We are in Panamá, the southernmost country in Central America and our final stop before South America! This week’s video is an engaging look into what it was like for us to cross the land border from Costa Rica to Panamá. Rather than using the busy Pan-American Highway crossing, which is on the Pacific side, we opted for the quieter Caribbean crossing at Sixaola.
I think Eric did a fabulous job shooting and editing this video. It catches a lot of our small-talk as a family as we jump through the bajillion hoops required to leave one country and enter another by vehicle. There’s even a happy dance by Caspian!
Watch now:
Us + YouTube
When we first launched our YouTube channel in early 2021, we were committed to publishing a new video every week. We did so throughout our whirlwind 45 days of building our Gladiator, the final push of preparing to leave the United States for 10-15 years, and the intense combination of learning how to live out of a vehicle in a foreign country with a four-year-old.
By Mexico, our weekly commitment to YouTube was weighing heavily on our family. We would talk about what to do, be unable to find a solution, and basically decide to just push through.
But earlier this year, somewhere around Guatemala, we started putting on the brakes. By Nicaragua, I had convinced Eric to take a hiatus from YouTube and evaluate what he wanted for the future.
Out of that hiatus, Eric made a decision. We still love YouTube for the unique ability it gives us to share our story visually, build community, and document this journey for Caspian when he’s older. But instead of killing ourselves trying to do weekly videos, we’ve been taking a more organic approach to filming.
So these days, we can go a month between videos. But we have a lot more peace at home, and that’s far more valuable. In fact, it’s the only way we’re going to sustain this 10- to 15-year drive around the world.
We hope you continue to enjoy the videos we do publish, and that you’ll stick around even though YouTube tends to penalize accounts that publish videos as infrequently as we do right now.
What’s next?
Panamá’s temporary import permit for our Jeep is good for 90 days (that includes two renewals). So technically we could stay in Panamá until early December. But that isn’t what we’re doing. Instead, we’ve decided to ship to South America in early November! We already have our ship date and a “container buddy” to share our shipping container with. The Overland Embassy is guiding us through the shipping process.
For the month leading up to shipping, we’ll have an Airbnb in Panamá City. We have a lot of logistics to take care of, including repairs and maintenance for the Jeep. It’ll be good to rest up for the huge transition to South America. It still doesn’t seem real.
Thank you for sharing this adventure with us.
-B
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