Slow Baja - Baja Like Nowhere Else With Josiah Roe Founder of Escapar A La Baja

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Josiah Roe is the co-creator of The Journal of Lost Time, a digital publication that shares stories of timeless immediacy. After acquiring a painters-tape green Vanagon, which he lovingly calls Barb, Roe set out for an extended Christmas vacation in Baja. An epic adventure ensued, and he vowed never to miss a winter exploring Baja Sur again. Upon his return, he left his tech job and his comfy apartment in San Francisco and embarked on being a part-time van lifer. Combining his passion for travel and photography, he began creating stories for destination marketing organizations. The Journal of Lost Time was born, and on a road trip to Baja Sur, he dreamt up Escapar a La Baja, a Vanlife and Overlander meet-up in La Paz. The first Escapar a La Baja in 2019 had sixty vehicles, and this year's event has grown to 250! The Lost Places event series, "a celebration of gathering in beautiful places," followed and now hosts meet-ups in six locations. Follow Josiah Q. Roe on Instagram Learn more about The Journal of Lost Time here. Follow The Journal of Lost Time on Instagram Learn more about Escapar a La Baja here. Read Baja Like Nowhere Else here.

Hello, hello, hello, Ola, Como Estaslobaha, amigos? Thanks for making a little time for me today. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Mike Pearlman and Elisio Garcia and the entire team of Nora volunteers that produce the happiest race on Earth. I'm still in a little post-Nora funk. I know you've been hearing about Nora week after week after week. Well, I'm still in a little bit of a post-Nora funk. I don't have enough dust on my throat or adrenaline in my veins.

But anyways, Mike and Elisaio do an amazing job, and I'm thankful, and I want to acknowledge them. Today's show is with Josiah Rowe. Josiah is a photographer and a storyteller, and he produces the excellent Journal of Lost Time. He also calls himself a part-time van lifer, and he created the Escapar, al-Baha, and that is a van life and overlanding gathering. Hopefully next year I'll be down there podcasting live from the event. And without further ado, Josiah Rowe. Hey, this is Michael Emery.

Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches and hands down my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmarkmaps.com.

Hey, Josiah Rowe. Josiah Q. Roe, we're here on Slow Baja, finally. I had always wanted to be in person with you in Baja, sipping a Fortaleza, doing this around a campfire is where I envisioned it would all go down. but you're in Bisbee. I'm in San Francisco. We're connected through your high-tech skills.

You had to walk me through the connection. So, dude, so good to see you. It's really good to see you, too. I love your podcast. It was a joy to stumble upon it. I love the logo. It made me laugh when I first saw it. And it's been good because it's nice to have,

I think it's right now, I think it's the kind of definitive way that I've been introduced to parts of the peninsula and the community down there and the people that make it pretty much my favorite place on Earth. And so just thank you for all the work you're doing. It's awesome. I love it. I look forward to a new episode coming out. Mutual Appreciation Society going on right now. I have been on a deep dive on your Journal of Lost Time and your Escape R. al-a-Baha.

and it's a masterclass. I mean, what you've put online is a master class on travel and how to share that travel with your pro-driving tips and funny to see friends of mine in your photographs. It's just, you know, from remote fishing camps in San Rafael to Francisco and Mulejah, I'm seeing all your faces from my travel. So let's jump into it, as I like to say. We've done the welcome.

Tell me about your background and how you got to be a storyteller. Where did you grow up? How did this affliction come to you? Well, that's a good question. Well, I moved to California from the east when I was a kid. And I still remember that first moment on I-80 coming up into Wyoming and looking south. I think it was probably the Uintas. and just that moment when I saw, I think, the mountains for the first time of the West.

And that's when I just kind of got the bug of exploration. And, you know, you take a circuitous path through your life. But my dad was a minister, which is a kind of storytelling. So I got a little bit of that in my DNA. And when I decided to walk away from the tech thing about, oh gosh, six or seven years ago, I had had some in San Francisco where I was living, which is still my favorite city on earth. I think it's beautiful and I'm jealous you're there right now. I had some folks that started buying some of my photos, which I was doing in an amateur capacity.

And I kind of thought, well, who has money to pay me to travel and keep exploring? It's a big world and I want to see as much of it as I can before it gets dark. I kind of saw tourism boards and DMOs, destination marketing organization. So I started pitching them on, hey, I want to come hang out in your town for a couple weeks and kind of geek out on it. And I'll shoot a bunch of photos. And that naturally led to videos. And then I was looking for a way to do deeper and more immersive storytelling, something where it wasn't just the top five trails for hiking in Mulehaye, even though there's some awesome trails and I love that.

And I was sitting there talking with some friends and I was like, I just want to do something where it's about kind of losing track of time and really kind of being in a place. And that's when I kind of stumbled on the name and I'm like, I'm just going to start my own publication. And then joyously a month later, the pandemic hit, which was awesome. Nothing like starting to travel and tourism oriented publication in a pandemic.

But somehow we powered through it and have grown. And now I've got a nice, awesome little team of people. And, yeah, that's kind of how the whole magazine side of what I do and the storytelling side of things. We kind of always aim for, we want to get somebody who wants to sit down and really get immersed in a place for a long amount of time. And even when we present our content on our channel like Instagram, it's always 10 image gallery posts that you swipe through to kind of really do a little,

to use a recent example like Rancho Escondido and Don Oscar. and his family out there. We don't want just one image, but really sit there and try to get a sense of what it feels like to be there. Hopefully to inspire people to go explore more, you know, get off their couch, go outside their house,

go see this big beautiful world we live in. Yeah, that's kind of what I started. You guys take a pretty deep dive on these places. And again, I've been on a deep dive. I've been on a deep dive on your deep dive, and it's beautifully done. It really, you know, I think, you know, I want to find out about your inspiration, but people always ask about, you know, why am I doing what I'm doing?

