1/13/2024 0 Comments Outdoor hot pot near me![]() ![]() In the warmer months, it rains almost daily here in the Southern Appalachians, where I live. For me, it was a matter of convenience, comfort, and getting off the ground. But it still ain’t cheap, and dropping $1,169 on a two-person tent can be hard to justify. I like the company’s pedigree, but this tent won me over because of its weight (just 95 pounds) and price, which is significantly less than most of the competition. Front Runner is a South African company that tests its gear in the African bush in situations that are far more severe than any I’d experience. Having the tent on my truck with a built-in mattress eliminates a lot of the hassle of camping. I debated long and hard about whether I needed a rooftop tent (RTT), but it finally came down to my original goal to make camping as easy as possible. Front Runner Roof Top Tent ($1,169) (Photo: Graham Averill) So here’s the gear I’ve used to turn my old 4Runner into an overland machine. My 4Runner has a new life and I have a new hobby, which is basically the healthiest outcome you could expect from a midlife crisis. Going into the project, I knew I had to be careful with the choices I made to maximize space.īut most important, it’s been fun as hell. Also, a third-generation 4Runner is tiny compared to the current model, so space is tight. I wanted to retrofit my rig so I can decide to go camping and be on the road in 15 minutes. My main goal isn’t to drive to Patagonia without using a single highway but to take my family camping more often. I drive mostly on gravel and mellow dirt roads, on snow in the winter, and a bit of beach in the summer. ![]() It’s handled Utah’s desert, Colorado’s snow, and the southern Appalachians’ combo of rock and mud without a single upgrade. It’s a perfectly capable off-road vehicle straight off the assembly line. ![]() A lot of people go full-bore into the off-road aspect of the sport, beefing up the suspension and recovery equipment, but I’m not going to take the 4Runner rock hopping. You can make do with a standard car-camping tent, a cooler, and some decent off-road tires. It’s easy to get carried away when you start making upgrades to your vehicle-and overlanding is not an inexpensive hobby-so it’s important to remember you don’t need everything I’m listing to have a worthwhile experience. What better way to give my trusty vehicle new life than to turn it into a bona fide miniature RV? But my mechanic says the 4Runner is rock solid and, like me, is just hitting its life’s halfway mark. It’s a 2000 third generation with 211,000 miles, and it has plenty of wear from various adventures and my two kids smashing Goldfish into the seat cushions. The niche has grown steadily over the last decade but became a full-blown movement in the past few years.įortunately, my old Toyota 4Runner is going through a midlife crisis at the exact same time I am. You might be familiar with overlanding, in which people turn their trucks or SUVs into self-contained adventure vehicles capable of handling rough terrain and multiple nights in the backcountry. I’m not a convertible-sports-car kind of guy, so when I started feeling the pull of a midlife crisis, I did what some adventurous 44-year-old husbands and fathers would do: I fell deep into the rabbit hole of overlanding. ![]()
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