Category: Family Travel

In “Why South America: Part One” we looked at whether traveling around South America is a safe thing for a family to do. In a nutshell: Yes. Being self-aware and making smart choices, there is no greater inherent risk than riding around North America. This brings us to the Next Big Question: “Nice try, but you’re not going to convince us that South America is safe. If you just want a nice, long vacation, why don’t you just travel around North America for a year? There are plenty of awesome things to see around this place.”

Well, there are a few reasons. First, I personally have explored North America pretty thoroughly. I’ve been to every state and nearly every state capital. I’ve been to every major landmark people think of when they envision U.S. travel, a great many national and state parks, monuments, historical sites, etc., and innumerable roadside oddities, amusements, and general Americana. I haven’t been absolutely everywhere, of course, but the other day I was listening to a random podcast discussing an event in Newfoundland and I found myself thinking “I know exactly where that is. There is a Tim Hortons right there.” Sure enough, they mentioned that Tim Hortons later in the episode. That happens quite often, which makes me feel like I’ve seen more of North America’s best nooks and crannies than your average traveler.

Am I done exploring North America? Not by a long shot. Monty only has barely a dozen states under her belt, so we’ve just scratched the surface of exploring with her. But North America is just so… accessible. With a few weeks vacation, we can wander at a fairly leisurely pace and still reach the distant corners of the continent. It’s so easy to conquer in little bites at a time; while it certainly would be wonderful fun to spend a year exploring North America, I suppose there just isn’t that sense that we NEED a year to explore North America.

South America, on the other hand, requires a greater time commitment for a number of reasons, so the opportunities to do deep travel there are going to be much harder to come by. There will be many international border crossings, something we rarely have to consider in North America. There is the language barrier: my Spanish is rudimentary and my Portuguese is non-existent. There are the logistical issues and expenses involved in getting our bikes to South America (or purchasing vehicles there). None of these things are insurmountable, but they do take time and/or money. Spending a week dealing with a vehicle shipping problem or full day tackling a border crossing could be a huge, frustrating delay in a two-week vacation, but it’s barely a blip in the scope of a year. And if I’m going to spend a year brushing up on my Spanish, I may as well get the most out of it. We’re at a point in our life where we can take a year off to travel, so it makes sense to take advantage by traveling to somewhere that’s hard to fully experience with a tighter timeline.

While there are certainly some expenses involved with getting ourselves and the bikes to South America, the cost of traveling around South America is significantly lower than North America. Budgets are as individual as the travelers themselves, but most overlanders report that one can live fairly comfortably on a budget of $50 a day. Most say that $100 per day would buy a pretty plush existence. Fully self-contained overlanders report overall averages as low as $25 a day. Most campgrounds in North America are going to set you back more than that. Those reported budgets included accommodations, fuel, food, insurance, vehicle maintenance, various entry fees/entertainment expenses, border crossing costs, vehicle purchase/shipping, everything. If we were just looking to subsist on the road in North America, we’d be lucky to keep it under $150 a day. Wanting to have a fun and enriching experience, we could easily spend twice that without ever coming close to “plush”. We do have a loose timeline and budget in mind; the fact of the matter is that within those parameters, we can travel longer and enjoy a greater number of experiences in South America.

There is one more reason, possibly the biggest reason, we chose South America over other destinations: We don’t want to spend a year riding around showing Monty people who look pretty much like her, live pretty much like her, with a culture pretty much like hers. We want to expose her to the wider world, help her begin to understand that there is so much more outside her comfortable, familiar life in the good ol’ USA. South America is our southern sibling, easier to access than, say Africa or Asia. As a continent it offers an absolutely stunning array of people, places and history in addition to the natural beauty of the land. We want to introduce her to new foods, animals, languages, customs, smells, sights, and sounds while she’s old enough to enjoy them and young enough to be impacted by them. I don’t necessarily think that overt racism is behind people’s concern about us traveling “down there”, but it is interesting that a lot of people specifically say that North America or Europe are both inherently safer options. I feel like “safer” is sometimes used as a euphemism for “more like us”.

