Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / EP325 | Principles of Overlanding: App Navigation with Chris Cordes

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EP325 | Principles of Overlanding: App Navigation with Chris Cordes · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overland Drill Podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I'm here with my longtime friend, Chris Cordes,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about the principles of overlanding
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: navigation apps. We've had Chris on the podcast before. We've
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: talked about the history of his travels and his experience
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in lots of areas of the industry. In fact, we
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: worked together for about eight years, and then he moved
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: over to Onyx, where you've been for how long?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Six years now. Yeah, amazing.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk a lot about navigation. Certainly,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Onyx will be part of the conversations because it's such
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: an important tool that we all use. This podcast isn't
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: sponsored or paid for by Onyx, but we're going to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: talk about lots of other apps as well because of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Chris's experience over all this time with navigation apps.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, most people use a combination of a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: lot of different things, including myself. So it's good to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: know all the options and how you use them and
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: where their strengths are.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Honcook Dynapro Tire for supporting
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this week's Overland Journal podcast. Be sure to visit ExpeditionPortal.com
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to see our features on the recent Honcook experience at
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the 4th Annual Bronco Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: took a look at the full line of Dynapro tires
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and some great Ford Broncos cars. from all over the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: country as they gathered at this community event of enthusiasts
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and top brands. Thanks again, Han Cook. Yeah, part of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: being a prepared traveler is we need to have a primary,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: secondary contingency and an emergency form of all of our
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: primary tools. So that would include communication. It would include
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: navigation tools. So in my mind, you're going to want
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to have lots of backups. And we use navigation in
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: different ways. So from my perspective, and I'd love to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: get your thoughts or tweaks on this, Chris, but from
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: my perspective, there's really three different kinds of apps that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: we integrate with when we're traveling. The one that we
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: all use the most often, which would be a navigation app,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and that's going to be its primary goal. We use
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: that for turn-by-turn navigation to go to the coffee shop.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Or in my case, we're going to be leaving Minnesota
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: here in a little bit and heading into the upper
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: peninsula of Michigan. And we're going to be navigating through
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Duluth and to a little place we're going to stay
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for the night. We're going to use a tool like
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Google Maps or Apple Maps for that. And there's lots
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of advantages to that. And we'll talk through those. And
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: there's also lots of downsides. The second form of app
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: that we tend to integrate with a lot is an
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: app that has either regional specific or topic specific information layers.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And a good example of that would be like iOverlander.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So iOverlander has a map. You don't really use it
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: much as a map, but you certainly use it to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: find where something is in relationship.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: To where you are.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's generally in the right direction of travel, but
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: it's got lots of really important information. So that's the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: primary purpose of the app, is that. And another good
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: example of that would be a region-specific app like Tracks
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: for Africa, where their map layer is not very useful
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: for navigation. It does show a dot on a map. Also,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: HEMA does a really great job of that in Australia.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. but the reason why those.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Apps are so helpful is it has tons of really
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: important information like tracks for Africa might say, Hey, there
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: are mines in this area.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a level of local expertise that you're not
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: going to get usually from those big global apps. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And then the last kind of app is more of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: a hybrid app. And those are the things that we're
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: seeing more and more from an Onyx, for example, Gaia
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  Speaker 1: to a degree does that where they combine a little
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: bit of all of the above and but then they
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: tend to be more discipline specific. So Onyx, for example,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: has multiple products because a hunter oftentimes needs things that
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: are a little different than an overlander. So it allows Onyx,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: for example, to emphasize data layers and information that are
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: useful to an overlander or off-roader. So when you think
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: about those three kinds of apps, what, What do you
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: tend to use the most and what do you find
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: to be some of the strengths and.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Weaknesses of each? Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I think when you say the most, it kind of
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: depends on like how you're referencing it, right? Because I
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: think most of us probably use Google Maps the most,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to be honest. And that's just because it's useful in
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: your daily life, right? Google has an advantage in the
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: size of their customer base and the size of their
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: network of data. that they get that it's just hard
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: to replicate. You're not going to be able to truly
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: get traffic updates and things like that from any other
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: app because you just don't have the presence of customers
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in order to produce that in a map. But I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: usually find that for overlanding and off-roading, I am using
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Onyx primarily because it gives me the combination of things
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: that I really look for when I'm planning my trips.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: You know, you've got the lands information, you've got the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: trails information, you've got your weather information, and all of
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that gives you a solid enough picture to really build from.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And then I begin to use, just like you said,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: some of those other sources for reference. No matter what
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I do, Onyx is not going to be the ultimate
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: source of information for where the best taco stand is
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: and You got to look other places for those kinds
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: of things, right?
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  Speaker 1: And iOverlander is great for that. And also there are
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: other tools like Gaia, for example, that has, they have
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: really interesting map layers. Gaia has these historic maps that
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I reference often in where I live in Arizona because,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you figure Arizona was hopping in the late
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: 1800s and early 1900s when these maps are referenced. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: it'll have an old town site that's not shown anywhere else.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And you can actually see where the buildings were located.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting to see where some of the old
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: roads may be close to a current highway. And you
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: can drive on these four-wheel drive routes and you can
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: realize this is the old highway that went up to Flagstaff,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: for example. And it's fun because it's called the Overland Road.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: But there are all of those kinds of pieces of
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: information that you can get. Now, of course, Onyx has
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a satellite layer and then it has a a regular
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: data layer that is a little bit easier for reading.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that makes Google Maps really
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: powerful is, and a lot of people don't realize this,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: but when you're using Google Maps, you're actively communicating with
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the cloud your rate of travel, so your pace of travel.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So if you and everyone around you slows down, they're
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: not tracking you. necessarily like where is scott brady so
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: much it's it's really about this this instance of the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: app that's currently traveling down the road it's a 55
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: mile an hour road and this instance and everyone around
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: them is traveling now 25 or 10 or 5 or
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: stopped and that's why when you activate a traffic layer
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in google maps you'll see green which means traffic is
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: flowing at the rate of speed yellow means people are
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: slowing down a little bit or maybe there's some congestion
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and then of course red is when people are really
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: moving slow or stopped.
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  Speaker 2: Right yeah and that's what i mean with the custom
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: you have to have a customer base sizable enough to
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: do that right because otherwise you would have to get
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: down to tracking individual people at that point and not
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: only that but like one person in a road in
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the middle of the desert isn't truly going to give
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: you a good thing. Maybe slowing down because there's something interesting, right?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: That's a good point. You have to have a large
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: enough signal in order to produce something.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to have a pretty significant sample set.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And that is the case for Google Maps. Google Maps
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: now offers... Those features now work internationally. When I was
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: just driving down West Africa, I was surprised how often...
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: There was enough, because a lot of people in Africa,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: they may not use iPhones, but they may use an
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Android device, which means they're going to be on Google Maps.
