's all botanicals and they taste fantastic and.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: They're made in Colorado, so.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: It's not like you're drinking the ghost of a fruit. No,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: it's it's like really flavor forward and all organic and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: really healthy for you. It's just a way to have
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: something that's refreshing that isn't filled with sugar.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: And that's that's really hard these days. It is, and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: like sugar kills us. It's as simple as that. So
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: if we can, if we can avoid high fruitose, corn
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: syrup or even cane sugar in what we drink, but
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: it'd be enjoyable. Yeah, So dram Apothecary, I'm digging it.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Mine is also organic.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: Oh nice.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: It's from a boutique brand called Kroger Proger Simple Truth Organics.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: It's I don't even know how much it is. It's cheap.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: It's good orange vanilla. That's the one. It's the one,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: that's the one.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would be lying if I would just say
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: that we didn't have three cases of some sort of
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: bubbly water in the back of the van.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you've got to keep it around.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: I currently I just have pacifico light or a fishtally
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: on a water tangent here. Probably wrap this podcast up,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: but I would like to ask both of you a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: final question. What is the best piece of advice you
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: could give to somebody that is on the verge of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: getting into van life. The answer can't be just do
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: it what was something that was legitimately helpful that you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: would like to pass on.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: That's a quick I.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: Have a couple.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: Actually, one would be goes off of what Scott was
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: saying about your expenses. I mean, really understand what your
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: true expenses are today before you buy the van, and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: figure out what you're willing to spend and what your
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: lifestyle could be, and try to get a realistic view
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: on that. Because the fan life is already bottom line,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: it can be stressful. You're worried about water and shower
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: and where to sleep, and you don't want to have
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: the added stress of your financial situation as well.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, don't look at and life is travel.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: I can't count the number of people, including myself, who
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: the first year they're on the road, get out and
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: they plan some huge trip around the country or around
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: all of North America or wherever they live, with aggressive timelines,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: and they end up doing absolutely nothing but working and driving.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: You have your whole life and on the road, and
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: try at least.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: For the first month to say, all right, I'm going
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: to go one or two places in the first month
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: that I'm on the road and just enjoy it. So
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: slow down slow down, plan less, just take it easy
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: and let the journey take you.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: That's really great advice, and I think it does come
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: back to what we talk about often on these podcasts,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: which is don't overspend on the vehicle, because then you're
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: completely beholden to it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Then you have to work fifty hours a week.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or you have fewer options, or you start to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: stress about how am I going to make this big
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: payment on a two hundred thousand dollars vehicle, and it
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: steals the joy that we should have from being able
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: to be on the road and to experience the world.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: So buy something that you can easily afford where even
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: if your job conditions change, you have time to go
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: get another job. You can keep your savings. And if
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: you're planning on traveling and then reintroducing yourself to the workforce,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: plan for that too. Have money in savings that allows
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: you to reintegrate with the workforce, put a down payment
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: on a home, or to put a first in last
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: month's rent on a on a rental, so plan financially
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: for that. It's it's something that Instagram promotes lifestyles that
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: are oftentimes out of reach, especially for the people who
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: say that they do it every day.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: These a lot of these folks are barely getting by
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: and they don't.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: You don't hear that, So plan very conservatively, don't overspend
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: on the vehicle.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and don't think that every single day is going
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: to be the Instagram ban life. It's gonna be a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: Walmart parking lot or a trucks Dot parking lot every
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: now and then, or.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: The toilets or the toilet's going to or you're going
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: to get sick in the van and like imagine throwing
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: up in your in your van, like it's those are
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: difficult days and that happens. Yeah, we've been there for sure. Well,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: thanks guys so much for being on the podcast. We
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it for having us see you guys. All right,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you soon.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Bye,