Ep 167 – Adventures on the Pan-American Highway with Chris and Sara

Hello and welcome to this week's episode. This week I'm joined by Chris and Sarah who are my travel creator friends who I met at TravelCon in Portland this year. They're a great couple. They're doing YouTube and a podcast, What No One Tells You, that's what it's called. On their YouTube they are documenting their travels which is currently driving down in the camper van down the Pan-American Highway. They're taking a little bit of a hiatus which they explain in the episode. Other than that they talk about the podcast, how to do creative stuff when traveling, their travels.

and what it's like to be a couple when creating because that can bring its good points and bad points and some laughs and some tears along the way. So a lot of travel wanderlust, a lot of tips in here for creators and a lot of stuff to get your teeth stuck into here. So let's get stuck into the episode and welcome to the show. Welcome to the Winging It Travel podcast with me, James Hammond. Every Monday I'll be joined by guests to talk about their travel stories, travel tips, backpacking advice and so much more. Are you a backpacker?

Got to a student or simply someone who loves to travel, then this is the podcast for you designed to inspire you to travel. There'll be stories to tell, tips to share and experiences to inspire. Welcome to the show.

Chris and Sarah, welcome to the show. How on earth are you guys doing? We are good. I mean, we're good. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. If you were to ask us maybe a week and a half ago, we weren't doing so well, but now we're doing pretty well. We're doing well. doing well? That's good to hear. Because when I last spoke to you before, I think you're flying out to Mexico, I'd done a podcast episode with you guys and yours and excitement, you're getting back out there. A lot has changed since then.

We are going to go into it in a bit, but I'm glad to hear you're doing well because there's been a lot of change. But can you tell the listeners and viewers where you are right now? Yeah, we are home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So this is our home base. So we actually flew back from Mexico two days ago and we're just here for two weeks, just hunkered down, getting work done, doing stuff like this, catching up with friends. So it's good to be back. OK, and we're going to go back into the backstory and early travel.

Chris had no input on that one, that's fair enough. I was like the talker. I'm just like, you know what? did fly back two days ago from Mexico. I'm just sort of reeling from that. Obviously, we've been doing the Pan-American Highway. Well, let's say we've been trying to do the Pan-American Highway.

We can't seem to get out of Mexico. No, Mexico has gripped ahold of us and it's like, we love you. And we're like, you know what? We love you too, Mexico, but it's time to add some distance. Distance is good for the relationship sometimes and it's not letting us get away. Actually, let's go into it. Why not? As you're here. For the listeners and the viewers, you are trying to do the Pan-American Highway in a camper van with Kramer, your dog. And when I met you, which was about six months ago, something like that.

I think you were kind of starting it, having a break for the summer because you've got things to do in the summer, some events, et cetera, and then going back to it after the summer, which took longer than usual, I think, which you guys can explain. when I sort of organized this interview, you're in New Mexico, like, I don't think I can catch them now because you're driving down. So give us a bit of a high level sort of summary of what's happened so far.

Yeah, so we, when we met you, were home for TravelCon back in May and we came home for TravelCon for supposedly like two weeks, 10 days, something like that. And we ended up staying for three and a half months. Was not planned. There were some, you know, life circumstances that kept us home, but it ended up being for the best. It was a great summer.

And we left our truck in Mexico City. That's where we left it for TravelCon in May. And as of today, the truck is about five hours south of Mexico City. It's October almost. It's October. So what happened? So we finally got the gumption to fly back to Mexico. We're like, we have to fly back after this. It wasn't like we were dodging it though. We were just home because we were enjoying it. Yeah. Yeah. So we finally flew back. went like on the outside, the truck seemed...

Perfectly fine. We're like, wow, we left it for three months. It's perfect and we get inside everything seems to be normal and then all of a sudden, you know, the first thing that we noticed was that we have a Starlink satellite that we use for our Wi-Fi that wasn't working for whatever reason and then on the outside of the truck I'd started noticing some discrepancies like some are we have floodlights on the top of our truck and they had

Broken off like two of them had broken off and i'm like what had happened and still don't know still don't know I think I think it was just like really bad weather is really what happened and so we're dealing with that and then

the water pump broken our thing, also affected our water filter. And if you know Mexico, you can't drink the water there. So we ended up getting it fixed up to where we can shower, but we can't drink the water in our own things. We're having to go buy extra water. And then this was a week of literally no showers. We're trying to really bad and smelled awful in that truck camper. but then we ended up, I feel like we have to share this story. Cause it's just one of those like.

horrifying, but also like you kind of laugh about it now, but we were, we got a hotel for one night, just a cheap hotel in Mexico city because we smelled so bad and we just needed a break. We just needed to get out of that truck camper for just a second. So we got this like $50 a night hotel in Pueblo, Mexico and they only did valet. And as we were leaving, we were checking out the valet starts to pull our truck up and Chris decides it's a good chance to go ahead and make a wise crack joke with the other valet who was supposed to be helping the other guy, like guide it in and make sure we didn't hit anything.

Chris, what did you tell the guy? I said, Mi Casa, like that. You know, it was like my house and he just started laughing. And then we heard this loud pop crack like that. And the guy, there was a telephone pole, the wire was hanging low and our truck grabbed a hold of it and ripped the telephone pole out of the concrete.

And that was like day three of being back in Mexico. That was day three. we're like, this is off to a really great start. And mind you, like when we first flew back into Mexico, before we even got to the truck, immediately after the airport, within five minutes, we got pulled over by this guy who looked like a police officer. He had a gun. I'm not sure if it was real or fake. He was like, pull over, pull over. And we're just like, I'm not going to pull over. And he kept doing it. I'm like, fine.

And the enterprise guy, we had rented a car to go to the truck, and the enterprise guy reminded me, he was like, make sure you never give your documents over to anybody, show it to the window, and that's it. And I'm like, yeah. And so the police officer came over and he was trying to grab my license, and I was like, no, no, no, no.

I'm not gonna do that. And he's like, why don't you trust me? And I remember saying, I said, I don't trust you because the enterprise man told me not to trust you, which was probably not the best thing to say. And then he looked at me he's like, do you know why I pulled you over? And I'm like, I have no clue, have absolutely no clue. And he's like, it's because your dog's head, Kramer, his little head was hanging out the window. We had cracked the window in the back. Like four inches. So he could like put his little, he wasn't hanging out the window. He was like, that is so dangerous.

for the dog to be out the window like that. And then meanwhile, there's like, you know, a family of five on a moped driving, you know, through Mexico City. This is not their biggest concern they have going on. was just like, welcome back to Mexico. It was like foreshadowing, but we had no idea it was foreshadowing to coming back. Yeah, so then- Wow, we got really sidetracked here. James, you can rein us in if you need to like get us back to your topics at hand. But how did you get out of it? Yeah.

of yeah. do we just like honestly, was like, you stupid, you play stupid, you act like I'm like, hey, I don't speak that great of Spanish. But the one thing he did know or we both understood was like when I said I would like to go to the station to talk and that was a big no no for him. He's like, I don't have time to go to the station. I said, well, I'm not going to pay you anything until I go to the station and we can all talk together. And then immediately he was like, I'm too busy and wrote off.

Yeah, we had a similar situation in Oman, not really that bad, but because the Omani police, kind of, how can I put this, a bit more moral, I'd say, that they work for the king, it's all about, know, all for the family and they are supposed to be proper, But we did get stopped in Oman, just on the road, randomly, towards our next place. And he pulled us over, was like, I don't speak much Arabic, maybe 10 words. And he did ask, do you speak Arabic? It's the first thing he said.

And I said no, because I said I don't want to start speaking Arabic because he might start speaking to me.

And he just looks at his mate and went, no, I can't be bothered. I can't bothered. you get that five, 10 seconds, like, what have you done? And you drive down and like, God, we're in trouble here. But that's a bit of a close call. But yeah, the fact that gave his mate look like, I can't deal with this. I don't have time for this. In Mexico, it's gringos. I find if you start to tear up and pretend to cry that they get away from you even faster. The emotional angle. I love that. Yeah.

We really derailed that. I'm so sorry. We're processing still. It's been a really emotional four weeks. We're just like working through it. So then after that you always went to Oaxaca, right? That's where I kind of was following your journey. So then what's happened since then?

So we went to Oaxaca. Things were good for the most part. We were like waiting on these parts. We ended up having family ship a new Starlink down to us. Plus like one of the pieces for the water filter, which Mexican customs, another like practically a scam. You you pay to ship this thing down there, sits in customs for days. And then they're like trying to claim that we're trying to import 29 t-shirts to resell in Mexico.