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  Speaker 1: And it's still collecting that data actively. And the number
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of times that it saved us from getting caught in
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a really bad traffic jam, that's how an app like
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Waze works, is it uses cloud-sourced, you know, aggregated data
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of lots of individuals.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And it says, ah, this is slow. Maybe try this
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: other app. Yep.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So it can offer additional routes. And if I'm not mistaken,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Waze and Google are now the same. Yeah. Yeah, I
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: think they are. They bottomed up, which was a good idea.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's probably how they integrated a lot of those solutions
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in there. But then I'll also use Google Maps. Like
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: on this trip that Tavia and I are doing across
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the U.S. right now on the motorcycles, like we need
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to go find a great little coffee shop. Mm-hmm. Because
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's how both of us start our day is we
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: want to go find a great little coffee shop. And
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that's super useful. I'm not going.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: To find that on Gaia.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Right. You may find it on iOverlander.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you get you can get some really good
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: local recommendations from other travelers and then through those zones
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: but it's once again it's that hard part of the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: amount of signal you're getting because you might get those
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: good recommendations and so it's good to reference those because
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: you're going to find some hidden gems but you won't
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: have the number of options and the recency of reviews
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: that you're going to get with a Google. It's just,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: it's hard for anyone to compete with that. Or even
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: operating hours. Yeah. Those kinds of things.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: How do you, when you use an app like Apple maps,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: which we can talk about because Apple maps has gotten,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: it's gotten a lot, it's gotten so much better to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: be fair.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: One of our, my.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Longtime friends and longtime subscriber to the magazine does work
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: for Apple and, And we got into a conversation around that.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: He's like, Scott, you really should try it again to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: just give it a shot. And I did, I opened
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it up and I started using it for a couple
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of days. And to be fair, like it, it has
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: improved a lot, a lot from when it, when it's,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: but we, we were all beta testers when it first launched.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So to be fair, it has improved a lot. And
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: what Tavia and I are doing now, because every once
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in a while, these things lose their mind and they're wrong.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Including Google maps. So the other day we were going
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to the Theodore Roosevelt Library. It's this new, very cool,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: around the history of Theodore Roosevelt. It's in North Dakota
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in the National Park there. And we pulled up Google,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: you know, navigate us to the Teddy Roosevelt Library.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And we ended up in a farmer's field an hour
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and five minutes away from the actual location. Now, everybody
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: has some culpability in that, what happened. So I should
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: have double-checked it. And that was a lesson that we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: both learned is I have gotten complacent in just trusting
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: what Google says. And it's very unusual, especially for a
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: prominent company, Location like that to get bad data. That's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the only time I've ever experienced a place that is
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: so significant and it's brand new, very significant. Thousands of
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: people go there a week. So it's very uncommon for
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing to happen, but it literally, it
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: was close enough where it made sense. We're in North Dakota.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: We're kind of in the same region. But it literally
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: went to the middle of a farmer's field. And so
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: on a motorcycle, that's exhausting to spend because we rode
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: past where the other one was.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: That's rough.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: An hour and five minutes away, or maybe a little
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: bit more, turned around and had to ride all that
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: distance back, which is really fatiguing.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: On a motorcycle.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: So that was an important lesson for us. If it's
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: an important part of your day, if it's a very
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: specific place you're trying to get to, or like we
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: had an appointment, you know, we had a, a time
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: to go to the museum. I should have validated it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And Apple maps got it right. Google maps got it wrong.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So we decided that when we're going to go to
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: something like that, Tavia is going to run the Apple
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: map and I'll run the Google map.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: It's interesting that you say that because I have found
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: myself double checking sources in the past. And it's actually
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: for similar reasons. We've had Google route us into some
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: unfavorable spots, I would say. And, you know, much like
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: a motorcycle or a vehicle, if you have limited range,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: for example, like going an hour out of your way
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: could be a big problem. If you, you know, to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: reach a fuel stop with a trailer, if you get
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: it routed into the wrong situation, you could have a
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: precarious sit, like having to back up, having to get into,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, we, we had the trailer in a tight
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: spot in a, farmer's field, actually, as we were crossing
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: the Dakotas as well, where we weren't even routing to
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: a specific place. We were going down to Texas and
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: it gave us like, we're doing another route and it
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: just decided that we should get off the highway and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: take this side road. And it was trying to route
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: us down these really narrow dirt roads with a lot
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: of barbed wire fencing and You know, you just, you
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: need to do a double check to say, does this
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: make sense or not? And trust your gut too when
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you look at that, because if you're, if you know
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: that you're traveling to the West and it all of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a sudden it has you getting off the highway at
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a random point, you probably want to ask the question of,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: do I actually want to get off this highway or
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: should I actually be continuing on it?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And they do that all the time where it'll have
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you get off at an exit, go along a frontage
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: road and then get right back on the same highway.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So when a, when a turn's coming up, zoom out
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and just see, Oh, it's putting me
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: right back on I-90. I'm just going to stay on
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the freeway. And I just saved myself 10 minutes and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a bunch of frustration. And you brought up a really
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: good point. We ended up leaving a small town and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it put us right on a dirt road and it,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and it was being bladed. So like it was a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: combination of gravel, muddy and spots, you know, and, We
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: did it, but it was uncomfortable for a little bit
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: when you're, when you just don't know how much worse
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it's going to get. And you have writers with varying
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: degrees of experience and these are heavy, big travel bikes.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: And you start to realize, Oh, like you can really
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: easily get yourself into, into trouble with some of these apps.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: So that's a really good point. And I think that
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: that's probably one of the more important things that the listener.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: should think about anytime they use any of these apps.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: If you're getting yourself really remote or you're trying to
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: get to someplace on time, just spend an extra 30
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: seconds to do a double check. Yeah.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And I think as travelers who want to experience the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: places we're going, it's just important to be thinking about
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: how you want to arrive at your destination anyway, right?
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Because all of these products, they're trying to generally route
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: you in the most efficient path to that. And sometimes...
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the most direct path is not always the best path.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: It may not even be the fastest path as you
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: found out with that construction zone. So you may be
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: going through an area where you could change your route
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: by 10 minutes and experience something amazing. And if you
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: don't do that, I mean, you're just going to be
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: on that highway. And I think the technology we have
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: today has really trained us to be I don't know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: maybe a little lazy in the way that we think
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: about these things. You know, you enter your destination, you
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: hit go, and you don't even give it a second
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: thought about where that is taking you. And you could
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: pass some pretty phenomenal things.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Well, the other day you're like, Scotty, you got three
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: ways to get to the house. I recommend this one
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: because it takes you right by the headwaters of the Mississippi.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I would have never known it. Yeah.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And so that's the power of local knowledge, which we
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: always have to take into consideration. especially when you're traveling internationally.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: If a local that you know is telling you you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: probably don't want to do that, you really want to
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: take their advice quite seriously. Or, hey, you really want
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to go see this because it's super special. And if
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: we had just put into Google, it would have taken
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: us on a route that was maybe eight minutes faster.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: But we would have missed a really significant stop, something
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: cool to see. I mean, who gets to go see
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the headwaters of Mississippi?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: It's so cool. It's so cool. Very much. That we
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: got to do that.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm also realizing that on this trip is like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: when we did West Africa, we used Google Maps a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: lot because it had so many advantages, but we were
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: having to push.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It was really.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: The goal of the expedition was to get these vehicles
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to show that you could use maps. A hybrid Tacoma
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: down West Africa.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: So, and we were on a limited timeframe, so it
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was all about efficiency. But what we have found on
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: this motorcycle trip where we have a little bit more
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: flexibility and a little more time, like I, a couple
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of times, I wish I had just zoomed out and seen, oh,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: it'll be 15 minutes longer, but you go along the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: lake the whole time.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Right. Exactly.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And it is nice to slow down on a bike.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Even if it adds an extra 15 minutes or 20
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: minutes to the trip, just being able to take scrub
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: 10 miles an hour off your travel speed, your fatigue
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: goes way down. Because you're not getting buffeted. The noise
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: goes down. The bike's just kind of cruising. And you've
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: got something beautiful to look at.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So we're learning.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It's funny how long you and I have been doing
