Show Notes for Podcast Episode #50
What is the best Overland Expedition Camper?
Summary:
Matt Scott and Scott Brady discuss the best integrated expedition campers for the North American market, including the EarthCruiser, EarthRoamer, Nimbl, and others. We also review considerations and specifications of what makes a great camper, van, and truck unit.
This podcast is supported in part by:
Host Bios:
Scott Brady
Scott is the publisher and co-founder of Expedition Portal and Overland Journal and is often credited with popularizing overlanding in North America. His travels by 4WD and adventure motorcycle span all seven continents and includes three circumnavigations of the globe. His polar expeditions include two vehicle crossings of Antarctica and the first long-axis crossing of Greenland. @scott.a.brady
Matthew Scott
Matthew is a leading expert in automotive adventure. He has extensively explored the world’s most remote places by 4WD and is considered an industry authority on overland travel. He is the only American to ever become an editor of a major Australian 4WD publication and has over 15 years of competitive auto racing experience. @mattexplore
Full Transcript:
Expedition Vehicles
[00:00:00] Scott Brady: Hello and welcome to the Overland journal podcast. I am your host, Scott Brady, and I’m here with my illustrious co-host Matt Scott.
Matt Scott: Hello. I’m here.
Scott Brady: And you have had birthdays and you have had travels and you have had rear engine car adventures.
Matt Scott: Yeah.
Scott Brady: Tell me about this little drive you did on some great roads in California.
Matt Scott: I also got engaged, which was cool.
Scott Brady: That is really cool.
Matt Scott: So… fun. You know, engaged to Laura. We’ve been together for a period of time that required engagement.
Scott Brady: You are too lucky that she said yes.
Matt Scott: Too busy traveling. Well,,, I had no excuse during COVID. Yeah, no. Yeah, I did a trip with another kind of fellow automotive journalist Brian Door. He just bought a 911 turbo 996. He’d been saving up for that for a while and a friend Yusuf and a GTR. Went and did all the driving roads. Did PECLA, which is the Porsche Experience Center LA, which was awesome. Like they have this polished epoxied [00:01:00] concrete skid pad that has this Hydraulic KickPlate and you drive down this thing between 15 and 30 mile an hour, you don’t know which way it’s going to kick the car and the faster you go, the faster it simulates like total loss of control. So it’s kind of… that was really fun, and yeah it was a really good trip. Hung out with Bassam Wasa who’s another auto journo. He took us on the Angeles Crest.
Scott Brady: He’s a great guy.
Matt Scott: Yeah. That dude can drive. I mean, I was in a 911 Carrera S, like a fast car, and he was in like an Acura. I don’t know anything about Acura’s. Sorry to Acura enthusiasts, but like he was in an Acura.
Scott Brady: Yeah.
Matt Scott: Four door.
Scott Brady: Yeah.
Matt Scott: Smoked me. Smoked all of us. Like it helps that he’s probably driven that road 700 times.
Scott Brady: It helps to know the curves for sure.
Matt Scott: Yeah. But no, that was great.
Scott Brady: Well, and another kind of adventure. I mean, we can oftentimes get so [00:02:00] focused on the fact that we need to be on these remote dirt roads, but some of the most enjoyable moments that I’ve had in my travels have been on paved roads with incredible views and…
Matt Scott: Glendora mountain road is the best road that I’ve driven and it’s like minutes from hell, but there’s no one there. It’s like obscure to me because in Arizona, I’ve come to the realization, we just don’t have that many roads.
Scott Brady: Not like that.
Matt Scott: Not like that. You know? So like there’s a lot more people there, but there’s also disproportionately more roads for those people where like in Prescott we have highway 89, which is fun to drive, but also is there for an actual purpose.
Scott Brady: Yeah, exactly, Glendora mountain road goes nowhere.
Matt Scott: I don’t know where…
Scott Brady: It literally goes nowhere.
Matt Scott: You don’t really have a reason to be there.
Scott Brady: Not if you want to get there in a hurry, but that’s awesome that those roads exist.
Matt Scott: Yeah, it was really cool. You know, it’s been interesting not being able to travel in the same capacity. I mean, for me, overlanding [00:03:00] is more about international travel than it is domestic stuff. I mean, that’s just my personal thing. I like the culture and stuff, so I’ve kind of taken this time, you know, all that money that isn’t going into experiences and stuff. I’ve just been kind of playing around with cars and working like 80 hours a week. So, you know, it was nice to actually kind of like shut off and get away for a little bit.
Scott Brady: Oh, totally. With just great people and there’s good restaurants and yeah, it’s another form of travel. Adventure is certainly… and if you think about some of those rallies that go from London to Singapore, and a lot of times they’re driving these vintage sports cars.
Matt Scott: Oh yeah. Peking to Paris would be so cool. Yeah, it’s just opened this new concept to me of taking the spirit of overlanding and the idea of lesser explored roads. Dirt roads turn into lesser explored roads, technical trails turn into technical paved roads that are in better well-known. Applying the same kind of curiosity, I guess, that you would in a four wheel [00:04:00] drive.
Scott Brady: Yeah, and the vehicle continues to be this magic carpet that transports us to wherever we’re going and those magic carpets that you’ve been driving are just much faster.
Matt Scott: They’re just a lot. Maybe not as fast as the TRX, but that one’s a little bit of a freak of nature.
Scott Brady: How fun though? Right? That’s awesome.
Matt Scott: Yeah. it was fun. But yeah, so guys, we’re going to talk about expedition vehicles today, specifically the integrated stuff. So we’re not talking about home builts. We’re not talking about add on campers and that kind of stuff. That’ll be a different podcast. We’re talking about Earth c ruisers. We’re talking about Earth Roamers. We’re talking about Action Mobiles. We’re talking about all the big stuff that makes your mouth water that you want.
Scott Brady: Yeah, and that you can live out of and you buy it as a complete camper. There have always been some options, but now there’s more options than ever, and it feels like that almost on a weekly basis, some new model [00:05:00] has come available. I think it would be good to talk about some of the ones that have recently been announced, but you’ve got some Total Composite integrated campers. Now they’re starting to do more and more volume and they have a great reputation for quality and value. So if you’re looking for a camper that’s high quality and…
Matt Scott: Great people there.
Scott Brady: Great people, and good value as well. A lot of customization options with them, so Total Composite, not new to the scene, but very much making integrated campers now. Then there’s this new one that was released just in the last six months called Truck House Camper. It is like…
Matt Scott: Which looks so awesome.
Scott Brady: It does look awesome.
Matt Scott: But it’s on a Tacoma and I just like… I mean, let’s just exaggerate the Tacoma’s payload capability and say that it’s 1500 pounds. It’s still like the wrong truck. Most of those vehicles are thousand a [00:06:00] 1200 pound capability. Looks really cool. What were those old Toyota campers called that were four wheel drive?
Scott Brady: Oh yeah. Those were awesome. Yeah, there was The Dolphin.
