Dangers of Traveling and Living in a Van

What's up guys and welcome back to our van life series. We're here to talk to you about everything you need to know about living in a vehicle. Today we'll be talking about safety in a vehicle and everything all the tips that we've learned while we've been living in the van on how to keep safe. It's been quite a while as well I've been in this thing for about five years driving through the Americas from Chile to Alaska. Those of you who have followed our travel series will know that. Yeah. Yeah and those of you that don't know that should go and watch it because it's really good. Anyway. All coming up. Let's get on with that. Okay guys this video is not about security gear. We did a separate video about the equipment and gear that we use to keep our stuff safe and sound whilst we're out and about exploring. If you want to see that it's linked up there. This video is about personal safety and how you can stay safe whilst living in a vehicle because let's face it often you're sleeping in places you're not familiar with or visiting new lands and exploring and having all that good van life fun which is why you signed up to this crazy lifestyle in the first place right? So our first tip is to kind of make sure you know your area and know where you're parking for the night. Sometimes it's impossible to do that because you rock up in a town very late and you don't really know what's going on around you. So when we rock up at a new town we usually rely on GPS to get our bearings and to locate a good safe area to park up or to spend the night. Rivers, beach access, quiet cul-de-sacs or even sometimes industrial areas are the kind of things that we might scan the map for. The problem we face is finding these safe areas isn't always possible when we don't have an internet connection. That's why we rely on offline mapping apps such as Maps.me which is a really really popular with the overloading and travel community. Yeah it is popular and it's super useful because it allows you to download maps for the entire regions before you go offline but mainly it's the app of choice because it has an offline search facility. Yeah this is really important and it means like in an emergency situation you have something that you can rely on to locate places like police stations and hospitals. Yeah and even 24-hour businesses, ATMs, toilets, accommodation if you need it, even wi-fi connections that are near your location. So offline GPS apps like Maps.me can do all of that. That's why it's really useful from a safety perspective but also generally for travel. That's why so many of us use it and why we recommend that you guys go check out the app also. So keeping safe by making sure that you're in a safe area and if you can't find a safe area... Sometimes you don't know though as well like sometimes a safe situation can kind of turn unsafe. You know what I mean? Like it seems fine, everything always seems fine and then something goes down. Guess where there's tips for that too. Yes let's get into those ones. Okay so if something does happen to you in the middle of the night people come and try to get in your car or whatever and one tip is to make sure that you have your seat clear just in case you do need to drive away very quickly and make sure that your keys are handy so you can grab them quickly and get in. Sounds like common sense right but honestly like you can lose your keys in a vehicle. They're in my jeans pocket, I've got to get out of here. Where are they? Where are my jeans? No they're not here. You don't want that situation to happen. You want one place where your keys should be at all times. The ignition works fine or you know a hook somewhere near the other door if that's where you want to keep them but just know where your keys are. Always have them in the same spot so your reaction is just to grab get in and go. Another safety tip if somebody comes into your vehicle at night is we mentioned this in the security equipment is to have a headlamp available and easily accessible so that if somebody does come and knock knocks on your door instead of putting on your your light so they can see in you have a headlamp so you can shine it on them and see who it is so they kind of get blinded or like shocked and scared or if it's just the police wanting to say hi No do that to the police too. They do it to you when you get pulled over by the police the first thing they do is put their shiny spotlights onto your wing mirrors so it shines in and blinds you and you can't see them walking up so when they knock on the door in the middle of the night get your headlight and shine it in their face see how they like it. Tell them I told you to do that. Another tip for parking at night in an unfamiliar area is to make sure that you can have an easy escape route so making sure that you're parking with your nose out so you can easily go forward not having to back out if somebody does try to like to go behind you and block you in that's not a good situation if you're going to be stuck there so making sure you have an easy escape route yeah we always park with our nose facing out so we can drive away with multiple exit routes if possible it's not always possible i hope this video doesn't scare you guys because like this is just all kind of safety and like you know precautions for what if and that is a conversation that we have as well isn't it when we arrive somewhere that we're not sure about and we'll just talk through what do we do in this situation and get a vibe from each other yeah that's a very good point i think if you do feel i feel unsafe in an area just have a quick chat with your partner whoever you're with or if you're on your own try to like think of a plan of what you do if something would happen and just to kind of like get you prepared just in case we're not really gun people we don't have a gun we cross a lot of international borders too so having a gun would be problematic for us we have a spear gun for catching fish but that's a whole different story so let's talk about weapons we don't really feel like stabbing anybody although we do carry a machete and have used it occasionally it's more just to scare people hola mexico so what do we use in terms of weapons to keep people keep ourselves secure we have pepper spray and bear spray and bear spray for bears or humans if they really you know step over the line we have can you grab that for me pepper spray which is easily accessible which is great because it's right next to the door so if we have i can't even get it open it really is accessible so and it's tiny as well so it's next to the door so if anything happens we secretly get it out have it in our hand and ready to go if we need to so it looks tiny but it's a good idea to have something like this tiny so just in case usually if there is going to be a situation um people come to your to your van to check you out first approach you kind of nicely and suss you out a bit so if you are do feel unsafe when that happens it's a good idea to have one of them just prepared in your hand it's quite little hidden if you if you do need to use it you've got it there i think that's a good point leah because um you know people think about um personal safety in the van and they think that you know someone's going to come up and smash the window in the middle of the night and drag you out like an angry bear that's probably not going to happen what's much more likely to happen is somebody comes up and susses you out yeah you know they start like okay friendly you seem vulnerable and you've got some stuff and we've been scoped and checked out by people we've also been distracted by people and have other people sneak around and steal our stuff so that's another thing as well is always make sure that you have your eyes on the prize like all the time you know where all of your stuff is never have anything out of sight so it can get stolen and if somebody does engage you in conversation make sure that they that you're not looking away from your vehicle because the chances are they're working in pairs and somebody is lifting something from behind you so just spin around and have them facing so you're facing your vehicle and they're in between you and your vehicle and then you can keep an eye on everything yeah so bear spray and pepper spray we usually have obviously our doors locked at night and our bear spray and pepper spray by the door so if we need to use it it's very easily accessible yeah we actually have a secondary lock on our door because it doesn't lock so well so it's just a bit of extra time that if somebody was to try the door in the night it has happened once or twice that it just gives us time to get up and grab the machete and then put my angry face on and the last tip if you really feel unsafe in a place and you have no way or you're too tired to go anywhere else try to find a 24-hour business like a police station or a gas station or a pharmacy they are usually open they usually have security guards just the human traffic you know having having people walking past the vehicle it's not doesn't make for the best night's sleep we wouldn't recommend it all the time but it's better than parking out in the boondocks away from everybody where somebody could potentially see that you're there and then you know decide to commit a crime and relieve you of your possessions so the 24-hour business is a good tip for that worst case scenario yeah if you do want to know more about van life and how to keep safe on the road and how to prepare your vehicle for the road we have made an e-book that answers questions about preparing living and lasting on the road so if you want to check that out go to the link just up there or here or there or here or there it's over thanks guys until next time happy travels