We were not, there was one t-shirt that his parents put in there for padding to protect the Starlink. And apparently that's a big no-no. And we had other people reach out. Yeah. We had other people reach out. They're like, yeah, never put clothing or anything like when shipping it to Mexico. They don't like that. Yeah. So that was learning experience. Forget drugs or forget guns. Just don't put t-shirts in them.

T-shirts. And then to claim some random number like 29. I'm like, where did you get that? anyway, so after it sat in customs for what, seven or 10 days, we finally said, you know what, just send it back. Like they're going to send it back on their dime. So we had them send it back to our parents' house, which is another reason why we're home right now is to get the things that we were trying to get to Mexico.

that we couldn't. we were, go ahead. no. So we ended up going to Home Depot, buying a Starlink at Home Depot because it was way cheaper. And for those of you who don't know, like we still work on the road and so we need Internet like to continue our travels, right? We rely on it more than what we'd like to admit. Yeah, yeah. It's part of our life. Yeah. So then we we do that. We grab that and then we're like, hey, we're going to leave Oaxaca now. Let's just go. Like we had patched the water thing. The water thing wasn't.

as big of a deal so we could still travel. And then we started going out of Oaxaca through the mountains down to Veracruz.

and we made it about an hour and a half, two hours in. Well, according to Google, we had really been driving for three hours because we move at like 30 miles an hour maximum. this tiny little distance has really taken us past lunchtime. It was such a long trip. was beautiful, but such a long trip. then all of a sudden this van started honking at us.

and was like, pull over. And I'm like, okay, it's not a cop. So I'll trust this guy. so he gets out and he was like, where are you headed? I'm like, we're heading to Veracruz. And he's like, nobody's gonna tell you this. He's like, but this is the only road to get there. And at the very end of the road, the bridge is out. So by the time you make it there, you're gonna have to turn around and go all the way back.

And so he had saved us a ton of time. Thank you so much. But then that's when things started going wrong with our truck because the mountains were no joke. we, thankfully we had already driven, you know, the section that we had to turn around re-drive. So we knew it was coming up, but it was after lunch. It was like one or two o'clock by this point. And it's rainy season in Oaxaca, which means like mudslides and just every day, like you could set your clock to it. Like you're watching it. It just.

rains, pours every day, thunder, lightning, and then it goes away. But this mountain has no guard rails. It's steep. There's obviously been mudslides recently. Like the the roads are just like completely muddy. And so we knew that on top of dangerous road conditions, like there was going to be rain too. Well, we start to drive and I hit the brakes as we're going down the mountain and the brakes dropped to the floor and there's air in the brake lines like completely. And I'm like pumping, trying to pump them. And finally I get like a tiny bit of brakes, but it was just not.

working right. And I usually use the engine brake too. Like we, it's a manual, so I usually put it in a lower gear to brake, but the car also was trying to run away with itself. And we were like, what is going on? Like usually it, you know, it slowed down, but it's like a 15 % grade and the engine is so loud. And I did not, I could not figure out what was wrong. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere. had no cell signal. And then we hear this pop and we're like, what is that? And we look in the back mirror, smoke is billowing out of the truck, the exhaust. And then

Anyway, we're just gonna go ahead and jump ahead and say that we would diagnose the problem. We ended up having to call a tow truck because the conditions were just too bad. We would not have made it off that mountain alive. Like I'm convinced we would have probably died. We would have died or been hurt. Yeah, you know, like it would have been really, really ugly for the rig and us.

It would make for a great YouTube video. course, yeah. Content. I mean, naturally Chris grabbed the camera anyway as we're being towed off this mountain top. Yeah, I saw that picture with that video, yeah. Yeah. Never missed the opportunity for drama. our lives are pretty boring and so when we do have something like that, we have to grab it. Grab it, grab it. Yeah, anyway, so we got towed off the mountain. Thankfully tow trucks in Mexico are not that expensive. I think we paid $125 US dollars to get towed off, which would have been well over $1,000 in the US.

made off safely, but now we're back in the States waiting to get the part to fix the truck. yeah. So how's your day going, James?

Yeah, I've up, had breakfast and know, just, just mulling about. I love this. It's like our therapy session with James today. gosh. Okay. That's a lot to unpack there, isn't it? Mexico's a of a challenge. And so do you have a rough date in mind where you might go back? Yeah. Yeah. We're supposed to be on a plane. Well, we don't have a ticket back yet, but hopefully no more than two weeks. the piece that

our truck needs, you don't know, have a Land Cruiser and this is one of the most reliable rigs in the world. it is, this one specific piece happens to be sold out all over North America. so it either has to come from Japan, Australia, or Europe. And so we chose a place that's coming from Europe somewhere. They said it should be here in a few days, but we'll see. And so surprisingly enough, we're always trying to save a buck.

here or there. We're the cheapest people alive. can be expensive. so getting here to the States, flying out of Oaxaca, it was just a really expensive option. And then we started looking at renting cars to go there. So we actually rented a car from Oaxaca and

in Mexico to drop it off at a different location is so extremely expensive because we were like, all right, we'll just rent a car from Oaxaca, drop it off in Mexico City. And it was going to cost over a thousand dollars to do that. That's the same for anywhere in the world, isn't it? In my experience. Yeah, it is definitely more expensive. I mean, this was just like astronomical. Yeah, it was crazy expensive. Crazy expensive. So it was actually cheaper for us to rent the car for three or four weeks.

and it cost 92 US dollars to rent it for three or four weeks. And then we dropped it off at an airport parking garage and it's cheaper for us to leave it there for four weeks and then drive it back to Oaxaca. By hundreds of dollars. we, guess, yeah, right. We do have to be home in like two and a half or back in Mexico in two and a half weeks because otherwise I guess that rental car is going to be reported stolen. There is a deadline here. We've a dead end.

Okay, so what's interesting is when I met you guys and I said, yeah, I'm going to be doing my trip at the time of travel con, we're like, we're probably going to miss each other because you're going back to Mexico. You're past El Salvador. now I'm like, I think it's possible. even, don't think, I don't think you're going to El Salvador by the time I'm there.

We cannot get out of Mexico. We cannot get out of Mexico. Thankfully in Oaxaca, we have an amazing campground that the truck is stuck at. We can't complain about where we're stuck at. We're thankful to be alive. We're thankful that we're at a reasonable place that it's relaxing to be at. so nice. Hopefully, when you're down in El Salvador,

hopefully we'll be just crossing the border and we'll be able to meet up. Well, at the very least, I'm going west and you're going north, I guess I'm going north, you're going south. Yeah, we should cross So that'd pretty I think we will cross paths. Yeah.

We'll see. Hopefully. I mean, this is all part of the adventure. It's just like this is the first mechanical issue we've had. So I think it's sort of like it's just part of it. Like we told the story about losing the brakes on the side of a mountain and some fellow overlanding friends who have overlanded like Africa and everything. He's like, congratulations. Like you guys are officially overlanders now. Yes. We lost brakes. Yeah. Badge of honor. And why doesn't the campground host like you, Chris? What's that about? And Kramer for that matter.

Yeah, I don't. Well, I think so. The campground is very it's a really nice campground. yeah. And he I don't know when this caretaker sleeps. He's literally up. I kept the dash cam on the truck on accident and I have footage of him at like two forty five, three in the morning cleaning. So like he never sleeps. He never sleeps. So one, I think he's sleep deprived. But two, he he he's very particular about his garbage.

And his garbage, the garbage at the campground, like very, very, very particular. And I did not know this the first day that we were there. so Kramer had to go number two and I have, I picked it up, like the sign said, and I threw it away in the general trash can, like anywhere else I would do in the world. And he likes to dig through the trash to separate it. so I think.

I think Kramer was a little bit of a surprise, our dog to him. And so he let me have it in Spanish. I didn't know what he was saying, but I understood everything at the same time. got dog. We kept hearing him say dog over and over like, he doesn't like Kramer. think it's because of that. yeah. then ever since then, he smiles at Sarah, big grin, everything. But me, he's like...

You're evil. Yeah, but he does have a bone to pick with Chris. He does. It's so strange, isn't it? It is. What's dog in Spanish? Is that a perro? Perro. Perro. I can't roll my R's. Yeah, Mascato is pet. Right. So between those two, we usually know they're talking about Kramer. Yeah. What you think anyway. Yeah, he's a dog. He was pointing at me and saying perro. Dog.

