SLOW SALLY & CREW

Welcome to our latest adventure!

Slow Sally & Crew are leaving Canada in the dead of winter to drive ~ 15,000 kilometres (that’s ~ 10,000 miles for you Americans) through 3 countries to explore the beaches, mountains, and deserts of Baja, Mexico, and a few gems in between.

For those of you who are new around here, we typically spend part of each year living and traveling in a van. Our adventurous little crew includes:

Nat (me) – Co-pilot & Chief Navigator

Marc – Co-pilot & Chief Engineer

Walter – Adventure Mutt & Chief Security Officer (defending Sally & the crew against small, ill-tempered vermin)

Slow Sally – A far from new but not quite vintage, beluga-like, Class B land exploration vehicle (aka van)

Destination & Travel Plan

We’ve chosen Baja, Mexico as our ‘main’ destination for many reasons. It’s easy to access (and easy to return from in a rush if need be – memories of 2020!) and has an abundance of wide-open spaces, beach camping, hiking, water sports, and spikey, beautiful cacti. Along the way, we’re going to explore:  

• Southwest USA (for the hiking, climbing, back country camping and State/National Parks); and
• New York City (because, can you believe it – we’ve never been!). 

We’re leaving ourselves ample flexibility to adapt and change routes/destinations, so who knows if we’ll stick to this detailed plan. But in the meantime, if you have destination recommendations along this route, let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear your suggestions. Keep in mind that for us, destinations and activities need to be dog-friendly.

International Travel During the Pandemic…?!

We’ve had some friends ask, “Are you sure this is a good time to travel?!”. The answer is “no, we’re not sure” (who’s sure about anything anymore). The surge of the Omicron variant and other more personal considerations made our decision to travel this winter a difficult one. We don’t want to unnecessarily expose ourselves or others to the virus. Also, we want to avoid the possibility of getting stranded due to border closures or other pandemic-related policy changes. We chose Baja and the vast public lands of the Southwest US as our destinations in part because we are familiar with the border requirements and they will be ideal for social distancing and safe outdoor activities. We will take precautions and be as flexible as needed to be safe. One of the key precautions included purchasing travel insurance that covers COVID-19 health care costs.

Another important factor in our decision to travel: all Canada and no Latin America makes Nat a dull girl 😉

Follow Our Journey

For those of you interested in following our adventure, we’ll be blogging and posting on social media on a regular basis (links in the sidebar).  We’ll also be tracking our progress on the Track My Tour app, which provides detailed real-time data about our location and route (perfect for any of you map nerds, check out the link).

Preparing for Extended Van Travel

We often get questions about what’s involved in preparing for long-term, international travel in a van. I usually skirt this question because there’s a lot of planning and preparation that goes into a trip like this (oh, the checklists!) and the answer is not easy to give on the spot.  Given the interest in this topic, we’ll make our next post all about it.