Matt Scott: Dolphin, and then there’s…
Scott Brady: There’s a couple of them.
Matt Scott: Super awesome. The modern day equivalent of that, but…
Scott Brady: But back then those were still Hilux. You could buy a one ton four-wheel drive.
Matt Scott: That had a dually rear axle. I don’t know. I would love to see one of these truck house things, because again they look cool, but I’m just like guys why… I know that they’ve done bigger brakes and they’ve done like diamond axles or something, but it doesn’t… I mean, I’ve been on the trail with a Tacoma with an XP camper, with the driver that knew what they’re doing. And we were just getting on in a little bit in like monument valley or something and it bent its frame. So I don’t know what the… if you have to modify [00:07:00] a $40,000 Tacoma with aftermarket axles. I think they did long travel on the front brakes, all this stuff. It’s like you could have just bought a 2500 and it would have just done everything better.
Scott Brady: With more payload at the end of the day, and I remember when I worked with Earth Roamer on the XVJP, this was a long time ago. This was 2005 when I was working on that project with them. The most difficult thing to overcome was the recertification of the car to a higher gross vehicle weight rating. So you can do these things like add breaks and add axles and all of that. But someone who can afford a truck house camper is someone of means, and if you get in an accident with that vehicle, and it’s not recertified for the higher gross vehicle weight rating, and you hit a bus full of children.
Matt Scott: A lawyer is going to have… we don’t know the exact implications, but we know that that would maybe leave the door open.
[00:08:00] Scott Brady: It does, it leaves the door open most importantly to the insurance company saying, you are driving a vehicle that’s overweight and there are many insurance companies that have clauses specific to modifications and most often related to gross vehicle weight rating. So if you overload your car, in this case intentionally, and you get into a really bad accident where you would want your insurance company to protect you, there’s a good chance that you’re not going to get protected. So Truck House Campers is going to have to find a way to recertify this Tacoma.
Matt Scott: If budget is a thing, do it on an F-150, you can get F-150 with a three thousand pound capacity. Yeah it’s just interesting to me that they chose to go that route. I know that there’s a lot of Tacoma people.
Scott Brady: Yeah, it looks great. I mean, it literally looks like a mini rad Earth Roamer, but it’s such a challenge and that vehicle, a four door long bed, it has about an 1100 pounds payload.
Matt Scott: It doesn’t get out of its way. I think they supercharged it too, [00:09:00] which is another shortcoming of that platform. So now you’re going to avoid your factory warranty. Although I know some of the superchargers will offer a warranty with them. It just doesn’t add up to me.
Scott Brady: Yeah it doesn’t. With full acknowledgment of the fact that it looks awesome.
Matt Scott: It looks amazing. The craftsmanship looks great on it. I’m stoked that that somebody is doing that, but it would seem to me that a long travel on a expedition camper is…
Scott Brady: A bunch of unnecessary complexity.
Matt Scott: Unnecessary complexity. A new rear axle is unnecessary cost. A supercharger is… great you’ve made more horsepower, but now you still have this terrible transmission. Then you have to regear it because it’s a Tacoma and they can’t get out of their own way. I mean, now you’re talking… well we know what all that stuff costs and we know that we could’ve just [00:10:00] bought a Lariat 3,500 Ram or something that doesn’t need power. Doesn’t need anything.
Scott Brady: It has a 5,000 pound payload. You could stick the Tacoma in the bed of the Ram and still have some payload left.
Matt Scott: I guess my beef is, you know, I’m lucky enough to have the 2500 for work and the Gladiator, which is our show vehicle for Max Tracks and Adventure Imports, but the Ram is six inches longer in length than my Gladiator, and that has a five foot bed. So when you take a six foot bed Tacoma, I’m just curious.
Scott Brady: I’d bet you it’s pretty close.
Matt Scott: I don’t know. It’s just, I would love to hear the argument. Why Tacoma?
Scott Brady: And I suspect it’s because of this legendary reliability, but when you modify something so heavily, you’re gonna affect that legendary reliability.
Matt Scott: I always advise people with Toyota’s, like if they’re going to Baja or they’re driving around the world [00:11:00] or whatever, I’m like, the things that are going to break are the non Toyota parts that you’ve installed.
Scott Brady: That’s right. All day long.
Matt Scott: Like they’re just… they’re solid vehicles, but so is every other American pickup truck, like they’re all good.
Scott Brady: They’re all really good now.
Matt Scott: They’ve all kind of figured it out.
Scott Brady: Yeah so that’s one, this Truck House Camper, and then there’s this new BAHN Camper Works that has a very Earth Roamer looking camper conversion on the back. We don’t know much about that. It’s just been released and when we get some more information…
Matt Scott: They have some awesome rear doors on theirs and I’m just pulling their website up. Yeah, the last time I saw one of their campers, it was like the rear doors opened up. I thought that was so cool cause you could put a dirt bike or whatever in there.
Scott Brady: Make it a little mini Toy Haulers.
Matt Scott: And the quality and the craftsmanship looks pretty interesting on these things. You know, they’re saying that they’ve had builds that were a hundred and they’ve had builds up [00:12:00] to half a million dollars. So I think it’s really like a custom option. I think that those things are pretty interesting, but then you’re still building… well, if you’re somebody that wants specifically what they want.
Scott Brady: That can be it, that could definitely be an option for sure. So most of what we’re going to talk about about today is based on an article that we did in the spring 2020 issue of Overland journal where we compared all of the currently available expedition campers at the time, or at least ones of significant volume. We’re going to talk about most of those. We’re not going to talk about a couple of them. Then we’re going to supplant a little bit of the Earth Cruiser EXP with their new Terra Nova and we’ll talk about why that’s important, but I think it’d be great to talk about the Earth Roamer first, because they deserve to be talked about first only because they were pretty much the first.
Matt Scott: We’re both super familiar with one. I mean you spent a lot of time [00:13:00] with those.
Scott Brady: I did.
Matt Scott: I have an older one. They’re like little yachts. We call it land yachting. I mean, I don’t know how to explain this thing. I mean, I love mine. It does everything that I want. I’m not looking for… it has quite a bit of off-road capability, but honestly on all of these trucks, the size and the weight precludes them from a lot of technical trails. Could you make it yeah. Should you when you realize that you have your house on the back and everything that’s rattling. I dunno, I think like Earth Roamer, Earth Cruisers kinda like the Ford and Chevy right now.
Scott Brady: Yeah for sure. Definitely doing all the volume.
Matt Scott: Yeah. You know, the Earth Roamer… I haven’t seen anything in the US that is as TurnKey as the Earth Roamer. I mean mine’s a 2011. There’s 10 years of small innovations that have happened since [00:14:00] then and even mind’s just like ready to go. Aside from that small little hiccup that I had with the motor blowing up immediately after I bought it. But again, that’s a Ford thing.
