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Principles of Full Time Overlanding · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by Graham and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Luisa Bell. Now, Graham and Luisa have an incredible history
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of travel throughout the world where they've used their Defender
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: one pint thirty and various configurations to travel the two
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of them plus their two kids. So they've learned a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: lot about what it means to travel full time on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the road. So this Principles of Overlanding is focused entirely
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: on the lessons learned in full time travel. So I
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: talk about my twenty years of travel, which has never
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: been as much full time as theirs mine. So I
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: talk about how traveling for two or three months at
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a time and then coming back for two or three months,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: whereas Graham and Luisa have literally been full time living
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: out of the vehicle for years and years on end.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So there's some really important insights, there's some funny story,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and of course it's always a joy to have Graham
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and Luisa on the podcast because of their incredible experience.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I want to take a moment for a special announcement
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of our newest video series on the Expedition Portal YouTube channel.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: That features exploring the Smoky Mountains and the East Coast.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: This multi part series is presented by Handcook Tires and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is hosted by renowned explorer and photographer Sinway Xavier. This
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: series will start at the end of September and run
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: through all of October, featuring a trail Scout episode, a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Jeep Gladiator feature, vehicle trip planning and preparation, and some
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: installments showing the local artisans and places to visit around
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the Smoky Mountains. We appreciate Handcook's ongoing support of the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: overland community and this podcast. Well, Graham and Luisa, thank
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you so much for being on the podcast with me. Today.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: We're recording the podcast during Memorial Day, so that is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: something that is acknowledged in the United States. It's when
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: we take a moment to honor the soldiers that have
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: fallen in battle. And it's a day that I definitely
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: pay attention to because you know, my grandfather, he didn't
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: pass away in battle, but he did pass away at
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: ninety five, and he had a full career in the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Marines and he fought on Ewa, Jima and Guadalcanal, and
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: he retired as a chief warrant officer in the Marines,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: which are our individuals that are greatly respected. So we
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: do try to make sure that we honor, you know,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: our armed forces and those that have lost their lives
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in the same for South Africa, you guys had some
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: really intense wars even in the last one hundred years,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: where you guys have probably lost some people that were
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: close and dear to you. So those are things that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: we try to pay attention to. So today I'm actually worrying.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: This was given to me as a gift. So it
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: was when I was in Kenya and I was doing
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: some projects with the embassy there and I was given
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: this T shirt from the Marine One, which is the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Marines that are stationed at the US embassies, and so
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it's the Marine one insignia here on my shirt. Today.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: But we're going to talk about full time overlanding and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the principles of full time overlanding and there are few
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: people that come to mind for me that are a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: better fit for this conversation than you two. So thank
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you so much for being on the podcast with me today.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Pleasure absolutely well. And you guys are currently in the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: process of full time overlanding and also taking some breaks
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: along the way, which we're going to talk about a
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: little bit, but I thought it would be good just
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: as a framework is to give the listener a little
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: bit of background on how you guys have traveled, how
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: long you have been traveling, and what your current vehicle
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: is and as full time overlanders, so give us kind
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of an overview you started traveling.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I think it was twenty ten was our first big
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: international trope. We went up to from where we lived
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: in Cape Town, we drove up to we were heading
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to Kenya, and we got as far as the Kenyan
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: border Kilimanjaro, and then the whole family it had been
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: a really rough drop. I got really sick, Luisa got
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: to sick, and the kids had loved Malawi, so they
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: were just like, let's.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Go back to me and then yeah, the lake is special.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: And then we went back to Malawi, back to Cape Town,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: and it didn't take long for us to realize that
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: that's what we really wanted to do with our life,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: is to travel.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So you're coming up on fifteen years.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So we packed the landy. Then we were
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: supposed to Argentina to Alaska, landed up circumnavigating South America
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: then driving Argentina to Alaska, then criss crossing the US
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: a couple of times. We built the landy ship to Europe,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: went over to Turkey. The goal was to get through
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: to across to Russia, but we couldn't make it work
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: with the carne and stuff. So we drove down West
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Africa back to South Africa, and then after a little
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: while we left to drive from Cape Town to Bloody Bostock.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And the day we left where COVID snagged us and
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: we got down and we were stuck in a capsite,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: and then we tried to leave. As soon as the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: borders opened, we try to get up, and we got
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: as far as Tanzania, and then the war and Ethiopia
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: happened and there was no way through. There's nowhere around it.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: They had COVID going at the same time. Eventually we
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: just kind of accepted defeat, went back to them. Maybe
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I had a brie and then went down to South Africa.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: We spoke to a friend of us Christmas Day and
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: he's like, what are you doing And we're like, we
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: don't know what the hell to do. It was like
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: go to America. America loves you, You love America. Go
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: to America. So we came over to the US without
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the land rover, borrowed a couple of vehicles, found ourselves
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: in the Arctic in the middle of winter.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Remember that was cool.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Camped every day all the way up, all the way
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  Speaker 2: down except for one night. And that for South Africans
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: was a learning experience.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And there you guys aren't used to that kind of weather.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on, you can see why humans thrived
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in Southern Africa because the weather is so good, right.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly minus fifty six or something celsius with Winchell on
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the Arctic Ocean. We went out with some snowmobiles and
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I'm saying again this.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Is weird, It's unbelievable.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: But I'm not freezing, I'm not dying. I'm having a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: good time. So our preparation worked. And that was important
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: to me, is to not be one dimensional. Yeah, not
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: to be limited by factors like climates. It was a
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: big learning experience, and.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I think that when we push the limits a bit,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: whether it's a more challenging route than we would normally do,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's in a shoulder season for weather where
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with muddier roads than you would expect or
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: starting to travel in the polar climates. You do learn
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a lot as a traveler. It can be uncomfortable, but
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: when you look back oftentimes you know up with these
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: great stories. The same with your trip West Africa.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It's the one common thing that I've heard when I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: asked someone about traveling West Africa is we're glad we
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: did it. We won't do it again. And I can't
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: think of anyone that's told me otherwise.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: So we're going to do it again without children because that, Yeah,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: that was hard work.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: It's the risk as.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what really. Yeah, it's not just keeping everyone
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: motivates it and cool and fed and water and all that.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: It's more it's dangerous.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: It can be for sure. You have to be very
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: very mindful of what you're doing.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the people are fantastic mostly Yeah, THEMD area.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It's the animals that are usually the most dangerous. But
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: then you have the situations we had in Nigeria, which is, yeah,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: that's sketchy. At the end of the day, you come
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: out of it, but you liberates it because you know
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: what you're capable of. Yeah, you know, same as going
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: up and doing the Arctic is off towards I'm the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: scared of the cold anymore. I know how to prepare
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the vehicle on it, to prepare myself. I know we
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: can survive with minor adjustments. It's totally liberating.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: We're meant to do hard things right as a species.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: We have always had to do hard things. In the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: last one hundred years, things have gotten a lot easier.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that that's a bad thing, but part
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of what gives us that sense of freedom and liberation
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: is understanding our own capabilities. When we don't test ourselves,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: we're most prone to that malaise. I think we're supposed
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to test ourselves. And you guys have a bunch of
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: great books. One of the ones I have here on
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  Speaker 1: the table, and for those that are watching on YouTube,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: you can see it here. This is Travel the Planet Overland.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: This is the book that you guys produce. That is
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: more of the how to. It's got more about how
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you did it, tips and tricks. You guys have learned
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: some great stories about other travelers, and there are great photographs.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You guys have now fifteen years of day to day
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: experience as travelers, and that's resulted in my opinion, some
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: of the best overlaying content that we have in the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: whole industry. Books are excellent because they have a bit
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: more levity, and they're fun and funny, and they're also
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: very real and they connect with the reader at many levels.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But your Travel the Planet Overland book, I think is
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a great one for people to look at if they
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about what we're talking about today
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: beyond just traveling full time overlanding.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we put a lot into I mean, there
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: was the story behind the book as well as it
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: were we met at Argentina to Alaska. We were down
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: in Mexico. I think we used the loss of our
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: dollars to get the visas to go do a house
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: set on a farm up in the hills, and to
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: figure out how the heck are we going to go.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Louisa came up with the idea of doing the book,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and she's like, so many people ask us so many
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: questions all the time. Well just put it all in
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: the book. We've learned so much. But we made all
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: the mistakes in the beginning.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: We all do.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we made all the mistakes and we learned the hardware.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And I was like, if any someone had written. I mean,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: there's like Chris Scott fantastic, fantastic books, but to me,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: they're in an encyclopedia. Yeah, this is a different concept.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: This is taking you through our process of learning and
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: then the lessons that we learned, and then the stuff
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: that we learned along with the gear and what works
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: for us as a family traveling full time. And that's
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: how we put it together and it did really, really well.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: That was Louise's ideas, you like, let's do this book,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and it did so well that it allowed us to
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: then convert the land rover into a camper to keep
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: going I think, all the way down through West Africa,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And we were smart that we printed a
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of extra books at a very good costs,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: so sure we saw those and that it was really
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: helped to keep the balls going. I think other than
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: We'll Be Free, my first book, that's the most popular
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: No, that's great. Well, it's a great book, and it's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: an honor to have you guys have this conversation with
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: us today. So one of the first things that I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about is when you guys were in
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: South Africa, What were some of the steps that you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: took to prepare for full time overlanding. I know that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you sold your business. Let's go into some details at
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the high level that might help people see like, oh,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that could work for me.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Is anyone you want to get this one?
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: We decided on a women that we were going to
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: do it full time over landing. We shook on it
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and then the next morning we're like, okay, are we're
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: doing this? And it took us a year and a
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: half to actually get to the point of where we
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: could leave. We did sell our business. It was fantastic.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a lump sum of money. It was increments,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: monthly increments as well, so that kept us going for
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: a little while. We had to take the kids out
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: of school, approached the Department of Education, and I was
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: to do homeschooling for the children. So there was a process.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: We didn't own a house, unfortunately, but in a way fortunately.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: But so it was just packing all our stuff and
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: putting it in storage. Sure, which we still have to
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: the stay.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, so I say nothing.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of personal stuff we didn't want
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: to get rid of it. I get eh, but I
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: didn't realize we were going to be gone for so long.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have that rent on the storage unit for
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: fifteen years.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Well, but in Lewis's defense as well as that, I
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: give a hard time about it because at the time,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I was like, just keep as little as possible. The
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: goal wasn't full time overnight. In the beginning, it was
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: eighteen months. We were going to do Argentina to Alaska
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and that was going to be it. So it made
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: sense to invest in keeping your stuff. We had some
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: really nice furniture and all the kids stuff and getting
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: back into life. That was kind of the idea that
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I knew in my heart of hearts that that wasn't
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: going to happen. You know. I hoped, yeah, that I
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: hope that this is going to become our lifestyle.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But so you know, you know, I think it follows
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a pretty normal bell curve because you see the people
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: who they announced they're going to do this big trip
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and they get the vehicle and they go through that process.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Some of them never leave because things change, Relationships, break up,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: challenges happen that cause people from being able to or
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: even someone who waits until later in life, they sometimes
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: they wait too long and then health issues come up.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And you see that even more in the sailing side
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of things, where someone will have bought a boat and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: they've done all this work to get it ready to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: circumnavigate or sale to the Bahamas or whatever, and then
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: some physical ailment comes up that prevents them from doing it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So that one of the first lessons for me is
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: do what you can now, because you don't know that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you'll be able to do it in exactly the form
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that you want later. And I think that that's because
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: in my mind, I think there's this fantasy of travel,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and sometimes the fantasy itself is very rewarding. Thinking about
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: what you're going to do, building the vehicle up for
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: when you're going to leave, and telling others what you're
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: going to do. There's a lot of pleasure that comes
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: from that. I think it hits a lot of those
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: endorphins of what you're gonna do and telling people what
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you're gonna do. But a lot of people never even
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: make it to leaving. Some of them leave and then
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: they realize that it's not for them and they return.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: A young guy that was in the community and he
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: had done a lot of work to get ready to leave,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and he made it about halfway down Mexico and between
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the feelings of insecurity and the feelings of being alone
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and realizing that it just wasn't for him. And he
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: had spent years, I mean with the expedition portal threads
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and everything of the build and where he's going to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: go in this trip all the way down to Ashuaia,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and I think he maybe made it three weeks into
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the trip.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I remember that. I remember he got a lot of
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: sponsors as well.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: This fact that takes courage to admit that something's not
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: right for you and to come back. So it's not
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: any criticism, but it's an awareness that that happens. And
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: then most people seem to go and do some version
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: of their trip. They almost all seem to take a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: little longer than they originally planned. You know, I've met
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in Africa that we're going to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: do the one year, and most of them are around
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: sixteen months or eighteen months, are pushing two years, or
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to just push it a little further and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: drive back up West Africa as opposed to shipping home.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And that that seems to be the case, and those
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: are normally the younger couples where they had done some
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: savings or maybe they'd come into a little bit of money,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and they do have a life to start back home,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and there's things that they want to do, and their
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: trip was about seeing Africa and then going back home.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: But then there are some that they start on their
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you know, one year, year and a half journey and
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: then never stop. And that's you, and that's you. Guys's
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: old people not but you're I mean, Karen and Kuhn
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: come to mind. There are many that come to mind
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that started off with the plan of doing this one
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: big trip and they have just kept going. And that's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: certainly what this discussion is about, is how how do
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you make that sustainable?