That's a great way to start a podcast. we're jumping ahead there. That's great. Let's go back just a little bit further. How did you guys meet and what's your sort of travel background story? Like as a family, did you use to travel when you're younger? Where did the interest come from? man.

So no, neither of us really traveled growing up. My family took a trip to our family cottage in Michigan every summer and then we did Disney a couple times and that was pretty much it. I had never been across the Mississippi until in college I biked across America, which is actually how we met. Where are you from? I'm from Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee area, southeast for both of us. Yeah, I'm from Kentucky. So the Mississippi is always like that halfway point in America typically. St. Louis is on the Mississippi and it's the gateway to the West.

We had never been west neither of us our families didn't you know, we were very middle-class and so taking grand trips or especially international trips just didn't happen like there we were on a budget So we actually met biking across America. It was both of our first times We'd actually both biked across America twice, but on the second trip We were both tour leaders and so it's kind of like camp counselor love story kind of thing. So we met biking and Then two years later got married. Yeah, and in bicycling across America we were

doing it with a nonprofit, which was great. But it was also an excuse to sort of travel because in my mind I'm like, when am I ever going back to Seattle, Washington to start? I've always wanted to go there, but I've never been there. I'm like, this is so cool to be able to raise money for people in need, but then also travel a very different way too. for both of us. mean, we got to see places and experience things that the US is...

so diverse, we also lived in sort of a bubble of our little culture and then getting out and seeing, you know, people are exactly the same, but then also very much not the same. And just getting to see these little migrant cultures from Montana to New York City to, know, it's just, was incredible. And it definitely sort of, we both realized we loved being uncomfortable, like doing adventurous kind of things, but

Not necessarily in a glamorous way. Don't get me wrong. I would love a good five-star hotel more often than what I get it. we also really understood that we love the back roads. Whether or not it was on a bike or a car, we got to see places that most people never get to see. We rolled into these communities that were 300 people and they were hours from the New York City. And just seeing that side of the world just was incredible. And I think that's sort of what spurred our van life adventures. And we kind of joked that we met in a van driving the support van for this

cross-America tour and then we lived in a van a couple years later. Yeah. I think UK has a similar thing with much smaller scale, of course, but.

You do grow up in a little bubble, even though London's like two hours away, but it does feel like there's a flight away, but it's completely different world. So I think even though UK is much smaller, if you go to university, for example, or college in another city, that is like a new experience. And people might laugh at that because it takes, I don't know, three hour drive to get from Norwich where I'm from to Nottingham, for example, but Nottingham is like a completely different culture, know, robbing the hood, all that sort of stuff, right? So I think it's kind of good that people get out there, but I do think at that age you...

kind of push, right? Sometimes it's easy to say, no, I'll stay in my bubble, right? Cause you know, everything around the corner, right? You know, your mates, your football, whatever you play, your music, but like getting out there is the first step, I think, when you sort of approach that late teens, I think when you start to go out in the world. did you find that when you first went out there to the West side that, wow, like this is completely different. Cause I, you know, I've traveled through America, not as much as you guys, but I think stopping in somewhere like South Dakota.

compared to maybe being in New York is completely different. Totally different. Absolutely. Well, can I ask you a question about the UK? So, you you talk about these different like it's like three hours away, right? So when you're growing up and you hear about these towns, do people that you're growing up with or like in that community, do they say that it's like, that's so unsafe, like you don't want to go there or anything like that? I mean, in the US, that happens all the time. And that's part of the reason why.

We didn't travel as much. Not part of the reason, but like... was more financial. It was more financial, but people always have this misconception of like, you know, people in Tennessee, like my neighbor, he's 89 years old. But every time I tell him we're going out west, he's like, I hope you live to tell the tale. Like he's so scared. He's every time we leave to go back to Mexico, he's like, I'm never going to see you again. He's never been there. I think the only place he's ever been is Jamaica. So other than that, but I didn't know if that happened in the UK as well within the UK.

I think it depends how you grow up. For me, definitely yes, because my dad doesn't have a passport. So anywhere that's outside of Norwich, which is on the east side.

Even going to Ipswich, which is only 45 minutes to hour down the road is like, we're going there. So when I told him I was going to London, he's like, yeah, you're not coming back alive. I was like, there's eight million people there. I eight million people are surviving every day down there. I think it's okay. But I think what you get in UK is different reputations. maybe London is like a different world because it's so multicultural and it's so big and there's of options there. Right. But if you think some like, not even as an example, it's got reputation, believe it or not.

for UK has been a place where gun crime is slightly high. So it's called Shottingham. So I think that's the, that's the rumour. yeah, that's, what you hear when you grow up. Liverpool Manchester is probably known for its music and it's way, way north. Like, yeah, that's over there. Completely different accent, different way of doing things. And also probably like there's a bit of class stuff going on. Maybe you think, they're a bit poorer up there, which is a really unfair generalisation, but you do kind of think that.

And then like place like Newcastle, like on the border of Scotland, you're like, where is that? Like that is so far north that we don't even consider it. So I different place, different reputations, maybe safety is probably.

left to London, maybe, which just by math, it is a bit more unsafe because there's more people, right? It's just going to happen. yeah, I think it's more based on reputation of like history because so much history there. didn't you do know which city's got going for it. It could be music, it could be sport, could be crime, whatever it is. Interesting. And I think that's why people are so interested in traveling UK, because they they get around from Liverpool and go to the Cavern Club where the Beatles played, right. And it's like all that sort of stuff.

And then you get across to Leeds, like the heart of Yorkshire, and they're probably thinking Game of Thrones, maybe. Like, this is where it is. And then down to London, we all know London, right? So, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. We'd love to visit. Yeah. Neither of us have ever been to London. Yeah, we've never been there. We've only Scotland. Scotland. And Ireland. Ireland, yeah. So we'll get there one day. Yeah, one day. In Scotland, you ever go to Mexico. In Scotland, where did you go? gosh. That was my first international trip ever. I paid my own way when I was in high school to go with the

wow. so I was really young, but I went to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Isla Sky. I mean, it was so fast. I was like 10 days, but I remember loving it. Everything is absolutely gorgeous. We were there in June and it was just changed my life. I mean, I just did nothing but fuel. wanted to travel. So, you know, I think you asked earlier, like, how did you guys start by wanting to travel? And like a lot of people, it was the yellow bound National Geographic magazines for me that my grandparents had every single issue from when I first started. And I used to just read through those and see the pictures and.

Yeah, a little bit by little bit we started traveling on a budget. Was that, I was a yourself, Sarah, but Chris, what was your trip that maybe really kicked off the one less, maybe internationally? You know, my very first international trip was to El Salvador and. Wow. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Reunion. And hopefully we'll get there. It was my first time ever out of the United States. so seeing like, yeah, seeing.

It's so drastic, you know, especially with me. I grew up in suburbia, like everything's white picket fence, you know, cul-de-sac. Like it just nothing's changed. We you know, every every store is the same, everything like that. And going to El Salvador, it was definitely like we went there on actually went there on like a like a missions trip. were building up. We were helping build a church for somebody. And it was just fascinating seeing the way that

the locals would build their process. And then you have the Americans coming in saying, hey, we build it this way. And the Americans think that they're right. And the El Salvadorans are like, no, we're right. We've been built. Look at that building down there. And so it was, but it was just super fascinating. the people, I just remember the people were so, so nice. If anything, we weren't really down there to build anything. It was just to make a connection with people, which was super cool.

And then I remember the Papooses, which was awesome.

I remember the food. I've heard about these papoosas our entire relationship. I've got to try them if we ever get out of Mexico. And maybe I've probably built them out too much of my I mean, like as a 15 year old in a different country, I'm just like, this is amazing. And I do remember having pizza in El Salvador. And I'm like, this is the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Far better than anything in Italy. You know, just like this. yeah. But like American chains and other countries typically tend to be better than in America.

We had a couple moments of weakness recently in Mexico. We're like, we're going to order Little Caesar's and Little Caesar's is so much better than Mexico. don't know what they've done. Like here in the States, Little Caesar tastes like plastic. I hate Little Caesar's, but there in Mexico, I'm like, you know, they've seasoned this cheese. Maybe it's Oaxaca cheese. I don't know what it is, but it's very good. That's another conflict. I found weird in Australia when I worked in the kitchens, all these chefs, right, in the mine sites in north and west Australia, they...

cook all day, right? And they're cooking fresh food, like veg, pastries, everything's fresh. And yet their dinner is McDonald's. And I was like, I just don't understand what's going on here. And they're like, I don't know what they do over there. Like this particular McDonald's next to the campsite, but they do something that's amazing. The seasoning, we go to dinner. chefs and their chef gear, right? And me, going in a big mini bus to drive to McDonald's. found it so strange.