Scott Brady: Totally unrelated to the camper. Yeah. But I think that Bill Swales was in a unique position where he saw overlanding is becoming a thing. He had done well with some investments and he had built a camper for himself. I think it was a camper builder out of Canada if I remember, and he had built it on a Dodge and he started traveling in it. He was living out of this thing and making notes on all of the things that he would do different and then when he started Earth Roamer here, you have a businessman with a lot of engine… he was an engineer as well, or is an engineer. He had all of this experience and he pulled it together in like let’s invest in making a great company that builds campers, that a [00:15:00] lot of people are going to want to buy and he’s just somehow found that perfect balance of desirability where you have…
Matt Scott: I think it’s two years right now. If you want to hand them upwards of 700 grand it’s two years and maybe a little bit shorter now.
Scott Brady: Yeah, it could be, but they’ve been through a lot and they had some real challenges during the economic downturn, with the housing crisis and everything else like that, but bill has just done a really good job of making a sustainable company. That’s now been around for almost 20 years. I congratulate Bill on that and, and I’ve known bill for a very long time and I don’t have any financial ties to Earth Roamer in any way, but I do just really appreciate what he’s done and I think that that’s the reason why his campers continue to be so succesful.
Matt Scott: And they’re a well thought out design. They’re a good package [00:16:00] and more importantly, like everything else that I look at, when you’ve spent time in the Earth Roamer, you look at everything else and it’s second best. I know that there are things that other companies specialize in. Maybe they’re a little bit more off-road capable. Maybe they’re better for international travel. But for domestic US travel, I have a Ford dealer on every corner. I may need it, but just the layout is so efficient. Like when I take people into mine, there’s a few things I always show them. The first thing I do is I go to the control panel and I show them the quality of the wiring and how I couldn’t achieve this level of perfection in a million years. Everything is perfect. Everything is loomed right. Everything is just great. You pull that control panel down, which is like the nerve center of the vehicle. Then, as far as use of space, you start to realize like, oh, you have this big cabinet that has this cedar lined [00:17:00] hanging drawer. Well, the cabinet folds out, well the drawer… The door, it’s a door. The door comes out and then the door to the bathroom comes out and you actually double the space of your bathroom and all of your towels and all of your toiletries and everything are in that closet. All of a sudden it doesn’t feel cramped and then they have like heated air being pumped into the bathroom with its own dedicated fan. So like, while it is a wet bath the difference in a wet bath and a dry bath has one is a combination shower, and one is a separate shower and toilet but it dries within like 10 or 15 minutes. So it’s just great use of space. You have like this whole cabinet and this thing of actual clothing drawers.
Scott Brady: There’s something to be said for decades of being in business. You just learn a lot and when you have a vehicle where they haven’t had to compromise a lot because people have been willing to pay for it. They’ve just really [00:18:00] continued to evolve and make it a really high quality unit and I remember when I drove down to the Darien Gap, I was driving an Earth Roamer Jeep that I had purchased. Of course that was a very different kind of vehicle and that vehicle was not as successful as their big LT. In fact, I think they only made about 13 of those, but it was perfect for my needs, but I was a very small customer set like that wanted a really small vehicle, a highly capable camper. But we had with us and, and Earth Roamer LT. So we had a big, and that vehicle went essentially everywhere that we went. We did bring along a long section of PVC pipe, so that way… and we notched the end of it. We put a little notch at the end of the pipe, so that way we could push up the wires and the phone lines and all that other stuff.
Matt Scott: Oh that’s a great idea.
Scott Brady: We were constantly in central America running into weird wiring or low wires or low cables and things like that. So we were [00:19:00] onstantly having to lift that up or even branches and things like that. But we drove it back into Mayan ruins. We drove it into the mud. We drove it across water crossings in Nicaragua and I think that when you look at an Earth Roamer, you don’t say, oh this looks really capable. I’m going to take it four wheeling. I don’t think that that’s the use case. I think the idea is I’m going to take it traveling. And every once in a while, I’m going to run into a problem…
Matt Scott: Reserve capacity.
Scott Brady: Exactly. So you’re going to have this reserve capacity. You’re not going to like spin the barrel every day with a $300,000 to $700,000 vehicle. You’re going to every once in a while you got to pull the trigger on this capability and it’s probably going to work for you. I remember driving them over mosquito pass, which isn’t super technical, but to take an RV to the top of it, that’s fairly notable.
Matt Scott: I mean they basically weigh 20,000 pounds.
Scott Brady: Yeah, they do and they’re nine feet wide almost.
Matt Scott: Yeah. They’re wide. They’re not as wide as they [00:20:00] feel maybe, or look. I actually think it’s slightly narrower than that than a Dually. That’s a non-scientific thing that I’ve done. I just noticed that the Dually sticks out about a foot on each side and the Earth Roamer from the body the cab, and this may be six out about six inches on each side from the cab of the truck.
Scott Brady: And that would make sense because they use a Dually platform.
Matt Scott: It’s a single conversion with basically, you know, armored vehicle Hutchinson wheels.
Scott Brady: Yeah. But they are very capable, but it’s important to not look at it like I want to go to the most remote places. I want to drive a lot of unknown roads. I don’t think that that’s the best vehicle for that.
Matt Scott: No. I mean, we look at it as a forest service road cruiser. It has a lot of reserve capacity, like 41’s are great when you put them in the concept of a full-sized truck [00:21:00] or a Jeep, that’s a lot of tire. On something that’s that heavy it’s not a lot of tire. In fact, I would argue that while those tires are great, they’re equally bad. I think that’s the only thing you really hear about with Earth Roamers is that tires only speed rated by continental to 67 mile an hour.
Scott Brady: That’s right.
Matt Scott: So you do hear on… there’s a website EarthRoamerForum.com. It’s not super popular, but there’s not that many of them. You do hear of blow outs and stuff, and there are always guys doing 80-85 in Texas.
Scott Brady: They’re not designed for that. I’ve changed one of those tires in Baja.
Matt Scott: I’m sorry. Hope and pray. That is our strategy to the Earth Roamer tire. Hope and pray that you don’t have to.
Scott Brady: We were down in like Agua Verde. We were super remote and there was this climb out of this beautiful tranquil little Cove and it’s narrow and the [00:22:00] tire just kissed like one of the rocks sticking out from the…
Matt Scott: It’s really shaley if I remember.
Scott Brady: Exactly. Exactly and it punctured the side and the driver didn’t know it right away and fortunately, we got into a little bit of a flat area, but it took Cam Benzinger from Nimo who can do like a thousand pull-ups and me who can do… well, not a thousand pull-ups, but we’re both pretty big guys.
Matt Scott: I can do one if I jump.
Scott Brady: Like we were sweating and like it was tough to get that sucker swapped out on the side of the road. Getting it down was not such a big deal, but getting the tire back up into that spot was tough. That was difficult. Even with the winch and everything else. These were heavy, heavy. I mean a couple of hundred pounds.