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: When you look back on when you left, I'm sure
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that there's many things that you did right, But what
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: were some of the things that you wish you had
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: done different before you left that you think would have
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: really helped set you up for long term overlanding.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I think, actually going back to your early question, as
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: well as that period of packing up, getting ready to go,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: and actually leaving is probably the most difficult part of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the entire journey because you're giving up everything you've worked
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: so hard to achieve for something that's you know, you
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: get a slice of doing this, that and the other.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: But you know, shipping a vehicle across oceans and then
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: living in foreign countries and dealing with all of that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: it is it's terrifying. Yeah, so it's not surprising that
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of people back up, but with experience, and
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I know that if I had to go back and
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: do it differently, I would have not been so dedicated
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to the full time life right fly and drive. You know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: if I had someone who could have told me that
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: back in the day, and I'd listen. You know, instead
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: of selling the farm, instead of getting rid of everything,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: instead of not having that security, move into a smaller house, downscale,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: rent it out while you're gone, whatever you can do,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: but spend six months on the road and then go
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: six months back, you know. So that kind of thinking
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: would really change your preparation for how you leave, you know,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: like us basically deleting our formal lives for lives that
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: we had no idea that we'd be successful at. That's terrified.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think that sometimes you need to burn the ships? So, yeah,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you need to. Historically, there's that famous story of I
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: think it was Cortez right, burn the ships.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to make this work.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: And you, guys, against many odds, you have made it work.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And now at the other end of it, fifteen years
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: in you tour some of the most respected in the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: whole industry for what you've accomplished. So yeah, it's tough.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I look back and I think I've done pretty much
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: what you explain just now. That's been my approach as
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I travel about six months out of the year, some
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: years a little more, some years a little less. But
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I prefer that because I still really enjoy the challenge
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of business and having a team. I enjoy working with
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this incredible group of people that to me gives as
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: much pleasure, if not sometimes more than the travel itself.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: I just really like working with a team of people
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: that creates what we create. So there is a poll
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to leave because that's part of me, and then there's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: also a poll to return and that I think that
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: makes a difference. But you're right. I mean, the reality
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: is is that when that was all going on for
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you guys, South Africa was in a challenging time. There
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: would have been a pressure, an internal pressure to want
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to leave to want to go show your children another life,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a different world than what they had grown up in.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Even though I see South Africa still as the Garden
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of Eden in my mind. There are so many more
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: incredible things about it than negatives. But that would have
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: been fifteen years ago, would have been a very challenging
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: time in the country.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of people were leaving. Yeah, it's
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: permanently immigrating. That was our business. We were immigration specialists,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: but we practiced immigration law. That was mainly Louisa's business.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And so we got to see a lot of people
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: coming and going and it's I mean, South Africa it's
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: just so beautiful. Yeah, people fantastic and it's affordable.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The rest of the world has gone absolutely insane, except
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: for if you want to buy a house in Japan
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: or if you want to live in South Africa, right,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, South Africa was isolated so long that the self
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: reliant and it's the bottom of Africa. What choice do
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: you have? But then you see the elections are coming
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: up now and yeah, you know, they don't have power
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: half the time, and there's there's a lot of issues
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: that But I'm glad that our children got to see
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: a different world like South Africa is not safe. You know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: for for many many people it's a daily struggle just
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: to you know, keep their families safe. And we'd go
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to places in the US they don't lock their doors. Yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: you know, you go to Europe where they don't lock
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: up the bicycles and you know, and it was great
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: for the children to see that that's normal. Most of
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the world is safe. And we got back to South
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Africa after eight years on the road and we had
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I think we lost one pair of trousers in Argentina
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: washing line. Someone came and said, oh, those look nice.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: We got to set back to Africa. We got robbed
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: three times, they cleaned up the land rod. It was
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: really depressing and it was really sad. But I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: it's an absolutely fantastic country. In terms of our future.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I don't think we ever said of to immigrate. There
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: wasn't really our goal is to leave South Africa, but
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: at the time it definitely was. Part of our thinking
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: is that we have to make provisions for a future.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Well, and you did. And it's an interesting thing to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: talk about when you look at maybe it's the difference
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: between full time overlanding and a life of overlanding. And
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: for me, I guess I wanted to have a life
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: of overlanding where I was able to do it half
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of the year, but then where I was able to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: also still entertain those other parts of me that really
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: liked the other challenges. Like you guys had your own business,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: it's simultaneously the most difficult and stressful thing you'll ever
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: do and the most rewarding thing you'll ever do is
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: building your own business and somehow surviving it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I think I wouldn't have sold the business if i'd
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: known yeah, because it would have given me a bigger,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: like a bitter sense of security. And I think for women,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: one of the aspects or one of the reasons for
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: leaving is making sure that you have that security. I'm
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: always looking for the like what are we going to
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: do in the future, So I love to have a
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: sense of security. So that was one of the aspects
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: that was the most difficult for me during travel, was
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: like what are we going to do next? How are
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: we going to afford to do this? Yeah, I mean
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: we've done it. But if I had the choice, I
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: would have kept the business because.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we must remember that times have changed. Yeah,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: So when we started out, I remember our first trip
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: up to Kenya, Tanzania, we spent so much time searching
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: for the internet, driving around little towns, trying to hack
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: into Wi Fi, having to stay at hotel so we
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: can get work done because we were running the business
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: while we were traveling and paying a million bucks a
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: second so we could tell somebody online on the phone,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: where we told them twenty times on email. Sure, it
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: was incredibly frustrating, and every time you started relaxing into
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: the travel boom, there's an email nurse. You got to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: do that. So it was incredibly frustrating and it was
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: not as easy as you know Stolic. So when we
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: started out, I actually said to Louis that you know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: it's the business or the travel. We can't do both.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And that was probably true at the time to a degree,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: unless you had a managing director that you would have
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: been able to hire and trust.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Right now, it was the hard part because we were
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the intellectual property. It was what was in us in
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: our brains. It was the business. We sold the database.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: But what we knew, what Louisa knew, that was the
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: actual essence of the business to.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: What brought people back. It's what built your reputation.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what got us the biggest construction in engineering
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: firms in South Africa. We were killing the big guys.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: We were like the giant slayers in our industry, which
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: was incredibly rewarding financially. But I think it might have
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: also to be a little bit introspective. It might have
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: given us a little bit of a feeling of being indominable.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: You know, Oh, look what we've done against the odds.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: We achieved this. You know, this is amazing. We're actually
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: bored with this. This is too easy. Now, what can
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: we do next? What else can we achieve? It gave
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: us a feeling that we were you know, we could
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: do whatever we wanted, and it gave us great confidence
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: to get on the road.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: That's good, and you've proven after all this time, despite
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: challenges that you can't do that, you're still indomitable.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Right so in goals, Yeah, I think I've always remembered
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: back to our conversation we had an Ecuador. I was writing,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: we will be free, and we're renting this little place,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: beautiful place on a farm. We were paying seventeen bucks
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: a day and all the green peppers and red peppers
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: you could eat. And Louisa was sitting on the bed
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: and she was like, we can't do this. I'm like,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: we will do this. And she says I don't think
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: we can do this. I'm like we can do this,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: and she goes, Okay, prove it to me. I'm like, shit, okay. Yeah,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: And anyway, so a reminder of that often.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But she also knew that it was gonna, you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: likely that you needed that push, that you needed, that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: she needed to say, prove it to me that you
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: can do it, right, And I think we can dig
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: deeper in those moments when our family calls upon us
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to rise to another level, maybe than we've risen to before.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, but it also certainly pushes you further. When
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you said, when you're thinking about yourself, when you're like, well,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I've got a family I'm responsible for. Mm hmm, I've
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: got two kids that are relying on me. Yeah. You know,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: this isn't fun in games. This is serious business. It
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: was never a case that we could just dig into
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: this little egg of savings which we should have had.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: We just we we gave everything to be able to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, I sold my sold insurance policies, my insurance
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: policies and stuff to be able to get Carnes, you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: because we had this faith that we'll achieve this one day,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that we can make it sure. So we literally financially
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: sacrificed everything to get to the point where we are today,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: which kind of saguays into the conversation. I think about couples. Yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: you know you're talking earlier about some people get on
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the road, they don't make it, you know, they get
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: going or they figure it's not for them. Well, we've
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: also seen a lot of relationships breakdown over the years,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: and that is I think a long term or full
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: time overlanding especially is the littlemus says for a relationship.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: You kind of see it. Sometimes you meet people, I'm like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: this isn't going to work. Either they're going to have
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: to go home or they're gonna split. And a lot
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: of the time it happens, they just split because you
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: can't run away from the other person. It's twenty four
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: to seven in each other's space, and you really get
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: to see what the other person is made of.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's no filter. At times, people can be exhausted,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: physically exhausted, they're tired, they haven't slept well maybe in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: some time. You know, when you're in really humid environments
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and camping, you're just not getting quality sleep and all
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: of those things start to compound. And I've definitely seen
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: couples that have like dragouts and it's just like whoa,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that's really challenging.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: We learned to deal with that through humor.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And now you've done it for so long that you've
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: now modeled good behaviors. Probably even though your kids aren't present,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you've already done it better for so long.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've perfected our argument.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean you got to go take a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: walk and go talk it out so that way. Yeah,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: your kids aren't seeing you know.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: But sometimes it's not avoidable.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, sure.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: The weirdst thing is I'll give an example of things
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: that really like. Light of fire under us is like
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: navigation in cities you never think you like, but if
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: you don't tell me, I've got one hundred meters before
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: my turnoff and I'm in cell bottle and I missed
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: my turn off, which lands up in a two hour
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: detour through ya favella. You know that really lights me up,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you know, And in the beginning, we had to figure
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: these things out, you know, getting lost in rio or.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Or whatever, it can have real consequences.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And so we both know that there's
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: nothing we hate more than getting lost in the city.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: But again it comes back to communication and knowing how
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: to talk to each other. And the kids are always there,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: and I think at some stage everyone kind of realizes
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: that it's not about me. You know, you have to
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: consider the person that's sitting next to you, in front
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: of you, because you're all in this together. You're in
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: this little box and it's look like farthest part of
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the planet. You might be in a desert or the
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Amazon or whatever, and it's not about you. You have
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: to do what's right for the person behind you and
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: next to you. And everyone kind of gets that. I
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: can't remember, but anyway, there's not space to be special.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: There's not space to be you know, demanding sensitive, this
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: that and the other. You know, I wash the dishes,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I do everything, and I make sure and I pack
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: more when I do that so that it's convenient for
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the next person. I cook so everyone can eat. Blah
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: blah blah. Each one does their pulls their own wait,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: and that makes us work together as a team. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's a very big part.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And you know, when I look back on my travels
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: with partners, I was lucky that in every situation, the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: person wanted to be there like she wanted to be there.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And I think it also helped that I wasn't learning
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: from step one. I think if you were coming into
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: travels with a partner and you're both learning like how
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to do everything right, I think that would be a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: lot more challenging on a relationship. I think I was
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: fortunate that I had already traveled a lot, So driving
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in a crazy country or navigating or dealing with border
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: crossings or dealing with police checkpoints like those were things
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I was already very comfortable with when I started traveling
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: with partners, So I think that helped a lot. If
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: someone says that they like travel, that's one thing, But
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: if they're truly adventure I think they just have to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: be adventurous, you know. And I think Luisa, like you
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: starting your own business, that is an adventure. So it
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: just shows like you have the mindset for chaos and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: for uncertainty and for risk, and that's really what traveling
