Don’t let your inReach out of sight.
After traveling out of the country to remote areas of Mexico, it will be hard to do similar adventures in the future without our inReach Explorer by DeLorme. Whether you’re an avid backcountry traveler, world explorer, or a weekender, the inReach is a device that you should carry in your pack. On our recent motorcycle trip to Baja, Mexico, we didn’t know what to expect for a lot of things and one of those things was cell service. With the nature of off-road motorcycling, we thought it would be important to have a device with us that could reach emergency personnel if it was necessary.
The inReach will not only send SOS to appropriate rescue personnel, it will track your route, let you stay in touch with friends and family, and even post to social media. Our cell phones didn’t work in the remote and rural areas of Baja, but the inReach never let us down.
The interface of the inReach is extremely easy to learn how to use, and while typing away on it kind of takes some time, it is to be expected with a simple and small device. If you do plan on doing a lot of typing/texting, you can download the app and reach the interface through that. It makes it super easy to type and navigate through the free app. Or course then you are going to be keeping track of two devices if you prefer to use your smartphone’s app but most people have a cell phone on them no matter what.
The SOS feature on the inReach is so beneficial because not only does it trigger an SOS, it allows you to communicate back and forth between the search and rescue monitoring center, which is a worldwide service! I feel as though if you find yourself in a dangerous, potentially life-threatening situation in the backcountry, being able to communicate back and fourth between rescue personnel will not only keep you calmer, it could help save your life. While we fortunately never had to use the SOS feature, I won’t doubt it one bit the day I do need to use it.
We also especially love the tracking feature included in the inReach. This was a really neat feature for those who were following along on our trip. The best example for how accurate the tracking on the device is was on our first night camping in Baja. My mom was a wreck knowing that her daughter was going to be riding a motorcycle throughout Mexico (although the DeLorme was huge for her reassurance, though she still lost sleep). I’m sure she checked the tracking every 20 minutes to see where we were and if we had stopped moving or not. Maybe this was a bad thing that she could track us as we were still riding at 8pm some nights and I’m sure this didn’t help her inability to sleep.
Anyways, our first night camping in Mexico was quite interesting. We seemingly found a semi-abandoned Rancho and the people let us camp for $20. The campsite was unlike any campsite we had been at and was on a brick pad behind a ton of tennis courts. We didn’t really know if the tennis courts were still in use or not, but it was late and dark and so we decided to camp for the night.
About 20 minutes after setting up camping and climbing into the tent, we received a text message from my mom that said “tennis anyone?” I couldn’t believe that the DeLorme was so accurate that they could see we were neighbors to the tennis courts. This assured us that throughout our trip, the tracking would be pretty accurate, and it was.
It was really fun for us even to get on the DeLorme website (tracking page) and see where we had been and how far down the peninsula we had gone. If it was fun for us, I can only imagine how cool it was for people following us along from home.
There is a lot of information regarding subscription options for the DeLorme inReach and each plan benefits users in different ways. While it can get expensive, DeLorme has realized that everyone adventures differently and so they have offered different plans for those that may not be traveling to remote areas every month of the year. Having options is extremely nice especially when price is a factor. It’s hard to put a price on something that could potentially save your life, though, and like I said I wouldn’t do a similar trip without it.
Whether you’re hiking a 14er in Colorado, exploring Canada’s scenic mountain passes, or riding your motorcycle through Baja’s diverse desert terrain, the inReach Explorer is an essential travel companion. Not only can you keep in touch with friends and family, track your route, and update to social sites, you have a reliable and easy to use SOS device at your fingertips.
The online interface.
We were able to post to social media in the middle of nowhere!
