Vehicle choices

I’ve had the pleasure of off-roading quads and jeeps in Baja Mexico, gone on many trips with friends in the PNW doing some awesome obstacles, offrwoding is fun becuse you take away the reasponsibility of the road. Wanna drive up a big hill? Go head, wanna go across a shallow stream, go head, wanna see what’s ontop a mountain go head, this is a freedome that infects, offrwoding to me feels as close to the Wild West as we will every have, exploration, risk, reward. Tying this process into my pleinair practice has been transformative.

If you are looking to go on some moderate trails and have fun be safe see cool stuff for a night or 2 in summer you don’t need to spend much at all. Most vehicles can do a beginner level trail and more advanced if you know how to drive well. Slap a rooftop tent ontop and stay a couple extra days, there is however a correlation between vehicle size, cost, ability, and fulfilling your specific goals.

For me, I am on my second vehicle a Toyota sienna fwd 2006 with 212k miles. Before it was a much more spry Subaru Outback. While I wouldn’t call either “off-road’ vehicles I’ve certainly pushed them past their intended use, most recently with my sienna that I’ve spend a bit of money and time turning into a more perminsnt living structure. Becuse I work large scale 3x4 foot is on the smaller size, I usually stay a week in one location prompting many needs. Food, water, cloths, equipment for safety when driving, art equipment, starling battery and electronics and many more details. Becuse of this, a van is what makes the most sense to me at this time with the intention of gettting bigger more capable vehciles. I get many amnesties that most offrwoders and overlanders get including a dry safe space to sleep in a normal mattress. Having a dedicated space to feel safe is incredibly great to have on these trips, especially bringing valuables, knowing I’m safe is a big concern.

While many other options exist, hightop vans, off-road vehicle with a trailer, trucks and campers or just a school bus, they all offer pros and cons. Money being the biggest one, on the highest end earth roamers go pasts 1 million and are giant tanks ment for spending weeks on the road, what I have is a 3k van that doesn’t have 4x4 or awd, only 6 inches of clearance and I’ve been on some amazing trails where we saw abosultyy no one else on. If you truly love off-roading, you do it in any way you can, spending extra money just to drive over small bumps isn’t very fun, but navigating a minivan down a single trail dodging large rocks and pot holes is allot more interesting

I’ve spend hundreds of hours planning, watching, talking and thinking about what the best way to do all this is, the best way is the one the at get you out doing it the most, while many would scoff at what I call off-roading, I get to spend far more time outside then they do ultimately which is what I care about