Hi everyone, first post here.
Our kids (12, 9, 5) have finally reached the age where we can do more adventurous summer trips. To date, we have mainly focused on the beach and the lake as a family, which has been great, but we want to take it up a notch this summer. We are looking for advice on a few things and, as beginners, really look forward to learning from all of the experts in this community!
About us, we are a young, adventurous family, with an old soul mentality. We like to find off the beaten path areas, but also love seeing the big main attractions and want to make sure our kids get a glimpse of the beauty of America before they get too old and leave the nest. We hope this summer is one of many to come, and would love to do the west coast (including the Rubicon Trail), Pacific Northwest, far north east (ex. Maine), and other beautiful sections of the country in future years. We also have two amazing three year old yellow labs that will be along for the ride with us! We're the type of family who planned 2-3 days at Magic Kingdom once and had knocked out our itinerary by 2:30pm on Day 1 with the kids asking What's Next. Simply put, our natural tendency is to move fast and move to the next thing, and we have to consciously make sure we slow down and truly soak it in.
Up until this point, our kids have simply been too young to pull something like this off without them (and us) going crazy. However, we've seen over the past year that they might be ready. They can make it 6+ hrs in the car without major melt-downs. But more importantly, I feel like they are finally curious about the world and I know that they don't know what they don't know. My parents never did cool trips - we went to the beach and played with kids in the neighborhood all summer. It was a great upbringing, but I want our kids to see more. My wife's parents did more, but always flew to destinations (Hawaii, London, Paris, Grand Canyon, etc). I love building vehicles, road tripping and overlanding, and I think that same love is currently dormant inside of our family. I really want to see if we can unlock and unleash it!
For the trip, we are planning on leaving in early June and returning home in mid to late July or even early August if necessary. While we know this is the busiest time, we have to work with what we're given - the dreaded school calendars! We live in Birmingham and plan on driving to Colorado fast with one or two stops in between. We'll recover once we're there! We then want to hit Rocky Mountain national Park, then head south to Telluride where we do the Alpine Loop and/or Poughkeepsie/Black Bear Pass. We then plan to head to Moab for Level 3-5 trails (we've done Fins N Things, Poison Spyder, and Hells Revenge), with Arches and Canyon lands on each end. We were then thinking to head south west to the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon (1-2 of these can be skipped if we fall behind). From there we will go through Salt Lake City and end up in Jackson hole so we can do the Tetons and Yellowstone. We then close out our trip with a stretch through Montana including horseback riding (my oldest is a seasoned rider) maybe around the Missoula area, and whitefish for a launch into glacier national Park. Then through the Badlands of ND/SD and back home. We have a little over 2-months max and are trying to be flexible - I can work from anywhere and plan to have a Starlink Mini with me for whatever is needed.
I'm an engineer (ME/EE) who has a love for all things mechanical. Outside of work and family life, I spend my time restoring Toyota/Lexus vehicles in my spare time (just completed my 10th one). I built my 06 LX470, have restored 5 1st gen 4runners (2 85 SR5s and 3 87 SR5 Turbos), built a 96 80 series on 37s, restored 2 other 40th Anniversary 3x locked 80 Series (33s and 35s), etc. I love offroad/overlanding. It's just in my DNA I think. I used to memorize tire sizes in 4Wheeler and Petersons magazines growing up. I built my 98 Tacoma in high school. More recently I built 4th Gen v8 4Runner (SteelCityRacing4x4) and raced at King of the Hammers for a few years before COVID hit. Marlin Crawler (we prototyped RCLT with BigMike), 4x4Labs, Icon, Cooper, KMC, Warn, etc were all partners and amazing folks to work with. After placing in the Top 10 (but still not finishing, ugh), I checked that off the list and sold the truck to Toyota of Walnut Creek who now races it. The only reason I say all of this is because a) I truly love this stuff and b) the KOH adventure included trailering a 6,000lb vehicle on a 25' trailer from AL to CA and back multiple times so I got a good feel for hauling something big. For the weeks leading up to and during race week, we also had to go "Off Grid" in a rental RV for 2-3 weeks each time with no water or electricity hook-ups in the desert (we did have solar). Some days it snowed. Others it was 90deg and sunny. Some nights the wind hit 40-50mph. It was at times scary, and others exhilarating. You truly feel alive, and I'm excited to experience that again.