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: this stuff.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm still learning.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I again made, made a mistake. I ended up in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the middle of a farmer's field the other day because
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I wasn't, I didn't take the extra moment to really
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: validate something.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. And I mean, I think it's just a lesson, right?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Like all of us, no matter how experienced we get,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: no matter how many times we've done something, you can
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: make a really easy mistake and you can not think
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: about something. You can trust your equipment too much and
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: it will happen again after one. It's just going to
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: be a thing. It will.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: And it's good to have a couple apps open.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I tend to.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Route navigate with Google Maps, but then I always have
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Gaia running as another app layer because I want to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: record a GPX track of my travels. And if I'm
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: not mistaken, I believe Onyx does a really good job
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: of that now too, where they they have a way.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: To record a track.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: When it first came out it wasn't that great at
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: it it would drop it a lot and so did
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: guy for there was a period of time when guy
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: was also very unreliable around tracks and it may have
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: been that there was actually more of a hardware issue
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: or a integration with Apple software issue for both of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: those apps for a period of time. But it's, they
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: tend to be more persistent. And one of the things
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that I really like that Gaia does now is it
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: warns you if it stops recording, it can have a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: notification come up.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: That's a great feature.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And I don't, Onyx may do that, but it's really
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: nice to be notified that the track has stopped recording
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and And then Tavia runs it on her phone as well.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So we've got redundancy, but that's where we talk about
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: like primary secondary.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And so primary.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Form of navigation is obviously Google maps. Secondary is I've
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: got Gaia runnings and I use that as a reference,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a point of reference, like a zoom out a little bit,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: but then I always have a Garmin device running. Also
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: recording a track. Also has a map up. I also
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: use speed over ground with that as a check because
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: my speedometer on the GS is off quite a bit.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: When you're miles from cell service, communication isn't a luxury.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It's essential.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Introducing the new GME XRS-660-U, a premium handheld GMRS radio
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: built for serious overlanders. It's made in Australia, and I've
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: used these radios all over Australia, and they're engineered for
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the harshest conditions. It features built-in GPS, Bluetooth connectivity, a
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: sunlight-readable full-color display, class-leading 2-watt speaker, and rugged IP67 protection.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Whether you're leading the convoy, spotting your mates on the trail,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: or exploring off the grid, the XRS-660-U keeps you connected
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: when it matters most. Upgrade your communications game and discover
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the XRS today at gmeus.com.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Again, that's gmeus.com. Thanks again, GME. Do you tend to use.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: physical GPSs anymore or just tablets or a couple of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: different tablets or how do you, how do you set
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: up your, your system?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty much using a phone primarily with Apple CarPlay.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And then I carry a Garmin inReach in addition to that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I do believe that, you know, it's really important that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: you have multiple backup devices. And even if I do
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: view them truly as a backup, I don't use them
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: that often. It's good to have because, you know, I've
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: been on trips where I, fling open the car door
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: and my phone goes flying out and they mash the screen.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: And then like, if you don't have another option, what,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do? Right. And so I
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: do use them. I also think, you know, it's really
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: situational dependent on what your primary or your secondary is,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you know, because where Google is really going to excel in,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: large highways, cities, like the area travel market and yeah,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: truly traveling and you're in areas where they have a
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: lot of customers giving you that signal. What is the traffic?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: What are those things? Like that's going to be my
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: primary every single time. When I get into the back country,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I said back country, when we get off onto the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: secondary roads, secondary roads, dirt roads, like those areas, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: find Google's information to be less reliable. I've not used that. Sure.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: So I would like to actually play with that more now, but,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I find it to be less reliable and have just
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: less depth of detail than Onyx would. So in those situations,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I pivot what my primary is over to Onyx. And
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: then I use the Google maps as a secondary, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I will still run Google maps and get that secondary signal,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: but I can at least have a primary of I'm
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: actually physically viewing where I'm going and sometimes using the
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: turn by turn directions, et cetera. Same that I would
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: do in Australia using HEMA or tracks for Africa and Africa.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: You choose your local dependent system. And in North America, Onyx,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: they really have leapfrogged. And I think it's just because
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: they continue to invest in the product. I just haven't
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: seen as much investment in Gaia, even though I've used
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Gaia on seven continents now. It's such a familiar tool.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: But every time I get into Onyx and I open
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it up, it gives me a, because it's done an
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: update and it tells me all the cool new stuff
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that they've done. So I'm really impressed with how the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: rate of improvement for that app. It's, if you come
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: into an area like just, like you would know where
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the local trails were, but if I was just at
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: a hotel and I wanted to go ride some dirt
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: roads today, Onyx would be the best way to do
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: that because I can zoom out a little bit. I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: can give it, I can select several features. Like, like
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I really want to do four wheel drive trails or
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: dirt roads, or even you can even limit it based
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: upon the width. If you've got a dirt bike or,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: or a UTV or quad or whatever. And then it
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: shows you all of these options in the area. And
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you can follow right along with a really bright line
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of like exactly where you want to go. And I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: think it even has some turn by turn now.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we even have the turn by turn now
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: where you can route, you know, either by just selecting
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: a point, having it route your, however it deems the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: most efficient way is, or you can now build a
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: route and it will follow that route, or you can
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: select a specific trail and navigate turn by turn on that. So.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I think those are going to be important features for
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: people who are newer to the space, who do want
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: that familiarity of a Google Maps experience and do want
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: that comfort of this thing is telling me so I
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: don't miss my turn. I know this is the track
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: that I need to follow. And all of this still is,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: you know, you got to download offline maps and be
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: thoughtful about where that is. But checking self-service layers, all
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that can help you. Well, that's a good and that's
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: a good point. Chris is. All this requires pre-planning. So
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: if we're going.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: To leave infrastructure, which means we're going to be leaving
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: cell coverage, some people will have Starlink, for example, but
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you're still way better off. And I recommend that you
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: do whatever offline map downloading you need to when you're
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in a place where you have infrastructure and support, where
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you've got multiple lines of communication, where you have 5G
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and your Starlink or some version of that. do all
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the downloading of maps. You can do that on Gaia
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: by selecting an area on the map and downloading that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: map layer on Onyx. You can also download offline maps.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You can even do that on Google Maps. A lot
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of people don't realize that you can download entire regions. Now,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have all of the same functionality or all
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of the same nuances as when it's connected, but you
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: can download.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Offline maps on Google Maps as well.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So we've all run into that where Google Maps is rerouting, rerouting,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and it just loses its mind. You can avoid some
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of that by downloading those offline maps.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So we want to do that before we leave.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: And I also find myself, anytime I'm in the US,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I use Onyx to find new trails. And I think
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that Onyx has done, at first glance, I thought, well, man,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: it's going to like all these little gems. People are
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: going to now know where they're at. But what I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: realize is one of the best things that we can
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: do is distribute use over a wider range. And it
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: does a couple of things that are important for us
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: as a community is People have a better experience because
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the same trails just aren't overrun where you're dealing with
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of noise and a lot of dust, human waste,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: et cetera. So by distributing the use over a larger area,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: it reduces all of that. But then it also has
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a side function of when trails are being used, they
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: tend to stay open. So I believe that Onyx has
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: done a good job of distributing use over a wider
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: range of area trails are being used. When something's remote,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you're not going to run into a thousand people.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: You're just not.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: But it's really nice that people are getting out and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: using these trails because then the Forest Service or the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: BLM sees that they're being used and they tend to
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not get earmarked for closure.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's something that a lot of
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: people don't understand. It just has never been clear is
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: that trails get closed primarily for underuse and not necessarily overuse.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Overuse closure absolutely occurs. The thing that most people are
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: more familiar with and they're more, I don't know, it's
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a touchier subject, right? Because I think if you're running
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a trail and there's lots of people there, it's less
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: enjoyable and then there is that chance, right? But the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: reality we live in now is that most of these
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: land managers are Short of resources. They don't have the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: funding to truly staff maintain manage and go scout all
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: of these different places. So If there's an area that's
