Safety

Staying Safe on the Road

One of the best ways to keep safe, of course, is to avoid unsafe regions.

This doesn’t mean that you should avoid countries with some unsafe regions. For example, during our trip through Mexico, Central America and South America, we traveled through several countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico with unsafe regions. But, with a few exceptions, we never felt unsafe in the regions of these countries that we chose to explore and travel through. Of course, there are some countries, e.g., Venezuela, that you should avoid altogether. As Fred Cook, a fellow overlander, wrote in one of his blog posts, “If your country’s diplomatic mission is drawing down (pursuing a “voluntary” or “ordered” departure), or worse, closing, it really is time for you to be somewhere else.” We think that this is good advice.

There are two great sources of information on safety issues in different countries and regions. The first is iOverlander. And the second is the U.S. Department of State, which publishes travel alerts, which you can get by enrolling in the U.S. Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. You can also make it easy for your country’s consular to find you using the smart traveler app. 

Avoiding Accidents

Vehicle accidents can happen, especially during overland expeditions.

Here are a few best practices that we’d recommend following to avoid them:

• Buy and install a good backup camera – The wider the angle of view the better.
• Have a good mechanic complete a comprehensive inspection of your vehicle at least once a year and ideally more often.
• Develop a communication system with your driving partner for getting into and out of tight spaces, e.g., “half turn left” (turn the steering wheel a half turn to the left), “full turn left”, “half turn right”, “full turn right”, “straight back”, etc.
• Don’t drive at night.
• Learn how to check your vehicle, including your brakes, chassis, tires and wheel nuts on a regular basis.
• Take your time.

Tips and Tricks

One of the biggest challenges we had during our trip through Mexico, Central America and South America was navigating through small towns with narrow streets, including small colonial towns. This was a particular problem when construction forced us to take a different route. After a few stressful experiences, we learned a trick. We hired a taxi or tuk-tuk to get us through the most challenging towns, especially those that were under construction.

Avoiding Food and Water-Borne Illnesses

If you are traveling through Majority World countries, the risk of food and water-borne illness is fairly high.

Most food-borne illnesses are caused by contaminated:

1) Raw, or undercooked foods from animals, including raw or undercooked beef, eggs, fish, pork, poultry, or shellfish and unpasteurized (raw) milk.
2) Raw fruits.
3) Raw vegetables.

To avoid food-borne illnesses avoid:

1) Raw or undercooked food from animals including unpasteurized (raw) milk.
2) Raw fruits (unless they can be peeled), including freshly squeezed juice.
3) Raw vegetables, including fresh salsas.

Try to eat hot foods since high heat kills most of the germs that cause food-borne illnesses. To avoid water-borne illnesses, avoid drinking untreated tap water unless you have verified it is potable. To avoid polluting the earth with plastic bottles, either find and fill up your water bottles with potable water or treat tap water with a SeriPen or a water filter.

Tips and Tricks

If you don’t have a water filter, you can buy a large, 5-gallon bottle and then refill it at stores that sell these bottles along the way. Different countries often have different water bottles, so this will enable you to use one bottle across multiple countries and to recycle all of the bottles that you use.

Avoiding Getting Mugged and Pickpocketed

The most important (and obvious) best practice to avoid being mugged is to avoid driving, walking, and even taking a taxi through unsafe areas, especially at night. In addition to asking for advice from locals, one of the tools that we use to avoid unsafe areas is iOverlander, which includes location specific warnings, including reported thefts. Avoiding being pickpocketed is difficult since pickpockets are often skilled and work in teams.

Nevertheless, here are a few recommendations:

• Avoid wearing a backpack with pockets and zippers on the back of the backpack. Consider buying a small lock for the main compartment of your backpack.
• Be aware of your surroundings or, in other words, maintain situational awareness, especially in areas where pickpockets frequent, e.g., bars, bus and train stations, hotel lobbies, restaurants, tourist attractions, etc.
• Keep your credit card(s), money, passport, etc. in a money belt. If you don’t have a money belt, hide your wallet in a secret compartment, e.g., in your jacket, or, at a minimum, keep it in your front pocket.
• Never put your phone down on the table.

