Be Old Later on the Pan-American Highway: What do you really need?

hi guys i'm candice i'm jordan and we're known as be old later on instagram and social media we've been driving the pan american highway for the last two years starting from vancouver canada going all the way up to the top of north america to a town called tak toyaktuk swimming in the arctic ocean and then driving all the way down to south america to the bottom in a city called ushuaia we want to share with you guys kind of what we thought was awesome and probably a lot of stuff that was just like good to have but we didn't actually need so we'll talk about gear but we'll also talk about mentality what do you really need to do the pan american highway and it's not much like if you really get down to like brass tacks you basically just need like the desire to do it like you really want to do something you want to set these goals to get it done we decided to do the pan american highway when we were climbing to the top of the grand teton to get married you need the the push to want to do it getting your head set into i'm doing the pan american i'm quitting a job if i have it i'm putting my stuff in storage i'm sorting out all my loose ends uh for us in vancouver we were renting an apartment we said hey this is our last day in the apartment told the landlord that day we were moving everything into the truck to live out of that full time setting that date to go and having no excuses to hold you back yeah you're always going to have excuses to not do something if you make it so you really have to get out there on the road uh it becomes much easier just to get out on the road and start living which kind of mode of transportation do you want to do we decided to drive our 1997 mitsubishi delica l400 on the pan american we added some bigger tires we added some bumpers for extra clearance and we lifted it about two inches we don't off-road a lot but we wanted to make sure that we could go anywhere we wanted to never miss out on something just because our vehicle couldn't get there some things that were important to us are some off-road lighting we have some kc daylighters you don't want to drive at night but sometimes your day can go a little sideways and sometimes you end up driving at night we added a snorkel just to keep some dust out of the air intake and to possibly cross some deep rivers if we needed to it's a right-hand drive japanese vehicle not ideal for the pan american because you can't get into costa rica or panama you might have problems in nicaragua so we named him bagheera because he's like our little guide along the pan american and when you start him kind of sounds like a panther 2.8 liter turbo diesel um yeah that's about all you need to know we've met people on bicycles you can do it on your own two feet we saw some people in a tuck tuck basically figuring out how you want to do it and and then after figuring out your mode of transportation figuring out the seasons and timeline for yourself are you going to be in the arctic or in the north when it's six feet of snow maybe that's your thing our friends just did it they loved it so we decided that we like to hike we like to climb we like to visit all the national parks the way for us to do that was to hit the summer in alaska and the yukon and the northwest territories and we also wanted to hit the summer in patagonia flexibility for yourself and and figure out what you really want to do maybe you want to be somewhere for a certain festival like dia de los muertos kind of have to plan around that so figuring that out having a loose plan and being able to understand that flexibility is key in these kind of trips after a basic plan is having maps and or a digital tool for navigation very important a phone uh for emergencies and for other issues so definitely some kind of mode of communication is also pretty obvious a bit of saved money yeah when we were researching the trip you can just google how much money does it take to do the pan american we decided that the number we were shooting for was around 30 000 canadian 35 000 canadian look online see what other people have done see how your living style uh goes with their living style if you like to eat out all the time or if you like to cook your own meals or i mean we enjoy a beer by the campfire that costs money yes ash in the beard don't set your beard on fire this is kind of how we set up for sleep at night we have this bit of wood here um that's kind of our bed platform and has like the kitchen and stuff in the back these two drawers come out and they hold our clothes these little wood pieces go right on top it's a little tight in here and you can't stand obviously but you can like fully lay down we have a nice vent fan step one of the day waking up good morning we have this wonderful living space that keeps us warm when it's cold and cool when it's warm we have our ventilation system working which helps out a ton oftentimes the first thing in the morning that you're going to want to do is figure out how to use the bathroom if you're in the woods like this generally pretty easy we suggest bringing a little shovel i always bring toilet paper with you um in south america nobody has it in bathrooms and i went in the woods leave no trace so a little dog bag or something like that to pick up after yourself for the toilet paper if you're in a city you can often find a cafe or a public restroom but uh out in the woods is always the best the second thing for the day for us coffee we're big coffee people we also eat breakfast you can buy food your whole way on the trip but a lot of people don't have the budget for that and we like to cook a lot at home and we brought kitchen