And I think it's unfortunately or fortunately, it's just growing up with National Geographic magazines before the Internet, you know, before the Internet, there was National Geographic. And that, and having a cabinet full of those things was like the Internet is today. That's how you found out about places. and so you've started Journal of Lost Time. And my take on that is, you know, it's a, you've got places all over the world that you or your correspondence have put together travel logs on. That's no easy feat to put that all together and present it as beautifully as you are and as thoughtfully as you are. I mean, it's peel the curtain back. back on that and tell me about how that

Josiah is also recovering covering from a bout of the he's got a bit of a cough going on here but he's sipping on a little Fortaleza so I like that yeah oh yeah the Fort Laezza is great I really appreciate introducing me it's man it's great it's great um it's definitely

a hustle and a grind but it doesn't feel like it doesn't it's It's a joy to get to look. And sometimes I feel like I want to tell people, don't look at an article on our website on your damn phone. Please go look at it on the largest screen you can because those images are beautiful. And we've got some really, really, really wonderful, inspiring people who,

the photography is an emotional thing for them. and they do it because they love it in their patents. Why I do it. And yeah, there's definitely a grind finding people who, I mean, in the most crass terms, are willing to write a check to you to do what you do. But it doesn't feel like sales in the sense that if I'm talking to one of these folks, It's because I'm really stoked, happy, joyous, and inspired about their corner of the world. And I love the work of figuring out how to do photos and videos and to tell a story that's true and real and lovely about that corner of the world and to share it with people.

And so, yeah, there's definitely processes we put into place, like how things make it out into Pinterest and Instagram and into our email. emails and editorial calendars and all that sort of, you know, how the sausage gets made. But I even enjoy figuring that stuff out. It feels like you're you're tinkering on the engine of the vehicle that you're using to explore a place like Baja. So that doesn't bother me too much. But yeah, it's been fun to watch it grow. It's been fun to add folks to the team.

It's fun when you get emails from people who are inspired by what you're doing. It's fun when people are like, yeah, I saw. Don Oscar on your Instagram and we went out there and stayed with them. What a wonderful family. And we sang music around the campfire and then went out to San Franciscoito and watched the tuna go running into that little bay there. And next time I'm taking a fly fishing line or something like that, like that makes me feel really happy when I hear those kind of feedback. It feels like I got to share a little bit of joy with the world. And you don't feel alone. You feel less alone is what it is, you know, when you get to have a shared experience with somebody

like that. So anyway. Wind it back a little bit. You were in San Francisco. You were in tech. Yep. And I'm assuming that you were like the rest of the folk here. You had a real roof over your head. Maybe you weren't in the van full time at that stage. Tell me about how you got to your home, your office, your vehicle. Tell me about where you live and what choice. went into deciding on a VW van versus a, you know, a truck with a camper or a sprinter. Sprinter seems to be the choice for so many these days.

Sure, sure. You know, obviously I'm in the land cruiser camp and try to find a roof every night. Love your ring. So tell me about... Beautiful. Yeah, thank you. I spent some time in an old 78 Westphalia. They're great vehicles.

Tell us all about what you're driving and what you're living in. Sure, sure. the where I fell in love with Vannegans and this is pre before um I forget the guy's name came up with like hashtag van life I had gone through a little bit of a breakup and uh we're rolling up into thanksgiving break and I had a co-worker say you should go to Maui I'd never been to Hawaii and I was like yeah I'll go to Maui and this is you know when I weighed 30 pounds less and I was all about climbing mountains all the time and I was just starting into the photography everything. And I was looking around on, for Airbnbs on Maui, and somebody had listed a couple

of vanigans on there. And I was like, that sounds like a great idea, the idea of rolling around and just staying on beaches. That seems like a great idea. And so I ended up talking to the guy and going back and forth. And I ended up booking the van for a week. And I ended up staying on the island for a month because it was just so fantastic. Yeah, I called it my boss at the time. And I'm Like, I'm using all my vacation time for the next three weeks. I'm just staying here. And also did I kind of met a girl on the backside of the island and had a nice romance with, yeah, that's a whole story in its own right.

But that was in a lot of ways kind of like the initiation of kind of that kind of approach to travel, where it's a little bit more slower, if that makes sense. And then just kind of fell in love with the van again, just ripping around on the backside of Maui. And so I kind of always been looking for one. And there's a website called the Samba, which is where a lot of the old heads, this is the salty old original guard of Vannegans and VW's hang out. And I saw one pop up for sale. It was painters tape green.

And I was like, yeah, that's the one. It was the right price. It was in Colorado Springs, jumped in the car with my dad. drove 50 across western U.S. I had it looked at by a shop there. And that was that. My goal with it was always to turn it into a vehicle I could do the Pan American with, with the idea that I was going to do a few trial runs driving the length of the Baja Peninsula in it. I did a 1-8T conversion in it with Stefan's Auto House in Sacramento and some other things to kind of turn it into something that could handle the wear and tear and the pounding of something like the Pan American

or ripping around on the fun dirt roads of Baja and some of those trails. So, yeah, I call her Barb. She's a bit of a beast. She's now driven the length of the Baja Peninsula with me six times, which has been a blast, kind of all over the place. obviously there's there's still endless corners of the peninsula i've yet to explore which i love hearing about as i listen to the podcast and now the benchmark has their new awesome map out it's been fun to sit there and just nerd out on little roads and corners that i didn't know existed um but uh yeah and then um i was uh i don't like flying as i try to avoid as much as possible

i had uh met a woman i was dating who lived in fort collins and so as I started to shift to working remote for the tech companies I was doing work with, and then also doing more projects for DMOs, I started bouncing back and forth between San Francisco and the front range, just crisscrossing, I don't know how many times I did it, 15, 16 times, the Western U.S. and the van again, just taking different routes, exploring different corners. And I wouldn't call myself a full-time van lifer.

I would definitely say it's more part-time, but I've done some nice solid four or five months stretches where I'm living in it. Yeah, full time. But yeah, I still have my place in San Francisco, but I was there one day last week. And then, yeah, then I made the tough, I mean, it wasn't too tough a decision, but where I was going to walk away from tech and kind of go all in on starting the magazine and doing this sort of content creation, storytelling type thing. And yeah, there was definitely some financial risk that comes with that, the walking away from that cushy, lucrative Bay Area salary and all the perks that come with catered breakfast, lunch, dinner, and workout plans and all that sort of stuff.