That's really funny. There's a lot of truth in that. That makes me feel so much better about my travel decisions. Hey, you know, when you've been traveling internationally, I'm sure you have your own things too. when you're traveling that you just after a while, you're like, I you may be in Mexico or India or whatever, and you eat the local cuisine and eventually like, I just need something that's not curry or not.

tacos, I something different for a while. And then there's McDonald's, it's just sitting there. I don't know what it is for you since you're British, yeah, you just, need something that's somewhat different. I think that's a test of which cuisine is your favorite. This is what I say in my podcast where, you know, what cuisine can you think of internationally that you have where you don't feel the need to go and dip into McDonald's? Cause I'm like, you need to be honest with yourself here. Like what can you eat almost every day without fail?

I think for me that's only Indian and Thai food. think for me. Really? So I feel like don't need McDonald's, but I think everything else, I probably need that break. But I don't know what you guys think about that. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been to Japan, but I feel like Japanese food I could do between the sushi and the ramen and stuff. I feel like I could do that. Thai is great.

And even I know people are say Iceland food is really gross because it's not very diverse, but I actually really enjoyed food in Iceland because it was very bland. It was just like soup, like fish soup every And then I loved that. And so I feel like that's one thing. Like I'm a soup person. Like it was cozy. And yeah, I think our problem when it comes to like food in Central America, it's delicious. It is good and very good. But a lot of it is so meat heavy and we eat meat. But some of it is just like.

It's so greasy and so meaty. And like you just like you feel it after a while. Right. And so it's been harder to find like healthier choices, like especially in Central America. Yeah. Especially if you're eating like the locals, like, you know,

I feel like less healthy food is typically the cheapest. You think of like frying and potatoes in America and that kind of thing. those are usually not the healthiest, but they're also more affordable. So when you eat like the locals at street food, there's not a lot of vegetables besides like some guacamole on the taco. I mean, it's a lot of green, but we do have a camper. So we cook in a lot, which helps. But I do have to admit I'm a little burned out on tacos, which I didn't think was possible.

I've had to step back for a minute and say, But I will I will say that, I mean, we've been eating like street food, all of that. And it's been delicious. That's what we're really kind of taking a break from. We're like, like, can't stomach this. But then we had at the campground, we had this local Mexican woman. She was like, hey, it's for Independence Day. I made this. It was like almost like a quesadilla, but filled with black beans. So good.

It was one of the best meals I've had in Mexico. Yeah. I'm like, I need to go to somebody's house and eat because these restaurants aren't doing it for me right now. Yeah, I think. Yeah, exactly. Right. So we're just knocking on doors and seeing who will let us in. tell you what, Mexico's really got you, isn't it?

They've really gotten us. my gosh, like we love Mexico. It's incredible. at the same time, I just feel like, I think it's the lack of being able to leave. Like we don't have that freedom to leave that we're just like frustrated. But if somebody's listening to this and they want to go to Mexico, be a digital nomad vacation, go. Like it's people are so nice. And I think people forget just how big Mexico is. I mean, it is a huge country and it's so diverse. know, when you enter through the border at the part,

Like it's all desert and and I feel like that's what people think of when they think of Mexico like in the states anyway But like and then you go further south and you start hitting mountains that look like the Smoky Mountains here in Tennessee or Oaxaca looks like that's what hop yeah Oaxaca looks just like that and was blew us away and then you you you and then you have the Yucatan it's all you know perfect beaches and and everything so I think yeah, it's just a big big country country and

We weren't ready for that, you know, but we know now so We've seen a lot of it. Yeah, you've been there quite a while. Okay, want to come just quickly back to together when you're You are together traveling wise. What was the first? trips maybe together that maybe got your ideas of to become to youtube and podcast in a minute and also your trip now, but like what was the first sort of travels you were going on? Thailand so

When we first got married, we were living in Seattle and like real long story short, Chris actually lost his job a week after we got married. so, so we had a very tiny little savings account, you know, cause we were newlyweds and just out of college and all those kinds of things. And one of our friends actually lives in Thailand. He was like, Hey, why don't you guys come over here? You can live really cheap. Come spend a couple of months over here. And so we said, all right. So we bought $700 plane tickets, which

I wouldn't recommend getting a budget airline to Asia because it was a really long flight, but we got $700 round trip tickets to Thailand, spent two months there and fell in love with Asia. And we'd never been anywhere like that before. Never been to Asia and we both were just blown away. We both keep wanting to go back. We haven't been to Asia so badly. Yeah. We've only been to a couple of places in Asia, but consistently like

I think that's the one continent I didn't expect to fall in love with when I grew up wanting to travel the world. I wanted to see everything. But Asia, for some reason, didn't really resonate with me. I guess the history didn't fascinate me as much or whatever, but then I went there and it blew me away. I love Asia. So Thailand was the first one for us. Which part of Thailand was that in?

Mostly Chiang Mai actually. we, yeah, we loved the mountains. mean, I know a lot of people go to the beaches and stuff, but our friends lived in Chiang Mai, so that's where we went. And, you know, they gave us a motorbike to borrow and two helmets and they said, have fun. And we made it out never having a wreck. I almost lost a foot one night. One night. Yeah. We went on the super highway and we told our friends, we were like, yeah, we drove the moped on the super highway. And they're like, you did what? Like, that's what it was called. This is the super highway. And this thing was like 40 miles. Yeah. But I mean, it was a fascinating trip.

Like we got to see, you know, we went up to the border of Myanmar, Burma and, you know, saw refugee villages and then we went down to the beach and also saw a little bit of Bangkok and we actually happened to be there when the king died, which was really like a culturally significant moment because he was the longest reigning monarch in history. He had been king since World War II as a kid. And like the entire country overnight.

wore black. Like as soon as he passed away, every store, every mannequin, everything was in black clothing. And so we had a bright clothing with us and we're like, you know what, we're here for longer. Like we need to buy black clothing and just, you know, be a part of it. And we had several like, you know, Thai people come up and they're like, thank you so much for just wearing black. Like that means a lot to me. And it was, it was really interesting. Yeah. I mean, we got to go to like a vigil after he passed, like they hosted this in each of the major towns in Thailand. And I don't know how many

people showed up. was probably 100,000 people showed up to this botanical garden in Chiang Mai. And definitely one of the most vivid memories I have of being there, just like seeing these people like cry because it was like they have been such a great leader for them. And it was just anyway. Yeah. So I think that for a lot of reasons, we fell in love with traveling just because of that. But

An example would be, wouldn't do this, but if you had some money, just don't stamp on it or spit on it or whatever. I don't we'll do that. So they're very strict on that of rule, suppose, which is great because I think there's not many rules in Thailand, but I think that's one of them.

Yeah, I for sure. were told don't talk about the royal family. Like even if it's praise, like just safe talk for behind closed doors at Like just don't talk about it. Yeah. And like it's technically a rule in Thailand where you're to have a picture of the king in your house. and everybody. Yeah. So that was the other weird thing is like we were there and everybody loved the king. He was such a good king. He had done a lot for Thailand. But then people were really nervous about the sun taking over. So like we were there during this whole like

controversial, like I was like, what's going to happen? Like, are there going to be like riots and that kind of thing? So like actually went under military control while we were there. So it was like a really weird, like witnesses transition that people's like fear, but also like what's going to happen. I don't know. Yeah. Super interesting. We've never seen anything. I mean, we go through the chaos of an election every four years in the U S here we are again, but it was just totally different. Yeah. The chaos is great word. Thailand's so diverse, isn't it? As a country, can really, it's a bit like us in a sense where you can find

whatever you need, whether that's mountains, bit of jungle or forest or beaches or even islands, there's that eclectic mix of different types of travel there.

Yeah, no, for sure. I feel like the people that we would talk to before going there would always go to like the beach part of Thailand. for sure. it's beautiful. It looks like Neverland from Peter Pan, in my opinion. Like, I this was like beautiful. I just the mountains there are just like none of our friends talked about the mountains until after we went there. And I'm like, it's just gorgeous. It's so beautiful there. Well, Chiang Mai is kind of one of those places. It's a digital nomad hub now. I can't imagine how much more expensive it's gotten since we were there because it was we were not that we were like,

this great cultural hub and we loved that. was one of those places kind of off the beaten path. Like we didn't mean to go off the beaten path for that trip, but we did get to see a different side that a lot of tourists didn't get to see. think that kind of fueled what we're doing now too. Yeah.

