OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Are you getting ready for you next big adventure behind the wheel but you’re not quite sure the best way to do some route planning? We’ve been big fans of Google spatial products for years. They somehow manage to cram seemingly endless amounts of what I’m sure is very complex information in to a super-simple and fun-to-use interface. We’ve used…
Overland advice series, 10 of 10. Neither of us are medical professionals. What follows are our amateur observations. Consult your doctor before making a decision. Malaria The majority of Westerners driving the PanAm do not take prophylactic medicine for Malaria. We never encountered a local who was taking a prophylactic for Malaria.. We found Doxycycline (Spanish: Doxiciclina) to be the…
Overland Advice Series, part 9 of 10: Spend a long weekend in Puerto Vallarta and it’s easy to believe you’ve mastered the Spanish language. The reality is you know how to order a beer and ask for the bathroom. That margarita weekend won’t get you far at the Guatemala border crossing. The first step is to admit ignorance. Una mas…
Overland advice series, 8 of 10: When planning we had a pretty good sense that bandits wouldn’t kidnap us, the truck frame wouldn’t snap nor would we disappear in the Nicaraguan jungle. But we knew from a bit of previous wandering south of the border that the police in Latin America can be corrupt. One of the worst was in…
Overlander advice, 7 of 10: Our first bush camp was on the tip of Baja. We heard from a several experienced boondockers about Playa Tecalote. This beach had no services, no fees, and no fences or watchmen to keep out those evil-doers. It was nothing but undisturbed beach. About the third person to bring it up described it to us…
In place of this Sunday‘s “How-To” we present “Why“ Camped out on the Southernmost shore, Tierra del Fuego. Head on over to Lost World Expedition and read about how 9 months turned into 15.…
This is part six of a ten part series we are doing on overlanding advice. Future PanAm overlanders this is for you. They post each Sunday. We’ve already spelled out our day-to-day budget in our budgeting and costs post, here we have broken costs down by country. Our overall average at the time of posting was $72 per day. We…
After Christmas break and a hard drive failure, we’re back to our overlanding advice series! This is part five of ten. Despite living in the Bay Area I have always been one who prided myself on navigation sans technology. I reluctantly purchased our Garmin Nuvi months before our departure. Getting used to a calm computerized voice dictating my every turn…
Editors Note: this is part four of a ten part series we are doing on overlanding advice. Future PanAm overlanders this is for you. They post each Sunday. Propane was a difficult subject to gather good information on (second only to Malaria medication). Because we had such little information we were never sure if we could get propane at any…
Editors Note: this is part 3 of a ten part series we are doing on overlanding advice. Future PanAm overlanders this is for you. They post each Sunday. Determining a long term budget for a trip like the PanAm is certainly the crux. Before this, our PanAm trip was still a wavering fantasy. Staring at the carefully crafted numbers was…
Editors Note: this is part two of a ten part series we are doing on overlanding advice. Future PanAm overlanders this is for you. They post each Sunday. During our travels we utilized Church’s Camping Guide, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and Footprint guide books. They’re all useful and great for quickly learning a brief history on each place we visited…
Editors Note: this is part one of a ten part series we are doing on overlanding advice. Future PanAm overlanders this is for you. We will be posting these each Sunday. Let’s start by telling you the following: You are going to be okay You will definitely be inconvenienced. Something you bring will probably be stolen. There’s a chance you…
About three years ago it was revealed to me by our good friend Ty (and Logan’s roommate at the time) that Logan’s primary diet was made up of three things: bacon, whiskey, and microwaveable popcorn. A close up never looked so good I was appalled but not entirely surprised. My husband considers himself to be something of a connoisseur when…
Uyuni (pronounced oo-you-nee) It’s best to think of Uyuni as an outpost, not a destination or town. Get in, get stocked up, and hit the dirt road outta there. It is a good place to meet other overlanders and Minutemen Pizza is a great place to waste away an evening. For an outpost of a place it has a bit…