Matt Scott: Let’s hope I don’t have that problem in Baja tomorrow.
Scott Brady: No, you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. I think it literally just, it can happen, but knowing that when it does, do you have a plan to get that tire swapped out?
Matt Scott: Just gonns let Laura do [00:23:00] it.
Scott Brady: She is a lot more fit than you are. So maybe she is the one.
Matt Scott: The thing with ours is I actually think ours was the first LTS. So the first stretch and it was prior to them doing the swing away cases. So we either have to remove our rear box, which is made of aluminum and it’s doable. Or my plan is to get the tire off, stand on the box, get the tire off and just like, throw it.
Scott Brady: Just let it bounce.
Matt Scott: It’s just going to bounce. It’s going to go where it goes. If I’m on a cliff going into Agra Verde, that may not be the idea hook it to the winch or something. The newer ones have electric winches and this system, I do have like a system, but it’s a hand crank and I have to remove the case to use it. So I dunno, that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
Scott Brady: It’s a challenge. It’s actually fairly difficult.
Matt Scott: The tires on these things having owned one for about six months and doing a lot of research on the expedition vehicle stuff. That’s I think some of the advantages of the other [00:24:00] platforms is that they don’t run. They’re not dependent upon a tire. I can run exactly one tire with my setup and that is it. Now that tires pretty, for a commercial tire, is easy to get. It’s continental. They run them all over the world on armored vehicles, MRAPs, everything. I think that’s one of the reasons why there’s the tires, there’s the size, there’s the weight and the investment . Like I’m not saying that I wouldn’t drive it around the world, but if I was buying a vehicle specifically to drive around the world, I wouldn’t buy an Earth Roamer.
Scott Brady: Yeah, it could be done, but it’s not the best tool for the job.
Matt Scott: I would not want to drive that vehicle in Asia. I wouldn’t want to drive it in most cities. Kind of first world cities are fine because they get deliveries, they get a ups in… the thing that you can kind of learn is like, can a ups truck deliver their? Well, [00:25:00] then your Earth Roamer can get there. There’s a way there’s a truck route or something. But as you’re saying, you had that little PVC stick.
Scott Brady: Yeah. It was tough.
Matt Scott: Whereas the Earth Cruiser, you just park in a parking spot.
Scott Brady: Yeah, we should start talking about the Earth Cruiser. Cause I think that is the international option. Although even that things are changing. So they had dialed in this camper to be perfect, to go around the world, based upon the Isuzu Mitsubishi platforms. This one’s a Mitsubishi FG that I drove in Australia and four wheel drive, factory diesel, no particulate filter, no exhaust trap, nothing. It was just a. Bone stock diesel, the same one that you would find in Africa. So these cab over Mitsubishi FGs, they were the solution to drive around the world because they were used around the world.
Matt Scott: People actually used them.
Scott Brady: That’s right and [00:26:00] since it was cab over, it was actually shorter than the Dodge 2,500. So it was this very compact package with a big camper on the back, the roof lowered so it would fit in a container. So it would fit into 20 foot container. When I had the chance to use it in Australia, I realized this thing is a little bit of a suffer Fest on long highway drives, but most of where I want to go in the world, doesn’t include four lane divided highway drive and if I was on a back country road, or if I was off-road, it was awesome and super capable. 37 inch tires. Lockers, front and rear. Good low-range transfer case. Fairly light when you compare it to a lot of the other expedition campers. So I loved that Earth Cruiser in Australia and then I had the chance last year to drive their new EXP, which is Earth Cruisers answer to the fact that [00:27:00] you could no longer get the four wheel drive or the four wheel drive that you could get in recent years, didn’t have low range and then very recently they were not able to sell the diesel model because of the fact that it didn’t have all of those requirements for diesel vehicles. So the one that I drove last year was a gasoline V8 powered, dynatrack axles, hero transfer case, air lockers front and rear, very nicely tuned suspension, and this thing was like driving a little Jeep Rubicon camper, all over Oregon. We were in places that were very challenging, like deep snow, mud and ruts and rocks, and magically this thing had no trouble. Probably the only difficulty we would have run into is if we didn’t fit. It was on 37’s, so like most Jeeps are running around on 35’s or 37’s.
Matt Scott: I think they’re super cool. You know, and Lance [00:28:00] who runs Earth Cruiser. I mean, the guy actually travels, like he like really travels. Like, I’m pretty sure he’s had his Earth Cruiser in Borneo. Where he kind of talk about Bill Swales as the engineer. Lance is the traveler to me and I think that that’s where you see the Earth Cruiser as first and foremost, a travel vehicle. It’s not a luxury vehicle. I mean like I have a wine rack in my Earth Roamer like that’s cool, but like Earth Roamer people like that. I mean I don’t know.
Scott Brady: And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I think that’s the key is it’s so easy to like virtue shame someone which has become this thing now where everybody has to be like, my way is the only way.
Matt Scott: Everybody has to be so hardcore. Right?
Scott Brady: Which is so silly.
Matt Scott: And I catch myself in that too or I’m like that’s not overlanding and I’m like, yeah. Okay. I need to just…
Scott Brady: Yeah, let it go.
Matt Scott: I need to turn it down a little bit. There’s different [00:29:00] vehicles for different people. Yeah, the Earth Cruisers are just so cool.
Scott Brady: And the fact that you could stick it in a container.
Matt Scott: I don’t think I could drive a delivery van. You know, I like the heated and cooled seats. Because why not? I mean it doesn’t take away from anything.
Scott Brady: But for your purposes, you’re like I’m going to go to Baja for a week or I’m going to drive to Colorado, or I’m going to go up to Alaska. For that, the Earth Roamer is perfect. But if you do want to cross Borneo might want to take a different car.
Matt Scott: That car is going to sink in the mud.
Scott Brady: Instantly.
Matt Scott: Like instantly. I mean you can get quite a bit of contact patch out of this 41’s but…
Scott Brady: It’s a heavy truck.
Matt Scott: It’s heavy. I mean, the gross vehicle weight of at least my Earth Roamer is 19,500 pounds. I have never measured it, but you know, I probably should, but I know that they’re under that. But that’s heavy. That’s a lot of weight.
Scott Brady: The Earth Cruiser is right at about 10,000 [00:30:00] pounds. So about half of that weight, I think it has around a 12,000 pound gross vehicle weight rating, but the Earth Cruiser is much lighter and it feels much lighter and it is the size of the delivery vans in all remote places of the world. It’s the same size of the delivery trucks that are bringing the Fantas, you know, it’s the same vehicl. And because of that, they’re really easy to take around the world.
Matt Scott: So I guess kind of like moving on, we’ve talked about the two pinnacle ones. I think it would be interesting to talk about some more budget options and I’m going to throw this one in there, Winnebago Revel. Really similar size to the Earth Cruiser. I have a buddy that has an Earth Cruiser on order colon, and I think he ordered his a few months ago and he won’t get it until February. Now the entire four wheel drive industry is melting down because of all these port delays. I have four containers of Max Tracks, just like…
Scott Brady: Out in the oceans.