stuff with us one of the major things that's important is water food we carry 20 liters with us in a lifesaver jerry can it has a micron filter in it so um you can fill it up in a river and a lake and a gas station a little pump build in and then a tap so you have fresh clean drinking water a little coleman stove has a little hose here it hooks to this mini propane tank it's a five pound tank we started off using the little green coleman tanks but uh we didn't like the idea that you have to throw those away all the time and you're not going to be able to find those very often in south america up top we have all of our kitchen gear so we have a couple uh collapsible bowls that we use for like bowls and plates a pot coffee grinder and aeropress all we use to cook is a skillet and a spatula if you like saving money um in cooking then uh yeah you'll find a lot of this stuff super useful also if you love to cook it's really good to have a fridge we have a dometic 35 liters and keeps all of our groceries cold our produce and our beers cold gives you more time to basically live off the grid um and the fridge is powered by our battery which is powered by our solar panels our electrical system we have two solar panels on the roof both energy one's 100 watt one's a 30 watt they go down through the roof into the van i have our battery box here with a master shut off those shut off the solar panels and this kind of just keeps track of how the battery is doing our battery is in here it's a battleborn 100 amp hour lithium it's a lithium iron phosphate battery you can fully discharge it it was essential to our system because it's super small and lightweight we have a small van and just didn't have room for the big batteries we also want to make sure we got something was kind of more environmentally friendly overall this little app here it monitors amps bolts um what the battery's doing on a day-to-day basis and you can scroll through and see the history of it too of like how much power we've made and used and stuff like that so that's a victron with the battleborn battery it powers like all of our stuff it powers the fridge it powers the lights we have a fan usb outlets that charge our phone and computers and stuff like that the two solar panels charge it perfectly we never did a battery isolator because the sun just keeps it charged so we don't have to tax the vans electronics just to charge a battery it's kind of like a a passive energy system we just leave it up there and it works today we're rock climbing when you're driving down the pen american we like to kind of think of it as maybe like a year or two of just like your weekends you got to think about like what you like to do that'll help determine what kind of gear you need to bring we like to hike we like to backpack we like to climb these are all the things that we thought were essential for our trip so how do you find these things to do um for us instagram has been really helpful you can find other travelers uh hashtag pan american highway and see like oh this this person did this we spent several uh nights um before our trip loosely planning how do we get to those pinpoint them on a map and then all of a sudden you have like a bit of your route based on places you want to see that other travelers have been yeah also on our website buildlater.com we have a section under the pan american highway of rad people people that we've met that we've been inspired by as well so you can check that out you can also find things to do by asking locals this is where spanish does become very helpful so knowing a little spanish before you go isn't 100 necessary but it is very very helpful and when you don't have all the words um using an app like spanish dictionary or google translate obviously helps a lot but knowing simple phrases really goes a long way and if you're open and try to talk to people and practice your spanish it'll help you out a lot and they appreciate you trying so we just finished a workout and we are gross it's really nice to have a road shower in central and south america you can often find places to take shower but this one holds about four gallons of water i just pressurize it yeah so once it's pumped up you just turn it on nice warm water let's talk about fashion on the pan american we have these drawers for each of us for all of our clothes now you have to think about all weather seasons if you're going to be in those situations um for us we like to be in the mountains so having warm clothing like a fleece or a puffy jacket a raincoat for sure and also like long pants and maybe a nice button-down shirt if you need to go somewhere where you have to look presentable like there's a lot of old churches in south america and sometimes you probably wouldn't be super appropriate just wearing like a tank top and shorts a bathing suit for sure so we were in the yukon uh we decided to get these super nerdy uh mosquito shirts they saved our butts a few times from the yukon helicopters okay so we want to talk a little bit about vehicle recovery safety equipment it's always good to have a little extra gas storage sometimes there's a long distance between gas stations the laguna's route the dumpster highway a full-size spare tire make sure you're carrying jacks with you that can support your vehicle we have a bottle jack inside we have a high lift jack on the roof we were lucky enough on the whole trip no flats uh thanks bf goodridge along the lines of tires we do have a puncture repair kit from arb just make sure you know how to use it we also have an arb easy deflator it's good for if you're airing down an air compressor this is pretty essential anytime you're airing down you're going to want to air