Having a year to travel with no fixed itinerary, we’re free to be fully immersed in the areas we visit as opposed to just passing through. Am I expecting too much, hoping Monty will come home having shed the need to beg for every new bit of plastic crap they’re screaming about on TV? Perhaps. But after living a different life for a year, becoming friends with kids who don’t have TVs, let alone a constantly rotating buffet of toys, might she begin to realize that she doesn’t actually need those things quite as much as the advertising agencies would have her believe? Perhaps. It might seem like I’m hoping for a miracle, but remember that by the time we return, this trip will account for a full 1/6 of her life experience. That has the potential to make a huge impact on her, and us as a family. What if she just returns with an understanding that people are people, all deserving of respect and kindness regardless of our differences? I’m ok with that too.

-Wendy

We’re going to be eaten by cannibals. Nobody gets eaten by cannibals in Europe, you know.*

*Very slight paraphrasing of the actual words spoken by our moms when we told them about our trip plans. Two wonderful women, whose primary jobs are to think of every possible thing that can go wrong, regardless of how statistically improbable, then caution us strongly against it out of an abundance of love and worry. Love you, Moms!

But seriously, outside of our traveler friends, fear for our safety is the most common response when learning about our trip. Specifically, fear for Montessa’s safety. And not her safety in the sidecar rig, but her safety as a cute little kid in a mysterious far-away land. Aside from the cannibals (?), there are malaria, jaguars, and oddly plentiful and particularly ruthless bandits to panic about. Suddenly all the people who were wringing their hands about Monty riding in the sidecar and totally fine with her being in a sidecar, as long as the sidecar remains on North American soil. Which begs the questions: IS South America safe? Why don’t we just travel around North America?

Statistically speaking, yes – South America is quite safe. And that’s a pretty broad generalization, because South America is an ENTIRE CONTINENT, but several South American countries are actually ranked above the United States according to the Global Peace Index. Regardless, people with no first-hand knowledge just LOVE to say things like, “Oh, I heard about this scary thing that happened in Nicaragua a few decades ago!” Well, that’s in Central America, although I know you’re hoping to impart a sense of dread and are not necessarily looking for a geography lesson, so we’ll just roll past that.

Yes, there has been some unrest in some areas of the planet. But think about this: If there were riots in Washinton DC, would that stop you from visiting British Columbia? We’re talking about totally different countries, with the potential for small, isolated areas of unrest. Heck, if there were riots in Washington DC, it’s very possible that you wouldn’t even be deterred from visiting another part of Washinton DC. When I was in high school, the Los Angeles Riots happened quite near us – only about 20 miles as the crow flies. Other than the news coverage, you wouldn’t have had any indication that anything was amiss in our town, or even towns much closer. We were concerned about the issues behind the riot, but we stayed away from the unrest and as a result we never had any concern for our safety.

As with anywhere else in the world, including our own backyard, we try to make wise choices to have the best chance of staying safe. If you go wandering drunk late at night, flaunting a wad of cash in a bad neighborhood, well… you might just be inviting trouble. If you spend most of your time camping at an isolated spot in the woods, your risk of encountering malicious humans diminishes significantly (although your risk of tangling with a bear or a badger may increase somewhat). The reality, both in travel and your day-to-day life, likely falls somewhere in between those extremes. So we stay aware of our surroundings, make informed decisions about which areas to avoid, and make wise choices about how we handle ourselves.

The interesting thing is, when you talk to people who have actually traveled to these countries, you hear the same things over and over: People as a whole trend towards being wonderful, kind, generous and open all the world over. What you hear on the news is generally a sensationalized account of events that are limited in scope, designed to get views or clicks. Venture just a bit outside the camera’s lens and you’re likely to find good folks who enjoy the opportunity to interact with visitors and welcome your tourism dollars. We’re unlikely to truly convince the people whose job it is to worry about us, but our first priority in the world is to keep Monty safe. That’s true wherever we may roam. OK, so if we assume all things are roughly equal as far as the potential for danger, why not just stay in North America? This installment has run a bit longer than intended, so stay tuned as we delve into that question in Part Two of “Why South America”!

-Wendy