Matt Scott: Loading! [00:31:00]
Scott Brady: I’ll wave to them as I sail towards Batu.
Matt Scott: Don’t make me think about it anymore? But you’re seeing a lot of delays just across industry. King Shocks are 2022. You can’t get 35 or 37 inch tires right now. There’s some weird things happening. So I’m not necessarily saying that that delay is Earth Cruiser, but you know, these are still $300,000 to $400,000 vehicles where a Revel, you can get a used revel for low one hundreds. Now granted, I haven’t looked at prices in the last month or two because everything is crazy right now during COVID. But I want to say there are 150 to 170 new is what you’re actually going to pay for them. And that’s brand new vehicle. That’s totally, self-contained, they’ve made a lot of upgrades, lithium batteries. They moved the water tanks inside. You know, they’re not very large.
Scott Brady: No, they’re easy to drive. Those sprinters are really easy to drive.
Matt Scott: You know, they’re not… you’re more of a… for some reason, I guess a lot of people don’t consider vans as expedition [00:32:00] vehicles because they’re vans.
Scott Brady: I don’t care. They can go around the world, and they do. I mean, sprinters are sold around the world and Chris Cortez just bought…
Matt Scott: A Storyteller.
Scott Brady: A Storyteller van.
Matt Scott: Which is another great option.
Scott Brady: And he uses his, I’m already seeing him taking great photos of it and his Instagram is FourByFourTouring. So make sure you check it out. Chris has worked with both Matt and I and all close friends for a very long time. So it’s fun to see Chris in the van that he’s always wanted and then there’s the Feld vans, which are another Sprinter option.
Matt Scott: There’s so many Sprinter transit based based fans these days. Those are great options. And you know, this is something that we had kind of talked about is the residual value of these and we want to be careful this isn’t financial advice. The market can change. The world can change. These are luxury toys and in an essence, right. But I [00:33:00] will likely not lose money on my Earth Roamer because there’s such a demand for them. The Earth Cruisers are essentially the same way. You know, it takes such a long time to get one that you have people that are willing to pay real money for them. But let’s maybe talk about like the Revel they seem to be holding their value quite well. I know that again, the RV world is very strange right now. But sometimes if you recognize, like I want this vehicle for a short period of time. If this something you’re going to keep, residual values don’t necessarily matter. But if you’re like, I want to drive to Alaska. I want to drive to Panama. I want to drive. I have a purpose. I think that these vans are very attractive. People don’t mind them with miles on them and think of the time that you can spend acquiring income rather than building a vehicle. You know, if you were to build [00:34:00] a Ram with a four wheel camper, you know, you’re talking realistically because you’re not getting any discount on trucks right now, you’re talking 60 to 80 for a truck you’re talking vehicle conversions, suspension, flatbed, 30-50 for the camper with a year wait list. Like there’s a lot of time, energy, manpower, and steps that go into building an exhibition vehicle like that. Where now you can kind of just…
Scott Brady: Get a TurnKey.
Matt Scott: TurnKey it. And if you’re just going to do U S Canada, Mexico, you can finance these things, which is awesome, I think. Rather than paying essentially cash for a four wheel camper and maybe finance turgor or however people financially do it. Earth Cruiser, you can finance an Earth Cruiser, you can finance an Earth Roamer. So I guess…
Scott Brady: What’s the depreciation?
Matt Scott: What is it worth when you go to sell it versus what your monthly payment or whatever that is.
Scott Brady: You may find that with an Earth Roamer, and this has been the case for many, many years, [00:35:00] some people have sold their Earth Roamers for exactly what they paid for them, or sometimes even a little bit of a profit. So they drove the vehicle for however many years, enjoyed it, and actually made a little bit of money on it.
Matt Scott: We all know people that have done that. Again, this isn’t… what do they say? A prior performance does not indicate future returns. But that is an interesting thing to kind of consider that buying one of these TurnKey vehicles also comes with the fact that, you know, they’ve now built almost 300 Earth Roamers. They know how to do it. Whereas some of these smaller van companies, or some of these, you know, I’m going to have this four wheel drive shop, do this, and this four wheel drive shop do this, and this camper company do this, you know, the left-hand maybe not talking to the right hand.
Scott Brady: And it doesn’t give the resale customer a lot of confidence in the vehicle. So you’ll see these custom. Campers where they say $300,000 invested and they get $120,000 for [00:36:00] it because it doesn’t have that resale value.
Matt Scott: I’m not going to call them want to be Earth Roamers. It’s just that Earth Roamer inspired vehicles that I see and people that I’ve talked to and mine will end up costing significantly less. I guess the thing is these are all finite resources, right? Like eventually my Earth Roamer will get used up. It’s not going to be around for a hundred years. It’s not gonna be around for 30 years. I mean maybe, I guess we still see those Toyota things running around. But it is something to consider.
Scott Brady: Yeah. Look at the resale value of the vehicle. So you’re actually only paying for the depreciation. And if these vehicles aren’t really depreciating, then you may pay a lot less than you think. So the DIY thing has this appeal of like the initial investment costs being potentially lower. But again, like you said, Matt, how much is your time worth? All of that energy put into…
Matt Scott: I know couples that will take… multiple dozens of people that I’ve interviewed over the years for Overland journal and stuff, [00:37:00] they quit their jobs in June and they don’t end up getting on the road until December because they’ve spent six months figuring this out. Figuring this out. Oh, we had a problem with this. Oh, we had a problem with this, and I’m like, well everybody’s financial situation is different. Everybody’s life is different. I’ve been the person that lived in a Land Cruiser and was like, oh, I need 50 bucks to survive this week, and now I’m in business and my time is significantly more valuable to me. So depending on where you guys, as the listeners fall on that, I think it’s an important thing to consider.
Scott Brady: Look at the entire investment all of your time. What’s the resell value going to be and a lot of times getting a well-known high quality TurnKey solution is actually a better investment.
Matt Scott: Or you can be like, and make that decision and have a $30,000 engine replacement the week later. You know, so hey those things happen too.
Scott Brady: That can happen for sure.
Matt Scott: Global Expedition Vehicles are another great one. You know, they have [00:38:00] the adventure truck side and then they have the GXV side. The GXV side, in my opinion is more custom.
Scott Brady: Bespoke for sure.
Matt Scott: If you have specific needs and you… GXVs are inexcessive Earth Roamers, in my opinion.
Scott Brady: Because they are custom, yeah.
Matt Scott: You are limited to, you know, you can choose fit and finish on an Earth Roamer, but that’s kind of what you’re choosing. You’re not, oh I’d like this custom bathroom or I’d like this washer and dryer. I’d like this here. You know, you’re buying a series production vehicle where I think the really cool thing with GXV is the sky’s the limit. I think they are truthfully the closest that we get to Action Mobile or Bliss or somebody like that in the US.