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: around the world is. It's not so much like, oh,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to see this waterfall. You do get
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to see the waterfall, but you got to get there.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: You got to do all of the steps between a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and waterfall to be able to experience those things in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: your experience traveling around the world. What kind of vehicles
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: do you think best support full time overlanding.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Full time overlanding. I would say it old a vehicle.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And I know Dan Grek recently wrote an article for
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Overland Journal and he was arguing the point for a
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: new vehicle, and I can see that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's either one or the other. Right, It's
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: either got to be really new or really old. I
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: think the middle is where you get in trouble.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you're on the road for eight years,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: your new vehicles now an old vehicle, your new vehicles
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: now becoming unreliable, and I have electrical problems as to Yeah,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: to me, I mean this was our thing as well.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: You just spoke about dealing with border crossings and dealing
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: with visas and dealing with checkpoints and all that kind
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: of stuff. For us, we was learning to deal with
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: the mechanical issues that we had with our vehicle, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: part of it was user error, part of was where
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and terror altitude was a big problem for us.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: The created yeah South America. Yeah you mentioned that.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the created situations we didn't know how to deal with.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: So we had to learn, both of us. I was
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: raised by my mom and my sister. You know, I
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: knew how to change a tire. And then I met
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Louisa and she's like, well, you better figure this stuff out.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: You know, you're the man at the house. And I
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: was like, fine, okay, let's figure it out. So and all,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: the vehicle for us, our Landrover Defender, is a TD five,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: so it's called one ECU. And we were paranoid about
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: this ECU and touch Wood. We've never had an ECU problem.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: We've had we've had the wires.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, you're right. It was in the ECU itself.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: It was the loom over the back of the gearbox.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Because let's put ae loom over a gearbox.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I know that in that situation people have trouble with that,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and they have trouble with the oil running down the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: loom and into the ECU.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Never had that.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe later and they figured that out.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Fifteen p the ten P engine wasn't as great. It
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: was had plastic dolls, but anyway on the head. We
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: learned to figure those things out and then deal with
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: them and fix them. And Luisa's eye electrician. She does
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: all the electrical work. When that wire than that loom
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: burned through, she fixed it. When the CPS, the crank
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: position sensors started failing, and the congo, she fixed it.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: We've changed injectors in campsite and Turkey. We've pulled the
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: clutch in a campsite in Morocco. Yeah, you know, she's
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: a tough old girl. She's mean to hell and back.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: We can fix it. We've got one little diagnostic thing
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: called a nanocom and we broke down in Vegas outside
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: an in and out burger, which was great because we
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: had unlimited refills. But it was the immobilizer. We figured
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: it out. We went through the earth, we went through
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: everything because we knew because we had worked on the vehicle,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: we knew how to take care of him, right. So
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: we had the little nanocon and eventually we were just
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: pressing buttons and it's not going through it. And then
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Luisa figured out how to disable the immobilizer and book book,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: pressed a button, a couple of buttons, she goes, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: then if we go. So I think with a newer vehicle,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: especially these days, you won't be able to do that.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: You need to be a technician to be able to
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: work on a vehicle like that. So if you're very
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: new and old, I would definitely say for the kind
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: of stuff that we do and all the vehicle is preferable.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Or you need to just plan that into part of
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: your long term overlanding is that I'm going to need
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to replace the vehicle at X number of kilometers. I
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: think that a newer vehicle is better than any of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the old ones up to a point, because they don't
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: have the same life cycle. Like I think that if
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you were to buy a two hundred series land Cruiser,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: you've got two three hundred thousand kilometers where you're not
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: even going to look under the hood other than when
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it's time they do an oil change. But then after
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that it's so complicated. There are so many systems, There
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: are so many computers that once they start to break down,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: how do you keep up with it and how do
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you trust it? And how do you even know what
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: parts to bring along? Whereas if you've got like the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: defender behind you, if you've got a two hundred DEDI defender.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, the only time those things have ever given
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: me trouble it was in outside of Mendoza in Argentina
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and I pulled up to this place and it wouldn't start,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, the vehicle need If it turns over
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and it's not starting, you're either out of fuel or
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the fuel solenoid is not open. There's like two things
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: that can possibly go wrong, you know with that. With
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: that vehicle, I open up the hood, I'm like, where's
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the wires for the you know that? And sure enough,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: just like the one wire that needs to open up
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: that fuel salonoid had popped off from the corrugations. I
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: plugged it back in and the car started right back
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: up again. So they are very easy to maintain that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you can do most of the work yourself. Like if
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you look at it, it's like that is a transmission,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Like it doesn't look like a computer, but I think it's.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, that's for me personally. I think learning
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: your vehicle before you taken the vehicle on the road,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: it's like know exactly what's going to go wrong with
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: that particular model or that particular vehicle, and then prepare
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: yourself for it, learn how to change, do mechanical services.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: There's so many people that we've met on the road
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: that have never actually done anything to the vehicle that
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: take it to.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: The drive line cruisers.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: It's taken to a mechanic and a mechanic for and
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: they walk away and they're like, oh, this is awesome.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Sure you have the money do that, but you're going
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: to be stuck somewhere in the middle of No, We're remote,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and you're not going to know what to do to
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: that vehicle. So to me, you can have any vehicle,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: but unless you know how the ins and out of
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: that vehicle, you know, you're not always going to have
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: someone that's going to be their step by step.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And I noticed how you use the two hundred series
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: land Cruiser as an example. I mean, not all vehicles
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: are as reliable as not all new vehicles. I mean,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: and I think the lance it's a capable vehicle, but
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: it also has limitations. So if you look at Dan
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: for instance, he's got a newer jeep and he put
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: a habitat on the back. We did exactly the same
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: thing with our defender, and so I think it gives
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: brings to the other aspect of it is like the
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: best vehicle for long term overland travel is something with
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: a live in arrangement, you know, something that accommodates two, three,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: four people whatever you need. I mean dancers at a
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: kid as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing adapt
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: but you know it's difficult. At what point, also, does
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: a new vehicle, the cost of a new vehicle equipped
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: for overland trouble become prohibitive. I mean, if you can
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: afford it, sure, go for it. But if you're a
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: young family and you want to get out there and
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: get going, and you're looking at all the vehicles out there,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: and like, man, I can't afford this. The vehicles are
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: going anywhere from one hundred to a million dollars one
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand and two million bucks, and it's people are
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: looking at that and going I can't get into overlanding.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Overlanding is a rich man's game. You know. I bought
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: my Landrover. Everybody thinks that's a million dollars, well not
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: a million, but they think there's a couple hundred thousand
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: bucks for that thing. I bought it for nine thousand dollars.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: It was an old farm truck that I picked up
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: in South Africa. I've spent thirty forty thousand on it,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: building the habitat and doing whatever. But you know, at
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: the same time, that's over years. But it was affordable.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: And that's why I love to see when guys take
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: all the affordable trucks that would otherwise be a band
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: and then used it every once a week for loading
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: stuff and pushing it around. When they take those and
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: they turn them into something and then they use them,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Chris Cody has just got himself.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great example.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: You know, an old Dodge Rams like ninety nine or
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: two thousand. Why is that an old thing with a
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: big old Commings diesel, I believe, And.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: It's got a V ten and it's something simple to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: work on here.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Right, And then he built a simple habitat on the
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: back and he went down to Baja with it. You
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: had a good time with it, and to me, that
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: is a great vehicle.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I think full size American pickups are often underrated for
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: travel around the world. I think of the places that
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I've gone and other than some of the old cities
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: where the roads are truly very narrow. In most cases,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: you can drive a full sized truck because there's also
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: services being brought in in Fuso's and semi trucks and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Mercedes trucks, so there are bigger vehicles on the road.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: So I think you can get away with an American
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: full size.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure, not beautiful, but five point nine comings
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Diesel wide. I parked that thing, actually a Defender park
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: next to me in Mexico somewhere. Marillia and I took
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: a photo and I couldn't believe the difference in size.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, that number is big.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: It's big.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But we drove it down to Belize. We went into
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: the jungles, we went in the little tracks. Luckily the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: owner of my friend John, he didn't mind the pin struck.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: But you know, we drove through the little towns in
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Mexico and stuff, and it was completely doable.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of full sized trucks in Mexico. Yeah,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and my point, a lot of American full sized trucks
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: down there. A lot of them are made in Mexico
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: right exactly.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: So that brings you to your parts availability. So in
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Belize you have the order parts stores, there's a chain
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: that's run by the not the Mormons. There the Mennonites.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: They got great chicken joints and great water shows.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: That's good to know. Same in Central Mexico too, Right.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: So but you walk in and I managed to get
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the front tyrot end. I damaged something driving in the
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: jungle and I missed the turn and measure them little
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: limp back to the local next town without an auto
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: pot store, and there they had on the shelf the
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: parts I needed, which was great. And Cummins, you drive
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: through any major center in the developing world or in
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: the modern world, wherever you are, you're going to see
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that big red sea. And if you see that big
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: red sea, you know you're going to be able to
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: get parts.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I could fly it in if they
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: need to DHL it whatever they got to do to
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: get your squared away.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: But chances are they might even have it on the shelf.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: So to me, that's like the argument for the older
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: vehicle is more like get a well maintained older vehicle,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: something to the good engine, something you can afford, something
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: you can work on and use that.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you should be spending around twenty
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: to twenty five percent of your total budget on the vehicle,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: and people flip that. Oftentimes they spend seventy or eighty
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: percent of their budget on the vehicle, and then they
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: have much less for the travel, and they oftentimes get
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: cut short or they feel stressed because they've got these
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: credit card bills and everything else like that because of
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: buying what they thought they needed to go around the world.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And you're much better off spending a much smaller amount.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, just look at what you've got for a budget.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Let's say we've got a budget of forty thousand dollars. Well,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: you can spend ten grand on the truck. Total, you're
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: probably going to be able to pull off and around
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the world trip for forty grand, right. You know, if
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: in another country it's a chymney, you hear, if it's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: a Vitera or something like that, you're going to get
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: a reliable little vehicle and it's going to be able
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: to be serviced anywhere in the world. There's Suzuki's everywhere.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: They're not going to look out of place. They're going
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to get great gas mileage. They're actually quite capable off road.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But a lot of times it's this impression of I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: need a land rover to go around the world, or
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I need a land cruiser to go around the world.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: And fortunately in the United States we do good have
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: good examples like one hundred series, which is I think,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: something you can buy affordably. It's going to be very robust,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: it's going to be able to be maintained. It's not
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: as complex as a two hundred or a three hundred
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: series land cruiser. So there are options, for sure, but
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: spend much less on the vehicle than you think. But
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I do agree with you that the habitat is really important.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I caution against trailers for around the world travel. It
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: can add a lot of expense to shipping, it can
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: add a lot of complexities. The number of times that
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I've had to back up because of a problem, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: like take your pick security issue, you turned on the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: wrong way on a one way street. I can just
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: imagine the clatter inside the cab when that happened. But
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I know that feeling of like you accidentally make the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: wrong turn and now you're backing up. And imagine if
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you had a trailer attached to the back, or you
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: go down a really narrow shelf road and there's been
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: something that's blocked the trailer the road, and now you're
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: backing up a half a mile. So I just really
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: don't I have not seen the argument for a trailer
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: for long term overland travel. I think it's a real challenge.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's fine for the weekend, for the week whatever.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: But you made an interesting point there about turning down
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: the wrong road. And I think that a lot of
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: people might not know, is in the developing world, the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: global South, a lot of the times there's no ring road.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. You know around the city, right, it's
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a one way go through the city and on a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: one way usually.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean even Mexico see it all the time.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: There's no ring road. So you know in that situation.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: You know, that's why I talk about getting frustrated in cities.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Actually you always have to go through Buenos Aires to