Combocha on tap. Yeah, you know, just obscene amounts of money to go and, you know, your next meal is paid for, you know, it's all in your hands. I mean, not that it's all in your hands. It's a team effort. But yeah, yeah, but I don't regret. Well, these vanigans, these vanigans aren't cheap anymore. And keeping them on the road isn't cheap anymore. So you do have to have some source of income.

I understand. So getting onto your Baja affliction. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about that first time you were down there. And what that did to you, if it, if it had. had an effect. And then let's get on to the five, six times you've been down and tell me about your new gathering, Escapar, Escapar al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a. Yeah, well, the first time, I mean, as a Californian, as you know, Baja's like this mythical

place. It's sort of like, you reference it, it's, you know, it's Baja California, so there's like, and it's it sort of, at least it loomed in my imagination as a kid when I would look at maps that I would out of the Nat Geos that sat on our bookshelves. And I was like, what is that insane peninsula to the south of, to the south of California? And the first time I went, I was 22, 23. And I was, you know, looking at a map. And I saw that there was this road that wound south from Tijuana.

It was before Encinato is what it is today. But I just, I was like, I don't even know how I heard about it. I'm like, I want to go and roll up on a taco stand on a beach and eat fish tacos. Like that was like the goal. And a couple friends in San Diego and it's like, we got to let's just go to buy. We can do that. I don't even think we had passports back then.

This is all pre 9-11. And we just went, yeah, we just went ripping down. And I remember pulling up on the beach. And there was a woman cooking fish tacos. open-air kind of taco stand, big metal plate sitting over a burn barrel and wooden fire, and the tacos were like 25 cents looking at, you know, the big bay there at Ensonada. And then went up to the point kind of overlooking at. And I go, this place is awesome.

Like what I, and that was kind of the moment I was, I don't know what it is. It just kind of got under my skin. And, you know, it took another 15 years before I got to drive the whole. whole thing, but I would do kind of slow little, I stick my toe in the water, but mostly just on the northern side, like Takate and Mexicali and Bida Guadalupe and some places like that. But finally, it was one Christmas, one holiday season. I'm like, I'm driving the whole thing, which I didn't accomplish. I made it as far as Bahia de Concepcion and hit Playa Sanis pack. And I was like, I don't, I, I had never,

seen anything like that, that first, that first rise over the hill just south of Mulehe, when Santa's pack is laid out there and the boats are in the harbor. And I just remember, like, my stomach going into my throat. I got teary-eyed. It was, I mean, I had had that moment just south of San Felipe at that pull-off when you see the, what is it, the Isla de los Mertos, forget the name of those islands, just before Puerto Citos. And there's that pull-off there where it's Just magnificent. It's so beautiful. Yeah, but that moment,

Santa's pack is that, it just burned into my brain. It was so absolutely staggeringly beautiful. And I was like, I want to do the rest of the peninsula, but I don't want to leave here. This is just crazy. And then we ended up staying a week

on that beach and met a bunch of people and had an unbelievable Christmas. There was his family, a bunch of kids traveling to La Paz, whose parents have died. We bought them all Christmas presents and a tree. It was just a magical evening, just singing and dancing. It was just wonderful.

And yeah, that was, that was, I was done at that point. I'm like, I'm never not spending a winter down in Baja. And so now I usually go for like two, three months. But what I've come to discover is Baja definitely feels like a small town. You just meet people and the same people as you bounce from different places. And now each winter is the overlanders and van lifers have been coming down. You meet a lot of the same people and you're leapfrogging and sometimes you're caravaning together and sometimes you're on the same beach and you're swapping beta and information about where to go.

And it was my second or third winter down where as I was talking with people, being somebody who likes to throw gatherings, I was like, hey, I know this amazing beach outside of La Paz, Playa Tecalote, let's just all meet there for a few days and I would just kind of tell people and it spread word of mouth and the I was just with my terrible Spanish I was like well this is called escapar alabaha which is terrible Spanish but you know that's the name at this point and uh yeah the first one we had like some 60 vehicles um I uh I got soundbox which was a client of mine to send a bunch of their big portable speakers which you know is pretty common around Baja the loudspeaker outside the Mercos Mercado. But yeah, so we had some speakers down there and just had some music on the beach.

And everyone just started, each little caravan or van started doing their own informal happy hours or making food for everyone. And yeah, now it's kind of grown to over 250 vehicles there. Last year, people set up volleyball nets and hosted a volleyball tournament and one-wheel races and Super Mario Kart. projected and uh all i mean more happy hours and hilarious bars set up it's kind of become a little you know people are doing artwork and um yeah it's um i'm more just try to make sure that um there's a really good beach cleanup poros trash garbage are taken care of um we've been very fortunate to have support from uh visit baq california sir just making sure that we're uh introducing people to local tour operators, some local lodging and dining that are very van-friendly.

There's a couple of awesome hotels that have opened up in La Paz. I wouldn't even call them hotels. They're more like van-friendly RV-ish parks where they also have rooms you can rent, but they also want to want van lifers to come and stay for a few nights, which is great when you've been traveling in the backcountry of Baja and you're ready to get a shower and you know, have good internet for a little bit. Yeah, it's been great to kind of plug people into that community and just to have the local support there in La Paz, which is such a wonderful town.

I love it. I kind of feel, I mean, Cabo's Cabo. There's something wrong with it, but it's not how I like to, you know, do Baja. La Paz feels like a, it's a city by Mexicans for Mexicos, and it feels, you can get anything done on your vehicle there if you want to. Yeah, it's a great town. But anyway, yeah, I'm rambling. So let's take a second right here where we can tell folks about our friend, Jeff, at Baja Bound Insurance.

