South America and Mexico in a pop-up TC

[MacHof]

My wife and I just returned from a 21 month trip, in a truck camper, through South America, Mexico, and parts of the US. Prior to starting our trip, we used the Expedition Portal for some of our research on truck campers and campsites.

Time for us to pay back a little...

We just posted on our blog a listing of the campsites we used in Argentina. Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile. (Mexico as well, btw). Hopefully this will be of help to other travelers. Other stuff on the blog talks about why we chose a TC; in hindsight an excellent choice.

Here's a link to our South America travels.



Cheers,

Karen and Henrik


PS we also posted this under Completed Expeditions...

 

[haven]

Thanks for sharing, and greetings to fellow bird watchers!

 

[contento]

Nice! I'm planning on some similar travels with my 6.0 gas powered 2009 Silverado 2500hd. I've got a couple questions if you don't mind-


Your truck looks bone stock, have you modified it in anyway?
Stock suspension height?
What tire make/size did you run?
Did you ever run into any problems with dirty/bad gas?
Average MPG for the trip?
I noticed at one point you had trouble locating propane, on average how many days would a 20lb bottle last you?


Thanks for the info, I look forward to reading your blog in it's entirety.

 

[MacHof]

Correct, truck is absolute stock - the intent was to keep it so to minimize any repair / maintenance issues. While there are plenty of GMC/Chevy trucks in S America, they are all of the S10 variety, no 1500s or 2500s. So bring along at least oil filters, and I would recommend belts as well.

Suspension height - stock (don't actually know what it is...)

Tires - Bridgestone Duravis 265/70-17, now we are on Michelin LTX MS/2. The Bridgestones were fine. We had 3 flat tires during our trip - two due to bolts on the road, one likely due to a elongated, sharp rock. No issues getting the flats repaired once you know the words Gomeria, Llanteria, or Vulcanizado. The tire shops may not look like much, but they are fix flats all the time.

No issues with bad gas.

Avg MPG for the trip was 11.7.

With an electric fridge, we run through a 20# tank in anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks, depending on how cold it is outside, and thereby if we use the furnace.

Cheers,

Henrik

 

[sg1]

Hi Hendrik,
thank you for the link to your website. It helps me a lot planning our trip from Canada to Chile. We will start in a year from now. We just came back after 9 months in Southern Africa (great trip). I can only confirm your conclusions about camping outside North America: There are basically no hook ups, no black water disposal facilities (use a cassette toilet) and bad roads and washboard will seriously challenge any standard truck camper or RV.
If you have any questions about travelling in Africa (North, West and South, I do not know East Africa) let me know.
Regards
Stefan

 

[MacHof]

Stefan.

We started a slightly different thread going at Rv.net, http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26900182.cfm, which has some good info as well.

Cheers,

Henrik