- Hey guys, what's going on?
I wanted to have a little conversation
about the aftermath of what happened
with my drone gettin' seized at customs and taken.
I'm back in LA now
and we got back from Nicaragua.
But let me give you the, kind of a summary of what happened.
Drones are not allowed in Nicaragua.
Didn't realize that before I traveled there.
As soon as I got to customs,
they scanned my bags when you're leaving the airport,
found my drone, and they took it and gave me a ticket,
and they said you have to come back pay for a storage fee,
and then you can take your drone when you leave the country.
I did the whole Nicaragua trip.
We were there for a few days.
If you wanna see what we did in Nicaragua,
check out our vlogs.
We did some really cool stuff.
When we went back to the airport,
basically, I had to go find this room
where they were holding the drone,
and they're holding basically everything
that they take at customs.
And people are trying to get--
it's crazy what people are trying to get into Nicaragua,
and they can't get in.
Like, there was a guy that was trying to bring bandages in,
and they wouldn't let him bring 'em in.
There's someone bringing clothes.
They're stopping people for different reasons
but I did see a big pile of drones in there.
There's all these boxes labeled drone, drone, drone.
And you're like, oh that one's probably a Phantom,
that ones a Mavic.
There's definitely a lot of people trying bring drones in,
that probably just didn't realize it.
Like I said on the last video,
I had no idea, I should have done a little bit more research
but I just did not realize
that drones were not allowed in Nicaragua.
I've flown all over Central America
and I've never had issues.
They are becoming more and more of an issue
to fly in countries like Nicaragua.
They've actually just put a whole ban on it
so you just can't fly at all,
unless you get a note from the Head of Aviation
which is not going to happen
because that's one guy.
I mean, I'm sure if you're some huge, big company,
you could probably work a deal
and get your drone in to film something.
But for all our purposes,
we're not going to be flying drones in Nicaragua.
We got up at 6:00 a.m.,
drove three hours to Managua,
which is where you fly out.
I made sure we had a few hours of room
in case something was to happen.
So, yes they made me wait,
and then, when I finally got up to the front
and they took my number,
they didn't speak any English,
so that was tough.
We found some guy from Costa Rica.
He was the guy importing bandages.
By importing, I mean he had small box of 'em.
He helped translate a little bit,
and we got through that I needed to pay
for my drone right but I'm not going to get my drone.
And we were like, well I need to get my drone
to leave the country.
There was a lot of back and forth,
and then in that process,
they were trying to ask us
how much the value of the drone was.
At that point, we were like,
all right, if we give them the real value,
we're gonna pay probably a premium on this.
So Rachel said it was worth $40.
We ended up paying $21 in fees,
which is the storage and the import tax,
which nobody says that there's an import tax.
Even when you came in,
they said, oh you pay a couple dollars a day
for your storage fee and that's it.
And you have to pay cash.
They won't let you pay a card.
That extra import tax probably went in someone's pocket.
I've been doing more and more research
and I'm finding that a lot of countries will charge
an import tax on top of whatever the rules are
for drones in that country.
You might need to have a permit,
or you might have to have approval
but that doesn't mean that the people at customs
aren't going to charge you a tax on top of it.
Read it, at Ecuador, people are having to pay 95%
of the value of their drone
to get it into the country,
or just to take it out if they didn't want to take it
into the country and left it at the airport.
You have to pay that to get your drone back, so 95%.
I have a friend that went to Mexico
and he had to pay $150 for his drone.
I've heard Belize you're paying
a tax on top of the permit fee.
Be wary that if a country says that you can bring it in,
you still gotta watch out for customs
charging you an import tax.
I'm sure, you know, I had no trouble going to Thailand
but I can see us having more and more issues down the road.
Especially when you're going to some of the countries,
like Central America.
There's a lot of places that people at the customs,
are going to whatever they want
if they want to get a little extra pay day.
Something to look out for, something to keep in mind.
So, guys that's the aftermath of what happened.
I did get my drone back, I paid $21.
Got outta the country.
Once they gave me my drone,
they walked me through customs,
walked me through security,
watched me get on the plane and leave.
Obviously, they didn't want me
to hand the drone off to someone.
And that was that.
So, now I have my drone, my Mavic is back.
Hooray, awesome.
I'm gonna have to be more vigilant
when I'm traveling with it from now on.
Guys if you're interested in traveling with your drone,
definitely do research.
Subscribe to our channel.
I'm gonna be doing more and more videos
about this topic in general,
the more we travel 'cause we're always travelin'.
The more places we go,
the more experiences I'm going to have dealing with this,
and I'll relay some of that information to you.
I'm gonna put together a video
all about traveling with your drone.
Things to know, things to look out for.
But guys thanks for watching, subscribe.
If you have had an experience traveling with your drone,
leave it in the comments below.
Positive, negative.
I'd like to hear what's happened with you guys.
What experiences you have had abroad with your drone.
Hopefully, we can all learn from each other.
Hopefully, we can help each other,
and make sure that we're not getting a hefty $1,000 fine
for just going into a country, even though it says,
the ruling says that you're allowed
to have drones in the country.
Guys, that's it for now, see you on the next one.
We're travelin' very soon, so next place we go,
I'll let you know if I get my drone in.
All right, see ya.