Update

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Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

So, after a long break in posting anything, let’s catch up on what happened over the last few months of the trip and where we are now.

After making it all the way south to Ushuaia, we headed back north via the Carreterra Austral. We spent some more time in the Lakes District, Valparaiso and Santiago, and then finished the long drive over to Buenos Aires. There, we figured out how to ship the Sprinter back to the US, and spent a month exploring the city (running into other overlanders frequently). More on shipping in a future blog post. The end of June marked the official end of the trip, as we boarded our flights to the US and the Sprinter was headed for Jacksonville, FL.

We spent some time with our families and decided to move to Salt Lake City, UT. Quickly, “normal” life set in, living in a house and going to our jobs daily. We were debating selling the van, but after a trip like this we’ve grown attached to our home on wheels, and Utah offers so many opportunities for road trips that we couldn’t part ways with it.

We’ll use the blog for adding some more information on Sprinter maintenance / repairs / upgrades in the future, so stay tuned! And who knows, Nikki and I are both secretly hoping for a new overland adventure in the near future.

Posted in Argentina, Chile and tagged , .

12 Comments

  1. A pause is good for us! Good for you two for keeping the van and continuing to whet your appetite for adventure.

    See you in the PNW this summer perhaps? We’ll be up there exploring the mountains and trails!

  2. Was theft proofing the garage area effective for your trip back? I’ve heard a lot of stories and wonder how realistic they are. I would love to see a post about your experience shipping the van home. We are considering shipping south and driving home.

    Thank you for all the great posts, they have been extremely helpful. Especially the details you’ve included. I was just looking at how you attached the paneling to the ceiling.

    • Todd,

      Thanks for your comment. I believe no measure you take is going to be 100% theft-proof when shipping RORO (based on the same stories you’ve heard), so our approach was to deter as much as possible within reason. Basically we didn’t want to be an easy target, so if thieves wanted something from our garage, they would a) have to work for it; b) cause a bit of attention because it would have to be with Sprinter back doors open and things being ripped out. A willing person would have easily been able to get past our security measures.

      That said, when we got our van back, nothing had been tampered with, I’m pretty sure the unlocked sliding door hadn’t even been opened, and everything looked exactly the same (maybe a bit more dusty) as we left it. So either we were lucky that nobody singled out our van, or our theft proofing worked 🙂

      Jakob

      • Thanks for the information. I was thinking along those lines, but don’t like the idea of showing up in SA and having to buy a new fridge and everything else.

  3. Jakob, when we shipped our Sprinter to Europe last year they instructed us to remove all of our “personal” stuff from the van (we didn’t, just theft proofed it). I was nervous that at some point they would refuse to load the van because there was stuff inside. Did you receive similar instructions from the shipper in Argentina?

    BTW, Great job on getting the van from Colon to Cartagena on the Xpress ferry. About how much was that?

    • I think we were told to remove everything from our van as well… but nobody at the port actually seemed to care. Ferry xpress was about $450 for the van and maybe $100 per person, great deal compared to shipping. It’s incredible how much headache we were spared from that!

  4. We are starting South after Christmas and will be following a very similar route. Thanks for the great travel info and the maintenance/repair detail

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