Scott Brady: Unicast.
Matt Scott: This Adventure Truck thing, you know, they’re in the 200s so they’re a little bit more affordable. They’re not as luxurious as a Earth Roamer, but comparable in concept, I guess I would say. I like that they’re lighter, which means you have less problems with the tires. You know, [00:39:00] you’re not running right at that max load of the tire like you are in the Earth Roamer on the rear axle.
Scott Brady: They’re heavily inspired by Gary and Monica Westcotts Turtle.
Matt Scott: Well they actually make a Turtle. I don’t know if it’s an adventure truck or if it’s under the GXV brand, but you can go and buy a Turtle, which is really cool.
Scott Brady: So it doesn’t have cab oversleeping. So it’s actually very compact inside and they build it on a single cab Ram with a lot of the AEV components. So you end up with a much shorter overall vehicle, a much more capable vehicle. I like the bright and light interior. I actually really liked the layout of the inside. And I think that for the price you’re getting something extremely capable and also something that’s very comfortable at the end of the day. I think that adventure truck on the, on the single cab, without the cab oversleeping, it’s one of my favorite visually trucks that you can get and I think it’s a, a really interesting option as [00:40:00] well. I like the capability that comes from that. The thing to know about Global Expedition vehicles is that because they do so much bespoke work, every vehicle is different. So you will inherently. Have more difficulties with the truck. If you productize something like an Earth Roamer and they have a engineered wiring loom, that is exactly the same from vehicle to vehicle and it’s installed the same way you’re going to have less trouble. So just know that when the more bespoke your solution is, there is no way around it. You will have more problems with it. There’ll be more reliability issues.
Matt Scott: That’s not a dig at GXV.
Scott Brady: It applies to every brand that does bespoke work.
Matt Scott: Yeah. They do also have an adventure truck now that’s built on a dual cab that I really liked. That’s kind of like, I hate to say just like mini Earth Roamer, but like…
Scott Brady: It looks like an Earth Roamer.
Matt Scott: They’re kind of the Kleenex right? They were there first so… they weren’t there first but you get what I’m trying to say.
Scott Brady: First with any volume.
[00:41:00] Matt Scott: Yeah first with volume, so that does have a cab over. A little bit more expensive. Those are, those are really fascinating, but they’re again, you know, Then you’re getting back up there in the wait. I have to say that these adventure trucks single cab things… single cab would never work for me with the Greyhound.
Scott Brady: I like it. I think it’s cool. I mean, I’ve definitely penciled that out a few times, like that possibility for sure.
Matt Scott: And I like the fact that these things are not as complicated as some of the other things like your running steel suspension, you have AEV components, which are going to be flawless. Yeah, they’re cool.
Scott Brady: Yeah. You get away from some of the complexity, which I think is an advantage for sure.
Matt Scott: The Nimble stuff, which you’ve driven.
Scott Brady: Yeah thats brand new.
Matt Scott: I’ve been around the XP campers, which was nimble. I mean, they’re the same.
Scott Brady: It looks the same or it looks very similar. So Nimble purchased the intellectual property of XP camper. I don’t know [00:42:00] all of the details behind that transition and I don’t think it’s necessarily important to the conversation here, but it used to be XP camper. In fact, I remember when XP camper wasn’t even a company yet and Mark, the guy who started it drove into our lot here at the offices with his Dodge Ram, with the very first XP camper on it. And I remember he was trying to lift the roof and there was some problem and he was just trying to get started and it was just neat to see his enthusiasm and all of that. It was apparent to me that there was a good idea there and in hindsight I now know that it’s because it was designed by this guy by the name of Steve Kozloff, who is the son of the guy who designed the first Earth Roamer. So that’s a very interesting tie in, and unfortunately, XP camper never really acknowledged Steve’s involvement properly. So Steve is, is a [00:43:00] yacht designer. He’s a boat designer and so that’s why…
Matt Scott: I didn’t even know that.
Scott Brady: Yeah, that’s why an XP camper looks the way that it does, especially on the inside. It looks like a shipwright it looks like it was an interior fiberglass mold of a sailboat and it feels that way. And the whole construction feels that way. So I think that Nimble has done a good job of not only acknowledging Steve’s work, but taking that to the next level and also bringing in a lot of engineering that Mark never had. And so these systems are a lot better now. So my experience with the Nimble was very positive and the fact that, oh, this feels like a fully integrated truck now. It feels like all of the systems have been well thought out. Everything’s working. It’s very capable. It’s again, in that 10 to 11,000 pound range. So you’ve got standard tires, it’s built on an F-350. So it’s a vehicle that is also more accessible in the price range, too.
Matt Scott: Lower servicing costs with the kind of not medium [00:44:00] duty components.
Scott Brady: It does have a lowering roof, which is another advantage. It’s kind of an interesting hybrid. So the whole back half of it is a lifting roof that has solid sides. Then right over the bed, they have soft sides. So it would be interesting if they could ever find a way to do like the Alaska camper, where they have these hard panels that flipped down that would help make it much more quiet at night with wind.
Matt Scott: If they could figure something like that out, I think an XP would be really attractive. You know, and again, I’m just talking about my personal experience. Like there’s definitely a lot of situations we get into where the Earth Roamer is too big.
Scott Brady: Pretty tall.
Matt Scott: But like our Jeep is too small just for what we’re trying to do. The Jeep’s great and I’m sure there’s people that are like, oh, he just has to sleep in his fancy camper. But like, you know…
Scott Brady: Well you want to spend long periods of time working from the road. You want to be on your way to [00:45:00] Alaska and working and living.
Matt Scott: It’s hard to get two six foot plus people and an 80 pound Greyhound. That’s like the size of another six foot human. When he’s like stretched out into a five foot bed. It’s tough.
Scott Brady: It’s tough. Especially for long periods of time.
Matt Scott: I mean, my dog runs my life. Regular listeners will know that like the Earth Roamer is Dax car. We kept running into problems in Mexico and other places that we travel just with street dogs and we needed… we weren’t going because it was like, oh, well Dax is gonna get in a fight or this dog is going to fight with him and greyhounds, don’t have an undercoat. Too much information, but…
Scott Brady: They don’t do well in a dog fight.
Matt Scott: They don’t do well in dog fights. So I think that, that the, the Nimbles are really, really cool. I’m, I’m looking forward to eventually getting in one of those and taking one camping.
Scott Brady: It was very comfortable. It has a full wet head and how they make that [00:46:00] work is pretty clever. It’s got a fairly bright open interior. It feels capable off-road it kept surprising me. When we did the trip, we kept intentionally putting it into harder and harder situations and I was just waiting for the rear bumper to scrape and it never happened and with lockers, front and rear, it ended up being very, very capable.
Matt Scott: And what chassis, cause I believe with Nimble, you can choose your own chassis.
Scott Brady: You can.
