Journey To Full-time Overland Adventure Travel

So by now you probably have read about our plans to become full-time overland travelers in 2022. If not, you might want to check out our last blog first, "Bear Grills Saved My Life". You know our reasons why, so now let’s talk a little bit more about how.

Our preferred method of travel is overland adventure travel. Overland travel and adventure travel are both broad terms. Overland Journal defines Overlanding as self-reliant adventure travel to remote destinations where the journey is the primary goal. Typically, but not exclusively, accommodated by mechanized off-highway capable transport (from bicycles to trucks) where the principal form of lodging is camping; often lasting for extended lengths of time (months to years) and often spanning international boundaries. While expedition is defined as a journey with a purpose, overlanding sees the journey as the purpose. In essence, it is vehicle-dependent travel.

Overland adventure travel in the North Maine Woods.

Adventure travel on the other hand is defined by Wikipedia as a type of niche tourism, involving exploration or travel with a certain degree of risk (real or perceived), and which may require special skills and physical exertion. While similar and often related, adventure travel doesn’t have to be done overland. But in our case, it will be.

We mostly travel alone and are always looking for the most remote areas possible. While we love our Jeep, it is a means to an end as our vehicle helps us reach these locations. While we will camp, it won't be the only thing we do. We want to hike and in some cases backpack and camp in the backcountry. We want to take up kayaking. I would love to do more mountain biking. In essence, explore by any means possible.

There are a plethora of Youtube channels devoted to people, couples, and families, who have decided to overland full time, or close to it. Channels like Venture4wd, Lifestyle Overland, Epic Family Road Trip, Dirt Sunrise, and The Road Chose Me. We follow many of them and they are in many ways our motivation for what we are going to do. Venture4wd explores North America full-time, initially alone in his Jeep, but now with his girlfriend in his Jeep and new Camper van. Lifestyle Overland doesn't travel full time but takes frequent overland trips across the US with their young daughter. Dirt Sunrise lives out of their Land Cruiser and has traveled South America over the last two years and currently are exploring North America as we still deal with COVID. After traveling from Alaska to the tip of South America in his Jeep, Dan Grec from The Road Chose Me spent two years living in his Jeep and traveling across Africa. Now he has headed even further south and is exploring Australia. Overland travelers have also explored, Europe, Asia, and all over the world.

So how do you travel either full-time or at least extensively? There are multiple different ways to do it. All of them reduce their expenses as much as possible. Some of them save as much as they can and then travel as long as they can, returning to work until they can travel again. While others sell or rent their house and live in their vehicle full time. The full-timers usually work from the road, doing jobs that are able to be done remotely, IT consulting, web development, and marketing, are common ones, but not the only ones. Many also eventually transition to make money from their travels, through blogging, writing articles and books, and or starting a Youtube channel.

We have four dogs, a cat, and a mother-in-law that lives with us, we can’t just live out of our Jeep, as much as I would like to. So are we going to do it? Our plan is to sell our house and move into an RV full time. A Class A large enough and with room for all of us, towing our Jeep behind us ready for easy adventures. I will continue with my current job, working remotely from beautiful places. I already work from home as it is and travel for work as needed, not much will change there. We will then Explore in our free time, camp on the weekends and whenever we can. We would love to make a living full-time from our travels, but at worst we get to travel and explore while living our lives. Could be worse than working from the rim of the Grand Canyon. I can work anywhere where we can get a cell signal.

Georgetown 7

We won't be slumming it by any means. We are looking at purchasing close to a 40’ Class A Motorhome. Our leading contender is the Georgetown 7 pictured above. This model has two full bathrooms and bunks to go along with a King size bed. It is not cheap by any means but will be our full-time home and will replace our mortgage. It will allow us to bring a good deal of our important belongings. Whatever we don't want or need anymore we will get rid of, and put the rest in storage.

As you can expect, we will spend quite a bit of time in campgrounds, whether private or public ones located in state and national parks. But once you get more out west you can also do what is called boondocking. Boondocking is defined by Campendium as the opportunity to camp off-the-grid, far from the services and amenities that can be found at RV parks or developed campgrounds. It’s a quieter way of camping, one that often lands us in beautiful destinations for days or weeks at a time. You don’t get any electrical or water hookups, or other campground amenities, but it’s free and you are most likely all alone. That's how we love to camp and do it whenever we can in our Jeep. You can boondock in National Forests and BLM land.

RV Boondocking

We are currently saving as much as we can to purchase the RV, that’s the main item driving our wait to leave until August while we are also working to reduce our expenses as much as possible. We will sell our house when we get closer to departure. We have planned our route for next year after departure. While we want to be free and flexible, we do have a general path in mind. First heading south along the East Coast, and after spending some time in Florida we will head West along the Southern US. From there we will head up the West Coast and will look to explore Western Canada and Alaska in 2023 before coming back to the US and look to explore the jewels of the middle of the US, Montana, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico (one of my personal favorites).

We have made the decision to go. We have a plan in place. We are getting prepared. Now, all we have to do is get started!