What we used most frequently throughout our travels:
First off, your holy grail is going to be the iOverlander app. It’s a little cumbersome to use but it’s incredible for travelers and is geared towards overlanders. It’s a free app that can be used offline and shows where to find free camping spots, campgrounds, hotels, WiFi, grocery stores, laundry, restaurants, mechanics etc in any area of the world. Plus, it is constantly being updated by other travelers. Through the app, you can read reviews and even see pictures of some of the places to determine where you want to stay for the night. And if you do use it, help expand the database and other travelers by adding in your own entries. It’s incredibly beneficial when you see current check ins. It was hands down the biggest asset to our overlander experience.
Honestly, it’s just a great resource when traveling in general.
Depending on where you want to travel, another great resource are Facebook groups. Since we drove from San Diego, CA to Panama, we joined Baja Overlanding, On the Road in Mexico and PanAmerican Travelers Association. These were fantastic. If you’re hesitant about something or have a question…ask the group. The people that are part of the group have either already gone through what you’re about to or have similar questions. We got great recommendations on which routes to take, volcanoes to hike and paperwork that was needed. We even met some of the people in the group in real life on our travels!!
The last resource that we used daily is an app called TripCoin. We were introduced to this app by another overlander family and it was a game changer. Basically, it’s a budget app. You can set your budget for your entire trip as well as a daily budget. Our daily budget was $100 so after every purchase, I would input it into the app and it would total everything we spent for the day. You can even create your own categories like groceries, gas, tolls, etc. Under the statistics tab you can then view a breakdown on how much you’ve spent in each category or country. Another cool thing is that you can input a purchase by the countries currency which means you don’t have to convert each purchase yourself. We found this to be extremely helpful in keeping us on track with our budget.
Instagram is a great way to document your trip, not only for yourself but for family and friends too. Plus, when you meet other travelers it’s fun to exchange Instagram handles so you can continue to keep in contact and follow along on each other’s journey. You might even find some new places that you want to add into your route because of pictures you’ve seen on Instagram…we did!
If you’re not into social media, another great option is Polarsteps. This is trip planner and tracking app. You can record your route automatically or input it manually so your family and friends know where you are in “real time.” You can also connect with friends to track their routes and vice versa. Plus, you can add a description with pictures at each of your destinations. Sebastian was great about updating our Polarsteps and it’s been fun to look back and see everywhere we’ve been.
Depending on where you travel, you might not have access to WiFi but still need to reference a map…that’s where Maps.me comes in. This is a great source for offline maps. We first learned about Maps.me when we traveled to Cuba and left it on our phones in case of an emergency. This is an app where you can download a map, choose your route and be on your way. It’s nice to have in your back pocket because technology is not always fool proof!
Necessary but may not be the best option:
- Garmin GPS
- Google Fi
We used a Garmin as our GPS for the van. We chose it because it can work offline and had good reviews. Mexico was great but Garmin apparently doesn’t have maps for Central America which was an issue…obviously. We ended up downloading another brand’s maps and they were just OK. For the most part it led us in the right direction, but there were countless times where it would take us off a nice highway to lead us through a small, narrow town only to enter back on to the highway. We learned to be cautious with the directions and always double checked the end destination before starting to drive. GPS is 100% necessary…in my opinion but I can’t fully recommend Garmin if you’re heading to Central America.
Lastly, before we left on our trip, we asked around, in the Facebook groups, what travelers recommended for a phone plan and Google Fi came up a lot. We were under the impression that through one of their plans, you can use your phone plus data anywhere in the world for a very reasonable price. In the beginning of our trip, Google Fi worked great. However, after our third month on the road, we got a notification from Google Fi that our international usage for data was up and in order to continue using data internationally, we needed to go back to the US for a period of time to reset our plan. This meant that we could still use our phones to make calls but couldn’t text media or use data (i.e. WhatsApp, internet, Instagram, etc.). We had no idea this was a thing (probably something hidden in the pages of their agreement) but we weren’t going back to the US to “reset” our plan so we just used WiFi…which actually wasn’t terrible…for the remainder of our trip. I know a lot of travelers will also get prepaid Sim cards which work great, you just need to keep tabs on your minutes and data usage.
I hope this helps in giving you an idea of what resources will help make your travels run a little more smoothly and as always, if you have any questions…please don’t hesitate to reach out!