I'm going to let you do the pitch. Tell me what you say to folks when they're asking you about how to insure their vehicle for Baja. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Jeff and the team at Baja Bound have been a supporter of the Eskapar event from its inception. I had used their, I don't even know how I found it. I was just Googling around. I knew I needed to get Mexican insurance and came across Baja Bound. I loved the resources that they have on their site just about amazing, awesome, interesting things.

And I think that's probably why as a storyteller I went with them because they were doing, I was like, what kind of insurance company is sitting there like doing long form travel logs about Baha? I'm like, they just seemed like they had. And I just sent to me, well, hey, I want to throw this event. Do you want to help out with the whole thing? And they were great. And they've been a partner on it every year since. And, oh, I mean, when I've broken down just with their towing, I don't know what to call it,

not towing package, but just the fact that they've got great connections with to get your vehicles towed. It's just peace of mind. I mean, I've only broken down a couple times out there. But, you know, it matters, especially when you're in a remote place. you've got to figure something out. But yeah, they've been great to work with. Jeff's awesome. Insurance is great.

I recommend them. And they love the community. I mean, that's pretty awesome too. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's BajaBound.com, serving Mexico travelers since last.

1994. Do you wish you'd join me on the Noromexican 1000? The sold-out slow Baja class was truly epic. We had an amazing array of vehicles and folks driving them. The Don Kay, the Chimp, the vintage manxes, the vintage racing Broncos, Mayo Land Cruiser, Bronco privateer. Shout out to you, brother, 1980s FJ60, the Silver Lady. Let me just say, say the man called Yeti and the Wild Yolo. They had an amazing Johnny Johnson tribute Ford Ranger truck. They rolled with us, changed gears and rolled with us on the last day of the event. And I think they had a ball, as did all the other folks and the new jeeps and the raptors and all the folks that came down the peninsula with us. Again, Big Oli absolutely blew up the internet. But they were right

there smiling at the end. You got to check that out, folks. I'm not going to go into it. But The next opportunity to have some fun in the slow Baja Safari class is the Nora Baja 500. It's September 29th through October 2nd. It is Ensenada to Ensenada, which means logistically. It's a heck of a lot less challenging than the Mexican 1000. So if you want to come down, have all the fun and a lot less logistics to deal with. The Nora Baja 500 is the event for you. Shoot me a message.

I think the Slow Baja Safari class is going to. sell out quick. So if you're interested, let me know soon. Also, next opportunity after that is the Baja XL rally. It's every other year. It's coming up in February of 2023. Again, it's a totally different animal. It's 200-something overlanders. 25, 30 countries should be represented again. Now, COVID's behind us. And it is a great time. Bring your rooftop tent. Bring your funky vehicle. Get on down the coast at a very slow roll. There's a competition category, which is like a giant, Easter egg hunt or there's the adventure category, the touring category, which we roll in, which we just break out our benchmark map, figure out which squiggly dirt road looks the most scenic

and we take it, and nobody judges. It's an awful lot of fun. It's too much to explain here. If you're interested, it's February 17th through February 26th, 2023. Shoot me a message through the contact feature at Slowbaha.com, direct message Instagram, direct message Facebook, or slow Baja at Gmail and I will get you all the information you need for for you to make an informed decision if Baja is right for you. Well, hey, let's get on you. You're good. We're ready to keep rolling.

I mean, the one other thing I would say about Baja Bound is somebody who drives an 82 van again is they're really good about being able to pull the custom, like kind of the unique insurance policies you need to get for those older and more unique vehicles. So if you're rocking like a schoolie or anything kind of odd and custom, which you know is have driving an older one, you kind of need somebody who's actually going to work with the underwriters. And so, yeah, I mean, that matters. I mean, we've got a new sprinter, not so much. But, yeah, for those of us in our funky weird vehicles, yeah, they're awesome for that. Well, I recently had a conversation with Jeff about the sprinter van scene because they're currently capped at $300,000 as to what they can write.

So if you're a band that's over that, which I think you can get there with the sprinter. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, I mean, if I can, yeah, there's another event happening this weekend back to Baja, which is sponsored by, like, storyteller. Flarespace. Yeah, yeah, there. And they, some of those storyteller rigs are definitely pushing that. They're beautiful. They're works of art. All right. So let's keep rolling here. All right. Let's keep rolling with Josiah from, from Journal of Lost Time, Escapar al-a-Baha. What else do you do, man? How many other things you got rolling on here that, people should know about. Well, I mean, Escapar al-Baha became a

the first of the lost places van life and overlanding events where we kind of, at its core, they're my favorite places to go hang out and get lost for a month. And they're very van life friendly. So, I'm actually here in Bisbee, Arizona

for our next one. There will be another one up in the Wind River area of Wyoming, on the east side of the Wind River Range, kind of near Lander. be the closest town that folks might know about. That's just beautiful and epic. It's a gorgeous piece of land. The community there just loves having van lifers and overlanders rolling in.

There'll be like balloon, hot air balloon rides and buffalo viewing things, and big horn sheep and all sorts of really fun stuff. And there's another one on the Oregon coast. And then, of course, another one outside of Moab in October, which, of course, you know Moab with Canyonlands and Arches. But, yeah, that's kind of like the event series we've put on. very overlanding and van life friendly. It's meant to be an introduction to those places and kind of an opportunity to learn a little

bit about them and explore and just hang out and what are some of our favorite little corners of North America. Right now there's six of them each year. Baja's definitely like the become the big fun one, the most successful one right now. And that's your season kickoff. Yeah. pick it off every year. I mean, I just love, I mean, it is a joy every time once I, I mean, this past year I crossed the Tecate, but yeah, it's just, it's a magic thing when you roll into San

Felipe and pull up a kikis or La Palapa or wherever. And that's how I do. I realize there's lots of other awesome places to stay there, which I need to try. But then you walk into town and you have your first margarita on the Malacone and you just, you just start smiling. You look around the other vans and overlanders and you realize that the next two, three months. are just going to be packed full of beauty and joy and adventure. And yeah, it's great. It's great. It's a wonderful feeling.