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: just not seen use from their perspective, that's not valuable
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: to people out there And the ironic part is that
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: we teach people to tread lightly. We teach people to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: not leave an impact when we go to these places.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And we've seen instances where we know for a fact
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that people are going, we have pictures, we have people
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: telling us that they love these different places. And because
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: they're using it so responsibly, The forest service or the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: BLM may not actually think that people go there and
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: close it. And so this is one of those instances
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: where you do need to document all these places and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: you need people going out and experiencing them and dispersing
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: that impact. Because if you had, you know, 20 years ago, right?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: You have a hundred trails in a guidebook. Those hundred
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: trails are going to see all the traffic, right? And
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: all of those trails are now having more impact. It
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: takes more management and expense to keep them open. And
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: if you now have 10,000 trails that people can go
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: and experience, there's much wider range. You'll see less people.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: You have interest in those different places and land managers
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: understand that there is still value there and people are using.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And does Onyx now have a setting where you can
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: say a sprinter can't get there? So, you know, you
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: can go to no sprinter zones?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, anything that's a high
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: clearance road, man, that's more difficult for sure. I'm just kidding.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Sprinters are awesome. There's just a lot of them out there.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It's, it's interesting when you go to Sedona and you go,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I used to go, well, we would go down 525
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and go shoot some content or whatever. And there would
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: be nobody out there. And you take 525 out of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Sedona and there are a thousand sprinters parked there, right?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Even every campsite is now It looks like a group
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: because everybody is taking up space.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Well, because it is. Because they've changed the regulations there
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: because of the amount of traffic that was there and
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: because people were just getting off into every nook and
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: cranny so that it's designated dispersed camping only. So now
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: you've gone from this area that had all these sites
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to … Just a couple hubs. And I think in
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: the case of Sedona, you see the traffic there. Yeah,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: it's insane. It's the right move. You have to have
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: some manager. It was overused. Yeah, for sure. And so that's,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the other interesting things is when
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: you look at that and you do have some of
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: these apps that only tag specific sites that people go
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: to for the newcomer. to dispersed camping, to off-roading. They're
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: going to go where they know someone has been specifically.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: And so everyone's going to go to that one specific
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: spot that was tagged. Even if the entire forest has
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: dispersed camping options, they don't have the confidence and the
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: knowledge to get there, which is actually why we started
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: doing it differently with the Onyx dispersed camping layers is
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: that you can see everywhere you can legally camp. so
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: that you're not just driving people only to the one
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: site you see everywhere you can go and have confidence
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: in where that is so that people can go find
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: their own site in that area. That's a good point.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, obviously I overlander comes to mind.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: If it's very close to a road, you may want
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to skip that for a bunch of reasons, someone that's
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: new or doesn't have a lot of confidence, or maybe
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: their vehicle has limited capabilities. Just drive past that spot
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and save that for that family or the single mom
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: with a couple kids that's just trying to make it
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: work and go a little bit deeper. You're going to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: have a better experience. Again, we're going to distribute some
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: of that. And then, especially if you camp in a
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: high traffic or a designated spot on an app like iOverlander,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I believe that everyone has a responsibility to pull out
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the trash bag and clean that space up. Because of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: closures that I'm seeing, that's where a lot of these
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: brand new no camping signs are coming from is because
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: people are literally trashing these spots. And I understand that
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in general, overland travelers are not the ones that are
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: doing it. But if we want to keep these places open,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: we have to take some personal responsibility and grab a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: pair of gloves. Open up the trash bag and at
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: least fill up the trash bag before you leave. Take
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: some time to do that or else those places will
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: rapidly continue to close. And then that concentrates more and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: more use in other spaces, which will accelerate the rate
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: of closure. But we really need to be mindful of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that because these tools do allow people to get out easier.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: There's less friction there. figure 20 years ago, it was
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a lot more difficult to know where to go. And
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: you had to be a lot more prepared in their lot.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Because of that, a lot fewer people did it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, to your point, most
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: of the time, the impact isn't coming from overlanders. It's
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: not coming from the people using iOverlander or Onyx or Gaia.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: It's coming from the people who have just seen the
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: ads for the car commercials that people ripping up hills
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and just going out and they have no concept of
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: like how to actually treat that area. You know, they think, oh,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: this is probably biodegradable. Just throw it out. I'll just
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: leave it. Right. But we have to be the, the
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: trail fairies who come in and clean it. We do.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: We do. I mean, it's just part of the, it's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: part of the deal, especially with the rate at which
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: things are, are growing.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to, cause I really want to
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: kind of zoom in a little bit on what I
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: believe are the apps that most overlanders are using, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I overlander, I just want to say is, is very useful.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: It's a super, it's a.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Effective planning tool, particularly internationally. But it doesn't have a
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: lot of ways to kind of interact and navigate and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: everything else like that on it. If you find something
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that you like, you actually end up opening up Google Maps.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: You take directions there via Google Maps.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: They've built it into the product, right? It is, in
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: my opinion, like an indispensable tool when you're overlanding, especially internationally,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: where you don't have the insights from government maps and
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: from apps like Onyx and things. But they are reliant.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: on other third-party navigation apps. So when you open that site,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: you copy the coordinates, you open it in Google, you
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: open it in Onyx, you do other things in order
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to navigate that. That's right. That's right.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: So the ones that most of the listeners are going
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: to be using is going to be Onyx and Gaia.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Gaia has been around a very, very long time. but it, again,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: it's been slow to innovate. So I'm finding myself more
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and more often when I want to go exploring, I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: use Onyx. So let's talk a little bit around that process.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Let's begin from the planning stage. You open up the app. What,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, cause you're a super user, you know, we'll
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: get into it a little bit. You're, you know, you're
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: coming to the end of your career at Onyx, but
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you have spent how many years now?
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Six years.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: So six years, at this company and you've learned a
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: lot about how this tool works. So we have, we
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: get a masterclass today. So when you open up Onyx
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and you're starting to plan of where you want to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: go for the.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Day, what, what tools do you use? What little hacks can.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You let people know about how to go find a
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: great trail?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting. I find that it's really dependent
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: on what my purpose is. And we're actually thinking about
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: this a lot at Onyx about There's an assumption, I think,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: from a lot of people of, oh, I'm trying to
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: find a trail. And that could be true. That could
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: be your purpose is to go run a trail. But
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: it could also be to find a camping site. It
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: could also be to, you know, we lived in Phoenix
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: for a long time. We just might want to get
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: out of the heat. And so depending on what your
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: point of reference is for how you're planning makes a
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: big difference in how you enter the product and start that. So,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I'll give you the example of when we
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: lived in Phoenix. You know, it's summertime. It's hot. We
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: want to get out. We want to just have a
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: good weekend out in a way. So the first things
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I'm doing in that case is not starting from what
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: trail am I going to go run? It's opening up
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: our temperature layers and looking at the entire state to
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: see where are the temperature ranges and getting us started there.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Where are the cool zones where I can go seek
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: out something that I'm diving further into looking at, okay,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: what trails are in this region, turning on dispersed camping layers,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: where can I camp in relation to those things? And
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you kind of drive through that process. For some people,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: you may really want the actual experience of, I want
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: a specific trail for that. Of course you can search
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: the trail. You can filter the map. You can go
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: to difficulties. You can limit the types of vehicles to
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: your point. You can, if you're on a four wheel drive,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: you're going to want to turn off the dirt bike tracks,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: the ATV trails, things like that. And then there's also,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: you know, the opportunity of looking for an experience, right?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: So most people don't actually know that this is a
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: thing in Onyx, but If you're looking for a trail
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: that's going to bring you to a lake or waterfall
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: or something like that, we actually have quick search tools
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: where you can tap those different things in the search bar.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: And it's going to only pop trails on your map
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: that have those types of features somewhere along their path.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: So you can actually go and have that experience of,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I'm looking for a destination, not just the trail itself
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: as I'm experiencing it.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Honcook Tire for supporting this
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: week's podcast. What's it like when over 20,000 Jeeps and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: more than 50,000 people get together in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee?
