This season's subscribers to the Patreon channel will get my videos six months in advance and this is how it's gonna work. This week's video the one you're watching now will be on YouTube Next week's video will be on Patreon and to the best of my ability, I'm going to release a new video every week, alternating between Patreon and YouTube If you're a patron, of course, you get all the videos. If you're not a patron, you have to wait six months and then the Patreon videos will be available on. YouTube If you're a subscriber to my Patreon now, do nothing and you'll get the videos six months early.

If you're not, sign up Five dollars a month. Either way, thanks for the support and the link is in the description of course questions. Every couple years there's enough rain for this Creek to flow time to go to. Mexico We're really doing it this just like winging it.

We're kind of like winging it, but not winging it. If you must fly coach drive. When you fly coach, you begin your trip with misery at the airport and you end your trip with misery at the airport. and a business class and a first class ticket for a big enough family will pay for a very long Overland trip.

A car is a storage facility and a mini home on. Wheels You can pull over for fun and stupid stuff because you're on vacation one month. take at least one month for your vacation. Like everything else, it's much easier if you're single of course and this sounds like a rich guy thing.

But I Did a four month trip in 2014 2015. I was paying a Bronx Art Studio rent and I was paying a Manhattan apartment rent and including both rents. The entire four-month trip cost me thirty thousand dollars. Seventy five hundred dollars a month.

A lot of you are choosing careers, choose seasonal work. I've met gardeners and greenskeepers who take off six months every year to go surfing. teachers have two months off, or maybe you can work holidays and save up a month's vacation. If you have a month to get somewhere and back, you can drive two hours or so per day and go out of your way for Extraordinary places we drove two hours out of our way to go to White Sands National Park in New Mexico and it gave us really great enthusiastic energy for the long drive to Fort Davis Texas that day.

Thank you! Oh my goodness. Wow! Look at this. We got our own little section. Splurge by Splurge I Just mean live a little.

Don't count your pennies. Don't do everything on budget. try to have a attitude about cost. Again, this sounds like a rich guy thing, but I've seen what you Americans Drive I've seen your expensive cars and your expensive clothes and your expensive sneakers.

Drive an old Toyota and save your money for Extraordinary experiences. I Think the magic number is maybe 10 grand a month for a month's vacation, maybe a little more. It took me four years to save up for this trip. This was our first family vacation ever and um, I mean we spent a bit more than 10 grand, but not exceedingly more than 10 grand travel during the low season.

We left for this trip on January 3rd and returned on February 6th. Everybody had already traveled during the holiday break. We had everything practically to ourselves. We barely planned and made day-to-day reservations for places to stay.

There were plenty of vacancies, there was no crowds really, and hotels are cheaper on the off season. in Lazaro Cardenas Mexico we had a water park basically to ourselves all to ourselves on a Saturday on Saturday January 28th foreign The best week to visit Yellowstone which we didn't go to on this trip, but the best week to visit Yellowstone I have found is the first week in May Nobody's there and it's when all the little baby animals have been born and you get to see little tiny baby buffaloes. Which brings us to American National Parks Go see them! We went to one on the way to Mexico the best ones are out west California and Utah are the best bang for your buck. California and Utah Each state has a lot of national parks and the drives to each are pretty spectacular.

Can get an annual pass for a hundred and something bucks and it's good for whoever's in the car with you. You'll find like once you start going and getting in the habit of going to National Parks they just become a part of your vacation vocabulary and you'll just start going to more and more. And they really do. They do something to you and they make you really, really love America Some of them will move you to tears.

Yeah! I Feel like I'm riding like a four pound bite? Yeah, Push the button on your right and it should make you go really fast. Bicycles, Especially electric bicycles. You can rent bicycles just about anywhere or you can pack your own God forbid something happens to your car and you gotta get it fixed. If you have bicycles with you, you can still get around the town where your car is being fixed.

good. Rack You're going to be unloading and loading this thing a lot. Get the convenient good rack. The one I got is a cuat and it's for 120 pounds of bicycles.

I Had to cut the fenders off of our van moves because they wouldn't fit on the rack with fenders on them. so I cut the front of the fenders off of them. Built a little plywood rack for X's bike. Electric bikes in particular open up the adventures wider.

you can just cover so much ground and we found once you're on the bikes to let the kid lead or at least let him think he's leading. I Explained to my son this is not a dump nor is it a this is a modest Hotel technically a motel modest Hotel stay one night, maybe two in a modest Hotel They can be gross I'm not sure how many stars this hotel has, but it's definitely not five. In order to go to number two in the toilet, you have to pre-load using the garbage can go and you have to. According to the expert, you have to wipe your butt in the shower.

