Simplicity

We have just completed a huge overhaul of our home’s electrical systems. It started in Brasilia and finished yesterday at last in Uruguay. Our problem was apparently a defective battery system monitor which sent mixed signals to our 3,000 watt inverter which read low voltage signals at inopportune moments. So far the problem has not reappeared so as we prepare to enter Argentina at long last after several false starts we think it’s finally fixed.

One of the selling points of living on wheels is the urge to simplify, to live with less, most straightforwardly to live in 70 or 80 square feet. But is it the simple life that we have chosen? 

We aren’t nomads to save money or live simply or be rebels, but in order to travel. The other stuff is nice but living on the road is a pleasure for both of us.

Compared to many travelers we are much less goal oriented in South America. We did start with a fixed point on the horizon but   after we reached Ushuaia in Christmas 2024 we found ourselves enjoying just being in South America. As always when taking a self portrait I assume the posture of a hostage under duress:

Other travelers we met in this road have completed their South American expeditions, long since, and have shipped home to resume daily life or in many cases have taken up European journeys yes but we have settled into a long squiggly meander to nowhere and everywhere. 

We designed GANNET2 to be our home in retirement rather than to be a vehicle to reach the southernmost city or to drive the longest road in the world. To be our home we wanted a certain level of comfort which creates a level of complexity not necessarily seen in overland vehicles. 

Starting out from Florida air conditioning was a requirement, at first 110 volts but this was revealed to be inadequate and after sweating it out in the Amazon we wanted a more efficient 12volt unit. That was a big expensive change. 

We have a microwave and we use it. An air fryer…induction stove and a decent sized fridge which started out as a 110 volt unit but in Buenos Aires we also sought more energy efficiency and had it converted to 12 volts.

We made a very deliberate decision to build a suburban home on wheels. Most recently we added a gasoline heater fed by our fuel tank to heat our home, a feature as necessary as air conditioning we discovered when we lived through high altitude and high latitude journeys. For winter in Uruguay it’s a life saver. We live small but we do not live simply by the standards of most travelers. We have our own toilet too which is often preferable to suffering through public toilets or shrubbery. In some respects we blend in perfectly with the homes we park amongst on urban streets.

We don’t have hot running water or an inside shower but we are sybarites compared to the more run of the mill would- adventurers seeking goat tracks  to drive in the Andes. Hugh and Sue from British Columbia currently in Denmark:

Overlanding for good from Utah now back in the US:

A pop up camper on a Toyota Tundra for a family of four seen in Argentina:

A European couple we met one afternoon in Ecuador, naked not noted in my photos because I wasn’t too bright: 

Hubert and Agnes from Germany first crossed paths in Chile then Paraguay and latterly Brazil now home spoiling their grandchildren:

And now here we are driving in circles still marveling at things to see from the comfort of our only home, our not so simple home filled with wires and dreams and plans. Ecuador two years ago: 

Webb Chiles, a sailor who has been around the world in an 18 foot open boat and who rounded Cape Horn alone bailing his sinking boat remarked on my notions of simplicity as we struggled over the past several months to modernize our electrical systems. His sixth circumnavigation he undertook on a 24 foot sliver of a boat fully equipped with a toilet bucket and jugs of water for plumbing and rechargeable lights for an electrical circuit. Heat is from clothes and cooling from the breeze. Seen in Marathon in 2017 this is GANNET, the original after which our Promaster is named. 

Built in Santa Cruz California where I used to live (I delivered pizza in my youth to the man who designed her), a weird coincidence. This lightweight downwind racer was never designed to be a home or to sail around the world. But this one did and it managed somehow without a microwave. The great cabin of GANNET: 

Webb said it was okay to use these photos of his home afloat and I wanted to point out rapidly I would have a tough time spending months at sea aboard GANNET crossing an ocean. Webb revels in it, out of touch eating freeze dried food, reading, thinking and sleeping. Coping with actual simplicity. 

Search Webb Chiles in youtube for various videos describing this sailing life.

We have spent twice as much money on our refit as Webb spent buying GANNET in the Midwest and trucking her to saltwater years ago.  Simplicity is a relative concept. 

If it isn’t already obvious let me say it out loud: my level of simplicity would keep a peasant family living in the Andes in the highest level of luxury they could imagine. I don’t miss hauling wood for the fireplace these past two months or breathing wood smoke. I may enjoy my Walter Mitty fantasies of being a simple man but I know I’m not that. I have evolved for good or ill into a sybarite who likes his comforts. 45 years ago I traveled without even a tent sleeping under the stars. Today I am rather different. The Tropic of Cancer in Mexico 42 years apart:

Our plans for European travel? After Rusty we could buy a 90 day Eurail pass, first class of course, for a thirteen hundred bucks each and travel like our youthful back packing selves leaving the driving and the fuel costs and the parking headaches to someone else. Travelers evolve, for better or worse. My idea of old age simplicity: 

No microwaves allowed. I will suffer manfully in old age. For now we drive.