Matt Scott: They’re building them on the 7.3 Ford SuperDuties I believe right now.
Scott Brady: That’s their current recommended platform is the quad cab 7.3 liter gas, Ford F-350 with the factory rear locker. Their logic behind the 7.3 Gas, which has a lot of merit, is that we are still in this weird transition with ultra low sulfur diesel. And the goal of John and the team at nimble is to [00:47:00] build a global travel vehicle. So your best option right now is actually a gas engine and that 7.3 It’s normally aspirated and it’s designed for fleet service.
Matt Scott: And it’s a brand new motor, right?
Scott Brady: I think it’s pretty good.
Matt Scott: I think it’s a winner. I mean, I will say I have a 6.7, I had to replace a 6.7 with 19,000 miles on it. There’s a lot of systems on that vehicle that can fail. You know when I was putting a new motor in that I had to go through a lot of new EGR valve, new this sensor, new, that new intercooler this, and you’re upgrading all of these components. But everything I did had a carb EO number. Kind of become a stickler with air quality. It might not be popular, but I love breathing clean air.
Scott Brady: I grew up in Southern California and it’s like, anybody that I know that’s even anti EPA, they all acknowledge the fact that California is actually a lot nicer place to live now that you can take [00:48:00] a full breath. I remember most days when I was growing up, it was some SIG alert because the air quality was so bad you could not go outside and play and now that doesn’t happen really anymore. There’s an advantage to like taking care of mother nature. Right?
Matt Scott: Yeah. I mean, you know, along the lines of the ultra low sulfur diesel, like even Mexico’s not on it. Mexico’s one of the last, in the developing/developed countries to not have already switched. Anything that’s near the border you can get the ultra low sulfur diesel.
Scott Brady: And in a lot of the bigger cities, what’ll happen is once the dignitaries and the local politicians and the people of means they want to buy their new Mercedes and their new Mercedes is those ultra little silver that’ll drive the change. So you’re already seeing it, even in Africa where if you go to Johannesburg, or if you go into any of the big cities in those countries, you can find ultra low sulfur diesel because they want to drive the [00:49:00] nice new cars. So that’ll drive that change obviously, but for the moment it’s still a weird transition. So the 7.3 Is probably the best solution for that. And I did really like the Nimble, it felt… not to misuse the word, but it felt nimble. It felt more narrower.
Matt Scott: You were saying you were cruising on it in the Black Rock Desert.
Scott Brady: Oh yeah. We hit a hundred miles an hour on that thing. Which, you know, it’s what they do land speed testing.
Matt Scott: I recently found out from my friend’s son who used to own my Earth Roamer that my Earth Roamer has been airborne at about 70. Thanks Kevin.
Scott Brady: Well, now, you know, it can fly.
Matt Scott: Now I know it can fly.
Scott Brady: So yeah, no, the, the Nimble was great and their challenge is obviously getting more people aware of it and getting more on the road and continuing to refine the product in the ways that they have.
Matt Scott: I think that it’s [00:50:00] a great option for people, and it’s also much more affordable than a lot of the other ones out there. How cool is it versus where the industry was 10, 15 years ago to see these companies thriving to see these companies innovating. There’s so many options out, and I just think once the general RV… that’s a trend that I’ve kind of seen is these Earth Roamer-esque, again I hate saying that, but that’s just kind of the term these Earth Roamer-esque you know, Elkhart lake RVs, like the ones that all come out of like Indiana.
Scott Brady: They put them on a four wheel drive.
Matt Scott: Yeah. Then now they’re putting them on a four wheel drive and I’m wondering, you know, it won’t take too long, I think, to start seeing that side of the market go in which I’m not saying that it will result in higher quality things. But you have like the Winnebago Echo, which is coming out and that one’s interesting built on a dually rear axle Ford [00:51:00] transit chassis with the 3.5 EcoBoost and a 10 speed. Laura’s parents actually have one of the first, one of those coming, although it’s been delayed and delayed and delayed.
Scott Brady: Is it the all wheel drive one?
Matt Scott: Yeah. Well, first they bought the one that had the slide out and Ron bought like the first one of those and then they kind of like canceled it three months into his order and they were like, oh, we can get you the smaller one. It’s been interesting. Right? Like I think that one was launched a little prematurely. But that, one’s cool because that’s like the size of an Earth Roamer functionally. That’s my basis for a lot of things. Right? You know, you can get them with this kind of hybrid wet, dry bath, and they’re going to be about 150, but that’s a four season, you know, composite camper on, on a van, which arguably a van. It’s kind of the way to go, because like, on my truck I have X amount of camper and then I have equal amount of truck in front of it.
Scott Brady: That’s [00:52:00] right and the, and the semi cab over configuration of a van where you’re kind of sitting on the front tires, or at least your feet are on the front tires. You do save a lot of interior space. So you end up with either a shorter vehicle overall, or you end up with a lot bigger camper on the inside of it, which is really an advantage and I think maybe for those that are listening, when you look at all these new campers coming out, there should be things that you’re looking for. First of all, the construction must be composite or aluminum or metal framed so that it can flex and handle high-frequency vibration. It is just not suitable to take a wooden framed camper off-road for any distance. They may tell you otherwise, but it is only because they’re trying to sell you a camper. The camper must be made in a way that it can endure high frequency vibration of corrugations, otherwise all of that glued wood and fasteners and screws and nails and everything else like that, they will literally come apart.
Matt Scott: They will just turn into trail [00:53:00] trash.
Scott Brady: Exactly.
Matt Scott: How many of those pickup campers have you seen like in the middle of nowhere down some corrugated road and it like fell out and then they’re just like, I’m going to just keep driving. Yeah, they don’t survive. They don’t endure that kind of abuse. So there is a reason why an Earth Roamer is made out of composite. There’s a reason why Earth Cruiser is made out of composites.
Scott Brady: Now, the next thing that you need to look for is that on these long chassies, cause these are again big campers, you’re dealing with a lot of chassis flex. So if you… and this is another mistake that a lot of these new to Overland campers make, is that they kind of bolted down rigidly to the frame in the same way that they do for an on the road camper and then that will literally rip apart the camper in very short order, or it will do damage to the frame. So you want to have some variant exactly.
Matt Scott: Twist like this. That’s how that works.
Scott Brady: Yeah. For those watching on YouTube, you can see Matts demonstration of twisting an [00:54:00] Overland journal magazine, which is…
Matt Scott: Scientific and wonderful.
Scott Brady: Exactly. So you want to have, have some variation of allowable flex within the attachment points. Now companies like Earth Roamer addressed that with a three-point system. So the frame can flex and it just rotates on that single point in the rear. There are others that use multi-point systems that have large diameter and very strong springs and cones. So that way it can come out and drop back in under the return pressure of the spring. But there must be some way to allow for chassis flex because all of these things, especially along wheel based truck, they all flex. So look for that. When you look at a camper, if it does not have that, it is not suitable for remote Overland travel. And that’s the reason again, why Matt keeps coming back to the van. The van has structural integrity because of the body. So [00:55:00] there’s a lot of advantages to the van where you don’t need to do all of these complex adjustments.
