GR8ADV
Explorer
Ok, I am not trolling here, nor am I questioning, but just asking questions. So here goes my first post here. LIkely a bit too long...
I have been a lurker for a while, but an adventurer for many many years. I have travelled across the US and Canada many times. As far north as the NWT in Canada, the Arctic Circle, and all over AK. Just got back from a Central America trek this month. All my travels are via a dual sport motorcycle, sometimes camping for a month or so, sometimes not. But looking not too far ahead into the future, I am thinking long and hard in the direction of some sort of an expedition vehicle for some future journeys. So I am trying to narrow the field of choices based on need vs want.
So with that intro behind us, although I just drool at the latest and greatest 'travel to the moon on wheels' vehicles, I have questions on the real need, and with the size and flexibility of some of the choices.
The thread that really got me thinking is the one where a person is building a GXV to travel in North America. I have been, not everywhere of course, but a great many places and many of them off road in strange and isolated places. But most places, in NA anyway, are accessible with a standard RV or camper. In AK and Northern BC for example, you can be behind a convoy of all sorts of campers and RV's on any of the roads up there including the Dempster, Daltan and Denali Highways, so no need for anything overly special up there. Ok I can see maybe a two year trip across Mongolia, and Russia, but in North and Central America I don't get it. Standard RV's and campers are all over the place from Death Valley to Prudhoe bay here in NA. A recent pic I saw said a million words and that was a MOG stuck in line behind 50 run of the mill campers waiting for a construction zone, or ferry or something. The places that would not be accessable to your std big RV, are areas where the road is too small for a big vehicle anyway, which leads me to my second question, size.
On my trip to Central America, many of the small towns (not the tiny villages off road in the mountains), but the smaller towns like say Tequilla in Mexico, Quiche in Guate for example, have roads that could no way accomodate these vehicles. Never mind the tiny towns off road where one would, I suspect, want to take these vehicles. In many ways, it seems reasonably contrary to the whole idea; kind of a conundrum. I would say the majority of places that I travelled on this trip one would be hard pressed to acccomodate anything over a Earthroamer Jeep.
So my questions are, where are you taking these that a regular RV or 4wd camper would crumble? And do you stick to major roadways and towns due to the size? So please, educate me on your experiences of where you go, have gone etc where/why your vehicle made it possible. Help me with my never quenching thirst for adventure travel. But don't tell my bike that I am shopping around...
I have been a lurker for a while, but an adventurer for many many years. I have travelled across the US and Canada many times. As far north as the NWT in Canada, the Arctic Circle, and all over AK. Just got back from a Central America trek this month. All my travels are via a dual sport motorcycle, sometimes camping for a month or so, sometimes not. But looking not too far ahead into the future, I am thinking long and hard in the direction of some sort of an expedition vehicle for some future journeys. So I am trying to narrow the field of choices based on need vs want.
So with that intro behind us, although I just drool at the latest and greatest 'travel to the moon on wheels' vehicles, I have questions on the real need, and with the size and flexibility of some of the choices.
The thread that really got me thinking is the one where a person is building a GXV to travel in North America. I have been, not everywhere of course, but a great many places and many of them off road in strange and isolated places. But most places, in NA anyway, are accessible with a standard RV or camper. In AK and Northern BC for example, you can be behind a convoy of all sorts of campers and RV's on any of the roads up there including the Dempster, Daltan and Denali Highways, so no need for anything overly special up there. Ok I can see maybe a two year trip across Mongolia, and Russia, but in North and Central America I don't get it. Standard RV's and campers are all over the place from Death Valley to Prudhoe bay here in NA. A recent pic I saw said a million words and that was a MOG stuck in line behind 50 run of the mill campers waiting for a construction zone, or ferry or something. The places that would not be accessable to your std big RV, are areas where the road is too small for a big vehicle anyway, which leads me to my second question, size.
On my trip to Central America, many of the small towns (not the tiny villages off road in the mountains), but the smaller towns like say Tequilla in Mexico, Quiche in Guate for example, have roads that could no way accomodate these vehicles. Never mind the tiny towns off road where one would, I suspect, want to take these vehicles. In many ways, it seems reasonably contrary to the whole idea; kind of a conundrum. I would say the majority of places that I travelled on this trip one would be hard pressed to acccomodate anything over a Earthroamer Jeep.
So my questions are, where are you taking these that a regular RV or 4wd camper would crumble? And do you stick to major roadways and towns due to the size? So please, educate me on your experiences of where you go, have gone etc where/why your vehicle made it possible. Help me with my never quenching thirst for adventure travel. But don't tell my bike that I am shopping around...