Heya, just a quick one, I just want to say there are many ways to support this podcast. You can buy me a coffee and help support the podcast with $5. Or you can go to my merch store with the affiliate link with TeePublic where there's plenty of merch available to buy such as t-shirts, jumpers, hoodies and also some children's clothing. Thirdly, which is free, you can also rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or Goodpods. Also, you can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

and TikTok. Simply just search for Winging It Travel Podcast and you'll find me displaying all my social media content for traveling, podcast and other stuff. Thank you. Yeah, I two different experiences in Chamois. The first one.

just because the time was much more parting. So some good nights out there, some, I remember some great reggae music actually in a night out in Chiang Mai. Yeah. And you see the night out stuff. So it's not as glamorous as the day to day sort of temple stuff, but you get the different side of it. But I remember doing my first ever hike in Chiang Mai in one of those overnight, so you go down to the villages in the mountains and I've never hiked before. So was hiking shorts that were like cargo shorts and then flip flops and like plimpsols. And I was hanging after five minutes. I was like, what am I doing here?

I was sweating my ass off and I was like this is not what I want to do, but I got through it And I think we're all feeling the same. You know been for a few nights out before One guy was sick and the campsite world is like little village But unbelievable experience because you get to I know maybe some of its put on but you get to experience what village life is like in those jungle Areas of the mountains right? It's incredible and maybe what little they have in terms of infrastructure to live Definitely an eye-opener I think for me quite early on in my experience in Thailand. Yeah. Yeah what

Heavy breathing. didn't care. I was like, just kill me now. Just kill me now. Where are those tigers at? It was always funny, like being in the jungle, like way far from Chiang Mai because we would run into like a local Thai person and you could tell that not a lot of white people.

came by because they would always, it was like they had seen a ghost. They're like, did you see that? how pale they were? And then they walk up and like, the little kids were the cutest because you know, they hadn't seen like blonde people before. But it was always like this really great like icebreaker because I didn't speak their indigenous language for some of these little villages and they didn't speak English and the kids would just like walk up and touch my hair and laugh and they thought it was so funny and it just was like this great little icebreaker. But that was funny. I'm going to circle back to your food thing. I'll tell you one thing I have realized in Thailand.

Like it's like hot soup or something, noodles. that's a hard one for me. Like I'll do it when I need to, but either I would prefer skipping breakfast or I want something bland or cool or sweeter. Like, you know, that's very American, but we liked the smoothies in Thailand, like fresh smoothies every day. my goodness, fruit. It was so good. Okay. Let's come. Sorry. Now say we bring it together for.

Like he, I this was like Casey Neistat era. Like Casey's like revolutionizing like what YouTube could be. And Chris is like, we need to do it. And I was so shy. I'm such a quiet person. You may not get that, but I really am. And I was like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And then two years later, we're living in a van, had been living in it for months. And Chris was like, Sarah, we need to just give YouTube a try. Well, what happened was we the sweet older people came up to us and they had a GoPro and they were following their dog at the campground.

And I was like, what are you doing? They're like, we've got a YouTube channel and you know, we follow our dog and post the videos of it. And they were so sweet. And then they left and I looked at Sarah. said, Sarah, if their dog has a YouTube channel, we need to have a YouTube channel like that. And so the next day we filmed a tour of our van, which was sort of a thing on YouTube back then. It was like early van life. We're not trendsetters, but I feel like we've sort of been in the right place at the right time on a couple of things. And that's one of them. And so we filmed this.

Van tour, yeah. We filmed this van tour and I ended up actually just being me. Chris did all the filming. I'm like walking through really awkwardly showing our van. She's like Vanna White. I am. I didn't see my future going there, but there it is. And we threw it up on YouTube, not expecting it. I was still not convinced I ever wanted to do another YouTube video and it went viral within a week. And today it sits at like over five million views and we got millions of views on that first video. And so it sort of like thrust us into like YouTube world and we weren't really ready.

It took a while to sort of like pivot to what we really wanted. Like, you know, YouTube wanted us to do van stuff, which ended up being like in the automotive category. And then we really wanted to do travel. So it was like pivoting a ship, this giant ship for like a year and a half of like, nope, you guys want van stuff, but we're going to do travel stuff. And so we just kept shoving it down their throat. And, know, we gained like 35,000 subs from that one video, but I'd say we've probably lost every, most every single one of them. Like there's people who stuck around, but we've changed so much. It's been like this, you know, once two steps forward, one step back kind of thing.

Yeah, I would never wish anyone to go viral. Like people like you see all the time online like, go viral, you'll do that. No, you don't. Like you want the right people in your audience and who are there because that was the hardest thing for us was trying to convey to these people who were asking us how we use the toilet or how we wash our clothes, you know, that we don't want to answer these questions anymore because we use the toilet just like you or we wash our clothes just like you, know, so, yeah. Going viral.

You know, it's so negative, you get the negative comments, but also I don't know that if I hadn't gone viral early on, I've been forced to kind of produce content, not forced, you know, saw that Instagram, I don't know that I would have done it. Like I love photography and videography, but I was cool just doing it for ourselves and not sharing it. once we had that audience and I was like, well, let's just see what happens. Like it did encourage us to keep going. So I think I am glad we went viral, but also like I see other people who have done that really slow growth, like put in the time, every single video is like a little bit of climb.

So yeah, we've been in a van for a while, but it's been like these natural progressions of like different rigs and different seasons. Yeah, and we found out that we really love traveling that way. And that's why we were doing this overlanding gig, because we like traveling slow. Like not as slow in Mexico right now, but typically we like traveling slow. And we have a dog and that makes it so much easier. Yeah. So we travel internationally with him.

And, but like van life, like we, loved it. We love, like we, I feel like we know the United States so well, but there are many places that we still haven't been to and haven't discovered, but we were just like, we, we wouldn't be able to see these places or visit like any other time. Like when am I ever going to be in Wichita, Kansas, you know, but I know Wichita, Kansas. know what they had, you know, like I know that, you know, but like even still like Utah and

California and Washington and all that. We were able to discover places that we would have never been able to visit. We like nature a lot. we love, we're kind of like a lot of van lifters do it because they really want to do like only national parks or like really rural areas. We also really like cities too. Like we like the culture. We like the food and that hustle and bustle of that. So yeah. So we liked the van because it was small enough to get into cities and we could go see the cities when we wanted to. But it was also

rugged enough that we could go and park on this National Forest and BLM spots that had these epic views. And I think that's our current truck, which is a Land Cruiser, sort of like a van, but you know, a little bit different looking and it allows us to do the same thing. Like we can park outside Mexico City, go into the city and then go back out to the mountains. lot of your early content is US based sort of seeing the country that you're from. Our early stuff was all US. All US. We did drive through Canada to get to Alaska because we were like, that's like,

a huge trip, you know, way. Yeah. Yeah. And then once COVID kind of happened that that part, we were like, well, so the very first international trip we took on our channel was right before COVID and it was to Ireland. We were on the plane home when they closed the country. Yeah. Yeah. And so it put a damper on us. And then we're like, all right, so we'll just build out another van, you know, while we're waiting. So we did that. And then we were like, we want to.

travel internationally now. And so we flew to Mexico, did some Mexico stuff, and then we flew to Brazil, and then we did Korea and Iceland, then, yeah, and still US stuff through there, but we want to see the world. Yeah, we want to see the world. Yeah, that's the, I guess, the journey, right? You've got your, like, early years, I guess, that's your base, but then if you're traveling, you just want to go over places, don't you? So how do you...

How do you decide, let's imagine you're not doing this Pan American road trip, which we'll come back to in a minute. How did you decide which country to go to and how did you even cope with maybe getting content? Because the big thing about YouTube is that I've found, especially this year, but doing it myself as well, is how do you go and travel and balance between enjoying it and try not to worry about getting too much content? Like how do you get that balance right?