Another risk is getting mugged by taxi drivers (or driven to a location where others are waiting to mug you). To reduce this risk, ask locals to call a taxi for you or, even better, take an Uber. In addition, it’s a good practice to talk to the driver before getting in the taxi to gauge whether you trust him or her. This is a common practice, even with locals, in dangerous cities like Rio de Janeiro. In addition, if you do take a taxi (vs. an Uber), don’t forget to negotiate the rate with your taxi driver before getting into the taxi, especially in taxis without a meter.

Avoiding Vehicle Break-Ins

The risk of your vehicle being broken into is based on how secure your vehicle is and where you park it. For example, when our pop-up camper was down, there was no way to get into the camper. So our focus was ensuring that we didn’t leave anything valuable in the truck cab and, of course, preventing the entire rig from being stolen.

Here are some recommendations to avoid vehicle break-ins:

• Avoid parking your vehicle in remote locations, including trailheads, where it can be broken into or even stolen. Park it somewhere secure and get a ride to the trailhead instead.
• Consider installing a safe in your vehicle to protect your most expensive possessions including your camera, computer, etc.
• Consider using a steering lock as an additional deterrent.
• Install a Ravelco device to avoid your car from being hot-wired and stolen.
• Consider installing security film on your windows to make it more difficult for thieves to break into the cab of your truck (security film also prevents rocks from cracking your windshield).
• Use a tracking device like a Tracki GPS Tracker so that you can track your vehicle in case it gets stolen.
• When parking your vehicle in cities or towns, keep your eye on it and try to park it in a busy location, e.g., in front of a busy restaurant or store.

Additional Recommendations in Higher Risk Countries and Regions

Here’s a few additional recommendations for countries, or regions of countries that are less secure:

• Avoid wild campgrounds and even many informal campgrounds.
• Never drive at night.
• Trust your gut and your partners’ gut. If you don’t feel good about an informal campground or wild camping area, don’t camp there.

Dealing With Authorities

One of the questions we always get about overlanding, especially through Mexico, Central America and South America, is how corrupt the police are and whether we had to pay lots of bribes. In our experience, and in the experience of the vast majority of overlanders we have met, corruption in these regions is pretty rare. However, it does happen.

If you are asked for a bribe, remain calm and pursue one or both of the following approaches: 

• Act like you don’t know the local language.
• Ask the authority to write you a ticket and direct you to the police station to pay it. If the authority is after a bribe, he or she typically won’t have any interest in writing a ticket, never mind having you go to the police station to pay it.
• If you have committed an offense and are asked for a bribe (vs. being handed a ticket), determine if the bribe is reasonable and, if it is, pay it. At the end of the day, this is what locals do. But if it isn’t reasonable, revert to one or both of the strategies above.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Before you leave on your trip, make 2 laminated color copies of your license and passport and 2 color copies of your registration. When asked for your documentation, hand these over. Never give a police officer or any other authority your license or passport. Also, when you are crossing borders (or soon thereafter) make a copy of your TIP and never give your original to a police officer or any other authority. If you are an American citizen, consider ordering a US Passport Card. US Passport Cards can’t be used for international travel, but they are a real ID which can be used for domestic air travel in the US. Finally, remember that authorities don’t have a right to question your temporary import permit or visa after you have entered the country legally. All they have the right to do is to enforce the local rules and regulations, e.g., speed limits, while you are there.

Off Road Driving

Off road driving is a skill that you will develop over time. We took a one day off road driving and recovery course in Moab, Utah from John Marshall with Coyote Adventures before we left for our overland expedition from Colorado to Argentina. The course was good but it was also expensive. So we’d probably recommend getting out there and doing some easy and then gradually harder off road driving before your trip. If possible, do this with another experienced overlander. You can also use YouTube videos to learn and practice recovery techniques on your own. One thing that we always avoid is driving too fast. Take it slow and easy and never put your rig (or life) at risk. As an overlander, time is something you typically have plenty of so don’t rush.

It’s important not to overuse 4WD on pavement. If one tire in a 4WD system slips on dirt, mud, sand or snow, there is a slip factor. In other words, if one of the tires flips, the other three take on the extra burden and pull the vehicle over the terrain. The sharper you turn, the more the engaged front wheels will shimmy. This is due to the front differential trying to apply equal wheel spin to both tires when the outside tire actually needs to spin a little faster as you make a turn. In contrast, on dry pavement, none of the four tires will slip. So when one wheel needs to rotate a little faster, like when you are turning a corner, it puts pressure on the drive train and something could break. The following article describes when you should shift into 4WD.