Well, work me down the peninsula. So I go back to San Diego State spring break, certainly in 1986. 1986 was the first spring break that I went to San Felipe. He stayed at Kikis when he was just a youngster a few years older than we were. Yep, yep, yep. Coco Loco's Make you love. longer was one of the signs that I adored, and the other sign that I adored was on the top of the bathroom that says, no de Nero, no caca.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. If you didn't pay to use the bathroom, you were not to use the bathroom. So good. So, yeah. So, and I got to very quickly realize I did not like sleeping on the hard floor of the palapa that they built there. So it's a cement pad, folks.

Let me set the scene for you. beachfront San Felipe, Palapas built over a cement pad that would have a picnic table downstairs, pretty in the 80s anyways, pretty rickety, dangerous stairs to get to the sleep loft. A little railing around the sleep loft, but certainly no safety built into that. So if you were rolling around, play fighting, say, drinking 100 beers between 6 a.m. and midnight, there's a lot, a lot could go wrong and you could fall off of one of those things. but Kikis was a fabulous spot because you could walk into town. It was a bit of a hike, but you could walk in,

and you could certainly stumble back after your night at the Miramar or wherever you were eating fish tacos and drinking more. So I realized very quickly that I was willing to drive from San Diego to San Francisco in my little Dotson on Wednesday night before spring break, get my dad's 78 Westphalia drive back Thursday morning, so an all-day drive back to San Diego on Thursday, and then leave at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. Friday morning to go to San Felipe, which was another six-ish hours from San Diego. And just so I would have, just so I would have this luxury of a van for a long weekend in or a week in San Felipe to have the, you know, instead of sleeping into tent or sleeping under the stars just to have that pop top up and a little, you know, one burner stove to make pancakes on in the morning.

And so it was a little bit of van life before van life was a thing. And then I'd do it all in reverse. Drive it back to San Diego. Drive back to San Francisco. Jump back in my little dots in and drive, you know, 6,000 RPMs all the way down I-5 to go back to school on whatever, the Monday, following spring break. It was crazy. That's incredible. That van really made the week in San Felipe so much more comfortable.

So walk me through your Baja favorites, working yourself down from, you know, East Coast, West Coast. You sort of already got to one of the places that has stopped me and my tracks before. We're just getting to Santa Spack and say, whoa, do we have to go any further? This is enough, you know? So let's just spend a few minutes picking, you know, picking through the places that you really love and want people to see on your site and see in person. Yeah, I mean, as you know, Baja is just, it's van life perfection. It's if there's a beach with three vehicles there and you want to have one to yourself, drive five minutes down the road and you'll find another one. Like it just, it's endless.

Even when you roll into something like Santa's PAC and now that the pandemic's over, the RVs are back and they kind of fill up there and they crank, just drive to the next one. Just drive to the next one. There's endless that you can find if you're willing to take the dirt road. So, and I love driving to the end of the dirt road. And especially now that we've got something like the new benchmark map, I feel even more confident just sort of driving down. those long washes out to some epic beach.

And so the ones that I'm particularly in love, me have to a weird share in some of these because they're somewhere. I know. I was just going to say, maybe you don't have to. No, just work your way down. You don't have to give away all your secrets. Just work your way down. And remind people.

Hey, wait, hang on for a second. Before we get into that, before we get into that, you've become, I hate to use this word influencer, maybe a more appropriate word. as an instigator, you've, you've, you have certainly led people to this place. Sure. Maybe, you know, I share, I share that burden to some degree. How do you, how do you decode the, oh, is it safe? How do you explain, aha, your experiences there, and get past the knee-jerk reaction to,

oh, is somebody going to be stealing my van? Is somebody, am I going to be hanging from an overpass, you know? Yeah, yeah. Let's go into that a little bit, and then I'll let you save all your secret spaces, secret places. But share a few of your faves if you don't mind. What I tell people is when they ask, and everyone ask, don't you feel unsafe, aren't you scared? And I go, officially, absolutely don't go. Unofficially, I have never once felt unsafe or scared ever.

Baja. Now, I realize that, that I'm a white 40-year-old male that comes with, you know, not a small amount of privilege and sort of baked incompetence about certain things. So I put a giant asterisk over when I say that. I now have many solo female Van Lifer Friends who have done it. And, you know, they've been gracious enough to inform me in the the ways in which they manage their safety and think in a way that I can't even fathom how they manage where they go and how they go and how they move through this world

and how they've translated that to Baja. So there's some great remit. You can Google solo female van lifer in Baja. You can see on the Eskapar website, some beautiful stuff written by women who can speak to it far better than I could. Now, as for me and the friend, and sometimes when I've kind of led a caravan.

Where I've ever felt a little bit of anxiety is always what I call like the border crush, the border crunch, particularly around Mexicali and Tijuana, just that pressure of all the people there. And that can be a little intense and disorienting as you're first crossing over and you've got to figure out street signs and a little bit of the craziness of the roads. And yeah, you know, I've gotten pulled over by the cops, shake me down for, you know, they say 400. And, you know, I'm one of those who's like, I give him 20 bucks. I'm like, no, no, I just say no until they're willing to take $20 and

let me go. And I realize there's lots of competing opinions and some folks get really angry about it. And I'm like, like I makes like $200 a month. I don't care that he got $20 off of me to, you know, not waste my time. So I don't really sweat that. And so it doesn't bother me. I'm not scared when they pull me over. I don't have, um, you know, I'm more nervous when I get, and I just probably controversial. I'm more nervous when I'm pulled over by a police officer in the U.S. than I am when I'm pulled over by somebody in Mexico.