That's such a good question. gosh, that's so hard. I don't know that we've mastered it yet. We're still struggling with it. But what do you have to say to that? mean, we like so we'll go in knowing, all right, we're going into because like if you go to our channel, like it's mostly like it'll be like city guides, like, hey, this is what we're experiencing in this city or this part of the country. know, it'll be like a food tour. It'll be like impressed. So we have these like little categories that we like film videos in. And what we do is we will have one.

specific day that we're like, we have to film and we'll try to film during the entire trip, but it is exhausting to film the entire thing and edit while you're over there. So what we try to do is we'll have one specific day where we try to hammer out almost everything. All the talking head stuff. All the talking head, all the experiences. And then we'll go through the other times that were there and just get B-roll footage and just like, hey, this is, you know, like buildings or like

different cultural things or whatever. And that's our favorite stuff to get. At least for me, that's my favorite stuff to get. Like I don't mind talking to the camera, but I would rather get to be more artistic and take photos and B-roll and slow-mo and just get that really pretty lighting and that kind of stuff. So that's easier to grab throughout the trip. It doesn't feel like it's a distraction because we can just enjoy what we're doing and then.

Yeah, and then, know, I think we we fall like we really like to be creative But I think half the time the camera gets in the way sometimes and so we've come we've come to the mindset of like we're just telling a story It doesn't have to be as beautiful. So sometimes we'll whip out the iPhone and we'll on that just to capture the moment and Yeah, and then we'll come home we try to come home and like or have a couple weeks and just edit once we're away from there because it's

it can be a little difficult trying to do everything. And then you miss everything. That's coming from firsthand experience of being in a different country and just ended up hating where we're at right now because you're just stressed and you're trying to get a video out. It's a weird place because we always said we didn't want it to feel like a job. YouTube does, it is part of our income. We still work a day job doing web design stuff. Part of the reason we do that is because we want to take some of the pressure off YouTube.

And we're getting better and better about being like, you know what, if this video just doesn't feel like it's working, we're just gonna scrap it. Or if we're enjoying a place too much and we can't get a video out of it because we're enjoying it so much, that's okay. And I have to say, some of our favorite places in the country, in the US at least, we don't have videos on them. So we tell people, go to Portland, Maine, or for the longest time, go to Seattle. Those were two of our favorite places, but we had no video content. So we'd get there, we'd be catching up with friends or hanging out and loving it, and we just wouldn't film.

It wasn't because we weren't inspired, but we just decided to choose living life instead of YouTube. So there's a weird balance between like, it's our work and we need to make sure we're getting content that's good and we're passionate about, also like take time for ourselves because life happens once. Yeah. And for the listeners or viewers who watching this podcast.

there, Chris and Sarah's YouTube channel. For me, you're like the ones I watch because I like, obviously the content, don't get me wrong, but like the way you do it. Because I'm quite new into YouTube, I'm sort of like assessing like how am I going to do it? I'm not the, I'm probably a bit more like, fuck it, I'll just put it out there. Probably not as...

Absolutely. Yeah. I a few things up from you guys and Ozzy Matt and that who you guys know as well. Yeah. two couples are the people for me for YouTube where I get to assess how do YouTube is and they're so impressive. I absolutely love it. I think there's a thousand ways. There's a thousand ways. There's no right or wrong way. yeah, it's a little things you put in, which I quite like. I've seen one, one of your Mexico videos and you, you had the slow mo videos. I think it's in the town square of this woman, maybe just like

next to some pigeons. It's like slowed down, like an epic feel. You see like water drops or whatever come from the fountain. I was like, those little things get me. like, yeah, I need to try and get that sort of footage, you know? Like really impressive, Yeah. There's something nice about filming B-roll because you really do have to slow down to be still and to watch things and look for the details. And that's one reason why I love it is it allows you just to like...

you get to be a part of it for a minute. I think it allows you on the post end, like when you're editing it, like you can make any story you want. If you just capture a bunch of B-roll, like you can at least describe the feeling or talk about it, narrate it, right? And then you're not having to like stress about getting that perfect, like talking head or whatever. That's one of our favorite ways to do it actually is because we...

Sometimes if we're just in the moment and we're loving it, that's our get out of jail card. Like, shoot, we didn't film that. We'll just voice over it later. And it ended up being this really great style thing that people have said, I really like that. And I'm like, OK, cool. Well, it's easier, too. So do that more often. And I think I think the one thing we're awful at this and we were trying so desperately to get better and better. But the one thing about YouTube and anything is just consistency.

Like, yeah, it's just posting every week or every, however long you want to do it. We're the worst at it. And we've been on YouTube for how many years now? Five or six years. And I think we just crossed our 200th video. Aren't there 52 weeks in a year? So obviously we've missed a lot of We've missed quite a few weeks. I'm catching you up. Yeah. Yeah. I we took off months at a time. Like, it's not that we didn't like want to be creating. There were times, I mean, COVID obviously, like a lot of people still travel during COVID. We couldn't like we were partially building out a van. Partially we just didn't.

after a while. You can see the light in their eyes just like die. Because you're not just a YouTuber, you're the cinematographer, you're the editor, you're everything. And then you're doing all these different jobs and you post it and then you get 18 views and you're like, cool. Tell me about it. But then we see some channels and they've got their views and their consistency are just like top notch and they are just like killing it.

They're killing it so much. There's all this pressure built up and they have to keep posting and keep posting. you can see, especially in the travel network, there's a few creators we see and it's just like the life has been sucked off because they're the travel planner and they're the filmer and they do all of it. But you can see the passion is just not quite the like it used to be. So sometimes even though YouTube doesn't like you to take a break, if you need a break, take a break. I can't tell you enough how much that's helped us and to just feel that freedom of like, you know what, we still have other jobs to pay the bills, we'll be okay.

I think the problem with travel creators, I don't know if you feel this, is it's not like you're reviewing a game or a TV show. If you don't travel, you need to come up with something pretty creative to get a video out because then what are you going to talk about? So I've actually run into this problem now as we speak because I've pretty much videoed about all my year trip last year. I've just about ran out of content for that and I've covered all of it. I could maybe redo the road trip, that's on my mind, but based on your guys advice about making it longer video, know, like an hour or two. yeah, I'm like,

So what do I do now? So you have to get creative, right? If you're maybe traveling locally or you're not international traveling. But for me, what's done to me is I've done what you said a minute ago where I kind of done the voiceover after the fact. So I sort of in my mind at the back of my mind, I'll get this video because I think I might need it. So I got all this footage from last year. There's all voiceover stuff, pretty much, hardly anything in the camera for me speaking into it. But my biggest challenge now is my trip November. Like how am going to try and do this YouTube thing for the first time ever where I'm actually traveling? And I've got that in my mind.

So I'm like, do I speak to the camera every day? Do I do the same as last year? Not quite sure what to do. So that's the journey I'm on at the minute. Just always hit record. I mean, that's something we're still guilty of. Even if you're not sure you're going to use it, like, you you've seen us, you just mentioned the longer form videos. So when we were home for longer than we expected this summer, we started re-releasing some of our old videos. Like we did our Korea series or we didn't do Ireland, but Iceland.

But there were like little segments of talking head and stuff that we had never used. They never fit into their original videos, but we had all this extra footage of places that we had filmed that sort of worked really well in this longer form video. even if you're not sure you're going to use it, just record it. Like that was like two things. Like one, we released these longer videos, but YouTube liked that. Like we really, they were over an hour long. And so YouTube, like the Brazil video especially is like, we released it four weeks ago and it's sitting at like a hundred thousand views.

over and it released it to new people who had never seen our channel before.

our local audience, our main audience was like, hey, I've seen this before. And we're like, yeah, it's okay. Take a break. You don't have to watch it. But new people came in, which is awesome. But then, you for like you traveling, going, you know, your trip that you're doing, I always come back to like Ryan Van Duijer. He's another YouTuber and he cycles and he like does these amazing videos. And I remember asking him, I was like, hey, like how do you...

how do you do this? And he's like, I don't want to record, but I just hit record. it's not, he's like, even if you're not talking to the camera, like you don't have to talk, just record, like just have it. You're not going to regret having it. And this guy, I mean, he'll do a 10 day bicycle trip and he'll get 10 videos out of that trip. And I just like, blows my mind. if you-

Just hit record and there's a quote by Michael Scott in the office that we sometimes laugh about because sometimes Chris will just hit record and he'll put the camera on me and I just start monologuing like I The quote of Michael Scott is like sometimes I start talking I have no idea where the sentence is going and I like that's us like you just have to start Talking and then eventually you kind of find your thought along the way But I may do this one monologue of just like rambling thoughts and then Chris will use three different sections of it throughout the video So I'm just like just hit record and see what you get

Yeah, you can make something out of nothing. Just describe what you're seeing because so much of, you know, like when you're watching YouTube, you only get to, you know, engage a couple of their senses. They can't smell or, you know, fully feel what a place is like. But if you can describe it for them, like one of our favorite comments that we get is from people who are at home and maybe they have terminal illnesses or they're just too old and they can't move like they used to or their, you know, their budget's not quite there to travel yet. They like to watch and say, I may never get to see those places, but I feel like I've been there because of your videos.