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: get to You've got to go through well it's a
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: bad example, but a lot of time you have to
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: go through the cities.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: It's very difficult to get south of Mexico City without
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: going through Mexico City, right. You know, even if you're
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: on one of the outer roads, you're still in Mexico
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: City because there's what forty million people there, so it's
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: very difficult to get away from it.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose the upside though of the trailer though,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: is especially so. That's why when we talk about vehicles,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Eyes always invited people to get out there and travel
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: and establish their needs. What they actually need, not what
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: they see on YouTube or whatever other people do. They
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: need to get figure out what they want. And we
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: come from the perspective that we were a family and
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: we were very budget conscious. Yeah, you know, that kind
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: of leads our thinking always. But the trailer, for instance,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I could see that being great for a family you
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: know who loves the great outdoors that want to go hiking, skiing, cycling,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: this all that kind of stuff. You can have the
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: trailer with the toys on it. You can set up
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: a base camp, you can go explore with the vehicle.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: You know, there's there's so many things you can do
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: with the trailer. But again, it has the downside.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I think in America a trailer is great. Just this weekend,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I was pulling the X one four or five around
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: and it's my favorite trailer that I've ever used because
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: it can go off road, it has tons of ground clearance,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: has a bathroom, has a shower, hot shower, you know.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's got all the things. Like if you're
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: gonna pull something, it sure is hell better have a
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: bathroom and a shower in it. Otherwise why are you
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: pulling it? But in this particular case, I feel comfortable
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: even taking it off road because if I had to,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not that far from help. But I can imagine.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, like the first time I was charged by
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: an elephant in Uganda, Like, try and back up a
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: trailer when you're being charged by an elephant. Yeah, Like
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, So you know there are I think
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: if you're in the United States or you're doing travels
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: down Baja, trailer is going to be oftentimes great, a
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: great choice. I just think once you start taking ferries,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: once you start putting vehicles and containers, once you start
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: dealing with a whole bunch of unknown routes, unknown navigation,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things, the trailers become more of a
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: of a compromise. And that's why you see so many
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: full time overlanders that live inside their vehicles. They live
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: inside the vehicle that they're driving.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose that's another plus for the older vehicles
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: like my Defender to build a habitat, I had to
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: make two cuts. The one was to the roof, which
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't cut my own roof. I saw the roof
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: and but it got a Series Lander of a roof,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: so that didn't hurt me. And then I had to
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: cut one of the sills, which is two soils in
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: they're each an inch. Yeah right, and that's all I
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: needed to do to get down to the chassis, remove everything,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and now I could build my box
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: on that thing. Yeah, it's a lot I think, a
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: lot more challenging with and a lot more I mean
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: that's it's a lot more of a financial risk with
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: a newer vehicle. And I mean I could rebuild my
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Defender if I could get the parts, I could rebuild
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: her in a day to what she was before now,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: which is pretty awesome.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot of upsides to a
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Defender for all the weird reasons that you described. But
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing a lot more of those like Alu Cabar
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: tops that they're putting on vehicles, Like you can fit
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: one to a Defender very easily. You can fit them
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: to seventy series Land cruisers. You see them installed on those.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: They just came out with one for the Grenadier, So
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you're seeing more and more of that.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: And I have the moudcap now as well. For pickups.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: That's right, is a great solution.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's a great choice. So if you can
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: go with a pickup truck with some payload, you know,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: like a Ford Ranger is a good example, or maybe
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the new quarter Master or you know, I think the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: high Lux can now be picked up with a little
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: bit more payload. So those kinds of trucks are great
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: to use as well, because then that habitat can be
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: moved from truck to truck. If you wear out the one,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you can move on to another one. So I'm seeing
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: more and more people using trucks for travel.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Right, And my advice to people is that you don't
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: have to live in the vehicle. You know, you make
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: it comfortable for what you want to do for travel,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: for you know, thet's say you're on the road three
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: or four days, yeah, and you're doing some great stuff,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: some epic stuff, and then you get to a destination,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: you book a little airbnb and you get in there
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: for a couple of days.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Do your laundry, get a nice shower.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: You don't have to have the man truck with the
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: expedition habitat on the back. If you can afford it, great,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: And we've seen people driving a lot.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: You can pay for a lot of Airbnbs with the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: cost of one of those vehicles.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Some people do want to just have their home on
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: their wheels, and they don't really want to interact with
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the culture as much. They want to be with themselves
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: or their partner or their family. But for me, I
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: want to experience the culture. I want to go have
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: dinner in that little village. I really want to interact,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: even with the owner of the airbnb, and you learn
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: all these things of like where to go, what to see,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and like, oh, hey, you know there's this waterfall right
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: over there. I do like to do two nights approximately
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of camping and then two nights in an airbnb because
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: that gives me one full day to work. So each
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: week I'll get in it cycles because that's an eight
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: day cycle, but it moves through the days of the week,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but I end up with two full days a week
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to get work done. And for me, if I don't
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: do that, I feel like I can't keep up.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we used to do that.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: We would be like, Okay, we've got two weeks where
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: we just go off roading, like go do trails, like
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: really just be out there, and then we can come
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: back and then we'll be like, okay, booking to a place
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: for a week, because then we can catch up with work.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: The kids control, we control, and they do everything else
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: that needs to be done. I think that's a great
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: way to do it. You don't have to do a week.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Obviously we wouldn't even it might not be an AB
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: and B but just a really nice campsite.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: But you got two weeks where you're just like, oh,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: I'm doing this.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: It's really hard core, it's rungey, and then you come
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: back and you're like, oh, okay, I can chroll for
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: a bit.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah you have to take it in cycles, Yeah, for sure.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: And I think that kind of ties into this fly,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: fly and drive kind of concept as well. You know,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: is when we sorted out our impression of how to
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: do it, we learned so much. You know. Again, it's like,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I come back to that book. I wish there was
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: somebody that could have sat me down and had spoke
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: and there were people out there. Maybe there was not
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: to sit me down, but at least a book I
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: could read that I can say, do it like this.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: And we've actually inspired some people, which is really nice
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: to be inspirational. I mean, you know the feelings. It's awesome.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: People say you inspired me to do this.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you guys have inspired me many times,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that's sure.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: And I was talking to Actually we stayed in the
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: house of a Canadian chap He's got his blue Land
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Rover and we had just finished the Arctic thing. We
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: were exhausted. It was hardcore. He was like, I'm flying
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: to Europe with my family and my landover so my
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: house is going to be empty for two weeks or
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: three weeks, you know, you crash. And I were like, yes, please, yeah,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: I will take that. And I walked in and traveled
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: the planet. Overland was sitting in his coffee table, not
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: on his coffee table, in his coffee table.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: And so that's what he does, is like he's got
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: his kids in school, he's you know, he actually those
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: kids high school. He and his wife run a business.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: They've got rental properties then the other. But they really
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: wanted to travel, so they did is they built up
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: the land river, they ship it over now they keep
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: it in Europe. They go there for a couple of months,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: they go to scand the navy or whatever. You can
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: see there's just big smiles on their faces the whole time.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: They stay in nice little places. They're having a great time,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: and they fly back home and do what they have
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: to do, you know. And it's a great example of
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: like they're really taking the pressure out of the situation,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: which is fun. We'll see how it goes when they
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: get a little bit deeper into it and start going
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: places like deep into the Silk Route or you know, Africa,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: and you know there it's a lot more challenging. We'll
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: see how it works out for them. But it's a
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: great way for them to start.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you never know until you're tested, right, Like
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: people have constantly surprised me. You know, the one guy
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: who's all tacticled out with all of his you know
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: gear and his eight thousand pound truck. You know, those
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: guys usually the first ones to give up.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: And then you meet the little old lady. Of course,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: in a freaking camera there was an eighty.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Year old woman in a Toyota turceell who drove across.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Africa, which shows you can do it with any vehicle.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely don't need to be kitted out to the tea.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: You don't need to spend money on. Man, the amount
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: of money I've seen thrown around in some products that
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: are kind of I mean, they're great, but they're kind
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: of useless.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: You're never going to use it.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: You'll use it on and that's it because you're paid
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: all that money.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Let's get into some of the accessories here in a minute,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: but I think it would be good to talk finances
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: for a moment because I think it helps people give
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: some perspective. So, on average, how much do you guys
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: spend a month full time over landing?
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: I think it depends on the country. So West Africa
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: was very expensive for us because of the visas, just
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: one hundred dollars per person, even though we have South
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: African passports and helped nothing in that instance. And then
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Europe you're not paying for visa. You good, but it's
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: expensive for the cost of living. So I think on
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: average we would spend about one thousand and five hundred
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: to two thousand dollars a month, and that would be
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: inclusive of most of you know, the shipping costs and
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: all of that incorporated, but we haven't really shipped recently
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: as such.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that's about ours, but we don't go hard.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: It was before COVID though.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, I mean the US is expensive. Mexico
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: is not as cheap as it used to be sure.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: But I think like for the four of us, probably
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: about two grand a month.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: And are you close to that now that you're traveling
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: more just the two of you? Are you finding that
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: because like this this trip right now, you're traveling just
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: to two of them.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I think the difference is, you know, we've
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: been living in Mexico. There's not a lot of stuff there.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: So we came to the US and we're like, oh,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: it's by a bunch of stuff. I am of a
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: certain size and I can't get clothing there, so obviously
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I'm going to spend more money here.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: To you know, take back.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: But yeah, sure, so it was probably spending more than that.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: But we are also free camping, where there's a difference.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we can free camp on a lot of
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: the places where in Mexico you can free camp, but
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: you just got to be a little bit more.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Careful of it, it's more difficult to find it.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: And it's mainly in Mexico, so you don't want to
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: be really going off too much of the main routes.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: And then obviously, you know, the foods get so weir
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: well some of the food and then we got to
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: you know, we bry a lot more.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: So it's difficult to gauge, but.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty good indicator. Yeah, I would say, and
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I if I need to exclude like flights, because I
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: do more fly and then drive. But I would say
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I'm probably a little bit more than that. Probably in
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: that three thousand dollars a month range is what I
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: typically come in with myself and a partner usually or
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: a travel companion.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: You see, we try and avoid restaurants and that kind
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: of thing.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's the big difference is that I will
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: camp a little less than you guys, so probably only
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: camping half of the time. I do avoid eating out often.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I'll eat out once a day, so I'll have one
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: meal out a day. I also feel healthier that way
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: when I do that, and I one of the things
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: that I've done that makes me feel healthier and also
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: reduces cost is that in any big city you can
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: find a little health food store and you can buy
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: some protein shakes. So in the morning, I have a
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: protein shake, and if I can't find milk or some
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: milk substitute, then I just make it with water. And
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: then usually I try to find someplace to eat, you know, one, two,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: three o'clock in the afternoon, and that helps to control
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the expenses.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for us, we fast until twelve. Yeah, so we
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: generally don't. I mean, in Mexico we'll.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: Eat at a restaurant. That's an issue, but in the
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: US we tend to fun. Obviously, the cost is quite high.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: So in America it's it's a lot cheap, much more chicken.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, much more whatever, Yeah, much more affordable. But I
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: found Africa to be very affordable overall. Kenya was surprisingly expensive.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's definitely it's come into its own in
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And then of course, if you're
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: going to national parks in Tanzania or Kenya, I mean
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: it like, yeah, I had a twelve hundred dollars day
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: and gore and go. I mean it's just very single
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: day one not even no without that's without accommodation, yeah,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and without food. That was literally just park fees and
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: vehicle cheese.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: Did it do it again?
