November 5, 2016
During the year I traveled across four continents on my little XT250, I received emails from others that had found my blog and were planning their own trips. Some already had a Yamaha XT250 and were glad to get some reinforcement of their decision to take it on such a long journey. Others were still deciding what bike to take.
Many who choose/chose the XT are fairly new riders, and the bike offers them a low seat height and smooth, tranquil power. It’s also easy to work on, since it’s air cooled and uses a lot of “old-school” technology.
Not everyone who chooses the XT is a “noob”. I typically kept my mouth shut during my travels, and let others “judge the book by its’ cover”…many, many times along my journey people assumed I was a beginner rider, and offered suggestions on riding techniques, packing, bike repair and prep, etc. A few times, at the end of my stay with them, and after nodding along and taking their advice, I would hand them my business card as I was leaving. It was fun to see the expression on their face change when they suddenly realized that I worked for Yamaha USA, and I usually then mentioned briefly that I had been riding and racing motorcycles my entire life…not just now and then or on and off, but pretty much every week since I was eleven years old. In many cases only then did they begin to truly understand and accept the advantages of such a small bike for the places I had traveled.
This past week, I had the pleasure of hosting another XT250 adventurer on a nearly identical bike.
David stayed with me for a couple of days before crossing into Mexico.
Comparing bike setup. Major differences: David has a windscreen, and uses Wolfman soft luggage.
David lives in New York, but spent his early years in Colombia. He just recently decided to ride from the Big Apple to Bogota, and continue on to Ushuaia. This is his first bike, and he spent a good amount of time prepping it for the trip. His enthusiasm is definitely contagious. I wanted to load up and follow him. Just spending a couple of days talking about the trip made me even more homesick for the road. He’s traveling at a fast clip, especially for a 250, so I don’t think I could catch up to him if I tried, but who knows…will see where he is come the end of December and think about it more until then.
Safe travels David!
(5 / 5) We all know that electronics can let you down. They can quit working at the worst time, they can malfunction, they can not work as you thought they would, etc. This tracker is none of those. Of every electronic device I carried with me, this is the one that required NO maintenance (other than charging), no reboot, no complicated setup. And it is the one electronic device I would never leave home on a long journey through remote areas without. I had a Spot tracker before I bought the InReach. Yes, the initial cost is higher. And the monthly subscription fee is higher, if you use it as much as I did (they have several different levels of plans). But the ability to send and receive text messages via satellite from anywhere in the world makes it worth it. It links via bluetooth to your smartphone so you can compose messages on your phone with the qwerty keyboard, then send them using the InReach. No cell service necessary. And as demonstrated by the “Where Am I Now” button on the blog, the included mapping feature is very handy. You don’t have to pay for an annual subscription either: you can pay by the month, and unsubscribe anytime you’re not traveling, then turn it back on again. Great product. An unfortunate downside (in my opinion) is that Garmin recently bought Delorme. Hopefully they will realize that InReach is a superior product, and they won’t reduce it to the Garmin level.
(4.5 / 5) This was my primary camera for a year on the road. I didn’t take a fancy DSLR or any professional-grade camera equipment, because, quite frankly, I wouldn’t know how to use it if I did. This little point-and-shoot camera worked very well, never failed, and was completely waterproof (it dangled from my wrist in the water as I swam through the Kanba Cave in Guatemala, tubed down the river at Semuc Champey, and swam through Canon de Somoto in Nicaragua). I have since switched to a fancier, more rugged Olympus TG-4, which has amazed me with the quality of the photos it takes.
(3.5 / 5) Ok, this is really a user-preference item and method of travel, but I’ll give a bit of my experience to help you decide what you want to do. Cell service throughout Latin America is pretty good, and free wifi is nearly everywhere. So any phone will likely work. I’ve been an Android guy for a long time, so I just took my Samsung Galaxy S3 with me when I left. It worked great all the way to Panama City, where I got caught in a torrential downpour with the phone in my jacket pocket, and it drowned. I took it apart and let it dry out for a few days, and it came back to life for about another three months, at which point I was in Argentina when it suddenly without warning decided to turn into a paperweight. Totally useless; wouldn’t power on, and I was unable to get anything out of it. I bought a similar Samsung Galaxy Prime (low end, minimal storage capacity) in Argentina, and am still using it today.
(3.8 / 5) There are multiple ways to stay connected while traveling in foreign countries. Many people buy a SIM card when they enter a new country, which allows them to use their phone with a local number while they are there. It’s cheap, quick, and easy, and you can buy additional minutes or data if you need it. Others, like me, use an international plan. Not all international plans are equal, so shop around. When I left home in July 2015, I signed up with T-Mobile on their international plan, which gave me unlimited text and data on their partner networks (they have a coverage map on their website if you search hard enough), and phone calls at twenty cents a minute, for about $60 a month. It worked in nearly every country in Latin America, but only in four countries in Africa. I could have just as easily left home with my Android phone and no plan, since free wifi is nearly everywhere, and used Skype or WhatsApp if I needed to call someone.
(4.3 / 5) After an unfortunate incident in southern Chile where my Garmin Zumo finally met it’s end, I installed a Garmin Montana. This is a bit more rugged unit, and has a camera built into it as well. It doesn’t have a lot of the “touring” motorcycle features that the Zumo had (bluetooth connection between GPS and helmet intercom for turn-by-turn spoken directions, bluetooth link between phone, GPS, and headset, ability to store music on the GPS, etc) but you don’t really need any of that stuff. In fact, you don’t really need a stand-alone GPS if you have a good smartphone and Google maps and/0r the Maps.me app.
(4.8 / 5) If you use a Garmin GPS for international navigation, you’ve probably noticed that Garmin doesn’t sell maps for some countries, and/or the maps they do sell are sorely lacking for detail. Not only that, but why would you buy maps when you can get custom ones for free? It takes a few minutes to learn to use the request form properly, but you can get maps with great details that you can load directly onto your Garmin GPS for free from 
(4 / 5) These are a great way to add 12v power outlets to the bike. I put one on the front of the bike that I then connected to my tank bag so I could charge my iPad and phone inside the tank bag. On the big bike, I have one at the front for the tank bag, and another below the seat, which I can use to power heated riding gear, or a passenger can use it for the same, or to charge a phone. These have the “BMW” type socket and plug, allowing for a tighter connection that just a cigarette-lighter type of plug. I never had a problem with the socket, but I did have a couple of the plugs fail.