This time, thought, we'll have many more lives in tow. That's a bit scary for me! I think the first few days will be rough. Not just the travel time. I fully expect the AL to CO and the stretch through Salt Lake City to WY to be daunting for us all as I hope to complete them in 2-3 days max each (what I call the "more boring" sections) and recover in the destinations instead. But also, just the idea of the kids acclimating to life on-the-road and in a camper of some kind in general is scary. We think having the dogs will help - they're a safety blanket for them for sure. It will be rough at times. But I'm also 100% confident that they will not only adapt, I'm excited to see then evolve. Seeing something they've never see before (ex. the stars in the dark of MT, the huge mountain tops of the Tetons) that will Wow them much more than the technology based attractions that try to capture their attention minute-by-minute. That's probably one of the things that I'm looking forward to the most.
The National Parks honestly make me the most nervous. I think we can find spots in Moab, Ouray, Missoula, Whitefish, etc without a tons of planning. The National Parks are a different animal, and filled with uncertainty for us. We now realize that we are truly behind on these (reservations opened up a few months back). Unless we can build a rig that can "go anywhere" and find areas in the national parks where we won't get in trouble for camping in non-designated areas, we are going to have to hope either we get lucky and a spot opens up in the park or find spots in neighboring towns (ex. Whitefish or Jackson Hole) then unhook/drive into the park daily. Worst case scenario, we find the best spot we can without hookups, fill our tanks with fresh water before, shower in a lake (LOL) as needed, hope for cool nights where we can turn off the AC, and trust that our Solar Panels can sustain us the rest of the way!
We now know that expert RV'ers have been planning their exact spots in the parks for months and likely snagged them the first day reservations opened. So, we are inevitably already behind here. But, maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I'm always on a schedule work-wise, and the thought of being held to a schedule during this trip irks me. I don't like limitations. So, maybe by already having missed reservation spots, this will force us to take a different path that could be way better than what the the crowded camp-site scene offers anyway. Just the thought of a camp-site in a sea of concrete bothers me - this is inevitable some days, but for others, I hope for more adventure/beauty and, sad to say, less people!
Moving on to the rig options. Currently I drive a 2006 LX470 with 150K miles on 33s with a Dissent front bumper, Warn winch, and ProSpeed rack. It can do the Moab/Ouray trails no problem, but might start feeling tight for the kids/dogs hour after hour on long travel days. More importantly, while it's extremely well maintained (by me), it's also 20-yrs old and those long, dark stretches of highway would not be an ideal place for a random coolant hose to decide to erupt with 6 other lives (4 human, 2 canine) in tow. My wife drives a hybrid Sienna with incredible space and MPGs, so that's a consideration too. Therefore, I think we have a few options:
1) Sienna + Rentals: This is the smart money choice, but my adventurous self doesn't love it. Take my wife's Sienna with 40 mpg, rent a RV in CO round-trip, and rent Jeep/Broncos/Side-by-Sides in Moab, Ouray, etc. We'd have a set schedule with the RV rental days/mileage, and I hate limitations. We could then either park the Sienna in CO until we return, or split up having one of us drive the RV and the other bring the Sienna for when we need to "ground" the RV and hit the towns, parks, and hiking trails. The Jeep/Bronco/SxS rental places also limit where you can go, so Poughkeepsie / Black Bear Pass for example is off the list. But, it's the cheapest and possibly easiest option for sure.