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, you have.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: To pay, Like I'm going to do kill a majority,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to pay it. I'm doing this all
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: going to an island or something. Yes, it's like you're
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: never going to do it again. You might as well
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: do it while you're there. You're not going to have
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: that opportunity again. So there's definitely that kind of I agree,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit of spending money you got to put
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: aside for those kind of.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's why it's so important to on the
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: day to day be more mindful about what you spend
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: money on. And then that way, when you're like, you
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: know what, I am going to take five days on Zanzibar,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: you know, you're not really too upset about the expense.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: But there's definitely been times when I've spent more like
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: in the polar regions, it's very expensive. Fuels very expensive.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Any supplies are very expensive. You know, it's shocking what
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: it takes to do something like Antarctica. It's very very expensive.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: But you don't need to do those things to see
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the world. The budget can range a lot. I find
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: that Africa was affordable and you can stay, especially South Africa,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: very for the quality of service and food and hospitality.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: It's pretty shocking. You can stay in the four Seasons
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: in Johannesburg for two hundred and seventy bucks a night.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: You are lucky to find a holiday inn in southern
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: California for that kind of money.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, South Africa's currency is pretty bad, so.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: It helps to it if you're buying in dollars for.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Southern Africa is such an amazing area to explore. And
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: South Africa is like the wastn Cape. You can be
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: at a beach in one day and then be in
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: the Madson's within a few hours. I love diverse landscape
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: that it has. It really is beautiful. If I was
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: going to advise anyone to travel anywhere, I'd say take
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: a trip to South Africa, rented vehicle like Brits rental car.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Drove West Coatswana. Life changing.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: That's what that is, practical advice that we're giving all
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: the time. We sit around with recently at Overland Next
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: where we were chatting to a couple and they wanted
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: to get on the road and they wanted to explore,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: but they were nervous about this and that, and they
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: had a big vehicle very well gets it out. They
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: built themselves. And I was like, listen, fly to Cape
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Tarn rented Kitts at full by four, flight to or
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: even fly to Vintok.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Nimbibia yea, which is a fantastic city.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Right, and you can fully kitch it for by four
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: take two weeks. It's going to cost you what one
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty bucks.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: A day at least, yeah, something like that.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: But you're not shipping the vehicle. You're getting to break
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: the seal, you know. And you can go as rough
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: or as gentle as you want. You can go to
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: all the tourist spots, or you can go out into
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: the desert and you can really get a feel of
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: what it's like, you know. And then you while you're
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: sitting there and you're having a barbecue or whatever, and
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: you're sitting underneath all the stars. You know what. I
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: like the roof tint, but this one might have been better,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: or you know, ground tensing is not that bad. If
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: we did this, and you can really get an idea
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: of how what your style of travel is, you know,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a great way for people to
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: really get going and this whole overlanding thing, and not
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: to sell the farm and do all that kind of stuff.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Is get some practical experience with limited risk.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I mean Dan greg Grek is
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: a good example of that. He has a lot of
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: professional skills and technology, and so he'll work really hard,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: save a bunch of money, buys a new vehicle, kits
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: it out, and then travels for a couple of years.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Another one that comes to mind is a friend of mine,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Steffano Melgrotti. He Italian. He's an architect, professionally trained architect,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: which is always in demand, and it's not really it's
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: not a skill that expires easily, like maybe some of
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: the technology changes a little bit about the work where
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: you do the work. But he'll save up money and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: he travels on twenty two dollars a day. Wow. But
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: he rides a motorcycle. He rides a two hundred and
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: fifty cc Yamaha that gets seventy plus miles of the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: gallon and he camps every single night.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: He eats noodles, and he.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Eats once a day, but he spends on average twenty
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: two bucks a day. So it's really possible the other
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: one that comes to mind is a story that you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: guys shared with me, which was the Japanese man that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you met on your travels down through Africa. Now where
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: did you? You met him at a border?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: What border was it?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: We first sessionally met him at a weird like campsut
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: kind of thing. I think it was every coast or something.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: That might have been Senegal. But it was literally like hello, hello.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: And he couldn't speak a lick of English, and it
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: was like his like no English whatsoever. I don't know
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: how you communicated, but it was really bad. Well you
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: would use Google, Tran says I think at the time.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: And I do remember at the beginning of the trip
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: when we met him is wearing white.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: It was white.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: He was all white. I don't I don't know what
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: you called it, some kind of uniform. I think they
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: have a name for it in Japan, but it was
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: basically a white top, white ball in it.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe that was why I thought he was a monk.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: And then we came across him again and the bard
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: or something, and he was hitch hiking before the border,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, sorry, man, there's no way I'm carrying
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: another guy.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Over the border, because you just don't.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Know if he's got a bag for the what. There's
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: no way I'm going to go down with the dude.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'll give you a lift after the border,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: but I'm not going to give you a lift to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: the border. And so he was hitch hiking again. He
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: was like this mysterious kung fu David in the world,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: solving problems. I knew nothing about him, this mysterious person
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: I've ever met. But he was also incredibly friendly, and
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: he had a great order about him. You know, he
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: had this really cool like attitude. And then you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: we let it her pick him up somewhere in Godbon
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: or something. But now he's bizarre. But now he's tunic.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: It's called it a tunic. It had now gone from
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: white to a kind of a yellow and you know,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: the red soil of it. And then we saw him
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: again in the Congo. He picked him up in the Congo,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: and by now his tunic had turned more of like
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: a reddish pinkish. He just lay in the back for
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: days on the worst roads, and he just lay in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: the back and he was sleeping or meditating. But he
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: ate all my bananas that he just went through Banianna's
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: like crazy this guy and he was just sitting there
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: quietly and we were having major breakdown. We have big
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: problems with the misfire with the land rover going through
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: the Congo. The locals were drunk on palm wine. They
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: were smacking the vehicle and and you know, we found
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: a place to pull over just as the sun set
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: and we've got all our tools out and we look
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: and there's Yuki. He's got his little blue tents and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: he's gone.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: Gone, no lights in his tent.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Nothing. It's like he literally went into the tent and
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: just disappeared. Disappeared like opened a portal and went through.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: You want dinner, You just like gone.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Do you have any idea what he would spend a day.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: It had to be nothing because he was hitch hiking
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: and you spending time with others or taking a ride
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: with other travelers.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: He was even taking buses and taxis, so he was
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: literally hitchhiking.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: And he would eat very little as well, just a
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: bit of bread.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: He just wasn't consuming much of anything, I think, but
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: experiencing a lot.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think at the end of the trup he
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: would probably be like some cyclists. I know that they
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: had more money when they left than when they started.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Because people feed you, that you up, they put you
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: in the houses, they see you suffering, and they want
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: to alleviate that a little bit. And the Africans incredibly generous.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: They are, I mean a whole old.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Around the world. We just we've met amazing, wonderful, generous people.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: But isn't that an important lesson? So if you look
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: at Yuki, or you look at Stefano Malgratti or a
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Russian hitchhiker that I picked up between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: it's just they were living on very very little each day.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So it's not that travel isn't possible. It's that we
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: make the choice to travel in a certain way, right exactly.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: So to answer the question, travel is absolutely feasible. And
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you got to wonder, like,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: are they actually having are they learning more about themselves?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Are they having a richer experience because of that? It's possible,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I think the more isolated Like so you think about
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: the traveler and the million dollar unicat and he doesn't
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: go outside, he's got perfectly climate controlled and all the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: money in the world you got to wonder how much
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: travel actually changes that person. I think maybe not as much.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, we met that early on when we
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: were driving Patagonia and there was a cyclist man. This
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: guy was you could see he had a hard time.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: You know, the windpumps down there. He was sunburned, you
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: remember the guy. And we were like, okay, we're going
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: to stop and give this guy, just find out if
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: he's okay, because he looked really bad. And we stopped
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: and we started talking to him, and he was just
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: like in his own world. It was like he had
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: no headphones on or anything. He was just like so
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: focused on he was cycling at the time. And he
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: we said, do you want a cup of tea? And
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: he had a cup of tea and you could just
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: see him becoming alive again.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: It was just the amount of focus.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: And at that point I could never understand why he
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: would do it, put himself through something like.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: That, just the physical challenge itself.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, Now he smiled.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: Cable animates, But I can now see why people do it, because,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: like you're saying, you have completely different experience if you're
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: traveling as if you're walking or if you're cycling. Or
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: if you're just sitting in a big air condition.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Track, well and you let this have to walk.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah some but yeah, I don't know.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: You let the ego strip away a little bit.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I think about a lot of the things that the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: way that I've traveled at times, you know, it was
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: something that made my ego feel good and it didn't
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: need to be that way. I was fortunate that I
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: was able to do it. But looking back, it's really
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: important to remind myself and others is that you don't
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: need to do it that way. You don't really need
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: to have that fancy stuff. You don't really you don't
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: need it. You really don't. But it doesn't mean that
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: it's wrong to have it. But just maybe spend a
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: little bit of time with yourself and think about why
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: why do I feel compelled to spend a million euros
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: on an expedition vehicle?
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: Why am I overlanding? I think that is for we
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: had a discussion the other day and we sort of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: overlanding for a specific reason. You know, my father passed.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Very suddenly we realized life is just not worth you know,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: the money and things didn't make sense for us. We
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: were like anything could happen tomorrow, then what did we
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: actually do with our lives? How much time did we
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: spend all our kids? For me, it was more of
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: that kind of moment that pushed me to giving it
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: all up. But to me, overlanding should be done for
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: a reason, not for the gram.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to me.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: It's it's changing.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: I wish like you should set yourself down and say, well,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: am I actually doing this? Am I doing it for
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: the fame and fortune? Because it's not for a lot
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: of people, and it doesn't come for a lot of
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: people as well. It should be for a purpose, like
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: anything you do in life, right, it should be for
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: a purpose, it should be meaningful.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, then it's more rewarding exactly when you're able to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: give back to on our travels. And maybe that's a
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: good pivot. When we are traveling full time, we do
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity to give back. So I think that
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: it's a good idea to when you're traveling and you're
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: looking ahead to where you're going to go, find a
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: place where you can volunteer, even if it's just going
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: to an orphanage and holding babies for a day, or
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: maybe it's going to a school and sharing your journey
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: and showing these kids another culture and another way of life,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: maybe some fun photos. But there's ways to give back.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: There's all over the world there's need, and we all
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: have our own skills that we can use to give back.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: We choose not to talk about our philanthropic work because
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: I want it to be just about that, not specifically
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: what we do. But I think it's a good idea.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: It adds more purpose to the travel. And you know,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: if you really want to go on an expedition, you
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: got to think of something a trip with a greater purpose,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: because otherwise it's not an expedition. You've got to do
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: something of a higher order, a higher purpose. You've got
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: to be supporting scientific work, you've got to be doing research,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: you got to be doing real philanthropic work in order
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: for something to be coined an expedition. So think about
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: what you can give back along our trip. Because I
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: feel like I've gotten so much out of travel. It's
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: completely changed me as a person in the last fifteen years.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I'm so different than I was fifteen years ago, and
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: I like myself a little bit better because I learned
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff and I screwed up a lot,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and I made mistakes, and I had to come to
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: terms with a bunch of things in my own life
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to have different. But I think that
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: if we give back, if we travel with purpose, then
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I think it gives us those greater rewards, maybe what
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: we were looking for to begin with.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for us the journey was a very
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: important part of becoming who we are. The Reason and
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: I both had tough childhoods. We didn't have much growing up,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: We had stuff we needed to work through, and the
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: journey was I think life saving for me in a
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: lot of ways because I became the person that I
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: could respect, a person that I could be proud of.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't all fake confidence and stuff like that.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: Now I've earned real confidence. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly that
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: it's not, and which makes you weird. I think it
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: makes you stand out a little bit and be a
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: little bit different from other people because people that genuinely
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: relate to that kind of personality, the people that you
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: used to know, go like, well, I don't know who
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: the hell you are anymore? Sure Like, well, that's a