So between the showing of the places and the sounds and all that, we try to convey to people, hey, this is what we're feeling so they can be along for the ride. And even for your trip, I would be super interested if you recorded every day, at the end of the day, you'd be like, this is what happened.

You know, and you just sit there and you're like, you just talk about it and be like almost like a video diary and then you can take that and then you could edit it that way. That way you're not having like, you know, maybe there's a parade in the middle of the street and you're like, yeah, I'm in a parade. Like that's one thing if something's actually happening, but maybe you're just you walked in and explored the neighborhood and nothing really happened. Well, tell that to the camera like as a video diary and then you could use that as voiceover later. So yeah, I think there's three parts to it. I think the trip is the.

videoing like you guys, you just, I don't know, you take a picture of someone in the square or video of someone in the square or whatever.

And there's talking into the camera, like you said, the travel vlog aspect, if you like. And then there's the podcast aspect. think I'm trying to get sorted as well, which we want to come to for you guys. But yeah, you're a bit like me as long you're YouTube, you do do a podcast as well, which is crazy. We are crazy. I don't know what we're doing. We need one more thing. Can you tell people what your podcast name is and what your premise is? It's called What No One Tells You. we our podcast is just kind of like our life. Like we invite our friends in and we talk.

about whatever topic we really want to. It mostly has travel components into it. And sometimes that's us talking about our experiences somewhere in the world, or other times it's talking to people like you, James, and hearing your stories. Because I think at the end of the day, we just want to hang out with friends and hear their cool stories. I'm on my own. I need to hang out with some people.

We just travel. Yeah, it's like our excuse of like, Hey, would you guys come on our podcast? But really just our way to talk to people we've always wanted to talk to. But the idea was originally that we had to bring people on with different expertise of, know, they could tell us something about their niche that we may never have been told. And that was the idea. But half the time it just like ends up being us just learning about their life and something. It was just like talking to people. That's all it is. Yeah, we're very similar in our mantras. think we interview people want to hear their story. And you're week to week as well.

released weekly. yeah, we try. We try. try. The next question is how would you get that going? Because one thing I learned last year with podcasting traveling is it's bloody hard, especially if you're to interview someone. If you're not doing a episode, you're trying to interview someone. I know how you guys find the time to fit that in with YouTube and your travels. Like how do you navigate that?

That's hard, especially when people are in all different time zones around the world. mean, traveling is just really hard to nail down people to get. Like we're all over the place. But yeah, we have a mobile podcasting studio in our truck. then right now we're actually at our co-working space in Chattanooga, which has a free podcast studio to use. So between being on the road and being home, we're usually able to get a podcast in. so and what like our secret is like we try to like within two weeks, we'll like, hey, like we've got two weeks.

let's try to get as many guests within these two weeks as possible. And that way we can just kind of batch it and have three months of content later down the road. Easier said than done. But yeah. Our limit is two interviews a day. We've learned that is our max for being able to produce quality. Our episodes usually tend to be about 45 minutes to hour 15, 30 at the least. yeah, after...

two interviews, I'm just completely zapped because you want to be on and you want to be like giving quality to each person and really engage in the conversation. But after like two and a half hours, I'm done. So we've got a limit of how many we can produce in two weeks, but we've you can produce months of content if you really organize it well. Yeah, I agree with that. Two a day max. I'm like you. I've actually learned this probably in my last year, I'd say, where I do batch recordings. So I will give myself two months off of

any interviews. So I know end of October, like no more for November or December. I'm saying no next year. I think you do need that break because you do get a bit of burnout, especially long format. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I, I enjoy podcasting when I'm doing it, but I, for some reason, the anticipation of leading up to interviews sometimes it stresses me out. Like, I don't know. It's a lot of pressure. having it all like if I'm like mentally focused on that for a week, helps me. Well, like, and you as the host, James, like you're like on your end, you're like, all right, I've got to make sure I've asked interesting questions. And then you're

you know, like listening, trying to like build off of that. Like it's a lot of work, like what you're doing, you know? And it's just kind of like, especially- fun work though. It's fun work. And like we shouldn't, yeah. I'm not complaining. I'm saying like it's just like working the brain in a different way. Like you have to yourself turned on socially. It's like you're hosting a house party, you know? And you have to always be on. Like you're just like, yeah, yeah.

I guessing is super fun there, isn't it? As you guys are now, I it takes the pressure completely off because you know what's coming normally, unless they do questions in advance and it's just like reading off travel stories or anecdotes. Well, that's brilliant, isn't it? think guessing is pretty good fun as well. yeah. yeah. This is so much easier for this side. As soon as we shut this computer, it's out of our hands. whatever. James will do whatever he wants to with it. OK.

I want to circle back round because you do YouTube, you do your podcasts, you're Sort of like this, this might be a bit of hard question really based on what's happened, but you're going to go back to Mexico I'd imagine at some point. So what is the actual aim with your Pan-American Highway trip? Because we really go into detail as maybe what's in store for the future. Yeah. So the idea is to get to Argentina and then we would love to see pretty much, we would love to see every country in Central and South America.

with the exception, guess, of Venezuela. We just want to drive. Say we're doing the Pan-American, that's just this easy goal for people to follow. A lot of people know what that is. And if you don't know, it's the longest road in the world. You can get from Alaska to the end of Argentina, so almost to Antarctica, practically, on one road except for the Darien Gap. So once we get to Panama, we'll have to ship around the Darien Gap to Colombia. We set a goal originally of we would love to be in Patagonia this winter, because you know,

our winter in North America is really their summer. So you have a small window when you're as far south as Patagonia and the winds and the weather's crazy, but that's not gonna happen. So we're looking right now at thinking, okay, we're probably gonna be in South America for at least the next year and a half. But yeah, we're just taking it a day in a country at a time, but that's sort of the plan. We'll probably take off next summer again just to come home to kind of mix up the content, because we don't wanna.

That was something that we heard from other overlanders too. They're like, have to schedule breaks from your rig because you will go crazy after a Yeah. Yeah. So we're thinking, what can we do during the summer when it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere? And maybe that's a good break because our trucks don't have AC and around them will probably still be in the jungle. Yeah, tell me about that. Big lesson learned last year. was... Yeah, you're going to experience it soon. You'll be there. No ACs can be rough.

Who knows? Day to time. cool. And are you going to go to TravelCon in? Yes. Yes. Actually, we just talked to Philip today. you'll be the first to know that we're actually speaking again. that's good. TravelCon. That's the first one I saw. think you might be the first speech I saw at TravelCon. really? think so. Yeah, this year. That's great. man. Yeah. That was a learning curve for us. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. So yeah, we'll be at TravelCon.

I'm excited to be there. Tucson. Tucson, Arizona. Sunny, warm. Will you be there? Yeah, okay. 100%. Cool. I might try and Emma along, because she's half knitting, half travel, right? So it kind of fits into that travel niche, so that'd be quite good. She should come. that'd be so fun. I'm excited to catch up with both of you all again in person. I we should do a podcast where we bring our microphones and do it in person. Get some other people in.

That'd be so fun to like a group podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Like pass the microphone. We have our portable podcast and I say we do that. Well, yeah, let's do this. We'll make it happen. Like round table. Okay, cool. I like that idea. Okay. Okay. I'm going to finish the episode with a few things. have a quick fire travel question feature at the end, which we'll come to. So get ready for that. And before we get into that, can you tell the listeners and the viewers, websites, social medias, and when it can find you YouTube and your podcast? Yeah. So we're.

mostly Chris and Sarah across everything. That's Sarah with no H. very particular about that, but so is the internet. Think of Madonna or Prince. That's Chris and Sarah. That's it. No, christencerra.com. We have a travel blog where we share travel guides. That's pretty much our core information. Our YouTube and stuff has information. A lot of that we like to keep inspiration and really memory-based and cinematic, that kind of thing. If you want our best recommendations of places, go to the website.

