In search of community...

Well hello!

It’s been a while since my last newsletter, or post, or whatever we are calling these virtual check-ins.

I ended up driving my van alllll the way down to the southernmost city of South America. It’s a little place called Ushuaia… well, it’s actually not so little. It’s a proper city and doesn’t feel anything like the advertised “end of the world”. But, I made it!

2 years, 4 months, 14 countries, 1 new dog best friend, and more than 30,000 miles (48,000 km) in a Ford Transit van that I built myself into my home-on-wheels. My goal was never to reach Ushuaia, but I picked this spot on the map to give myself a direction: south. For a while, I didn’t even consider this phase of my life a “trip”. It was more of a lifestyle change.

There was never a true objective to reach a certain destination, so getting to Ushuaia didn’t feel too special. But the days leading up to reaching the iconic wooden signs were filled with more emotions, primarily gratitude. So many memories, beautiful people, incredible landscapes, lessons learned, euphoric moments, and major struggles.

As I’m writing this, over a month has passed since driving as far south as possible. I am now in Uruguay after having driven up the entire coast of Argentina, leaving the guanacos behind. (If you don’t know what guanacos are, I highly recommend googling them… they’re my new favorite animal.)

I’ve now processed this phase of my life more. The big trip - as I’m now calling it - has ended. And it feels like it’s come to a natural end. It’s time for something new. Living in a van just for the sake of living in a van is no longer what my soul craves. I did the thing, and it was amazing. Time for the next phase.

I drove through the endless white salt flats of Bolivia at 120 km/hr, pretending I was in one of the 283 Fast & Furious movies. I saw lava in volcanoes with my own eyes. I explored every crevice of Patagonia. I spent days at 115°F (46°C) and others in the freezing cold above 5000 meters. I tried and failed to summit Cotopaxi in Ecuador. I hiked too many trails to count. I ran like a child with Paquito (that dog best friend I mentioned) on countless beaches until we both had no energy left.

These things became my new normal. As I’m allowing myself to step back from the life I’ve been living, I have to remind myself that this wasn’t normal… in order to not take it for granted. This lifestyle change became my regular life, and it’s important for me to realize just how amazing and fortunate I am to have lived these experiences. Sometimes I find it hard to truly understand how beautiful some moments are as I’m living them.

How lucky am I that…

I can choose to go on adventures like this one.
I am privileged to even have this choice.
I had the confidence in myself and trust in the universe to make that decision and follow through on it.
I trusted my gut and just started driving south.

And it’s not simply special because few people do this. It’s special because it’s something I really wanted to do, something my soul truly craved for whatever reason.

Not the me influenced by society.
Not the me influenced by the uniform, suburban neighborhoods I grew up.
Not the me trying to impress anyone.

Just the “real me” who wanted to have some fun, enjoy life, learn new skills, experience new things, see beautiful places, speak a new language, and be shaped by all of this for the better.

And WOW does the world feel so much smaller after I’ve quite literally driven a car through a good chunk of it.

With all of this reflection, I’ve been doing a lot of feeling. I can feel in my physical body that this is the end of a beautiful chapter of my life.

Instead of holding on, I am embracing the next chapter, which has (thankfully) made itself very clear to me lately.

After 8 years of nomadic living, I crave community more than ever. Maybe that’s amplified by the fact that I have recently turned 30. That still feels weird to type.

I crave physical community. Real human beings. Brotherhood. Friends to be in the same space with, enjoying life together. Honestly, I miss having close friends. As I get older, that’s something I’ve come to terms with… that I will need to be in a physical space for some time and nurture relationships with people in order to fill this empty cup in my life.

This is the one major downside (at least for me) to being as nomadic as I’ve been this past decade.

So, what’s my solution?

Of all the places that I visited on this trip, my favorite place is still Baja California, Mexico. Without. A. Doubt.

It checks so many boxes for me: remote and beautiful nature, a community of like-minded people my age living out of vehicles, great food, and lots of adventure for overlanding, hiking, water sports, etc. If you are active, like the outdoors, enjoy living in other countries, and get a kick out of learning another language and eating good food, then Baja is the place for you!

It’s certainly the place one of the places for me. A place I’d like to have as base for a little bit, seasonally, or in whatever form this ends up presenting itself.

I haven’t stopped thinking about Baja since leaving. Not once. I always knew I’d be back.

I want to create something there… something that I would personally love to be a part of… something that I will absolutely crush with the skillsets I now have. I want to have a meaningful community to be a member of.

My plan is to move to Baja from November 2025 to March 2026.

I’m going to gather a group of other adventurers like myself, people I’d want to be friends with, and lead some overlanding tours throughout the Baja peninsula. They will be one-to-three-week-long adventures (probably), where we’ll explore the natural beauty that Baja has to offer, share meals together, and drive to some really remote places.

Some of the most fun I had on this trip was making a caravan with other travelers and spending a week to a month driving, exploring, and camping together. The bonds I made with friends in Mexico and others in Bolivia were really special. Of all the 2.5 years that it took me to drive from the USA to Argentina, those moments driving through the beach and salt flats, talking on the walkie-talkies, and organizing our off-road GPS routes stand out the most.

Life is better in a caravan.

So, welcome to my announcement!

I’m going to create a Baja overlanding expedition “business” (let’s call it a project instead) and lead other people on tours throughout this part of Mexico. We will cross the border together (a daunting task for those not used to it) and visit everything from the wine region of Tecate to the remote beaches of the south with dolphins, whales, and other marine life to see daily from our SUP boards.

I’m going to create something that I would have loved to be a part of... A group of travelers coming together for a couple of weeks of adventure in some of the most remote, beautiful places I’ve been to. Sharing meals. Swapping stories. All while setting down some ties to Baja and opening up that door for the future to see where it will lead.

It’s somewhere I could easily live.

It’s somewhere I want to be.

Why not try it out?

I thought it’d be fun to build this project live, documenting in real-time everything that goes into creating, launching, and promoting a business like this.

This won’t be my first entrepreneurial endeavor, but it will certainly be the most complex!

I’m excited to build this thing and to have you follow along as I figure out what I’m doing each step of the way. Expect the next email in this series to be a giant roadmap of everything that needs to be accomplished to make this project a success… along with what it means to “fail”… because I can’t write these newsletters without getting a little into the workings of the soul and my feelings. 🙃

As always, thanks for reading.

❤️
-Alex