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: good thing. And then giving back as well, I think
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: it's something that we're getting ready. It's always something we've
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: tried to do in little ways and in big ways.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: But being part of the community like that you're in
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: and being good to people and kind to people, feeding
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: a dog, giving them water, you know, helping someone out
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: if they need a hand. Just being a good person
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: and leaving a good impression when you leave somewhere I
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: think is very good as well. But then, of course
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: is philanthropic work is something that I've always Now that
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: I've got myself sorted out, I think I could start
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: helping other people, and I think I needed to be
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: It's also one of the best ways to help ourselves
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: is to help others.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: When you're not thinking about yourself.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: The most I think we're supposed to do that, We're
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: meant to be in a village. If you think of
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: human history, most of human history is a small village.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: So I think we're supposed to help do a barn
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: raising or something like that. It's really about giving back
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and helping others in that way. I also wanted to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: take a brief moment to thank all of you for
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: listening to the Overalangural podcast. By listening to this podcast
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: and subscribing to the Overlangournal magazine, you're supporting our employee
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: own and veteran owned business. Impartial reviews and in depth
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: content like this would not be possible without your support.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: If you enjoy the podcast, I think you'd really love
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the print magazine as well. And one hundred percent of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: that subscription price goes back into creating the content like
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: you're listening to right now. And as a special thank
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you for your loyalty, we're giving twenty percent off any subscription.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: You can go to Overland Journal dot com and use
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: the code Overland podcast at checkout. Again, that's code Overland
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Podcast at checkout, and I'll give you twenty percent off.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate your support. That journey that we've all
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: been on is because of the fact that when we're traveling,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: we're allowing ourselves those moments to consider our own mistakes,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: our own learnings, the things about ourselves that we need
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: to change. We get a lot of time while we're
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: driving to think. Sometimes we get time to listen to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: a book or a podcast, something that can help us
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: be a little bit more mindful of what needs to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: change in our life life. And it's those hard things
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: like crossing West Africa or difficult routes that also change
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: us and they help us to be a little bit
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: more mindful of we can't do this, and I am capable.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: And you also learn a lot about humanity when you're
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: in the middle of Nigeria and you're going through the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: toughest day of your life on the road and you
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: meet someone who's kind, friendly and helpful, and you realize
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: that most of the time when we're on the road,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: we're at the mercy of the people that's around us
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: in the countries they were driving through, and you could
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: be in the most remote areas of the world and
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: you can drive into a little village. You're at the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: mercy of these people, you know, and our experiences And
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: it's weird too, but I think goodness lives during the day,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: it's true, and evil comes out out at night, but
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: our experience is nearly always being fantastic, you know. And
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: it's also like.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't drive at night. That's a good place to
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: start for long term overlanding. If you want to make
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: it to the other end of long term overlanding, start
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: by not driving at night unless you absolutely have to
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: do so. How many times do you want to spin
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: the revolver.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Right, and it doesn't make you could be in Europe. Yeah,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: the creeps come out at night. The visibility is bad
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: at night.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Things happen, yeah, animals on the road, drunks on the road,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: all kind of just there's just stuff. It might not
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: even be the Boogeyman. It's just literally there's just things
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: you can't see.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: Right. And the other thing I like is pointing out
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: the land rover on the cover of the book is
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: the front windows are open. That's because we had ac
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: but we did used it and that's how we drove
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: always with the windows open. So we went behind this
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: tinted glass. People couldn't see us. They could just see
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: this expensive vehicle, the stickers and this and the other.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of ways. Yeah, because the environment
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: is coming in.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: It's raining, you're getting away. And I think that that's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: a big part of it as well for us, is
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: you know, we were always visible. Yeah to the people
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: that were you diving through a village. Your windows are open. Yeah,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: you're not hiding away. They can see your face, they
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: can see your smile. Yeah, you know you wave, they
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: wave back.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really important to not tint the windows on
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: a vehicle for a lot of reasons. These are tensive
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: in the back for kids, but in the front, try
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: to keep them lightly tinted or not tinted at also again,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: or roll them down like you've done, you know where
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: people can can see you. For sure. I love our
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: meandering conversation. We're going to pull back a little bit
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: to the practical ways of earning a living on the road,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: because I think that's what a lot of people would consider.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: One of the ways I've seen that's most successful actually
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: is people that have property that they rent while they're traveling.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: It's come up a surprising amount in the people that
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: I've interacted with that are doing long term overlanding. They
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: have a home or a couple homes. Sometimes it's the
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: couples that have come together later in life and they
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: both had a home and they rent those while they're traveling.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: In my own case, it's something that has really helped
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: me because I have properties that I rent all the
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: time and that generates an income. Whether Overland International is
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: in business or not, I'm able to do the traveling
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: because of that. So I think that having rental properties
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: is a good idea for full time overlanding or not.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: I mean just having a diverse portfolio that allows you
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: to earn an income long term. So properties can be
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: a great way to do that. A lot of times
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: people already own a home and they're getting ready to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: travel long term, and it's tempting to want to sell it.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: But I think it's also very easy to spend all
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: that money very quickly on maybe a fancier vehicle. Where
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: As if someone starts off with Okay, I'm going to
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: take this house. It's just on the outskirts of London,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: and you're going to be able to rent it for
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: twenty five hundred pounds a month, and next thing you know,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: you have travel budget that you're able to maintain long
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: term and continues to adjust with inflation. Any inflationary pressure
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: that's happening like we're experiencing in the world today, the
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: rent is also going to go up and that income
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: will adjust based upon those inflationary pressures. So I think
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: rental properties is a good idea for another one. You
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: see people doing this, but it's a cautionary tale. You
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: see people successful with YouTube as travelers. Most of the
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: people who are successful are the ones that have been
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: doing it for quite some time. They did it when
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: there was less competition and they built a loyal following.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Or their adventures have a very unique storytelling component to it,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: or they themselves are very unique as people and that's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: very attractive to others to watch, or there's some drama
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: at play, there's something usually unique about their story that
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: compels hundreds of thousands, of not millions of people to watch.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: And I've seen people that make a couple thousand dollars
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: a month doing that, and that's very feasible to do.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: The only concern that I have, I have two concerns
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: about it. First of all, it's very difficult to do.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: It's very very difficult to get to that point of
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: making that kind of money today. If you were to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: start today and say I'm going to be a YouTube influencer,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: that's a very very difficult thing to do. And the
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: second thing is you don't own the platform. So if
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: YouTube now becomes not as popular as TikTok or whatever
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: comes next, and you spend all this energy to build
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: this income, and now the world is a fickled place
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and people change their preferences around apps and social media
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: and everything else quite often, So I think it's really
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: important to recognize that you don't own the platform. So
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: if the platform changes, your income could suffer. So I
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: think it's possible. I think people have done very well
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: with it. People have done very well as influencers. But
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's more difficult than it ever has been
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: to be an influencer. And also because consumers are more
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: aware and companies are more aware, and so I think
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: that the money is more difficult to come by.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: It kind of comes back to what Louisa was saying
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: earlier is what's your motivation to travel? Do you overland
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: to travel or do you overland for fame and fortune?
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: Which is fine if that's what you're doing, just own.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: It, I suppose. But these people tend to be quite
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: entrepreneurial as well, so they can be a little bit much.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: The thing about the YouTube is we tried it, but
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: we were never willing to be completely immersive, and I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: think that a lot of the YouTubers and the influence
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: and stuff, it's immersive, like they have to be posting
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: all the time. Yeah, they have to always be in
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: a beautiful location or a great location or have a
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: great vehicle all this and they've got to be doing
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: their stories every day, five stories a day on Instagram.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: They're to have the videos coming out regularly on a schedule.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: They have to be great videos. They have to be
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: in awesome locations with a good story. It's a mini
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: production company, and I have a lot of respect for
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: the people they can get right is incredibly.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Difficult and expensive.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: You know, the equipment that the travel, the time that
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: goes into it. If you can get it right, good
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: for you. It takes a hell of a lot of investment.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: It takes a consistency, and it's getting easier in these
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: days were Starlink and things like that, where people can
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: now post from almost any in the world. They can
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: have high speed internet, and that for us. We dabbled
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: in it for years. We really tried to get it going,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: and when we got to the point of having ten
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: thousand subscribers and we were just exhausted with it and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: we just said, you know what. It actually caused a
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: lot of tension between Louisa and I because that was
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: her part of the business. But to get out of video,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: you know, now you have to film it, which that
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: means you have to have all you equipment and players
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: charge memory cards that now you're trying to raise kids.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: You're in the middle of the congo or whatever, right,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: so there's all the prep that has to go before
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: you start filming. Then when you're traveling along and you're
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: having a really tough situation, everything's going wrong, blah blah blah.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: Wait stop are you filming? Are you filming me? Getting
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: stuck in this mud, having this breakdown, dealing with this person,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Then it's now you've got
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: all the footage. Now, ain't going to make sure you
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: don't overwrite your memory cards? When you've got to sit down,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: have the time to work through all of this footage.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: And then when you've got this final product and somebody
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: keeps tripping over your computer cable on the internet, drop
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: there and I'm painting a picture for you.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: No, it's true, but it's true.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: And then then you've got to upload it because every
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: Thursday you've got to upload it. Now your Internet is
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: a trickle and you're literally sitting there, Louisa until three
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: in the morning just watching that thing. Uploading wakes up
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: in a bad mood for us. Eventually I got to
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: the point where you know, we've done everything right. We've
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: really really tried it. We haven't gone to some extremes
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: as some people do to get viewership. And I got
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: to the point where I just said, I'm not doing
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: it anymore.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to be willing to sell a little
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: bit of yourself, I think, in order to be to
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: get the views, and that sometimes that means you've got
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: to be very contentious, which means you got to always
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: have controversy around your videos, or there's got to be
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: something else that you're selling. To get people to watch
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: at that kind of volume, it's very, very difficult, and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: there are some that do it great. They do a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: great job. I just think that if you're going to
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: do a full time job from the road, maybe you're
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: better off doing marketing and social media for other companies
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: full time while you're traveling, and then you don't have
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: to show the whole world your life and everything else.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's possible to do well with YouTube, but
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: I think that window has closed to a certain degree.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: It's a lot more difficult now to accomplish that at
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: the level that it takes to get that kind of income.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: So there's two creators that I know personally that have
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: done well, and the one is Eva Zubek.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's done well. Yeah. She's an incredible human being.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: And she's also a professional that she was on television.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: She was a professional host of a television show, so
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: she knew how to make great content exactly.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: So she's her own production company. She's the focus of it.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: You know, her life is her story.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had her on the podcast. She was real professional.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's done an amazing job. He's a smart guy.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: He's non residents in Australia. She's French. He works on
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: oil rigs and he's not just mopping up the oil.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: He's like he's one of the team leaders. Sure, so
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: he'll go and do a few months on offshore, come
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: back loaded. You know. Steph does the videos. That's what
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: they don't have kids. Yeah, they've got a lovely little
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: land Rover that they've kids it out and you know,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: it works very well for them because they're having fun.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they're not counting on it.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: And you can see they're having sure, they rock climbers,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: they're having a great time and that makes it really
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: fun to watch.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: But he's earning his money by other means then on
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: the YouTube to make them the money on the road.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: And you do see people. You do see people that
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: have professional skills that can be employed remotely and they're
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: doing well. You know, like like Chris Cordez comes to mind,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like he can be traveling and still working.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: There's professionals, lots of professional services that you can do
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: from the road and be able to work and live
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: on the especially with Starlink. Now, I mean in some
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: ways that's what I do. I run a business and
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: I'm able to do it for the most most part
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: while I'm traveling, which is good. We do have YouTube
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: because we believe it's just a category of media that
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: we want to continue to cover. But it doesn't make
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: a business, so it's very difficult for it to make
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: a business. So yeah, and then I think there's an
