GPS, mobiles, laptops why not?
Category: Seek Advice | September 3, 2009 By ModeratorA common question posed to overlanding crew. Yet any logical answer has still to be found. It is surprising how many trucks work without them. Considering it should be standard equipment to have on board in this day and age.
So why do companies fail to use them ? are they stuck in the past ? Do they not believe in technology? or is it to maintain overlanding as a “true experience”? or my favourite to reduce costs.
We posed this question some time ago and were wondering if things have changed considering digital cameras and the use of laptops, so what do you think ?
GPS would be nice on occasion - but for the most part it should be unnecessary as the drivers should be familiar with the roads they are travelling. They should of course be supplied on exploratory routes, or where the routes are new to the drivers.
Surely it wouldn’t cost the companies that much to provide the equipment on those routes?
The problem is when they are not familiar with the route? but surely drivers cannt be expected to know all the routes - lets say travelling around south america or africa it is a big place?
I consider GPS is a good safety feature as when you get lost you can back track also if you have a lap top you can see where you are, I found it most valuable crossing Russia to Lake Baikal.
I’m not expecting them to know all the routes - but I think the companies, as a matter of policy, should be providing its passengers with *either* GPS *or* a driver who is familiar with the area.
I do also think that the drivers should be familiar with their routes more often than not, but that is getting into a whole separate issue about driver turnover…
GPS would be usefull if you could stop the locals stealing anything new and electrical, one of our crew had a laptop stolen in less than 12 hours ! add that to the fact that nobody has mapped the roads in South America onto a GPS system yet. I brought mine out and the only thing it would show is a grid ref in deg & min. it had no roads indicated…. about as much use as chocolate tyres.
Mobiles: yes. More and more drivers now have a Pay-As-You-Go SIM card for every country they travel through. However, don’t rely on them as there are still lots of places where there is no or bad reception.
GPS: I used one when driving trucks through the game parks in East Africa, I would mark for instance a hyena den and then check it out again on my next trip through. Also quite handy for estimating your arrival time, especially if it’s getting late!
Laptops: whatever you do, keep your laptop dustfree and in a shock proof cover! Zip lock bags are very handy for smaller gadgets. Make a back-up of everything on your computer before you come to Africa.
Laptops are very handy for downloading your photos whilst on the road but be aware that you always have a piece of luggage with you that you really don’t want to lose, can be a pain at times!
I work for an overlanding company and anyone who believes that GPS is useful (no routes in Africa and SA are marked) or mobile phone/computers should be part of tours, should be taking an over 60’s coach tour.
Overlanding has been running since 1974 without this largely useless (on the Continents we work) gagetry.
Crew are employed to be resourceful and always manage to cope in the odd diffficult situation, without these gimmicks.
What is the point in doing an adventure tour if you immediately consult a non-operational GPS if you come across a road you don’t immeidately recognise?
Having passengers texting constantly, or calling people, yelling into their mobile phones in an otherwise peaceful campsite (when there occasionally is infrequent reception), defeats the purpose of overlanding and getting away-from-it all to remote destinations.
If you can’t cope without these things, and enjoy the natural beauty of the destinations offered by overlanding companies,…you are not an overlander and you would be wise to stay at home where you can text, phone or use your laptop to your hearts content.
Sorry to say trucker that times they are a changing… Many routes used by overland trucks are marked in Africa for GPS and maps can be uploaded from many websites or even vehicle location companies. Much less so in South America though…
But a GPS does not make up for ‘on the road’ training. To give a new driver a GPS only and tell them to go for it would be crazy.
Most crew have cell phones with relevant numbers for each country they travel through which is fine if you have a tricky situation and need to call a local camp or mechanic or whatever - providing you have reception/airtime/battery power/the phone number in the first place.
As for passengers having their phones on the truck - not on my truck baby!! I wont charge the batteries up and I certainly wont go out of the way to ensure they get reception. And the minute that thing beeps right next to a couple of drinking giraffe at a stunning waterhole in a amazing park or reserve ….. gees man….. don’t even get me started!!!!
As for laptops, I have found that many pax will bring them just so they can save their photos on the hard drive or burn them to disc. I think rather bring bigger memory stick/s for your camera. Less bulky, less weight, less hassle, less chance of it getting stolen and less of a mission trying to get a police report in East Africa so you can claim on travel insurance while the 26 other pax on the truck are now 4 hours delayed and baying for your blood.
At the end of the day, as trucker says, if you cant come to a place like Africa without your toys then perhaps overlanding is not for you. And if you come to Africa with toys - please, please, please think a little bit about how, where and when you use them. Other people’s ‘trip of a life time’ depends on it.
The little Netbooks are great to carry around for both photos and getting onto the internet at cafes hostels basically everywhere! But you will need an additional portable hard drive for you photos! They have really long battery lives which also make them practical to carry.
One thing that I recommended to Dragoman when I worked for them was putting in a 12v multi-cigarette lighter adapter in the rear of the trucks, so the pax can plug in their mp3 players and camera’s and let them charge. Obviously this would need to be wired to the ignition so they can’t leave things charging and draining the battery when the engine is off.
It would get rid of the constant irritating requests (there’s enough of those already) from pax to charge their devices in the cab. Not to mention the danger of having several ipods and cameras striking whoever is sitting in the passenger seat in the face as they fly off the dash when you suddenly hit a zebra that has run out under your truck.
I’d be interested to know all these years later if it was ever implemented, anyone know? I have my doubts as Drago seemed to like to keep things old school, for better or worse.
As a rule though:
1. Laptops - not necessary. I had one for downloading and managing photos, but then as a driver I had to put my thousands of photos somewhere and I had access to a safe place to store it on the truck so no drama, and it still works now after being thrown around on African roads endlessly - nice job Sony! If you’re a passenger I’d recommend getting a tonne of big memory cards instead, memory is cheap now days, or a portable USB hard disk that has a slot to copy memory cards, you can get them in excess of 80gb pretty cheap and compact these days. If you must bring a laptop then I wouldn’t bother with anything bigger than a Netbook and make sure it’s got a decent case to protect it.
2. MP3 players - a must for drivers and passengers alike, as is a 3.5mm audio jack lead or cassette adapter to plug it into the truck stereo. There’s some long driving to be done and music is must to help pass the time. As a driver, if you have a properly configured laptop you can also raid your paxs music libraries for the latest stuff too, nice.
3. Digital Cameras - An absolute necessity in my book, as crew or passenger. You’re going all the way across the world for a once in a lifetime trip/job and you’re not going to record anything for posterity? No photos of the amazing culture of wildlife? No photos of near death experiences? No photos of that gorgeous foreign chick you copped off with (and vice versa ladies!)? No photos of your favourite problem pax to print off and throw darts at? You must be mad.
4. Mobile phones - A definite no for passengers. I agree with Trucker on this one. You don’t want those flippin’ things beeping all the time or people annoying the hell out of you chatting on them constantly. As a driver you can get by without, but we had an old Nokia we used with local sims mainly for pre-booking campsites and rooms, pretty handy to avoid pax mutiny during the busy season. Handy for emergencies too, they do happen.
5. GPS - might be handy for drivers thrown in at the deep end, like maybe they’ve got to cover a route they don’t know at short notice due to driver sickness etc. I got by with maps quite happily when I got stuck, but getting lost was rare as your typical route in most of Africa is, ‘Turn left out of campsite, drive 600km, turn right into next campsite’, or the reverse if your heading the other way.