What the heck is Snale Racing?

tl;dr it's us!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first Snale Racing newsletter. We’re gnob and jess, and the “snale” in Snale Racing is our 1989 Toyota 4Runner.

We live in Gold Hill, Oregon. Like a lot of other people in the last couple of years, the pandemic caused us to question our reality. We decided that we wanted some real change in our lives, and since we’d always talked about retiring to another country, we decided not to wait anymore.

We decided to move to Costa Rica.

That was the original plan, anyway. And it’s still the plan, eventually. But it’s morphed a little bit. Here’s a summary of the stages we went through to get to where we are now:

Stage 1: Let’s pack everything into a storage container and drive from Oregon (where gnob is from) to Louisiana (where jess is from). Then, we can visit family while we do all the Costa Rica residency paperwork. When we’re ready, we’ll ship that previously packed container to Costa Rica and meet it there with our dogs. Boom. Done.

Stage 2: Hey, if we’re going to drive to Louisiana anyway, let’s make it interesting. No interstates or highways, back roads only. That should make it a scenic drive.

Stage 3: You know, there’s really no hurry. Why not travel for just a little bit longer and see some sights? The United States of America is vast and wondrous, after all. We’ll get to Costa Rica eventually. Who cares how long it takes?

Which brings us to the here and now.

We’ve got three major projects that need to be finished and sold before we can leave.

1. 1963 Datsun Fairlady

2. 1985 Toyota 4Runner

3. Our house

It’s no coincidence that this newsletter is getting started before the road trip. Having to give weekly updates can be a huge motivational factor. We’re in the home stretch, but that’s always where it gets the hardest, so we need all the help we can get!

We’ll be putting out updates every Tuesday. Next week, we’ll tell you a little more about us, and the Snale Racing YouTube channel, along with what progress we’ve made towards getting on the road.

We’re still in the late planning stage, so if you know of any places we should check out on this road trip, please let us know. We’re also always open to tips and tricks on minimalist camping. The less weight on the truck, the better for off-roading.