2) LX570 + Camper: This is likely the more moderate choice. Sell the LX470 and "upgrade" to a 2020/2021 LX570 with AHC. While I love the idea of a LX600 / LX700h Overtrail (3x locked!), they are more expensive and felt way smaller than the LX570/200 Series LC to us. We then buy or rent a Black Series (17') or something like that, or even an Airstream (27-28'), then tow it behind the LX570 (others on iH8mud have towed similar trailers with LX570s with no issues) and unhook wherever we like. Then take the LX570 to do the cool stuff returning to the camper at night. This would also allow us to do a more offroad/overlanding oriented camper that could go on back-roads with us as needed. We'd need to sleep 5 + 2 dogs, ideally inside, so it has to be big unfortunately. While I would love it, my wife and kids likely won't go for RTT or Pop-Ups on an adventure trailer in the desert in the summer - so these are off the list. This option is expensive for sure, but we only get so many summers before our kids grow up and move away. The downsides are that even the LX570 may start feeling tight (it's only a smidge bigger than the LX470), it just isn't an ideal tow vehicle compared to a diesel or larger truck, and while we won't be doing anything crazy trail-wise, the risk of breakage is still real (even though I'm confident we could fix just about anything). We'd also have a big trailer in tow, which will limit us on speed, mpg, and some back-road traveling. But at least we'd all be together and can unhook and see cool stuff without towing. I also hate the idea of selling our LX470, which is the best vehicle we've owned even if it would be just to "upgrade" to a LX570. It has sentimental value, being the vehicle we brought our kids home from the hospital in all those many years ago. But, maybe it's simply time for an upgrade! I also don't like the idea of winterizing/storing it somewhere.
3) Tow Rig / Adventure Rig + Larger Camper: My wife loves AirStreams and posted her ideas on the forums recently (Option 2 above, specifically, with a 28' Airstream) and they immediately told us we need a bigger truck and a 30' AS to do what we're wanting to do comfortably. They might be right, but we're an adventurous family and I'm as big of a Toyota Enthusiast as there is. The idea of building a Ford, Dodge, etc is tough to swallow. Maybe I could build something cool (Diesel on 35s or 37s with cool suspension, big power, and decent mpgs), but right now I'm having a hard time envisioning it. No matter what, a big truck isn't my idea of fun in Moab or Black Bear Pass / Poughkeepsie. So, we'd likely have to rent Jeep/Bronco or Side-by-Side consistent with Option 1 above, again limiting what we can do and where we can go. Then afterward, I have to deal with selling the Tow Rig or storing it somewhere as I'm definitely not driving it daily! And then sell the AS, or deal with winterizing/storing it somewhere again. Edit: Maybe a F350 Tremor with the 6.7L High Output Diesel could be an option. Still feels huge to me for anything in Moab, but we can rent there. Would probably be fine for Ouray and everything else.
Anyway, we've realized that there are pros and cons to everything, which is why we're posting here. Overall, the big skies of the Mountain West are definitely calling us. With little ones at home, I don't get that feeling of just "going and getting out there". I crazily miss those 3-hr stretches between gas stations in Utah on the Salt Flats and Northern NV where you finally see how truly big and amazing our country is. I miss that feeling, but more than anything, I want our kids to see and experience all our country has to offer and think/hope they are now old enough to appreciate it. We know it'll be hot (but it can't be that much worse than 100deg with 100% humidity that we see in AL/FL), we know the road-day sprints, where required, will be long (but they can't be worse than the 24-hr stretch I did once on the way back from CA to AL). We know the parks will be packed (but maybe we can find less crowded or off-the-beaten-path escapes somewhere). The open road, the open stretches as far as you can see, and the feeling of wandering and experiencing is calling me. My wife and our kids don't even know what that feeling feels like yet. I'm excited to see if/how it grows inside of them and gives them that desire to go that they can carry with them in life.
If you were in our shoes, what would you do? What advice would you give? Where are we going in the wrong direction?
And sorry for the novel - maybe I should just do a video next time instead :).
