About 10 months ago, Karl had an idea that quickly became a plan. We were going to build/buy an overland expedition vehicle and drive it from Boulder, CO to the tip of South America. The post on our Adventure Advice page describes some of the decisions we made in selecting the camper and truck. It also provides some high level information on the advantages and disadvantages of different types of overland expedition vehicles.
Today we finally picked up our vehicle at the XPCamper factory in Grass Valley, CA! As you can see from the photos, it’s a beautiful rig. Here’s a few of the things we like most about our Sif (the camper) and Thor (the truck):
It’s aerodynamic (with the camper down)
It’s comfy – We love the dining room seating and table. It’s a super comfortable area to hang out in. We also love the bed [describe the bed], and the Rixen heating system!
It has a huge “range” – Not only do we have a 60 gallon fuel tank, but we we also have 60 gallons of water, 3 solar panels and 4 batteries. So if we want we can live off of the grid for weeks at a time.
It’s off road capable
It’s secure – When the camper is down, the camper can’t be accessed (the door and windows are blocked). At some point, we’ll create a post on the additional security mechanisms we have on our camper and truck.
Unfortunately, our rig is not drive-able! We have to take the camper off and drive the truck (and flat bed) to Los Angeles to beef up the suspension! In retrospect, we should have done this before we picked up the camper. But we were hoping we could drive to Los Angeles with the camper on the truck and get the suspension work done with the camper on the truck.
Anyway, we were nevertheless psyched to see our completed XPCamper for the first time. And with luck we’re about a week away from being able to camp in it and drive it back to Boulder, CO to wrap a few things up before starting on our journey!
Leave a reply