They can be a little gross, but there's something kind of fun about it. And modest hotels make you really appreciate nice hotels. Oh, it feels like this isn't it. missing a piece.

Missing the seat part hotel with two rooms. If you have kids, do everyone a favor especially the parents and get them their own room. Maybe one or two nights every week of your vacation. at least once during your vacation stay in a nice hotel or a Swank Airbnb I Ain't a rich guy, but I've done uh, rich guy things on other people's dimes.

The swankiest hotels I've ever stayed in are the the Park Hyatt Tokyo the one from Lost in Translation the Four Seasons Santa Barbara some place in San Maritz Switzerland and the hotel cost in Paris I Am not talking about those those hotels I'm not talking about thousand dollars plus per night hotels I'm talking about nice hotels under 500 bones Three hundred Five hundred dollars. When we settled in Mexico for two weeks, we rented an Incredible Airbnb in this little surf town and the cost was about the same as the hole in San Antonio But that's because the Incredible Airbnb was in Mexico and folks are a bit scared to visit Mexico which keeps the prices low. Let's brings us to our final ingredient and the final ingredient to having a non-miserable vacation. Go to a scary but cheap place.

So this is the dream. Driving on the beach. it's hard to articulate the exact effect that Mexico has on me and now on my family. I Can't really put my finger on what it is.

um I Usually just say It's Magic It feels magic. It's little things. We saw whales while we were getting ice cream one night. There we go.

You see him? Yep. I Just got it. There you go. All right, Do you see him? Bud Yeah, mob zombies right there.

I've never seen a crocodile in the wild. That thing is scary looking, but but there are actual no dangers that you absolutely must respect. It's sort of like riding a motorcycle though. Mexico is not remotely as dangerous as riding a motorcycle, but there are some certain fundamental um rules that you have to follow for yourself.

You never ride a motorcycle without a helmet and you never drive in Mexico at night. Um, avoid certain places. Don't mess around with drugs or anything illegal. Keep a low profile.

Etc This was my fifth Overland trip in Mexico I had never been the victim of a crime even when I was down there for four months I Don't remember ever hearing a firsthand account of someone being a victim of a crime only. Oh I know a guy and he told me blah blah blah and on this trip with my family I made a mistake careless Reckless and ignorant mistake Isabelle said the folks in San Miguel told her we should say in Pat's Quarro we drove into Pat's Cuero It was crowded, lots of traffic I didn't see a convenient place to park the truck I was hungry I was cranky so I said let's drive further get a couple hours south closer to the beach where we're eventually going to stay and we'll just stay at the halfway point in this town. called Nueva Italia De Ruiz and I thought we were supposed to say in Pat's Quarro because it was cute. but we were supposed to stay in Pat's Quarro because it was safe.

So I had a temper tantrum. Uh, drove us a couple hours south and we stayed in this dump in Nueva Italia de Ruiz The next morning we absolutely needed diesel. We were out of diesel I filled up the tank in Nueva Italia de Ruiz Got a couple miles outside of town. Two men pulled up next to us on the highway they were in a little.

Mazda I was in a Land Cruiser I could see into the driver's seat. in the passenger seat they had guns in their hands. They pulled us over to the side of the road, but they were not cops. Um I got us out of it by giving them money.

It was a pathetic amount of money. A pathetic, tiny amount of money. But the experience was traumatic. It was.

It was traumatic. It was terrifying. Um I'll tell the whole story in a subsequent episode that's coming up. but that's the gist of the story.

I Made a terrible mistake not saying it was my fault those guys. but I made a stupid mistake because I was being a baby and that was about the halfway point of the trip. So what do you do? do you drive to the nearest airport and fly the wife and kid home? Which? I Definitely, we as a family thought about those guys them. So we're staying in this place to, uh, recover from the trauma of being robbed at gunpoint.

We drove to an all-inclusive resort in a little town called Ixtapa which is basically a fortress Beach town. It's like Fort Lauderdale something super secure. look a falcon left beautiful. Stayed in a hotel on the beach with a lot of families and a little water park for the kids.

X Rode the water slide 84 times in one day which took him four hours and we booked an Airbnb in a little Paradise down the road and when friends ask me how was Mexico I say it was perfect and I mean it. It's almost like the danger is the price of admission. It's like part of what makes Mexico so wonderful is that you've got to be a little bit. Brave There's a there's a bravery requirement and brave people are generally fun.

Thank you patrons for making this trip possible.