Our kids (12, 9, 5) have finally reached the age where we can do more adventurous summer trips. To date, we have mainly focused on the beach and the lake as a family, which has been great, but we want to take it up a notch this summer. We are looking for advice on a few things and, as beginners, really look forward to learning from all of the experts in this community!
About us, we are a young, adventurous family, with an old soul mentality. We like to find off the beaten path areas, but also love seeing the big main attractions and want to make sure our kids get a glimpse of the beauty of America before they get too old and leave the nest. We hope this summer is one of many to come, and would love to do the west coast (including the Rubicon Trail), Pacific Northwest, far north east (ex. Maine), and other beautiful sections of the country in future years. We also have two amazing three year old yellow labs that will be along for the ride with us! We're the type of family who planned 2-3 days at Magic Kingdom once and had knocked out our itinerary by 2:30pm on Day 1 with the kids asking What's Next. Simply put, our natural tendency is to move fast and move to the next thing, and we have to consciously make sure we slow down and truly soak it in.
Up until this point, our kids have simply been too young to pull something like this off without them (and us) going crazy. However, we've seen over the past year that they might be ready. They can make it 6+ hrs in the car without major melt-downs. But more importantly, I feel like they are finally curious about the world and I know that they don't know what they don't know. My parents never did cool trips - we went to the beach and played with kids in the neighborhood all summer. It was a great upbringing, but I want our kids to see more. My wife's parents did more, but always flew to destinations (Hawaii, London, Paris, Grand Canyon, etc). I love building vehicles, road tripping and overlanding, and I think that same love is currently dormant inside of our family. I really want to see if we can unlock and unleash it!
For the trip, we are planning on leaving in early June and returning home in mid to late July or even early August if necessary. While we know this is the busiest time, we have to work with what we're given - the dreaded school calendars! We live in Birmingham and plan on driving to Colorado fast with one or two stops in between. We'll recover once we're there! We then want to hit Rocky Mountain national Park, then head south to Telluride where we do the Alpine Loop and/or Poughkeepsie/Black Bear Pass. We then plan to head to Moab for Level 3-5 trails (we've done Fins N Things, Poison Spyder, and Hells Revenge), with Arches and Canyon lands on each end. We were then thinking to head south west to the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon (1-2 of these can be skipped if we fall behind). From there we will go through Salt Lake City and end up in Jackson hole so we can do the Tetons and Yellowstone. We then close out our trip with a stretch through Montana including horseback riding (my oldest is a seasoned rider) maybe around the Missoula area, and whitefish for a launch into glacier national Park. Then through the Badlands of ND/SD and back home. We have a little over 2-months max and are trying to be flexible - I can work from anywhere and plan to have a Starlink Mini with me for whatever is needed.
I'm an engineer (ME/EE) who has a love for all things mechanical. Outside of work and family life, I spend my time restoring Toyota/Lexus vehicles in my spare time (just completed my 10th one). I built my 06 LX470, have restored 5 1st gen 4runners (2 85 SR5s and 3 87 SR5 Turbos), built a 96 80 series on 37s, restored 2 other 40th Anniversary 3x locked 80 Series (33s and 35s), etc. I love offroad/overlanding. It's just in my DNA I think. I used to memorize tire sizes in 4Wheeler and Petersons magazines growing up. I built my 98 Tacoma in high school. More recently I built 4th Gen v8 4Runner (SteelCityRacing4x4) and raced at King of the Hammers for a few years before COVID hit. Marlin Crawler (we prototyped RCLT with BigMike), 4x4Labs, Icon, Cooper, KMC, Warn, etc were all partners and amazing folks to work with. After placing in the Top 10 (but still not finishing, ugh), I checked that off the list and sold the truck to Toyota of Walnut Creek who now races it. The only reason I say all of this is because a) I truly love this stuff and b) the KOH adventure included trailering a 6,000lb vehicle on a 25' trailer from AL to CA and back multiple times so I got a good feel for hauling something big. For the weeks leading up to and during race week, we also had to go "Off Grid" in a rental RV for 2-3 weeks each time with no water or electricity hook-ups in the desert (we did have solar). Some days it snowed. Others it was 90deg and sunny. Some nights the wind hit 40-50mph. It was at times scary, and others exhilarating. You truly feel alive, and I'm excited to experience that again.