I know he just wants to get his 20 bucks and let me move along. So once I did it the first time, every single successive time, it just, it's more like, oh, great, I got to get through Mexicali, just to get to the open highway. And it's more about getting to that feeling of just when the landscape opens up and you get to experience what I've,

feel like is Baja kind of past the border cities. And it'd be really, there's a reason why I don't take the Western side, honestly. Like, don't be wrong, San Quentin is awesome. And, um, but I'm just trying to get past Tijuana and Ensenada just to get to the big wide open spaces and some of that. So, um, and for people when they come down, I say, yeah, that first time going down, you're going to be a little nervous. But once you've done it, it's great. And if you're willing to come, I and now the folks that all helped make Escobar happen. and we really just try to be a resource for people to help answer their questions. I mean, we fielded hundreds and thousands of questions for Eskapar this past year from people going.

And there's now the big massive WhatsApp group. And now there's like the seeker group where everyone's on there, just supporting each other and talking to each other and answering questions and where to find water and where to get good diesel. And like, oh, shit, the pumps aren't working at Gonzaga Bay. And I don't got enough gas to make it to the next thing. can somebody spot me five gallons and then I'll buy it from the back of the dude in the truck at the turnoff for Bay of L.A. So it's been great to kind of see networks come together like that and to help facilitate some of that because a lot of really experienced people from Sherry over at the whale magic has been so helpful for me over the years. Francisco and Mulehahe just folks have helped me out through the years.

I'm just glad to kind of, I don't know, call it pay it forward or something like that. Yeah, it's been a joy. Has Francisco gotten you to join the Rotary of Mulehay yet? Do you have a Muleau-Hae registered business that you can be a fellow Ontario? No, I don't. I don't. But, man, I love that town. What a wonderful town. He loves his rotary, and I love that guy, and I love that town. He does. He does love his rotary. He has literally been taken care of me since 86, since I was down there for New Year's Eve with my dad at 86 and the Westphalia.

and I didn't realize it. A cat came with the van. A kitten came with the van when my dad bought the van. First trip we were down to Muleh. I didn't realize I was allergic to cats until I was locked in this van with one all the way down to Muleh. So Francisco was my helpful decoder way back then to get me a little meeting with the doctor

who figured out that I had allergies and then we could treat the allergies and then we could head back. and I can avoid cats for the rest of my life. But he's a great guy in a great town, and this is exactly what I wanted to get to. You made a Freudian slip. I don't know if you caught it.

You referred to San Catina, San Quentin. I'm not too far from San Quentin. I can't quite see it from where I live. Oh, no. I'm sorry. But that road out of Ensenada can feel very much like prison these days with all that bumper-to-bumper traffic and that road construction.

I was just there a couple months ago, so hitting the other side and making some time down the East Coast is really highly recommended now. Especially if you do make some time, yeah, if you do make some time to stop, get your provisions, as you say, and your driving tips,

get your provisions in San Felipe, stop at Alfoncinas, make your way down that coast. Well, keep rolling me down that coast. Tell me about some of the spots that you don't mind sharing. You've put together a fabulous, we'll introduce this,

again here, folks, but escapar alabaha.baha.com has an awful lot of information. I should certainly have this on Slow Baja. It really is an amazing resource about good manners, not driving at night, that, you know, the narrow highways, the military checkpoints, all that stuff that is sort of hard to explain. And those are, in my opinion, those are the real hazards in Baja. You may run into a bad apple, you may get pulled over. That happens, but the odds of that stuff are so much lower than what happens just driving down the peninsula, the big rigs, the narrow highway, the wildlife, the road cows. Yeah, the potential that the person coming the other way on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday

in the afternoon may have had a few cold ones and may not be driving with all of the of their faculties or a perfectly maintained vehicle with good tires the way that your vehicle may be maintained. I think those are the real risks. And you you lay them all out here. So that's, an amazing resource. So I've interrupted, but get us back down the peninsula. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On the peninsula. Well, I have, there's also something, if you Google Baja like nowhere else. There is a ongoing series that I've been. doing where their

photo essays, articles kind of about a lot of my favorite places. And there's a few more we need that. And every time I go down, I kind of at a new one I've got one I'm working on right now about Cabo Pomo in the East Cape. But my, as you kind of continue

south out of San Felipe, you've got to stop at CalPatti, which is just great people watching. It's a blast. You get a cold beer. Shout out. Drew Martin. Shout out, Cow Patty and your family. Yeah. It's just, it's a blast, especially when the taco truck's going. I try to get lunch there.

Yeah, it's just a delight. And, you know, like Alfonzina's, it is the best overpriced margarita that you've ever gotten. And that view is incredible. And Gonzaga Bay is such a special place. I have been, I have been going over. recently, which I discovered two years ago on the drive up, what's the name of, on the other side of the water, that community over there, and you can camp up on that peninsula. That view up there is unbelievable. It's incredible. There's no one else up there. Gosh, what's called a camera? I'm

to look on a map. But that's a really special. Cansega Bay secret spot. Yeah. I mean, kind of got to wind out there to that community back in there, and it's interesting. But so, Catavina. Walk me through that a little bit. Catavina is, so what I love about Catavina being a little bit of an amateur geology nerd is that it's the geologic kind of heart of the peninsula. And the rocks there have a lot in common with the rocks found in the Sierra Nevada because it's all been uplifted.

It's all from the Farallon plate, subducting under the North American plate. And it's like Joshua Tree on Mars with the weirdest tentacle looking and enormous cacti and the painted caves are incredible in that weird geodesic dome. And if you get it just right after rain, everything's in bloom. And it's just one of the most beautiful places. So usually when I'm coming back on the five, I'll duck up to Cattavina for a bit. And then if you drive out by the airport there, there's that fantastic little restaurant with the Abolita. I can't remember her name.

And the food's great for breakfast. It's one of my favorite breakfast spots on the peninsula. You're touching on Rancho Santa Yanez. Exactly. You know, I've never been there. 30-something years driving around Baja, and I've never, ever gotten over there. So next trip, for sure, I've got to make that happen.

But you had a beautiful write-up on the place. And obviously, off-road racers have been going there since 67. And people who flew around Baja before that, that was the spot for you could land, you could get gas. It was local intel. but your take on Catavina, I think, is captivating because it's a place that really I enjoy and I never spend enough time there.