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: We joined Honcook Dynapro Tire to capture the awesome energy
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: of the 2026 14th Annual Jeep Invasion. Keep an eye
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: on ExpeditionPortal.com for our upcoming event recap and get inspired.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks again, Honcook.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I think that those planning tools are really, I think
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: they're really important because one of the things that we,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: all of us experience is we have limited time. So
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: if you spend half a day just trying to find
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the right area to play in or, this trail was
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: a miss or this was closed by a gate or whatever.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Having those kinds of tools, I believe, improves our experience
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: because we don't have lots of extra time. Sometimes people
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: only have a Saturday and they're going to camp out
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: on Saturday night and they've got to be home on
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Sunday for stuff with family. So I think that one
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: of the powerful attributes of Onyx is that you can
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: do a lot of planning ahead of time. You can
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: sit on a Wednesday night And you can dig around
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: and you can find, oh, this trail looks really amazing.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And then I like to switch over to the satellite view.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: It's something that we use a lot when we're traveling
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: on the motorcycles, because if this route is, let's call
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it 45 miles, I can zoom in and I can see, oh,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the first 10 miles of it is paved. And then
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: it turns into what looks to be like a wide
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: maintained gravel road. Yep. But if it was going to
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: be 40 miles of Jeep two-track, it would be a
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: different consideration for us.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Very much.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: We would need to take more time or maybe we
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: need to avoid it entirely because we need to get
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: someplace else or whatever. So I find that satellite view
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: is still really important to look for conditions to kind
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of see what the vegetation looks like.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: In the air.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: It's surprising how much you miss just with a standard
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: you know, graphical layer.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Very much. And it, you know, it's, it's interesting too,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: where we live in a rapidly changing world. There's a
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: lot of natural events happening. There's a lot of development
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: happening and conditions can change pretty fast these days. I mean,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: you look at this area, like we had that huge
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: blow down last year where, you know, we lost, I
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: think it was like 9 million trees in the zone.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: And I mean, that can completely shut down entire trail systems. Right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that you can do too,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: is as you get into our layers, if you have
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: like elite access, for example, you have recent satellite imagery,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: which updates every two weeks. And so we've had customers
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: who are going into areas who are finding things like, Oh,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: there's that. This area is actually flooded now because the
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: lake got too high and it overwashed the trails or
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: there was a giant beaver dam or whatever. Sure.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: We can flood stuff.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Washed out trails. There's a section in the Mojave that,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: traversed like a mountain basically that went over and that
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: had a huge washout in the middle and it required
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: you to do a 40 mile like loop around right
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: yeah and that could be pretty substantial i mean if
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: i'm in my lj super limited range yeah that might
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: be a big.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Deal yeah sure no that's really a good point so
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: those that sounds like how you're doing planning with On X,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: when I use Gaia for planning, I do like to
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: zoom out. This is where a tablet is actually really nice.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And a paper map is even nicer because you can
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: kind of spread it out on a hood or on
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a table like this. And you can really get a
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: sense of where you are in space and where you're
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: traveling to. And also, if you've got a topo map or,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: like I said, if you have a tablet, you can
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: see it. oh, there's some ruins over here or there's
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: an old town site or whatever. And it's easy to
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: miss those things when you're really focused in on the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: size of a phone. And that's where I'll bring up
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: different layers of maps. And I'll look at the original
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: 7.5 topo maps. I look at those all the time
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: on Gaia because it has information that their overland layer
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't have. And then I'll bring up satellites. for looking
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: for topography or looking for the conditions of the roads
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and things like that. I think it's really helpful to
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: have those different layers. So that's how I'll plan on Gaia.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: And Gaia is starting to now also feature routes. So
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: it does have featured routes. And just the other day,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: we were traveling through South Dakota, which is amazing, by
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: the way. I want to apologize to everyone in South Dakota.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I never said this out loud, but I just never
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: thought there was a reason to go there.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: And I was wrong. Well, it was like stunning. I
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: was completely wrong. The black Hills. And like, I thought,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know why I thought.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Like Sturgis was going to be like a dusty, like
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Texas town is like what I had in my mind
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: filled with.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Harley's old Westerns and Harley's.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's not, it's a, it's there's pine trees
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and it's up in the mountains and it's, it's a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: beautiful area.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, the hail tried to kill us, but it
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: was gorgeous. Yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And, it showed this route that went around and we
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: ended up not taking it because the storm came in,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: but we were planning on like this amazing, like 17
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: mile dirt route through the mountains that popped up on
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a layer in Gaia that.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I thought was really helpful.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So it is nice to see them starting to do some, some,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: some changes.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: To the app. So that's how I'll do planning.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I'll look at a bunch of different layers, get myself
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: kind of oriented in space, look for back country routes and,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that I can take because I don't want to be
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: on the highway if I can avoid it or if
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: I have time. So I think that we can use
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: these apps really, really effectively for planning. I think once
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you're traveling on a trail, I just haven't found anything
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: as good as Onyx for that because of the way
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: that the moving map works and the way that it
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: will basically provide you with turn by turn on one
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: of their categorized trails. And I also have to say
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: that the amount of trail information that Onyx has. Now,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: do they, do they have, do they just kind of
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: follow you like, like Google Maps does? Is it like
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: they're actively kind of tracking you as you go along
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and gathering GPS tracks from the users? Or do you
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: guys have, I know you have some Onyx like trail
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: guides and stuff like how to, how do you guys
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: determine like what's a trail, what to recommend?
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: How do you filter that stuff out? It's a good question.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: So first of all, like, despite what almost everyone thinks,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: we actually do no tracking of people at all. So
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: we like almost every app out there is doing telemetry, right?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: They have some kind of version that like to Google
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: or anyone else, like they're getting not necessarily your location,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: but like the sum of people's locations in order to
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: generate traffic and other things, because we come out of
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the hunting space where you're hunting grounds and where you
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: choose to go are very private matter. Onyx has never
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: done that. We have never tracked customers. We don't know
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: where they are. It's just not how we do it.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: So in addition to that, there are a lot of
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: UGC apps out there where anyone can submit anything into
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: the product. And one of the differentiators that we wanted
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: to have when we started this in order to make
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: sure that we're being careful about what trails are kept
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: open or closed was that we won't just publish anything.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: We only get it through our trail guides who our
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: enthusiasts out in the community and also paid experts who
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: like professionally map trails. And we will have them go
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: through an application process. They go through tread lightly training,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: and then they start submitting content. All of that comes
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: into our system and is reviewed by geospatial engineers and
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: curators on our team.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: So you guys do ground truthing like HEMA did. Like we,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: we did that with HEMA and HEMA is famous for
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that in Australia. Yeah. for providing that kind of ground
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: truthing data that is so valuable.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have quite a few people. I mean, in total,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: we probably have, I would say 700 people in a
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: year who are active mapping with us. Of those, there
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: is a smaller subset who almost does it full time.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: The Bells, actually, Graham and Louisa are some of our mappers.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: They operate in different regions of the country, depending on
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: what they're looking to do. They spent a lot of
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: time up here in Minnesota last year and Bless them
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: for it. I apologize to them for the storms they
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: endured and the mosquitoes, but they did a great job
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: up here. And yeah, so we do believe that ground
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: truth is really important. And as much as we can,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: validating with land managers, which is continuing to be more
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: of a challenge these days as their resources get more limited. Yeah,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: that makes sense.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you look in Australia... HEMA generated so
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: much detail that they actually eclipsed the Australian government for
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: accuracy and it became the source of truth. So where
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the government was referring to HEMA, not the other way around.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: So it is interesting when you guys can have 700
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: people actively tracking and recording trail data. That's really impressive.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And I've met.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: OnX trail mappers on the trail before And they're very
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: proud of it. They're like, I'm like, hey, what.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Are you out here doing?
