wherethehelldidiputmykeys
New member
Hello, everyone;
This is my first post here, so I'll introduce myself and give a little info on what I'm getting ready to do. My name is Steve, and I live in western Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. I've had the travel bug since I first went overseas in my 20s; if I didn't have responsibilities here, I'd probably sell everything I own and travel full-time. The only thing that I don't like is cramming my six feet, two inches onto buses, into taxis, onto the backs of tiny motorcycles, etc. Every trip I take, my knees, neck, back, and I always wish we had our own vehicle.
A few years ago I saw a show about some people who want to build a bridge across the Bering Strait, and that got me thinking about driving around the world. I originally thought I might do it after I retire, but I'm only 32 and I don't think I can wait that long. Then I saw a Unimog one day and was fascinated by it, did some research, and came across some of the massive expedition RVs I'm sure you've all seen. The price tag had me thinking after retirement again, but in the meantime I bought a Ford Ranger in Nicaragua and drove around through cane fields, across rivers, through swamps, etc., and realized that the big expedition vehicles wouldn't make it into a lot of the places I was going. The Ranger was also pretty inadequate; I did all kinds of damage to it. I sold it and went back into research mode.
I had been seeing a lot of Land Cruiser pickups in Central America, and fell in love with their boxy, utilitarian looks. They were still too expensive, but I could dream, right? I did more research, looked at offroad van conversions and all kinds of different setups, but I kept coming back to the FJ40, which I concluded would be the best vehicle to do what I want to do -- drive all over the world a few weeks at a time, until I'm dead, too crippled to drive, or just not into it anymore.
For starters, I'm planning to pick up a diesel FJ40 in Costa Rica and drive it back here, sort of zig-zagging through Central America and Mexico. Back home, I'll do some work on it, take some trips inside North America, and after that, probably head south again. When possible, I want to leave the vehicle with friends and fly home, then go back and continue on from where I left off. Obviously there's some risk in doing that, which is one reason I don't want to dump tens of thousands of dollars into the vehicle. The other reason is I don't have that much money. I'm not looking so much to travel the globe in a state of the art, high-tech expedition vehicle, but more to travel the globe in a relatively low-tech vehicle that's as old as me or maybe a few years older, with a few modern upgrades.
Any advice from you more experienced Land Cruiser expedition people would be greatly appreciated; like I said, I'm taking a learn as I go approach, so while I've spent a few years researching and I have some experience driving the Pan-American Highway, I've never done it in an older vehicle. I'm also not much of a mechanic, so I'll be learning that, too, but I figure in most places in the world, there's going to be someone around that can fix an FJ40 if I can't.
Thanks in advance for your guidance.
This is my first post here, so I'll introduce myself and give a little info on what I'm getting ready to do. My name is Steve, and I live in western Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. I've had the travel bug since I first went overseas in my 20s; if I didn't have responsibilities here, I'd probably sell everything I own and travel full-time. The only thing that I don't like is cramming my six feet, two inches onto buses, into taxis, onto the backs of tiny motorcycles, etc. Every trip I take, my knees, neck, back, and I always wish we had our own vehicle.
A few years ago I saw a show about some people who want to build a bridge across the Bering Strait, and that got me thinking about driving around the world. I originally thought I might do it after I retire, but I'm only 32 and I don't think I can wait that long. Then I saw a Unimog one day and was fascinated by it, did some research, and came across some of the massive expedition RVs I'm sure you've all seen. The price tag had me thinking after retirement again, but in the meantime I bought a Ford Ranger in Nicaragua and drove around through cane fields, across rivers, through swamps, etc., and realized that the big expedition vehicles wouldn't make it into a lot of the places I was going. The Ranger was also pretty inadequate; I did all kinds of damage to it. I sold it and went back into research mode.
I had been seeing a lot of Land Cruiser pickups in Central America, and fell in love with their boxy, utilitarian looks. They were still too expensive, but I could dream, right? I did more research, looked at offroad van conversions and all kinds of different setups, but I kept coming back to the FJ40, which I concluded would be the best vehicle to do what I want to do -- drive all over the world a few weeks at a time, until I'm dead, too crippled to drive, or just not into it anymore.
For starters, I'm planning to pick up a diesel FJ40 in Costa Rica and drive it back here, sort of zig-zagging through Central America and Mexico. Back home, I'll do some work on it, take some trips inside North America, and after that, probably head south again. When possible, I want to leave the vehicle with friends and fly home, then go back and continue on from where I left off. Obviously there's some risk in doing that, which is one reason I don't want to dump tens of thousands of dollars into the vehicle. The other reason is I don't have that much money. I'm not looking so much to travel the globe in a state of the art, high-tech expedition vehicle, but more to travel the globe in a relatively low-tech vehicle that's as old as me or maybe a few years older, with a few modern upgrades.
Any advice from you more experienced Land Cruiser expedition people would be greatly appreciated; like I said, I'm taking a learn as I go approach, so while I've spent a few years researching and I have some experience driving the Pan-American Highway, I've never done it in an older vehicle. I'm also not much of a mechanic, so I'll be learning that, too, but I figure in most places in the world, there's going to be someone around that can fix an FJ40 if I can't.
Thanks in advance for your guidance.
) next year!