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: example of what you guys do, which is content creation.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: So you create content like your books and you create
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: articles for Expedition Portal and Overland Journal. You guys have
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: become trusted contributors and team members of Overland International, and
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: so you guys make every two weeks you get a
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: check from Overland International because what you guys create exactly
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: what we need. So I think that it's possible for
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: people to create content for other media companies and to
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: earn a living that way.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: So many times I get messages from people asking me
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: about writing a book, publishing a book, etc. At the
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: end of the day, first I'm like, have a good
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: story to tell, tell it well, and be prepared to
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: do a lot of marketing, right, because if you're skilled
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: enough and published enough, fortunate enough to be able to
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: get like one of the big publishing houses to be
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: interested in, the vast majority of travel books these days
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: are self published. Our first book has got four hundred
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: and fifty four and a half star reviews on Amazon,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: which is I think one of the highest art of
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: these self published travel books, and that kind of sets
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: me up for everything else. But what people don't see
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: is it was years of self promotion behind the scenes.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: Our first trip into the US, I think we spent
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: our last couple hundred bucks to buy a box of books.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: We've got to the Overland expot expecting like, this is
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: going to be our big shot, right, They're going to
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: get the media, and they were going to be like, well,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: look at these amazing people and my books are going
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: to sell out and next thing, and I'm going to
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: be doing radio and TV interviews and it's just shoot
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: from there. That was the hope. And then we got
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: there and it.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Just snowed all Snowverland Expo.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: Land EXE, and then we landed up selling our books
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: at gas stations because people would come and look at
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: the land rover and talk to us for a while
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: and then go, you should write a book. I'm like crazy,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: and they're only twenty bucks and Americans are so generous.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: It became a business strategy that we would drive stop
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: to put in gas and wait for it. If we
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: managed to drive across most of the US selling books.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: Out of the back of the landro oh, that's so great.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: We'll drive up to Alaska and we'll just sell the
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: books as we go. And if you're paying five bucks
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: a book to print, you sell them for twenty that's
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: a fifteen profit. You sell four books and then your
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: expenses are covered mostly for a day. But we didn't
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: realize that Canadians are different to Americans. So we crossed
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: into Canada and the only people buying books were Americans.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: The Canadians would come over and talk to us and
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: I'm like, by the way the book, and then they'd
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: look at you like, oh, I know, you're just trying
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: to sell books, that's your whole angle. They were like, well, yeah,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: but no, so it didn't really.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the kind of the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: I think that the yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: And the generosity. But my point is, my point is
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: that it's unless you're a gifted writer, you know, and
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: you've got an amazing story and you really know how
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: to do the marketing, and unless you're going to do
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: all those things and be all those things, I think
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: it's very difficult in terms of writing to make a
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: living these days, and it's getting more difficult.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: I think there's different media ATHLETs, and I think every
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: media athlet is looking for a different kind of story writer.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so you can. I mean there's thrill lists.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: They just want the kind of list kind of thing, adventures,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: what can you do in Texas.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: In one day kind of thing.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: I think it depends on I can't say that making
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: a living on just writing is viable.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: I think you should always.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: Have different avenues of making money, just in guess something
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: goes wrong.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I think there's a lot of media outlets.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: I think it's just a lot more difficult that because
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people that went to work remotely. Yeah,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 3: So having a writing gig and then doing something else
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: digitally or remotely, definitely you can do it.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, diversify a little, yeah.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: Exactly, keep your options open because.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: One, even your closes, at least you still have another
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: stream of income until you figure out the other one.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: The one thing that's interesting for us as a business
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: is that from the very beginning when we started the
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: magazine and the website, is that we wanted the people
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: that contribute for the most part to be experienced. So
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: you guys have the advantage, and it's why we've always
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: enjoyed working with you. Of that, I know, I can
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: trust that your advice is going to come from this
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: well of failures like my own.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: But we have to have those mistakes. We have to
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: have had those hard days, and we've had to have
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: had those mistakes I think in order to come at
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: this kind of co with the right perspective. So much
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: of the editorial that we come across in Overlanding now
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: is like basically selling things that people don't need, and
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with reviewing lots of equipment, but when
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: it comes to the advice that we do, like on
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: this podcast today, we haven't told anybody that they have
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: to buy anything. In fact, we're recommending that they buy
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: something less expensive because we've learned again the hard way,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: that those expensive things isn't what made travel feasible for us.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: So for those that are looking to create content in
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: the overland space, it's really important to first focus on
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: gaining the experience and traveling with less so that way
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: you have gained more skills yourself. You know, I love
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: that famous saying from the Messiah Warriors of like a
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: man travels with his experience on his back, So the
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: more experience that we have, the lighter to the backpack,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: and it seems to be the case with vehicles. For
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: those that are wanting to produce content for outlets like
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal, the most important thing for us is experience.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: So it's the reason why we have you guys contribute.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: It's the reason why we have Dan Grek, who has
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: so much experience contributing. You happen to be great writers
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: as well, and objective and all those other things. But
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, as the publisher, I
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: have confidence that you're going to be sharing with our
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: readers things that come from a well of experience, and
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: that's where that confidence comes from. So for those that
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: want to do that kind of content, start by gaining
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: the experience and being really open to learning, coming in
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: with a student's mindset, so that way you can learn
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Instead of thinking that you know
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: it all because it comes across, it really does come
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: across that way. So that pretty much covers the ways
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: that I've seen people successful earning living on the road,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: having rental properties, content creation, some success with YouTube and
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: social media as influencers, and then the professional services route,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: which seems to be emerging with Starlink and becoming more
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: and more feasible to do. And the last thing around
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: the finances that I think is important to talk about
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: is retirement. When I have spoken with full time overlanders,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: it tends to be one of their greatest stresses is
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: that what do we do when we can no longer
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: travel and produce content like this? Do you guys have
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: any advice that you would give on people preparing for
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: the end of the journey For maybe the dessert menu
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: at the end of life where maybe travel isn't feasible
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: because of physical limitations or other things. How do you
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: guys plan around that.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of things. The one thing is
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: the long term overlanders that we know, and we know
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of them, tends to be people who have
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: so when most people have think when they're thinking of
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: their retirement, they're thinking of the nice, big house, a
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: couple of vehicles, maybe a speedboat, holidays every few months.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: You know, people want to have a very high standard
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: of living when they retire, whereas we've basically spent a
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: large portion of our adult lives living in a box
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: on wheels, traveling. And I don't know about it. I
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: can't speak for Louisa, but I have no aspirations to
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: have a speedboat, a couple of flashy cars, a big
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: house for me. If anything, I want to have a
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: little log cabin, you know, on a piece of land
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: where my kids are close. And I think that's a
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: very important part of it is knowing what you want
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: out of your retirement. You know, if you wanted to
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: live that expensive life, well then you've got to stop
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: doing this. Long term overland malarkey, and unless you have
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: the professional like Grizzly and Bears who's saving by traveling, right,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: making a bit of money out of YouTube. Maybe he's
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: even got a rental property that he just told me about,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: and that rental property, when he finally decides it's time,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: he can either move into it or he can sell it,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: and then he can go get a little cell boat,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: or he can get the little cabin, or can do whatever.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: But I can guarantee you that he's not going to
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: be living in a triple story house in the middle
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: of Sydney, you know, with the newest land cruiser outside
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: that after traveling like that for so many years, that's
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: not going to be the lifestyle that he's on.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: I think they're incongruent. I think that once you've traveled
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: that long, you don't want those things anymore because you
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: realize that they are the last thing that will make
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: you happy.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: Right, you want freedom, you want maneuverability.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you end up in the tiny home. We see that, right,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: we see that that progression. You know, they start off
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: van life, they go to sailing, and then when they're
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: done with sailing that they build the off grid cabin
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: in Canada. Like we've seen that by so many people
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: that have gone through that that route. Is that throughout
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: the whole process, that the tastes remain fairly simple because
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: you do realize that and you're so industrious and so
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: resourceful by the time you're done full time overlanding around
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: the world for a decade or more, that you probably
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: you're pretty well set up to be like, I'm just
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: going to enjoy my cabin, go fishing, exactly.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: And that's the mindset as well as that. I think
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of people look at long term overlanders and
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: they think, oh, great, you've been on holiday for the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: last fifteen years. Yeah, that's been the hardest work. Yeah
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: we've ever done. Yeah, you know, life was easy before
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: we became long term overlanders. And I'm lucky to be
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: married to someone like Loresa who does not take days off.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: She's the hardest working person you ever meet. She's always
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: busy doing something and it's.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: An africaner for you.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they work hard, they work hard.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: They are hard working people.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: She allows me and break every now and then, but
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm the same thing. I have to be productive.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: So the point is, what is retirement. So, am I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: gonna stop working? Am I going to stop being productive?
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: Am I ever going to get to the point where,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: say I'm sixty five years old, I'm done. I'm gonna
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: start watching rugby and cricket every day.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't see you doing that.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm gonna do. It's not gonna happen.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: I don't see you doing that. So I see you
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: dragging a log across the tundra and then just falling
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: over someday. It's like, that's that's what I hope for myself.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: Is that a Neanderthal?
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly?
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: So I think that's really important perspective is that by
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: the time you're done with long term overlanding, you will
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: be such a different person, and you'll have such different
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: standards for yourself. You'll be fit and healthy and likely
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: still productive member of society even at an advanced age.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: There are some really interesting statistics out there about the
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: longevity of an adventurous person. They actually outlive the gen population.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: Because people will say, like, this person's so adventurous, they're
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: going to end up dying, But that isn't usually what happens,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: because you've built so many skills along the way, You've
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: stayed active and healthy, typically eaten more healthy. You spent
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in nature. You've gained a bunch
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: of perspective. You're fairly happy. You have close relationships and connections.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: You think about what are the things that kill the
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: average person car accidents, heart attacks, and think stress. By
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: being an adventurous person and being active, and being a
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: good driver and being a defensive driver and a capable driver,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: you keep removing a lot of the things that actually
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: kill people on a regular basis. It doesn't mean that
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: it's not going to happen, but the likelihood starts to
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: drop that you're going to die by those more traditional causes.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: So adventurers actually outlive the general population. Mountaineers are the exception.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Mountaineers don't do as well in that longevity side of things.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: But yeah, for me, I mean I think about retirements
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: is you know, I think I'd like to live in
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: a place where it's easy to retire because you've got
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 3: to think about your social system or this. You know,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: like am I going to be able to go to
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: the hospital for to go to the so and I
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 3: think because we're I mean to we South African born
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 3: I still have a South African passport, so is grand
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: but you know, we're more like citizens of the world
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: kind of thing. And because we've traveled so extensively, we
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: can say, okay, well, maybe we were retired, we went
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: in say Germany, because we know the social system is
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: good there and we'll be taken care of if something
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 3: had to happen to the other one person, you know, Yeah,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 3: that's my you.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: Know, well a British passport as well. I don't know
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: how you forgot that. Of course, I'm an international man, mister,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: you are absolutely I'm going to have a German passport
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: hopefully soon as well. But my point is I've been
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: paying taxes in the UK without living there, you know,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: so I'm quite qualify for social services right when it
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: comes time for retirement, when I finally get to that
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: age where I'm like, okay, now I'm ready to go
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: live in an apartment somewhere. But I mean, yeah, you
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: have to make arrangements. We've got the insurance policies. I'm
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: probably going to die before Louis and she'll get paid
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: out a million bucks and she can go and you know,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: meet up in an Italian love a boy and go
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: do whatever. But yeah, it's a very important consideration. I
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: think the advice that you were giving earlier, especially about
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: the rental properties and stuff like that, if you can
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: set yourself up before you travel in the way that
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: you can be more successful at the end of your travels,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: that's really a wise investment in the future. You know,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: instead of spending the money on the vehicle, spend it
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: on the asset, you know, find a way that you
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: can earn that income, or you can earn the skills.