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: They're like, I'm an Onyx trail guide or whatever. Yeah, exactly,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: whatever they say. But what a cool thing for Onyx
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: to be able to give back to the community, give
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: back to content creators and influencers and travelers that are
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: out there finding a way to either give them a
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: sense of purpose or even maybe generate a little.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Bit of income. Like, what a what.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: A neat way to be able to bring that all
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: back to the community once you get once you decide
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: on the trail in onyx what are some of the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the features that you enable Or how do you start tracking?
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: How accurate have you found the tracking to be? Or
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: reliable have you found the tracking to be? Or what
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: has Onyx done in recent updates to improve that? What's
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: your experience when you're on the trail?
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean, there's a couple things. Like one,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: we have done a lot in tracking improvements. To your
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: point earlier, it's not usually just a matter of What
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: is your app doing? But it's also what is the
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: phone manufacturer doing? How is the cellular carrier treated? And
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that have rules written in
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: of how it should switch between offline and online edge
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: of service situation. So there's been a lot of optimization
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: around that.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Edge of service has been the most, the biggest cause
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of unreliability for that in my experience.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's a struggle for all apps and
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: it's something that we've spent a lot of time trying
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: to refine and hone in. And I think we're in
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: a lot better place now. I've had a lot better
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: success with the tracking being more online and accurate and
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: not having those dropped points. So it's been really good
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: for me. Like I'm usually honestly looking out the window
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and enjoying my drive using turn by turn navigation. And honestly,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I'm doing this.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for audible indicators like turn right in a
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: hundred meters or whatever it does.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which you can turn on and off. I will
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: fully say that I'm not ashamed that Onyx's voice is
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: not my favorite. It feels very early days of navigation.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: I think we could use some improvement there. But, you know,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: for me too... It's a British accent. Oh, it does. Absolutely.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Or maybe the choice, the British, the Australian, all of it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: But I will say some of the interesting things with
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: tracking recently... for those of us who usually go out
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: and like with a couple other people, small groups, big groups,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: we've been doing like group location sharing. So you can
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: now actually, when you go into your tracking menu, there's
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: an option to share your location. And so you can
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: share that with anyone who has a link to it
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: and they can view where your location is in the
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: app and you can view their location.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And Starlink makes that possible. You can be in the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Yep. So you can, you can do it with service
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: right now. We're still working on the out of service,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: but if you have Starlink too, it's going to work
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: regardless of if you have any cell service or not. Yeah.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost if Onyx was.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Thinking about how to make that work, you could do
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: some kind of PTT push to talk like communication from
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: within the app.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. To other users. That'd be kind of cool,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: but that'd be how useful is that?
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Especially when you start to get spread out on a
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: dusty road and you You're like, I haven't seen Joe
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: in a while and you're waiting at an intersection for
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: him and you realize, oh, he's actually four miles back
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: and he hasn't moved.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: And so you're probably out of GMRS range and you're
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: not able to communicate, don't have cell coverage or whatever. Yeah,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty cool feature to be able to see
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: where everybody is at in your group. Or if someone's
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: meeting up with you later in the day and they're
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: coming from a different direction, you can see how they're
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: going and maybe you get to spend an extra 10
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: minutes in the spot because they're behind schedule or whatever.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's been really useful because Brittany and I have
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: traveled a lot. We've lived full time on the road.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Most of our friends are dispersed all over the world.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: And so when we do get to meet up with people,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: it's usually that both of us are traveling. We're going
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: to try to meet up in some location and So
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: if you're out in the middle of the desert and
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: you're waiting on somebody, it's like, oh, where are they?
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: You could actually see they're on their way. This is
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: the path they're taking. That's cool. And if you do
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: see them stopped in one position in a wash somewhere
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: for a long period of time, you might have the
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: instinct to go, maybe we should go check on them. Yeah,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: maybe they're stuck or something. Yeah, for sure.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: What are some other features, updates that you've noticed? I mean,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you're aware of all of them.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: If Onyx could list a top three, four or five
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: things that we haven't already discussed that.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Wish people knew about.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: What are some features of the app that you guys
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: wish people knew about?
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: You know, there's one that's kind of hot off the
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: presses that we're talking about. And one that was like
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: a little sneaky release that we haven't talked about at all.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: I know I'm excited about that one.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: So the sneaky release, we'll cover that first. And that's
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: that we released global base maps. So for a long time,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: we were very North American focused. that's primarily where primarily
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: where our audience is but we have a lot of
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: people who do travel globally and so we decided to
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: make a global base map update so now you can
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: get all the roads information and topo maps and the
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: satellite maps and it tracks.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Too so it's very cool i mean it's it's getting
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: very close to being able to use onyx like i
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: would use gaia internationally it's very cool to see that
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: international maps are available.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Now yeah so for people who are out and about
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: traveling and even people who you know have come to
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: the u.s and they want to use us to access
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: trail information like global overlanders visiting here we are kind
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: of the resource for where you can go and what
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: to do but now they can also take that and
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: continue to use that product elsewhere so and.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: You may not be able to talk about this but
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: if you look at a playground like Baja which is
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of people overlanding in Baja are people
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: from the United States does it make sense for Onyx
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: to ever consider expanding into those tangential regions.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: We are actually so I would this is my personal
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: opinion but I think that we have one of the
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: better solutions for mapping data and trails in Baja at
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: the moment so we one are adding a lot of
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: camping information there but our trail data has expanded exponentially
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: over the last two years. So I've gotten a call
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: from people recently. I've used it as my primary research
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: resource down there. We access trails that even though Brittany
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: and I have been going down there for a while,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: we still discover new routes, new places to go. And
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: having the visual reference of the pictures of the trails,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: the difficulty ratings gives us a lot more confidence, especially
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: because in recent years we've been towing the Airstream down there. Oh, sure.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: But we've gotten calls from a lot of folks recently
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: who have gone down to Baja for years and they're like,
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I just discovered this new place because this route took
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: me down there and I was able to go experience that.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: I was able to go buy fish from this guy
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: and get them some, you know, influx of money into
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: that economy. So it's been really cool to invest in
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: that space. And I would never say it was like
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: an intentional, we're going to go do Baja play. But
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: I think the nature of having... Trail guides and adventurers
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: who are your mappers, they migrate down there in the wintertime.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: And so if you open the door to that, you're
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: going to end up with something pretty cool.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: And how cool that Onyx is trying to support the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: community by continuing to expand. And obviously it'll make sense
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: for them to continue to do that. Let's dig into
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: other apps. Obviously we've talked about Gaia a lot. We've
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: talked about Onyx a lot. You know, there's another app
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: that's kind of a little more motorcycle-centric called Rever. What
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: are some other ones that you've been like, oh, they're
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: doing a cool job? Maybe they don't do everything that
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Onyx does, but maybe pay attention to these or give
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: it a try. Download it and see if you like it.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: What are some other ones you think are good? Yeah,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I would have included Rever in there for sure.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can't talk about GPS four-wheel drive apps
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: without mentioning Trails Off-Road in the U.S. They've been doing
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: a great job for a long time. I wouldn't say
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: that they're the epitome of a fantastic navigation app. They
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: specialize more in the trail data. And I think that
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: if you're looking for very detailed information on specific trails
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: that you want to run, they have a level of
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: depth that no one else is going to touch. Yeah,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: really good trail descriptions, difficulty. Yeah. Yeah, they do a
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: good job of that.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: A lot of times they have imagery to support that.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they do on the app, but
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: they do on their web interface.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they do on the app as well. Yeah. And
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I think they've been doing, the app was a great
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: move for them to expand into. And, you know, it's
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: really that frame of reference of if you're looking to
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: run trails, that's a good one. If you're looking to
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: build your own adventure and plan a route and go
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: do all the other stuff, it's probably not the best solution,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: but it's certainly a resource you can use. I view
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: them in a lot of ways like I would view
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: an iOverlander for campsites. It's like specific pieces of data
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: that you might take into other products.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Or when you're, again, Wednesday evening, you're sitting on
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: the couch, you're trying to plan your adventure for that weekend,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: you could go through and read descriptions and look at
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: photos and really get a sense of, do I.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Really want to take my brand new Jeep over that
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: or not? Yeah.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. Those are good frames of reference. Any
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: others that come to mind around that?