This time, thought, we'll have many more lives in tow. That's a bit scary for me! I think the first few days will be rough. Not just the travel time. I fully expect the AL to CO and the stretch through Salt Lake City to WY to be daunting for us all as I hope to complete them in 2-3 days max each (what I call the "more boring" sections) and recover in the destinations instead. But also, just the idea of the kids acclimating to life on-the-road and in a camper of some kind in general is scary. We think having the dogs will help - they're a safety blanket for them for sure. It will be rough at times. But I'm also 100% confident that they will not only adapt, I'm excited to see then evolve. Seeing something they've never see before (ex. the stars in the dark of MT, the huge mountain tops of the Tetons) that will Wow them much more than the technology based attractions that try to capture their attention minute-by-minute. That's probably one of the things that I'm looking forward to the most.
The National Parks honestly make me the most nervous. I think we can find spots in Moab, Ouray, Missoula, Whitefish, etc without a tons of planning. The National Parks are a different animal, and filled with uncertainty for us. We now realize that we are truly behind on these (reservations opened up a few months back). Unless we can build a rig that can "go anywhere" and find areas in the national parks where we won't get in trouble for camping in non-designated areas, we are going to have to hope either we get lucky and a spot opens up in the park or find spots in neighboring towns (ex. Whitefish or Jackson Hole) then unhook/drive into the park daily. Worst case scenario, we find the best spot we can without hookups, fill our tanks with fresh water before, shower in a lake (LOL) as needed, hope for cool nights where we can turn off the AC, and trust that our Solar Panels can sustain us the rest of the way!
We now know that expert RV'ers have been planning their exact spots in the parks for months and likely snagged them the first day reservations opened. So, we are inevitably already behind here. But, maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I'm always on a schedule work-wise, and the thought of being held to a schedule during this trip irks me. I don't like limitations. So, maybe by already having missed reservation spots, this will force us to take a different path that could be way better than what the the crowded camp-site scene offers anyway. Just the thought of a camp-site in a sea of concrete bothers me - this is inevitable some days, but for others, I hope for more adventure/beauty and, sad to say, less people!
Moving on to the rig options. Currently I drive a 2006 LX470 with 150K miles on 33s with a Dissent front bumper, Warn winch, and ProSpeed rack. It can do the Moab/Ouray trails no problem, but might start feeling tight for the kids/dogs hour after hour on long travel days. More importantly, while it's extremely well maintained (by me), it's also 20-yrs old and those long, dark stretches of highway would not be an ideal place for a random coolant hose to decide to erupt with 6 other lives (4 human, 2 canine) in tow. My wife drives a hybrid Sienna with incredible space and MPGs, so that's a consideration too. Therefore, I think we have a few options:
1) Sienna + Rentals: This is the smart money choice, but my adventurous self doesn't love it. Take my wife's Sienna with 40 mpg, rent a RV in CO round-trip, and rent Jeep/Broncos/Side-by-Sides in Moab, Ouray, etc. We'd have a set schedule with the RV rental days/mileage, and I hate limitations. We could then either park the Sienna in CO until we return, or split up having one of us drive the RV and the other bring the Sienna for when we need to "ground" the RV and hit the towns, parks, and hiking trails. The Jeep/Bronco/SxS rental places also limit where you can go, so Poughkeepsie / Black Bear Pass for example is off the list. But, it's the cheapest and possibly easiest option for sure.