Yeah, it's a trip. And you can drive, especially on the east side, you can drive up into some crazy formations. And there's even some, for climbers, some are starting to find there's some pretty good bouldering and stuff back in there where some folks are getting in there and starting to nerd out on it where they're like, I don't want to do the Josh.

tree, Alabama Hills crowds, where can I get rock that is like that with no other people? And you're like, go to Catavina, drive a day south of the border and do it up. Yeah. And it's only a minute off of the road. Yeah. And you're into those beautiful boulders and stunning cacti. And it really is like right there. It's gorgeous.

And once you're off the road, there's nothing. Yeah. It's a beautiful place. Yeah, it's a beautiful spot if yourself contained camper. So back down the peninsula, I'm on your Baja like nowhere else site, and we're going to roll into Beheia de Los Angeles. Make your case. If you had to ask me to pick a favorite place in the entire, I would kind of go for Bay of L.A. I mean, Bahaia de Los Angeles.

And Plyleger. I mean, ecologically, it's kind of the intersection of kind of the southern, the beginning of the more southern. Baja ecological zone and the Sonoran and Chihuahua deserts to the north. And so it's just a fascinating mashup of plant life. I'm in those islands. And the fact that one of them is a volcano and it looks like a volcano. And it's just so blue and beautiful and there's no cell service. And it'll go from, you know, brutal winds to just absolute perfection on a paddleboard.

It's a really special. And, you know, you roll into town and there's rancheros on horseback. And it just feels outside of time. Like it's just for sure. It's a special place. And then you take the road south out of town heading out. And that stretch, basically south of Bahia de Los Angeles. The dirt road.

The dirt road. Yeah. Yeah, that's that, that basically from Bahia day Los Angeles all the way down to San Francisco. And, you know, if you're coming off the highway, it's like through El Arco, like that whole area in San Rafael, which I think you referenced in the beginning. getting in the call. Like that whole area is just unreal. Like I it's crazy. It's so beautiful. And just those long washes where they're just the massive grows of cacti out to the bright blue sea. And like it's just this hazy mashup of like blue and green and the red rock. And there's not a soul for miles. And I just get out and sit on top of my van and crack open a tecate.

and just smile at it all. It's so beautiful. It's wonderful. Yeah, and then you're rolling to Rancho Escondido and Don Oscar is there with his big grin. And next thing you're eating great food and catching up on the events of the year. And yeah, it's a wonderful. It's a wonderful feeling. It's a beautiful part of the world.

How does your relationship with Rancho Escondido come about? Because that's a pretty cool spot. I haven't been there. I'm well aware. You made some, I think, some really. spectacularly compelling photographs for me to make that stop on my next trip.

Because I've driven down that road a few times over the last three years and sadly have not been slow Baja enough to be able to stop in. So that's on my radar. I love staring at maps and kind of geeking out on it. And so I was messing with

Google Earth and a lot of satellite views, Google satellite, just kind of trying to see what was out there in that corner of, I mean, you know, I'm always looking for another white sand beach that I can kind of have all to myself and feel like I've explored a little bit, even though, you know, we've looked at most things on this planet at this point. But, um, and, uh, I went online and I was in the talk Baha group, which is awesome. And I just posted, hey, um, um, does anybody know about

the road condition south out of, uh, Bahia day Los Angeles? And Sherry Bondi commented and said, yeah, the road's fine. You need to stop at Rancho Escondido and meet up with Don Oscar. So she was the one of turn me on to them. And somehow I got in touch with them, started chatting with his daughter. They were like, yeah, come on out, no problem. And that was the first year I decided that I was going to shoot a film about doing a road trip through Baja and a caravan. And that was like the original Baja like nowhere else video where I interviewed Don

Ascar, Francisco, and a couple other folks who are all locals, just about why they love Baja. And that was kind of the first film I made about Baja a few years ago. And that's kind of how I got in touch. We interviewed Donna's car. I just had a wonderful few days out there, just having a blast, riding around horses, and watching the sunset every evening from on top of the hill behind their house with, like, the painted caves are, and they've got a little capia up there. Yeah, that was wonderful.

It was wonderful. So that's how I got connected with that. and we still email every now and then in text. They're a wonderful family. So it's hard to explain. It's hard for me to explain that those sort of places just exist in Baja. And I just happen to come off of a three-day stay at Rancho Labelota and Boyota and Takate.

And again, 2,800 acres off the grid, no cell, no Wi-Fi, fabulous hosts, fabulous hosts, eating by candlelight, sipping the tequila, you know, life around the fire. There's something primal inside us. It's magical. Something primal that makes us want to do that in our souls. And as we've surrounded ourselves with other things and screens and whatnot, it's pretty amazing to get back to that.

So I was really touched by that film work and those images. And you're compelling me. You're an instigator, as I say, you're sending me to places that I want to see. Let's keep rolling down the peninsula And sort of a speed run now Mulejah, Bahia Concepcion, Agua Verde And we don't have to talk about them all

But let's take those three in Because you know One I did want to mention is like And I feel like it kind of gets past And I think you and I talked about it Is Santa Rosalia Just north of Mulejahe Like people just zip by

Because they're booking to get to Mulejahe And they don't drive and do a loop Through that town This last winter I went and spent a couple nights there it's a trip. Like it's this old French mining town. So it looks like some weird wooden New Orleans.

And there's all these weird little bars and discothecas and there's the bakery. That place is rad. I had a really good time there. Obviously, Mulehaye is like, but I haven't even been out to all the crazy beaches around Mulehahe too that like Scott Shisler is a good buddy of mine there

and a few others have recommended to me. Don Chano's is an awesome place to do the like van and RV camping there where you're right in town. You can walk out to the lighthouse. I didn't go to Hotel Serenad until two years ago. What an unbelievable place. It sits in my head.

It looks like a movie set. And I want to do some kind of event there at some point because it's just so cool and awesome. And obviously, Elkin, feels wonderful. Gotta be there for the, got to be there for the pig roast Saturday Night Big Roast. Everyone keeps telling me about that. I got to do it. Never done it. I mean, sadly, John Wayne's not there and Don's not there, but, you know, whatever.