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, looking back now, if I had gone and
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: learned to be an underwater welder on a rig, the
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: amount of stress that would have been taken out of
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: our lives by me jumping on a plane, flying to Angola,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: going and spending a month making a ton of money,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: you know, coming back everyone and it's chill, let's have
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: some fun. You know. I've taken the risk, but I
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: got the reward if I had to look back at it,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: buying a small property, investing that money. So when we
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: got the urge to travel, it was an urgent urge,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: and it still took us a year and a half
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: to wrap up. Yeah, but in hindsight, knowing what I know,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: now I would have taken a couple of years and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: really just downsize, invested, being smart, and find a way
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: to make it a lot less stressful, myself on the
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: road with an eye on the future. So we still
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: have a lot of work to do.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we all do. And the biggest challenge is
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: that none of it comes quickly. You know, a healthy
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: lifestyle doesn't come quickly. It takes time, it takes effort,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: it takes discipline. The financial benefits of life. There is
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: no such thing as a get rich scheme. Some people
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: have gotten rich in ways that are very instantaneous, but
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: it represents a very small percentage of society. So the
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: traditional ways of investing and being frugal and maybe don't
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: buy the two hundred thousand dollars overland vehicle, buy the
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars overland vehicle and invest one hundred and
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars in a property, and then you can
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: flip the script a little bit, which I think is important.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: But we can make this a three part series for
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: sure for long term overlanding. What are some things that
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: you guys feel have been key to it being sustainable,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: Like you recently got a dog. What are some of
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: the things like that that have really made it feel
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: like home on the road.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we have very few spoils or luxuries.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: So for us, So for Chewie, he's actually run under
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: the table right now. Yeah, he's campedown.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: So for us, when we saw a traveling there were
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 3: a few things that I would give up. And that's
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: obviously a Brie. We're South Africaan. I have my down debt,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 3: you know, feather down.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: Doubt and looked really nice.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: I wasn't going to sleep in a sleeping bag because
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: I was living on their road, so I wasn't camping
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: every night. It's actually living. So there were a few things.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: And then obviously the kids each had a little crate
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: of their toys, so I think, you know, for me,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: it was just I could still spoil myself, so I
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 3: didn't feel like I was completely just giving.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 4: It all up.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for women, I think you still have that little
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 3: nesting thing going, so you still feel like you're you're
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: belonging to something or your you you're still own something
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 3: that's from home kind of thing. And then the dog
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: is well, I actually got Chewy for my daughter. Keilan
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 3: was supposed to go work in Canada before COVID hit.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 3: And then COVID came and that plan went to yeah,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: and I said, Okay, Jessica is going to be lonely,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 3: let's get a.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 4: Cheese me more.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: She's lying to your first how double that that dog
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: was for her? Jessica is the excuse because we've just
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: done West Africa and we've taken care of the friends
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: place and they had a bullter and she hates Bulta Louisa.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: She hates him and she fell so deeply in love
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: with this. It was filling in a hole.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was something.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: And then should start on me. Every time I lit
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: the fire and opened the beer, She's like, we need
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: to get a dog, just a little. You won't even
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: know it's he is tiny, Yeah, Jessica, Jessica, She's still
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: tell me that line.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: Well, because Jessica's in Mexico right now, and where and
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: where's Chewy at Chew. He's here in Arizona with Louisa's
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: I think you might have a point there, grand I
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: think you might have a point. Like for me, I
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: think the strongest poll is that I want to be
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: traveling with someone that I care about, like the times
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: that I haven't tried with someone that I care about,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy it. So there's been times that I've traveled,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: like for work, or there's been times where I was
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: trying to accomplish some you know, unreasonable goal. But when
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: I look at the travels that I've had the most
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: fun with, it's that it's with longtime friends, where it's
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: with a partner, and it just for me, it makes
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: a huge difference, Like I need that in my life.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: It's part of who I am. So that's one of
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: the things that I recognize for me that supports longer
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: term travel. And then I really do if I can
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: read a book at the end of the day, or
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: listen to a podcast during the day or a book,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: you know, an audiobook, those things are really like there
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: it's like a solve for me for whatever is going on.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: Like I like to be able to read, I like
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: to be able to learn a little bit every day,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: and if I can do that. It's so funny because
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: Paula will be editing the video and there'll be some
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: like crazy Tim Ferriss podcast going on in the background,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: so usually hear like whatever it is that I'm trying
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: to learn about that day, but it usually has nothing
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: to do with overlanding. It's just something that's interesting to me.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about it. So if I find that I
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: can travel with someone that I care about and have
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: a way to read or to learn during the day,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: that it makes it very sustainable for me. I don't
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: need much beyond that. And I think it's probably because
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: I do more of that fly and drive process where
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: I even during Expedition seven, which was four years total,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: I was constantly shipping the vehicle to the next place,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: flying home for a period of time, and then going
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: back again for months at a time. But I do
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: find that the process of going back and forth is
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: pretty sustainable for me. Makes it sustainable.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: And I like to look for beauty and you can
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: find that in many different ways. You know, it could
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: be in the landscape, it could be nature, the vehicle,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: the place. It doesn't matter. You know, there's things that
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: give you the fizz I'd like to use that James
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: may is. But something that gives you a feeling of satisfaction,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: something that makes you feel good. And those are special
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: moments that you can find, and you can find a
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: lot of them while you're traveling. They're like these little
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: pearls hidden in existence, and I really get a lot
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: of energy off of that. It could be just, you know,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: go to town for a taco or something and you
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: have a good meal and you have a good interaction
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: with someone and you feel good and you walk away
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: from it.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: It is interesting how that food can definitely it's a
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: part of life.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: And then just being good to yourself and taking care
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: of yourself, eating well, going for a good long walk
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: and getting that little endorphin rush, you know, some way
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: where you haven't been before, and you think, like, we
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: took a walk across the road here to the lake.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: I've been here a million times, and I've never seen that.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: That's beautiful. It is a beautiful lake. And that gave
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: me a bit of a physics, you know, and it
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: improves my day and I came back feeling good about myself.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: And I like to look for those things in the
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: day because they make it worthwhile.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: And it does seem like that the two of you
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: have started to make health more and more of a priority.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: Part of what was the impetus to this podcast was
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: when I saw you a couple of weeks ago, when
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: you first came to the shop before Overland Expo and
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: you hopped out of the truck. I mean, you look great,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: like you. That is hard to do. You know, every
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: pound of fat on our body has three five hundred
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: calories in it. The amount of effort it takes to
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: get rid because that's more than what you need even
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: in a full day. So if you didn't eat at all,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: if you had sixty pounds on your body, it takes
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: you eighty days to lose it. You ate nothing at all.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: So that's very very hard work to get to that
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: point where you've I mean, it looks like you've lost
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: forty or fifty pounds, I would say pretty much. That
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: is very very difficult. At what point did you decide that, like,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make health more of a priority to
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: make this sustainable.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: When we finished doing the lotic trip and we handed
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: back the number in one piece and in good condition,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: that was extremely stressful for me taking somebody else's vehicle
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: to very remotely responsibility. But it was also the culbination
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: of how many years on the road and the kids,
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: raising the kids, not having to get them educated. It all.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: It was hard work. It was very very hard work.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: I'm turning fifty this year, and I was looking in
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: the mirror and I'm going, well, now it's time to
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: turn the page. During all those years on the road,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: we would drink a lot of beer and a barbecue
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: all the time and eat nice things. That was our
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: luxury was food, sure, right, and so it's not good
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: for the.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Waistline, but or the ability to continue to do this
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: long term, right.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: And then we got to Mexico and all of a sudden,
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: I was just flooded with anxiety. It was weird. We
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: finally moved into this little house, the kids well together.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: Finally I didn't have to worry about what's going to
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: happen every single day. I was in a routine. And
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, this anxiety came out of
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: nowhere and it's just started beating me up every day.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: And I realized this because I've always been promising myself
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: when we started traveling. I was like, well, I'm going
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: to get you asked a by retirement. I'm like, well,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get to that age now when we've
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: done all this and we've achieved this, and then I'm
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: going to have to step up and perform because now's
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: the time to make it all come together. I was like, okay, man,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: now's the time. Now you got to dig deep and
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: you got to shine. And I realized that sugar was
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: adding to my anxiety. Alcohol and sugar.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: Both of them are a form of poison for sure, right.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: And if I had borrows of chocolate or whatever, and
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: then I was eating a lot of chocolate, I'd wake
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: up the next day and I'd have anxiety. I was like, well,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: have I have this anxiety? And then I started going
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: for walks. Then I feel better after the walks, and
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: then i'd have it. But I exercise, and I'm like wait,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: And I started with these little stretchy bands and then
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: I started off small, and I realized, Okay, this is it.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to change me physically and that's going to
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: help me change me mentally ahead of turning fifty to
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: give myself and shit. And that's what I did. And
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: I realized that a lot of people lose weight and
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: they don't keep it off, and that's because they're changing
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: patterns but not lifestyle, right, And then it's a waste
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: of time if you're just going to put all the
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: weight back on again. It's a waste of sacrifice.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they say that ninety six percent of diets fail, right,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: so if you get almost one hundred percent failure rate,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: it has to be something different. It can't just be
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: like I'm going to go on this diet to lose weight.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: It's going to be I'm going to change my life
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: for the rest of my life starting today.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing. So that's what I decided,
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: is what I realized that the sacrifice of the fasting,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: the cutting out the sugar, the exercise, all that was
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 2: making me feel a lot better. And I was finding
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: those little pools of beauty I was talking about earlier.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: I was finding them easier to find because the anxiety
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: was being crushed. And the more I got into it,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: the better I felt. And eventually I got to the
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: point where I've still got a bit of work to do,
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: but I'm feeling good, you know, and I just feel
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: better physically and mentally. I've got a more productive and
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: that's what I want to do, because now we're gearing
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: ourselves up for the next stage. Yeah. And what's that
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: next stage, Well, that's going to be like the silk rut.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: So the whole thing is this overland thing is so
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: deep in us that I'm going to do anything I
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: can to make sure i can keep doing it.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and do it in a sustainable way.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: And I think health being healthy is sustainable. When I'm traveling,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: I get my healthiest because I actually get into a
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: better routine. Whereas when I'm home and I'm in the office,
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: I make bad choices. Like during the days when the
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: good things happen, and during night was when the bad
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: things happened. Like I make terrible choices at night.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: That's that's usually when you have a cocktail. It's usually
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: when you have dessert. It's usually when you overeat for dinner,
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: or it's eight pm and you're snacking and you should
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: have stopped eating three hours ago. So I do work
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: a lot more now on the decisions that I make
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: after it gets dark, and I'm trying to eat a
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: little bit earlier in the evening, so that way, I'm
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: just shutting it down. But right now I'm just working.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: I'm working so much that I'm using food as like
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: that one little treat that like rewards me for seven
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: days a week, or whatever, which there's not It's not
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: an excuse. It's just an awareness that I have of like, oh,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: I'm overworking, and because I'm overworking and I'm overtired and
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: probably not well hydrated, I'm just making poorer and poorer
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: food choices.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: You know. One of the things we struggled with on
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: the traveling is to get into some kind of routine
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: where you can have a healthy diet where you can
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: exercise our day. Yeah, where you can exercise regularly and
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: do that. I mean, because being on there I can
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: be stressful. Yeah, you have a breakdown, you have a
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: ship boarder crossing, you get to the camp. You know,
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: the last thing to think is do you know what?
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: You're going to crack open a pier, You're gonna put
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: the fire on, You're gonna get some.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: Meat out, You're going to dive into the oreo or whatever.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So you know, I think being off the
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: road has enabled me to get into the point where
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: I can get some kind of routine that I can
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: then try and keep going. So it was interesting now
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: driving up from Mexico. Now I've got my yoga mat
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: which she steals every night. I've got my little stretchy
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: things and that's awesome, and like so now your workshop
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: here is a great place to work out, or you know,
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: Overland Expert, you're walking all day, so you're not. But anyway,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: now I'm starting to try and okay now because that's
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: my challenge. It is hard to take that healthy routine
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: and make it part of the travel routine. Yeah.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: Sure, and it's a good test for that.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: I'll be writing about that sooner.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please do. I think that would make for a
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: great article on expedition portal. Is that journey that you've
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: been on for those that are listening, for those that
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: are professionals in the health and wellness and fitness space.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: So if you've got other ideas that you'd like to share,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: will include that we're planning on doing a future episode
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: around health and fitness while traveling, but love to get
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: some feedback from those that are regular listeners, and you
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: can reach me at Scott dot a dot Brady on
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: Instagram with that feedback because we'd really like to learn
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: more about it. I need the help. I always make
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: functional fitness a priority, but I don't always make healthy
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: eating and healthy sleep and stuff as much of a
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: priority as I should. This has been an incredible conversation
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: we're at two hours, and that's because there's a lot
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: of layers to full time overlanding. There's a lot of
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: things to consider around making a life on the road,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: and YouTube are an incredible resource. You've got your book
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: Travel the Planet Overland. I'd recommend people take a look
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: at that. You also have. Let's talk through how people
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: follow what you're doing. Obviously they can find your content
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: on Expedition Portal, but how do they follow your travels
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: on Instagram? How do they check out your older videos
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: on YouTube? Like? Where do they find you?
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: If you search A to a Expedition that's a number
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 2: two A expedition, you'll find our website and YouTube. You
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 2: Facebook and YouTube, and then on Instagram. I'm Graham dot
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: R dot Bell g R A E. M. Dot or
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: dot Bell on Instagram. Yeah, Louisa was in charge of
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: the A to a Expedition Instagram thing, and I just
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 2: just running my own and then she was so busy
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: with the YouTube videos and stuff and then mine.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: It's hard to keep up and it's hard to keep
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: up with it.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: So if anyone does go to the A to a
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: Expedition Instagram, it'll just redirect them to.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: My Yeah, awesome. And then where you guys headed next?
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: What's the next.
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: We were supposed to be again heading back to Baja,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: but we got so many great friends in the US
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 2: and it's great to see them all and stuff, and
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: we were convinced to go up to the Northwest Overland Rally,
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: which to me is.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: It's a great one here. Yeah, it's one of my favorites.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: It's unmissable if you're going to go to any of
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: the Avalanche shows or rallies, at least that's the want
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: to go to. And then we'll be heading down to
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 2: Eland XNW might do a presentation, but we'll see about that.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: People can bump into you there.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Mike take her up to Canada, Oh.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: My lord, and then and on that bombshell trouble.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 4: Just keep driving just across the Jess was.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: Just there and everybody else is in Bam and then
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: down back to Mexico and then we'll be back next year,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: I think before we ship to Europe.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: To do the Silk Road. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: you both so much. You have inspired me countless times
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: in your own journeys. You're such an important part of
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: the team. You guys do such incredible work, and your
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: books are great. Please check out their books on Amazon
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: and other sources so you can follow their journeys and
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: listen to their stories, and we thank you all for listening.