Off-Road Ranger I
Aloha, e komo mai Overland Bound (Hello and welcome to Overland Bound) @Pau Hana Travels! Spokane is far from island life, but then again, it is about a mindset that fits anywhere and everywhere. It sounds like you are well versed in vehicle dependant travel, so the transition from RV life to Overland should be an exciting adventure. Here in the PNW, there is lots to do and, most importantly, lots of people to chat with and gain ideas from. The first recommendation I have is to check out the NorthWest Region forums [link] to get to know who is in your area. Planned events, such as meetups and camp outs, are usually posted to our Rally Point System [link] so I recommend keeping an eye on that. Your local Member Rep, @Sandpoint Steve hosts a monthly conference call [link] that will be happening tomorrow evening and it would be great if you could join in. There is also a camping trip planned for May 4th-5th [link] that would be a great chance to meet other members from the area. Of course, the biggest event of the PNW is the NW Overland Rally [link] held in Plane, WA at the end of June. That is a great event for seeing hundreds of examples of what other overlanders have done with their rigs and seeing what the top manufacturers have to offer.Aloha, we are Gary and Stacey Quimby of Pau Hana Travels. "Pau Hana" in Hawaiian means done with work, quitting time, or happy hour and we are blessed to say that in our mid-40's we are both "done with work" (retired). We take advantage of this to travel full-time across North America with our motorhome who we call the Disco. She is accompanied on our travels by our 2013 Ford F-150 truck we have named Elsie. Elsie is the feminine nickname of Lewis and Clark (LC) since we are from the Pacific Northwest and Lewis and Clark has major ties to our home base area of Spokane, WA.
We are also content creators and run a YouTube channel by the same name where we help educate folks on the fulltime RV lifestyle as well as RVing to Alaska. We also facilitate a group on Facebook called RVing to Alaska that currently has over 7k members and growing everyday where we help educate on the does and dont's of traveling North to Alaska from the lower 48 and up through Canada with an RV.
In April of 2018 Elsie underwent some major upgrades to take her from a stock truck to an EPIC overlanding machine! We want to thank Meili's Truck Toppers and HazzardFabWorx in Spokane, WA and Cascadia Vehicle Tents in Bend, Oregon for an amazing job well done on all our modifications. Elsie is equipped with the following: Line X bedliner, RhinoRack Pioneer Elevation Roof Rack, Mt Rainier Extended Stargazer Summit CVT Tent, SnugTop Hi-Liner with the Sportsman package and a BedSlide and a complete suspension rebuild with Bilstein coil over shocks, 3 inch lift with leveling kit by BDS Suspension, S&B Cold Air Intake and EDGE HT2 Tuner, 3 1/2 inch Cat Back exhaust system, and 5 new Nitto Ridgegrappler 35x20 inch tires mounted on custom Method rims.
2018 didn't turn out exactly how we had hoped for our Overlanding adventures but 2019 should make up for it. We plan to return to Alaska in the next couple of weeks to spend the summer in the land of the midnight sun again. We plan to park the motorhome at a friends near Anchorage and get farther and deeper into the Alaskan wilderness that we can't reach with the motorhome.
We are hoping to find solutions on these forums to better equip our truck with a camping kitchen and other essentials to make Elsie more comfortable while on the road. We also look forward to meeting other folks to hit the trails with so Elsie can get see the dirt more often.
One note is we also just purchased a second vehicle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee High Altitude for the wife so both of our vehicles now are capable of getting off the pavement and hitting the trails.
I look forward to seeing you out there on the trails someday! If you need anything, feel free to hit me up on the forums: @Jedi.