back up or if you have to patch a tire we do have a set of the maxtrax recovery boards with us in peru we were on this like super slick muddy kind of terrain and the van kind of started to slip sideways downhill the best way for us to get it out was uh just using the max tracks to slowly come backwards mostly we use this for other people if you're using max tracks for others uh be careful tell them not to spin the wheels but try to translate that into spanish and uh i guess it's as good as mine in some countries you're required to have road flares this is from argentina it's kind of just like a little emergency triangle toe strap we've used this a couple times wants to pull a 18 wheeler out of a stuck spot which was a pretty great thing for the delica to do we're a little worried about it because we're a little underpowered but this could help you get out of a situation especially if you're traveling with others along with that there's some shackles it's a fire extinguisher we have a little one that we mount in the van it is mandatory in some countries they will stop you and look for your fire extinguisher as kind of a last resort thing we do have a garmin inreach it's a two-way messenger uh it's given us peace of mind especially like our family's peace of mind that if we're somewhere remote and they really need to get a hold of us or we really need help and we we're stuck and we can't get out we can send a message ping our gps point it also has um sos capabilities if you are stuck in the back country and it helps you basically leave a breadcrumb trail when you're hiking bring a first aid kit um put any of your medicines just general first aid stuff in get a good medical certification have someone teach you how to use all the things in your kit knives we carry a lot of knives with us for like cooking everything from first aid but this is one of our bigger ones and then we have lots of like kitchen knives too last bit of recovery gear we have a couple shovels with us one's our morning exercise shovel as you guys have already seen this one it's just a small spade that uh we could dig a tire out or get unstuck out of mud we have a set of wrenches with us and then a set of like screwdrivers and pliers and stuff like that so if you're driving a weird or old vehicle we carry along an alternator a starter air filters oil filters fuel filter pretty much any parts that we know we're going to go through we have tinted windows uh they're mostly for not darkness but just to keep some of the sun out we made ourselves some window covers making like um like a pattern out of newspaper um and then putting that onto reflectix so inside all of them is a sheet of reflectix and then we used something that would black out from like if you were walking past the van you wouldn't be able to see it and on the inside a bit of like a softer quiltier fabric they cover every single window and we used marine snaps um to snap them into place it would be better if we had reflectix on the outside just because it would keep more of the sun out but uh we opted for the stealth route yeah it just kind of blacks out the window it's good to have a little bit of privacy this one's from tipui great to have in the hot sun jordan think this is essential i think it's a nice to have because we can't stand in the van we can stand out here and in alaska in places that have a ton of huge mosquitoes that just want to eat you up as soon as you come outside netting that goes on this is very very helpful another thing we have is a trasharu we like it a lot because we don't have to keep small bags of trash inside the van we can just take a bigger bag and throw it in the back here it cuts down on the plastic we use there's been a lot of discussion on if you need a safe or not we found it to be very useful hidden in a place where you can store things like your original passports maybe your computers camera gear so it's not just lying out and about while you maybe go hiking for a few days or leave your car parked in a parking lot one more good resource is the pan american travelers association on facebook it's a facebook group uh just join it you can find everything from like people selling cars to current information on different places some favorite apps that we like to use for traveling ioverlander it's basically our camp bible it's also really good for getting up-to-date information on borders uh maps.me great to have as an alternative to google maps especially because you can download maps and have them offline new app that we've been using that is excellent is onyx off-road showing you all of the blm land fsr trails that only works for the us as of now you don't need much you just need to just go yeah have a loose plan um just get out there on the road you'll figure out most of the things you need to if you don't have something you can pretty much buy it anywhere obviously things are different right now with covid but um once this is all over then definitely go it's a well-traveled route you're going to meet a ton of people hopefully other travelers and locals and have an awesome time and you can start by exploring in your own backyard and trying out your gear get out there be old later you can find us on instagram facebook that be old later uh if you have any questions just reach out to us we're friendly we're always happy to answer questions yeah we're always happy to help and pay it forward in any way we can so cool yeah thanks for watching

Channel: be old later

Views: 19,294

Keywords: overland expo, mitsubishi, delica, overland, vanlife, pan-american highway, panam, 4x4, van, L400, how to, gear, be old later

Id: DpPLhG3ce-M

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020