It's, I think you're absolutely right. We need to have a slow Baja Journal of Lost Time, pig roast meetup. Let's work on that. Well, then, and then head in south, Nathan and his family at Plybueira and the R bar. I think the R bar is my favorite bar in all of Baja. It is like everything you'd want from a beachfront, middle of nowhere, salty bar. bar and Nathan and his family are just awesome. They're like super friendly to van lifers and overlanders to just camp right there.

They've got hot showers. It's awesome. That place is great. And then now we get to like what I feel like is my favorite stretch of coasts. Because as you head south, there are roads and washes. And there's like San Basilio. Everyone knows that one. It breaks my heart.

They put up the post. you can't get out on the beach now. I'd love to know more about who put them up there and what that's all about. But what is it? Playa Amwerta, I think that's how you say it. That's such a great spot. But yeah, there's some really great roads, and there's some that I've gotten out to that I've never seen anyone else at,

just these old fishing camps that are just unreal. And, yeah, as you roll down to Loretto. And Loretto is such a great town. Every time I go there, I find some new, awesome, great place to check out. And the beaches south of there are just delightful. Even like the big marina at Playa Escandito is still a great place to go and park for the night with hot showers and great Wi-Fi when I need to, like, upload videos and do stuff like that. It's really, really great. And obviously Rattlesnake and the others are just awesome.

And then Agua Verde, I mean, people are finding out about it. And I know I had a hand in that. and others have to. It is, it's, I don't, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world.

It is special. It is remarkable. I know, I know. But I mean, they know it's like on Google Maps, you know, like what are you going to do?

You know, I mean, it's on, it's on, it's out there. It's everywhere. It's out there. It's everywhere.

It's still like a three, four day drive and people are terrified of coming down that road. So like, I can still get beaches even in the height of the season all to myself. there but that place and I've seen it when everything was in bloom like a couple years or two or three

years ago when like they had all those the late season hurricanes ripped through and so it would look like a jungle with how verdant it was and yeah it's just jaw-droppingly incredibly beautiful it's just an unreal place um yeah it's magical and I'm grateful for that I was able to shoot it and film it and photo it a few times. Yeah, and then heading, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think we're going to need to save some more, maybe more on Baja, sewer on a later conversation. Sounds good.

Make an agreement that the next time we do this, we're sitting, we are sitting around a campfire with a fortaleza in our hand. Sounds perfect. Or a reasonable substitute. Because, you know, you've given us an awful lot to digest, and we're rolling up here on the end of people's attention span. So tell us where's the best place to keep in touch with you, follow you, find out what you're up to where you are. And if folks have overland vehicles, van lifers, or even a guy like me with an old land cruiser and a cot and a tent, you know, I want to come and hang out.

Let me know, let the Slow Baja world know what are the best ways to follow you. Sounds great. Keep in touch. Well, there's my personal Instagram, which is J-O-S-I-A-H-Q. You can follow me on there. Josiah Q. Josiah Q. If you're looking for information about Escobar al-Baha,

the big Baja Van Life and Overlanding event, you can go to Escobaralabaha.com. You can just Google Baja Van Life gathering. It should be one of the first ones you see there. There's a good email list. You can sign up for there. You know, we've got some team meetings we're going to be doing in the next couple months with some folks as we start scheming some bigger and cooler and awesomer things for next year.

You can obviously go to the Journal oflostime.com and see all sorts of, you can look under events to see where our other events are, or you can just sign up for a newsletter for, it comes out usually once a week, and there'll be stuff about our events. and also new articles about rad places in the world, including Baja. We've got a few pieces still about Baja in the pipeline coming out over the next couple of months. But yeah, those are pretty much the best places. And obviously, you can find the Journal of Lost Time on all of the social networks from Facebook to Instagram to Pinterest to Twitter.

You can follow along there, whichever one's your poison. It's all there. and what I love about it is you've got a deep dive, English and Spanish. Yep. Music. You've got music right there that people can set the scene musically. You've got short films and a lot of freaking information, you know, and that people can access all this stuff for free and take the trip mentally before they take the trip physically.

Yeah, I think the Baja like nowhere else playlist on Spotify, I think people will really, really enjoy. It's music for road tripping And you know, the place that's tied for my favorite place in the world Baja's a special place. It's magic. Well, I fully agree. We're going to leave it right there. Thanks for making some time to tell Slow Baja about it. And I look forward to getting down to Baja with you in person,

hopefully before Eskapar next year. Oh, it'll be great. I can't wait. If not, I'll be then. Well, I'll try to come seeing in the city. Have a good. Yeah. Well, I hope you enjoyed that show with Josiah Roe. If there's somebody that you'd like to hear in conversation on Slow Baja,

all you need to do is go over to my website, slowbaha.com, click that contact button. Tell me who you'd like to hear. I'll check it out. While you're there at slowbaha.com, you can visit the Slow Baja store. If you've got a dad or a grad, maybe they want a Slow Baja hat or a Slow Baja tea or maybe a Slow Baja sweatshirt. check it out it's all there all sizes are in stock all styles are in stock it's not going to last for long folks so check it out and again thanks for listening if you're a Spotify or iTunes listener please take a second smash that five-star review write something nice it really does help people find the

show and that really is important for me to keep this thing going and growing so in closing to paraphrase my old friend steve macqueen Baja lover Baja's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting. Have I told you about my friend True Miller? You've probably heard the podcast, but let me tell you, her vineyard, Adobe Guadalupe Winery is spectacular. From the breakfast at her communal table bookended to an intimate dinner at night. Their house bred Azteca horses, Solomon, the horseman will get you on a ride that'll just change your life. The food, the setting, the pool, It's all spectacular.

Adobe Guadalupe.com. For appearing on Slow Baja today, our guests will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72-page Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. Do not go to Baja without this, folks. You never know when your GPS is going to crap out, and you're going to want a great map in your lap. Trust me.