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of other apps, but one thing
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: that I do think we haven't touched on that is interesting,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: and I feel like you can't talk about anything these
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: days without talking about AI in some fashion. But when
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: you look at Google maps and the ask function that
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: has come into Google for planning, I think that is
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: in very intriguing direction of where the industry may be going. Right.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: I sure hope so.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Cause I'd love to be able to say, I need to,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I want to go to Duluth. Do you have a
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: recommended route? That would be the most beautiful. And you
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: can do that.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You can now. you can oh well there you
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: go so I've messed around with this I'm not an
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: expert in this but I have messed around with Google's
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: ask functions a bit right and much like you see
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: in Google searches and other stuff these zero click search
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: results where it's giving you the summary you You can
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: go into Google Maps and tell it, I really want
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: to go to this destination. I would like to go
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: to a coffee shop on the way. I'm looking for
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: a scenic route. What are some good stops that I
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: can make? And it will give you a list and
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: a planned route for that. Now, the caveat here is
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: that it's sometimes wrong, right? Much like AI can be
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: wrong in any situation. It's worth double checking. It's a
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: good starting point. And that's especially true if you're getting
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: into anything off pavement. So I have tried in a
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: couple instances in Arizona and in Utah of trying to
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: feed it. I specifically want to do this trail on
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: my route, for example. And it can sometimes get it right,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: but it won't be the whole trail. It'll be an
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: awkward point of getting somewhat to something along that trail.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: So there's limitations, but it is... A really interesting thing
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: now as we look at where is the future going?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: How do we interact and search and build trip functions?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: I think there's probably a day on the horizon soon
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: where the panning, scanning of the map, all the self-building
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: stuff that we do today starts to be replaced by
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: the same way that people think about Google searching or
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Google Maps and just typing in, I would like to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: do all of these things and it giving you a result.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, putting in a really good prompt. Well, all of
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: my trip logistics, our day-to-day travels on this first segment
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: of our trip, I'm.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Doing it all through.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I use a solution called Little Bird that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: pulls from a bunch of different AI applications and integrates
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: with all of my Apple devices. But it builds out
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: our day-to-day itinerary. It has a link on there that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: takes us right to the Google Maps. that comes up
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: in the morning. It knows how long it would take
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: to drive the route. It tells me how many miles
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: were in there. Like Tavia wants to check out these
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: super cool trolls along the way. It's this artist that,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you know, builds these rad wooden trolls and they're, they're
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: along the route and it would take, I would have
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: taken me days to figure out which ones were And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: it refers to the website and it knows our route
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and it knows, oh, this one would be 20 miles
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: out of the way. That doesn't make sense, but this
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: one's only six miles out of the way. And it
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: gets it right.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Almost all the time.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: So we're able to actively update our trip planning document
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: by using AI. And it would have taken me hours
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and hours and hours to do that every time. Whereas
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a couple prompts say, hey, we only made it this
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: far today or we decided not to stay an extra
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: day here. Or we made it an extra hundred miles.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Can you just update the route? Or, Hey, we want
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to spend an extra day in Salem or whatever.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: And it just boom. Yep. Like three minutes, four minutes later,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: it's done. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: going to be personal preference for everyone on how deep
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: they dive. Right. But I think that it's going to
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: be a really powerful resource as a first step and
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: a base from which to build. It's a foundation, right?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: Because all these tools are only as good as the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: materials they can reference. So, At the end of the day,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: if you want to get out and you want to
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: see unique things and different things, you're never going to
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: be able to truly capture the local knowledge that you
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: can get from talking to people, from doing the research
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: to get further out. There's going to be things that
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: these tools just don't reference. I mean, you even see
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: that on X versus using that Google function, right? It's
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to access the trail data
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: that we have. So at the end of the day,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: I can use it as a... solid resource if i'm
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: planning a trip from minnesota to baja but when i
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: really get into the weeds of where i'm going in
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: baja i'm certainly not going to be trusting that tool
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: right and i'm probably going to get a better recommendation
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: from you or someone that i've met locally who's been
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: in that area to tell you oh yes but this
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: beach is actually where you want to go to hit
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: the best like.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Fishing yeah that's cool and i i do that with
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: because i have this itinerary you know like i'll send
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: it To you or I'll send it to Dave Harriton
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: helped us. Hey, you want to actually go this side
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: of the lake? But I do use it as a framework.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: And at least it lets us know that's feasible because
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I can tell it things like I don't want to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: ride more than 350 miles in a day. I definitely
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: don't want to do that day after day. So you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: can give it all of these personal preferences.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. And then you can ignore it and still ride
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: more than 350 miles a day. You can't. Because you
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: want to see the other things.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right about, I mean, AI is going to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: continue to permeate all the things that we do around travel.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Around everything.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: But it all, I think it comes back to, and
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: we talked about this in the very beginning of the chat,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: is we have primary, secondary... contingency and emergency ways of navigating.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: And we always want to come back to that. The
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: more that we get focused on AI and AI solutions,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: we can become very myopic. We can become very focused
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: on what the AI tells us to do. And that
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: puts us at great risk. So if you think about
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: explorers of old, they would go to the explorers club
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in New York and they would pull the maps out
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: and the journals of the explorers.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: And they would learn, um, about, oh, this is the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: cultural implications.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Actually, this guy tried this route and half of his
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: crew was killed by headhunters or whatever. And it's not
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: to that same degree because we understand the world a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: lot better now, but I think that the risks are
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: still present. We need to be looking at the weather.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: What's the weather going to be doing? Are these trails
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: open enough? What are the local cultures in our area
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and how do we make sure that we're being respectful
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: of that? So maybe we use AI for high level
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: planning or kind of give us some structure. And then
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: we do some deeper dive into on X and websites
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: and doing some proper research. But when we're traveling, you know,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: if we've got our phone working, that's one thing. But
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: on the motorcycle, I do have my phone running. But
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: I also have a Garmin GPS.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: It's an H1X.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: It's a new unit that they've got that has a
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: built-in inReach. But this built-in inReach can now actually send photos.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: So because I don't have Starlink, if something is broken
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: on the bike, if I need a part, I can
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: take a photo of the part and I can send
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it to someone to bring to me. This is what's broken.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: And you can also record voice messages and send those
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: and receive voice messages back, which can be really helpful
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: if an emergency exists, but it also is actively tracking
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: our route. So I have redundancy on the GPX file
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and then it provides really, really good base maps. If
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: you're traveling in Africa, Garmin's really the only way to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: go because you can put tracks for Africa on your
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Garmin device and you can get the level of detail
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you need to know. Like, When you're going through Mozambique,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: this is where the minefield is, and you've got to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: stay on this route. And you wouldn't see that on Google.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: It won't say it on Google Maps. And a lot