2) LX570 + Camper: This is likely the more moderate choice. Sell the LX470 and "upgrade" to a 2020/2021 LX570 with AHC. While I love the idea of a LX600 / LX700h Overtrail (3x locked!), they are more expensive and felt way smaller than the LX570/200 Series LC to us. We then buy or rent a Black Series (17') or something like that, or even an Airstream (27-28'), then tow it behind the LX570 (others on iH8mud have towed similar trailers with LX570s with no issues) and unhook wherever we like. Then take the LX570 to do the cool stuff returning to the camper at night. This would also allow us to do a more offroad/overlanding oriented camper that could go on back-roads with us as needed. We'd need to sleep 5 + 2 dogs, ideally inside, so it has to be big unfortunately. While I would love it, my wife and kids likely won't go for RTT or Pop-Ups on an adventure trailer in the desert in the summer - so these are off the list. This option is expensive for sure, but we only get so many summers before our kids grow up and move away. The downsides are that even the LX570 may start feeling tight (it's only a smidge bigger than the LX470), it just isn't an ideal tow vehicle compared to a diesel or larger truck, and while we won't be doing anything crazy trail-wise, the risk of breakage is still real (even though I'm confident we could fix just about anything). We'd also have a big trailer in tow, which will limit us on speed, mpg, and some back-road traveling. But at least we'd all be together and can unhook and see cool stuff without towing. I also hate the idea of selling our LX470, which is the best vehicle we've owned even if it would be just to "upgrade" to a LX570. It has sentimental value, being the vehicle we brought our kids home from the hospital in all those many years ago. But, maybe it's simply time for an upgrade! I also don't like the idea of winterizing/storing it somewhere.
3) Tow Rig / Adventure Rig + Larger Camper: My wife loves AirStreams and posted her ideas on the forums recently (Option 2 above, specifically, with a 28' Airstream) and they immediately told us we need a bigger truck and a 30' AS to do what we're wanting to do comfortably. They might be right, but we're an adventurous family and I'm as big of a Toyota Enthusiast as there is. The idea of building a Ford, Dodge, etc is tough to swallow. Maybe I could build something cool (Diesel on 35s or 37s with cool suspension, big power, and decent mpgs), but right now I'm having a hard time envisioning it. No matter what, a big truck isn't my idea of fun in Moab or Black Bear Pass / Poughkeepsie. So, we'd likely have to rent Jeep/Bronco or Side-by-Side consistent with Option 1 above, again limiting what we can do and where we can go. Then afterward, I have to deal with selling the Tow Rig or storing it somewhere as I'm definitely not driving it daily! And then sell the AS, or deal with winterizing/storing it somewhere again. Edit: Maybe a F350 Tremor with the 6.7L High Output Diesel could be an option. Still feels huge to me for anything in Moab, but we can rent there. Would probably be fine for Ouray and everything else.
Anyway, we've realized that there are pros and cons to everything, which is why we're posting here. Overall, the big skies of the Mountain West are definitely calling us. With little ones at home, I don't get that feeling of just "going and getting out there". I crazily miss those 3-hr stretches between gas stations in Utah on the Salt Flats and Northern NV where you finally see how truly big and amazing our country is. I miss that feeling, but more than anything, I want our kids to see and experience all our country has to offer and think/hope they are now old enough to appreciate it. We know it'll be hot (but it can't be that much worse than 100deg with 100% humidity that we see in AL/FL), we know the road-day sprints, where required, will be long (but they can't be worse than the 24-hr stretch I did once on the way back from CA to AL). We know the parks will be packed (but maybe we can find less crowded or off-the-beaten-path escapes somewhere). The open road, the open stretches as far as you can see, and the feeling of wandering and experiencing is calling me. My wife and our kids don't even know what that feeling feels like yet. I'm excited to see if/how it grows inside of them and gives them that desire to go that they can carry with them in life.
If you were in our shoes, what would you do? What advice would you give? Where are we going in the wrong direction?
And sorry for the novel - maybe I should just do a video next time instead :).
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