Advocate II
Hey guys! My first thread, I've really been enjoying this community though. Friendly informative place.
My wife and I are seriously considering attending OEW 2019 and making a long trip out of it, we've never been out west, and I've always wanted to get out on some of the awesome trails and gorgeous public land you westerners get to enjoy all the time. We've both spent our entire lives doing different types of outdoor and camping activities, but have only recently really gotten into the vehicle-dependant version of camping and exploring. This is marking a lifestyle shift for us, we have a 7 month old daughter, and we've decided that we want to spend as much time outdoors as a family as possible. So taking our 4runner out, exploring and camping is THE thing we're doing now, every chance we get. We don't have the time and energy to do intense, mile burning backpacking trips on the weekends in between heavy work loads Monday through Friday. But we love getting out, riding around remote areas, exploring and getting some awesome scenery! I also have been interested in the more technical aspect of offroading for a long time. That's a bit difficult in Texas, public land resources are limited, but there are still options.
We are interested in learning more, I'm somewhat of an offroad novice, and theres just a lot of cool resources and info out there that the expo's seem to offer. We're also already starting to talk about longer trips, even taking a 3-6 month work hiatus in a few years, just to travel and explore, before our daughter is school age. I have a few questions though:
1) Would we benefit from attending one of the expos, or is it just a "cool distraction" with a bunch of awesome gear? To be clear, I love awesome gear. Probably too much. I just don't want to invest the time and money into attending if the biggest thing we'll be doing is wandering around and drooling. That type of thing doesn't do me any good normally. I'm not hating on the expos. they seem awesome. I've watched the rig walkaround videos, everything. Just trying to be careful to not go down a rabbit hole that encourages me to spend unnecessary amounts of money.
2) How do tickets work? I've researched and read online, I know they're made available on the website, but I can't even find any info for the 2019 expos yet. And the ticket links don't work for any of the expos?
3) How hard is it to get full weekend camping tickets?
4) Does OB normally have a gathering at the Expo's? I know there was one for west this year, not sure if that's an every year thing.
5) Are there other things entirely that I should be focusing my time and resource energy on INSTEAD of an expo, that would be more beneficial for us simply wanting to learn and grow in this lifestyle?
My wife and I are seriously considering attending OEW 2019 and making a long trip out of it, we've never been out west, and I've always wanted to get out on some of the awesome trails and gorgeous public land you westerners get to enjoy all the time. We've both spent our entire lives doing different types of outdoor and camping activities, but have only recently really gotten into the vehicle-dependant version of camping and exploring. This is marking a lifestyle shift for us, we have a 7 month old daughter, and we've decided that we want to spend as much time outdoors as a family as possible. So taking our 4runner out, exploring and camping is THE thing we're doing now, every chance we get. We don't have the time and energy to do intense, mile burning backpacking trips on the weekends in between heavy work loads Monday through Friday. But we love getting out, riding around remote areas, exploring and getting some awesome scenery! I also have been interested in the more technical aspect of offroading for a long time. That's a bit difficult in Texas, public land resources are limited, but there are still options.
We are interested in learning more, I'm somewhat of an offroad novice, and theres just a lot of cool resources and info out there that the expo's seem to offer. We're also already starting to talk about longer trips, even taking a 3-6 month work hiatus in a few years, just to travel and explore, before our daughter is school age. I have a few questions though:
1) Would we benefit from attending one of the expos, or is it just a "cool distraction" with a bunch of awesome gear? To be clear, I love awesome gear. Probably too much. I just don't want to invest the time and money into attending if the biggest thing we'll be doing is wandering around and drooling. That type of thing doesn't do me any good normally. I'm not hating on the expos. they seem awesome. I've watched the rig walkaround videos, everything. Just trying to be careful to not go down a rabbit hole that encourages me to spend unnecessary amounts of money.
2) How do tickets work? I've researched and read online, I know they're made available on the website, but I can't even find any info for the 2019 expos yet. And the ticket links don't work for any of the expos?
3) How hard is it to get full weekend camping tickets?
4) Does OB normally have a gathering at the Expo's? I know there was one for west this year, not sure if that's an every year thing.
5) Are there other things entirely that I should be focusing my time and resource energy on INSTEAD of an expo, that would be more beneficial for us simply wanting to learn and grow in this lifestyle?