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: of times those routes won't even come up. So you
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: really do need to have the right tools. And then
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: when you consider emergency forms of navigation or even contingency
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: forms of navigation, have a paper map with you. Have
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: some way to navigate if you have... a fire or
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: electrical system failure of your vehicle or whatever, and your
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: devices aren't working. It used to be that we were
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: always worried about what was called selective availability. And the government,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the U.S. government, could shut down GPS use at any
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: time in the case of a national emergency or war
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: or whatever else like that. That's actually no longer the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: case that's been removed. It doesn't mean that they probably
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't if they really needed to, but... They understand the implications.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: The government understands that if you were to shut down GPS.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: A lot of people would die. Yeah.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Because people would be lost. They'd end up in the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: wrong spot. They wouldn't know where to go. Nobody has
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: maps anymore.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: You end up being that plane in, what was it,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: New Mexico the other week. Yeah. That's scary stuff. Yeah,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: where people get lost. Yeah. They run inside of mountains.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: So you do always want to be mindful of having
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: multiple ways of navigating like Tavia and I do now
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: where I'm on Google Maps and she's on Apple Maps.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: And we're starting to double check because it's caught us
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a couple times so far. So we're learning as we
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: go along too.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, it's changing rapidly too where, you know,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I still think. Regardless of what functions of satellite capability
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: that phones are beginning to have in terms of connectivity,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: you still should have a secondary option of either another
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: GPS device and or paper maps. I always carry in
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: paper maps, and I think it's a good idea to understand.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: We teach self-reliance, right? It's part of the attraction of
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: what we do. You should be able to understand how
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: to navigate using a map. And there's something....
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: We just talked about yeah there's like the other the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: opposite of that is analog and there's something very special
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: about that there's something very special about learning how to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: use a sun compass there's something very special about just
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: even reading about what it what it takes to use
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: to do celestial navigation yeah these are I'm not suggesting
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: everybody needs to learn how to use a sextant but try.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: To use those things or at least.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Understand how they work and how people navigated through the
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: millennia using tools other than an iPhone.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I think that that's part of the charm of being
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: a traveler is to understand how those analog systems work.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: And I think that you do come to know and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: understand a place more deeply through looking at those things
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: and looking at your map. You start to take notice
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: more of the terrain around you and what that looks
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: like and how to reference where you are versus following
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: the line on the GPS is easy. And you don't
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: have to worry about what that mountain is and what
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: its name might be. But when you need to start
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: actually navigating and figuring out where you are on a map,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: the name of that Plateau might have made a big difference.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: And just the fact that you even paid attention to it.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: It's the reason why sailors still chart their progress on
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: a paper map. Because those devices do stop working. For years,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: when I would travel with Senway every once in a while,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: he'd be like, we're not using the GPS today.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: And we would only use a gazetteer. And then you're
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: trying to triangulate your position. You're looking at these different features. Absolutely.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: And you start to really pay attention. Like all of
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: those human beings are, we're, we're, we know how to navigate.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: And some of those, and there's a great book called Wayfinders,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: but human beings are incredible navigators. We just have lost
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of the skills about how to do that.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: So absolutely ask chat GPT and, you know, use, use
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: all these great apps, but be thinking about how to
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: use a paper map too. Yeah.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: So we wandered a little bit. I did promise. It's like,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: there's two things that were new and we wandered a
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: bit as we do. Thanks for bringing it back. Yeah,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: of course. The other big thing that we are talking
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: about a little bit more is our new partnership with
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Overwatch Rescue. So as you know, we always want to
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: be prepared for best and worst case. We hope for
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: the best and that we never have to use these things,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: but there is the possibility that you need an evac, right?
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: And there's been lots of stories about concerns recently with
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: what is the cost of an evacuation of a helicopter?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a guy recently who was, I
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: don't want to get too graphic, but fell and had
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: a hiking pole impale him on part of his body.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: And he chose to hike 10 miles out rather than
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: call for an evac, right? And so this partnership that
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: we've introduced allows you to get global rescue anywhere you
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: are through Overwatch. And they will cover all the evacuation costs.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: They coordinate your rescue. You have former military and first
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: responders who are on the staff of the team. And
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: they coordinate the rescue, figure out how to get you out,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: and then cover all the costs included with that. And
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: it's all baked into the Onyx app. And what's the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: cost on that per year? I think it's $ 49 a year.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: So it's an additional add-on package, which it's not dissimilar
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: from what you would find through the Garmin device or
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: anything else. It's a little more affordable than some of
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: the other EVAC package options out there. But the nice
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: thing is that if you're already using Onyx to navigate,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: you can hit that button and it immediately will send
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: that message. So it can use through either text message
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: or the satellite connectivity of your phone in order to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: reach out. And it can even pair with secondary devices
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: like if you message through garments or other things so
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: if you don't have a phone capable of that you could.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Pair it through there and is it available only in
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: North America or is.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: It international international anywhere you go they will coordinate a
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: rescue for you.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's pretty amazing yeah that's a great feature thanks
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: for reminding me of that so you've had an amazing
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: career with with Onyx and you've learned a lot you've
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: shared a lot on this podcast we've talked about some
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: of these things before what's next for Chris Cordes?
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: Oh man, this is, it's crazy to even be having
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: this conversation. Onyx has been an amazing place to work
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: and I didn't see myself leaving anytime soon, but I
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: had a pretty fantastic opportunity to get involved with my
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: family and start some business there. And so we're going
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: to be making some new products in the outdoor overlanding
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: and traveling space. I don't want to get too deep
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: into it yet, but yeah, We're pretty excited to bring
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: something out that still works with our same people that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: we know, the same community that we love and provide
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: them with something that really solves some problems and is
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: a unique option.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm so proud of you, Chris. I mean,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: when I first met you, I was an adjunct professor
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: at Embry-Riddle and you had a senior project business. You're
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: part of the business degree program there. And we got
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: to work together and I'm like, this guy's going to
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: go someplace. And we, we couldn't really afford to hire
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: you at the time, but we did find a way
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: to hire you. And you ended up, we ended up
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: working together for eight years and to watch the arc
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: of your career and the good that you've done in
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: the community and the way that you conduct yourself and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: the reputation that you've built, you know, both through your
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: time with Overland International and with Onyx is really awesome
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: to see. And now Brittany and you are traveling around
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: the world where, sitting in your rad cabin here in
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Minnesota and getting to spend time together talking about a
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: subject that we both really enjoy.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: So thanks for being on the podcast, Chris. Really appreciate it. Absolutely.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: It's been a wild journey and I'll keep going. It's good, man.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: It's definitely good.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: And we thank you all for listening and we'll talk
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: to you next time.