Back in 2013 I first learned about this thing called overlanding. I quickly realized that it was what I wanted to do. I tried to immerse myself in the topic and research as much as I could. That’s where I found out about Shachagra and the Overlanding Family touring the world. I also foudn through Expedition Portal that there were groups of people who met to discuss and talk about these things face to face. A community of seemingy like minded people to talk about what I want to do!
I found out about the Overland Expo out in Flagstaff. It looked incredible, but very difficult to justify a trip cross country all the way from Maryland to see it. Then I read about the Abenteuer & Allrad show in Germany but if I couldn’t get to Arizona, then Germany was really out of the question. Then however I saw that the Overland Expo just started hosting a show on the East Coast in North Carolina. So in 2014, I convinced my brother and his son to come along with me for my first overlanding roadtrip to North Carolina!
Now I hadn’t been tent camping in quite a long time, but we packed up my wife’s minivan and hit the road. We camped out there in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains for a few days. I wasn’t quite prepared for what we saw. I had never even seen a roof top tent in person before. That trip was quite an exciting event for me. Luckily we got there on Thursday afternoon before the event started and set up a prime spot parked on top of this grassy hill in the field. I’m pretty sure we had the only Honda Odyssey in the camping area!
I had the full weekend pass and got to go to several classes and learn about all sorts of things that I didn’t even no existed like vehicle water filtration systems, and offroad recovery gear. I even got to drive a brand new $75,000 Range Rover on the 4×4 course through the woods! It rained a lot through the first day and that made the offroad driving much more exciting. It was easy with the Land Rover, but I had never really driven a vehicle offroad before in earnest. My brother was a bit scared in the back seat and made it known, as he had never done anything like this before either. But he was too nervous to drive it even!
The rain reall made work of the hills and fields too that people had to drive through to get to/from the camping area. If we arrived on Friday, there is absolutely no way the Odyssey would have been able to make it to the camping field! All of those 4×4’s on the mud hill basically destroyed the grass leading into and out of the camping area. I’m pretty sure that’s why they had to change venues the following year too. My tent kept me dry, albeit freezing cold, my 3 summer tent wasn’t prepared for that freezing overnight temps. But my brothers tent leaked, at leasy I didn’t have to worry about that in the rain. They basically threw away their tent at the end of the trip.
But I had a great time. I got to see my first Earthroamer in the vendor section, and an Earthcruiser, a Sportsmobile, and the one I really wanted to see which was Global Expedition Vehicles. Unfortunately the only vehicle they opted to bring East was a small Pangea lifting roof model on a Fuso type chassis, so it was relatively small. And Earthroamer still hadn’t built their HD model yet. So my main focus of going was to see the big rig expedition vehicles, but there wasn’t anything really bigger than the Earthroamer. But it was still really impressive to see these things in person that I had only previously seen online.
I did get to meet Rene VanPelt of GXV and told her my plans and desire to get a GXV but maybe in a few years. She told me that sometimes it takes several years for a customer contact to turn into an order. Here I sit 6 years later still hoping and planning but feeling ever closer. I’ll try to make a page profiling GXV soon. But I believe they are the best and maybe only option for a fullsize US made expedition vehicle. The market in Europe seems significantly bigger, which at first blush seems odd to me based on the size of the domestic US RV market. Someday I’ll get to Germany for the big show, but not yet.
Most of the shots in the gallery below are vehicles we saw in the camping area. But they were without a doubt all very impressive. This place is what my dreams are really made of.
Another inspiration from this trip came from trying to learn how to use Google Maps to create my own publishable maps. Here’s the first one I ever made. It included a trip to get from my house to visit my Mom in South Carolina and then up to the mountains of North Carolina for the Expo East.
We had a fantastic time at Expo East 2014. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to return or even get to Expo West either. I almost made it as part of our trip to Flagstaff in 2014, but we were 3 weeks too early! And then since then, life seems to have gotten int the way. We’ve had plenty of adventures and ups and downs in the past 5 years, but unfortunately none pointed back to Expo. Now however that we’re back from other adventures, I feel like I’m able to focus more on this project and see where I can take it from here. My interest levels and desire seem to ebb and flow directly proportional to my financial position at the time. Right now you could say I’m more optimistic about our future prospects, which has again piqued my interest. We’ll see what the future holds.
Next up I’ll try to share some of my original concept sketches I took with me to Overland Expo back in 2014 after we did our proof of concept trip in the rental RV to see what was in the cards for us. Sort of a “lessons learned” summary.