We're on Instagram, is sort of where get the behind the scenes daily stuff. So Chris and Sarah underscore there. And then YouTube is Chris and Sarah. And that's where we share our travels, which is currently the Pan American. Right. And I'll put those things in the show notes. One question. and our podcast. yeah, yeah. That's a podcast. We do too many things right now. got to slim the list down. So if you want more of us.

whatever I don't even know they may have had enough they've had enough after this podcast they're like I don't want to listen to those ever again but the podcast is on all the available normal streams right so Apple Podcasts on YouTube so I'll put the links in the chat who's coming up on the podcast before we go into the questions

Who is coming up? I think we're towards the end of our stuff batch. So that's a great question. We have some guests lined up, currently the next episode is a local coffee shop owner here from Chattanooga, but they do some really cool things with travel and work with farmers in like Colombia and Brazil and Mexico. then so we're really excited about that. There's some of our good friends. so that was actually one of the, is that the only in-person interview we've ever had?

We've had one, that was our second in-person, but that was fun. It was a lot of fun. We don't really like, we would love to do more in-person interviews, but it's always hard. probably when you in a small town too. Yeah. I'll tell you what I did learn when I went into podcast movement very quickly is I got a last slot at their little mobile studio by Yap Media, called Yap Media.

and they had a little podcast studio with two proper microphones. The video cameras are all there, the nice sofa. Someone was watching us doing an episode. It really good fun. That's my next episode coming out. So it's like a professionally done episode where I don't have to edit. And there's video and audio. So I'm looking forward to seeing the results of that. Yeah, that's great experience.

I can't wait to check that out. In-person stuff is fun if you can swing it. Wish we could. Wish we could be in person right now, but you're in Vancouver. Let's do it. That'll come. March. You might still be in Mexico by that point. Who knows? gosh. hope not. gosh. Don't say that. By next March, we're going to be crossing into Belize, By the time we retire, we'll be to Argentina. Okay. Quick fire travel questions. Let's go. I don't want you really to think about these. This is what comes to mind.

And as you're couple, there's an interesting dynamic. So I'm to give you one each and one combined on some of these questions. So I'm going to start off with. It's travel question time. Three favorite places between you. So you have one each and one combined. Iceland, Iceland, Glacier, Montana, Glacier National Park. Yeah. And then together.

What would you say, Thailand? Thailand, yeah. Is that how you wanted it? Is that the right format? Yeah, yeah, let's do that. no. Okay, cool. Her heartbeat is up right now. It's stressful. I'm not a good test taker. Okay, next question is, tomorrow, no rules, you can fly to anywhere. Which three countries are new? Would you check out? Ooh.

Three new countries. Uganda, Finland. sorry. That was more than I got a whole list going. New Zealand. don't know. This is so Do three each on that one. There's so many countries. Do three each. Okay. New Zealand, Uganda and Finland. All right. I would do Australia, South Africa and Japan. Got it. I love that you held up your fourth finger for your third.

One, two, four. Okay. Okay. Are you sunrise or sunset? Sunrise. Sunrise. You are in a minority there. Let's do three favorite cuisines worldwide.

Thai. Well, what like what cuisine? you mean like nationality cuisine or like actual dish? Yeah, that could be the dish. You can be as broad or as granular as you'd like. I have to be broad. I don't like specifics.

You go. I don't know. I'm panicking. What's what's the boiled chicken in Thailand? Kalman guy. I love Kalman guy. Just very plain, very basic. I love trying new foods and all the different flavors, but I actually really like plain food. Just like simple. I could probably eat a PBJ sandwich for the rest of my life every day. Fish and chips. Fish and chips from Ireland. That thing was good. And then tacos. Even though I'm a little burned out right now, we eat a lot of tacos in our daily diets. OK, and if tomorrow you're going to live somewhere for a year.

and it's not your home country, where you're gonna live. Thailand.

Thailand? Sure, we'll go to Thailand. I think that's just really on the brain. Yeah. Thailand. If you could sit anywhere in the world with a cup of coffee and watch the world go by for an afternoon, where are you going to sit? Right now? Amsterdam. I think that sounds fun. Cycling. People on bikes. Good cafes. Japan. Okay, cool.

And he can buy it. Yeah, that's fair enough. That was a hint of judgment from James. Yeah. Okay. You failed that one. I don't think I had the answer for that one, so that's good. What about the country's got the best coffee? that's a great... So we've heard that Finland has the best coffee, but... Well, they drink more coffee per capita. That doesn't mean they produce Well, that doesn't mean they produce it. I mean, the best coffee, like, hands down that I have had...

It's either from Guatemala or, I mean. I really love African coffees like Rwanda. Really? Yeah, I do. I like the kind of earthy flavors. So the thing like what's really interesting and maybe we're diving into this, but Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world. You know, they do that, but their coffee within the country is not very good. Sometimes. Sometimes. to find good they typically export it out to the other countries. And so the Brazilian coffee that you have there is really hard.

defined. Someone said the same thing about Colombia on my podcast yesterday. Yeah, I would bet. I think it's just because it's expensive so they can make more money if they export it versus keeping it in the country. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Colombia is good though. A favorite landmark can be nature or manmade. These are hard, James. Mount Rainier. I love Mount Rainier. I kind of want to be a smart aleck.

But what are you gonna say? was gonna say the Bucky statue at the station down the road. no, I won't say that. gosh. Shut up. Favorite landmark. man.

The Gangnam Style statue in Korea. Actually that was pretty cool. Yeah, so that Gangnam Style statue. I would equip that right next to the Bucky statue. is culture right there. Very cultural. Okay, what about plays you didn't like on your travels? I don't know that I didn't not like the plays. I didn't care for the people.

the people we had some bat, and I shouldn't say that either because we had some really nice people too. Ireland was a rough experience for me, actually. And I don't know if that was because I remember. Yeah, I really loved it. The way we got there was somebody like let us stay in his Airbnb for free. And he was incredibly nice and like his family lived in the town and we had such a great experience there. But we also had some really negative experiences in Ireland. Mostly like in a pub, like some old man had just had a few too many Guinnesses. And he was just like.

I mean, we get it. Nobody likes Americans around the world, but like he was really letting me know. And I was just like, OK, I'm done. So I don't know. I think that's my only negative travel experience was Ireland. I want to go back and give it a shot again, though. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you places in the US that I'm like not a fan of. Missouri. Missouri is probably one of them. Like Missouri, the entire state. That's unfair, though. There's good places everywhere. There are good places. And St. Louis is actually a cooler town than what people let on.

But the whole state of Missouri is just kind of like I'm sorry, you know, there's people from Missouri. I know I know I love you, Missouri. Prove me wrong, but go on from there. Okay. Okay. Just a portion of time. But two questions left. Actually one bit of advice. Traveling with a dog. I know we haven't talked about Kramer much, but I love Kramer. Yeah, met him. Great guy. One bit of advice. Traveling with a dog. You're gonna have to travel slow.

You're going to have travel slow and it matters what airline you fly. He fits under the seat from most airlines, least American based. But yeah, just do your research. That's like three pieces of advice in one. Just do your research. takes a lot of research, but when in doubt, just talk to the vet too. But he's such a great conversation starter no matter where we are in the world. Everybody likes dogs. Everybody typically, except for the camp guy. Yeah.

Yeah, if somebody doesn't like dogs, we're probably not going to like them. So it works out fine. Just kidding. I'm kidding. Okay. And one sentence each as to why someone should travel outside of their comfort zone if they're a little bit scared or nervous.

gosh. What's the worst thing that could happen? mean, like, I mean, you could go down that rabbit hole a lot, but like, let's just say like you travel to this country and you're kind of scared. Is it because that country is scary and like there's, you know, some terrorist group there? Or is it really just because it's the unknown and you've heard horror stories? Because I think for us, what we have found in ninety five percent of our ninety nine percent of our travels is that everybody is just friendly and they want to live.

like a human and like, very rarely do you stumble upon somebody that is just wreaking havoc or evil because they want to. Yeah, I'm a very fear based person too. Like I am guilty of letting my fears take over. So travel can constantly be a test for me and I love traveling and I wouldn't give it up, but it has been affected by fear. And I remember I was reading this book one time by Don Miller and I can't remember which book it was in, but it was something along the lines. The quote was like, what if you look back in like 20 years and

the bad things that you were fearing didn't happen. Like, go ahead and like, know, like essentially saying like, do the things in spite of the fear because more than likely it's never going to happen. And that's, I always have to remind myself of that. but what's the best that could happen kind of thing. So.

Great. That's a great way to finish a podcast episode. Chris, Sarah, this is such fun. It's been a while getting you guys on. I'm trying to find you in the world, but now I'm so glad we had an opportunity to come on the podcast, have a great chat. It's just been a laugh a minute, I must admit. Yeah, this was fun. Thank you so much for having us, James. Thank you. No, thank you so much. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel, if you head to the show notes, you'll see some affiliate links below, which helps support this podcast.

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