Matt Scott: And you can make vans crazy too. Like you can send your Revel to agile off road. Like they do crazy stuff. They have long range tanks. They have like bumpers. They have suspension. They have like everything that you… I mean, I just think tomorrow if I was driving the Pan-Am I’d buy a Revel because it’s just done and they’ve made like thousands of them. Like, you know that now the second generation, which I think was 2020.
Scott Brady: Yeah. I think so. Very recently.
Matt Scott: Recently with the lithium. So they were able to add power, reduce weight, move the water inside.
Scott Brady: And then there’s also the Eagle Hout conversion. So you can buy a two-wheel drive sprinter, send it to Europe. They’ll basically slap a G wagon up underneath it with lockers, front and rear. G wagon transfer [00:56:00] case 37 inch tall tires. Long travel suspension and I’ve driven those off-road and they’re absolutely incredible. They are so impressive, especially on the 144 wheelbase. So then you take delivery of your Eagle Hout converted sprinter in Europe. You drive it around Europe for awhile. Then you ship it home and then you do whatever interior build out you want and you end up with this 37 inch tire, dual lockered, sprinter.
Matt Scott: So here’s something that we didn’t really talk about, but I keep saying that the budget option is the Revel… well it’s still $150,000. What are the other options? Like? I mean, I guess that’s a DIY van build, or I will say, like, trying to DIY an expedition truck, I think is one thing. Whereas DIY in a van definitely makes way more sense. Cause you already have that structure. And in theory, all you need to do is put a mattress in the back.
Scott Brady: Yeah the DIY [00:57:00] option is buy a pickup and then install a camper in the bed. That is definitely the DIY option. I mean, that’s kind of not the DIY, but that’s the less expensive option. That’s what I’m going to be doing. I guess we’re going to hear it here first, but I just got an AT4 GMC that is their off-road version.
Matt Scott: It looks great.
Scott Brady: It is a really nice looking truck. I just put AEV true Beadlock wheels on it and 35s, and I’ve got some other modifications plan for it. It’s important to have full disclosure on this. I am working with GMC on this project, so we were supported heavily in the purchasing of the trucks. So I just want that to be out there and very clear. But my plan is to install a scout camper on the back and I’m buying this camper, I’ve got it on order. And the goal is to install this camper that I really feel is going to be my version of an expedition camper. It’s going to be very simple, lightweight, [00:58:00] and between the truck and the camper, it’ll be in that $90,000 range, including modifications.
Matt Scott: And if you think about it, what are the big things that you actually, why are you actually doing a hard sides camper? Are you doing that for shelter? And you’re getting the same kind of shelter that I’m getting an Earth Roamer.
Scott Brady: Yes, they are composite panels.
Matt Scott: At a significant lower, lower cost. There’s a lot of advantages. I know that this segment wasn’t about campers, but there are a lot of advantages.
Scott Brady: You can take them out, use it as a regular pickup.
Matt Scott: Use it as a regular truck as always, we like to advise people like, spend the money on travel. Don’t feel like you have to have any of this stuff, because the reality is is that you can buy a Toyota Prius and drive that to Ushuaia and stay in Hostels and sleep in the back, like get out and do it first. Don’t let stuff be prohibitive to the experience. It’s all too easy. I, especially during COVID, I’m kind of catching myself that, well we’re all just like kind of sitting at home, you know, like, [00:59:00] is it right to go travel? Is it not right to go travel? I mean, like it’s a, it’s a crapshoot on who you ask. So I’m not going to get into that, but removing yourself from the stuff and, you know, and focusing on the travel is just what this is all about.
Scott Brady: I think that that’s the inspiration for me. I’ve spent so many years sleeping in the back of a land cruiser and I love that and it’s something that I want to continue to do in my life. But the idea of me being able to build a truck and a camper that I can work out of. That I can have the view of the Grand Canyon while I’m connected to my Starlink and doing business during the day and working hard, but then be able to instead of doing the same hike every day that I do in Prescott, I’m doing a new hike every day and I’m experiencing new places and I’m seeing new things and I’m able to work remotely. And that is, I know a [01:00:00] motivation for a lot of people who buy campers. They’re justifying it as like, this is going to be my home and this is where I’m going to work and I’m going to make a living and now I’m connected and you know, the Starlink thing is still being sorted out. But we just heard a few weeks ago that they plan to have it mobile by the end of the year.
Matt Scott: Which is going to change things.
Scott Brady: I just tested it and I got 170 megabits per second download. I mean, you can do real work all day long.
Matt Scott: That’s faster than our internet here.
Scott Brady: I know it’s great. It’s super fast. So you can do video conferencing. You can, you know, if we do a YouTube video production, I can upload it from someplace remote.
So these are really significant changes that we’re seeing happen and people like the idea of living remotely and traveling and living out of their vehicle.
Matt Scott: And it’s more doable post COVID. We now live in this world where companies essentially had to develop the infrastructure for working [01:01:00] remote. Otherwise you couldn’t work. So you know, there’s always been a stigma against working remotely, but for certain jobs, like why not these days.
Scott Brady: If you’re a knowledge worker or a creative person. Like Matt and I are, we can work from most places and we certainly need to spend time with our team and that’s all going to be built into my strategy, but being able to work from the scout camper from Alaska or from the Grand Canyon, that sounds really appealing. We’ll see how that all turns out and we’ll have a future podcast on sliding campers as well. We’ll also talk more about my project vehicle in a future episode as well. We do need to quickly talk about the Terra Nova, which is Earth Cruisers new offering.
Matt Scott: The Terra Nova’s awesome.
Scott Brady: Yeah and that’s just been released and I know that they’ve got many of them on pre-order and they’ve been very successful. That was a successful launch for [01:02:00] them. So it is a pop top Earth Cruiser on a one ton Ford or Dodge, you can pick your platform.
Matt Scott: It looks great.
Scott Brady: It looks really good. It’s very lightweight. It has all of that simplicity that you would expect from Earth Cruiser with a high degree of performance and build quality. So this is a composite base, and then it has a pop top roof with soft sides, which makes it a solid three season solution, a four season with some care. But these are really, really cool new campers. It’s a new one on the market, Matt and I have not had a chance to test it yet. But we do know Earth Cruiser well and we know the quality of their products and I suspect it’s going to be a real winner. So more details on the Teranova once we get a chance to try it out. Yeah, for sure.
Matt Scott: Well, cool.
Scott Brady: Those are all good ideas, Matt, around like, what’s the real cost of buying these things and it’s maybe lower than we think and what’s the real advantages of being able [01:03:00] to sleep comfortably and live comfortably out of our vehicle while we’re working and playing. That’s why these campers have become so popular.
Matt Scott: Yeah and, you know, kind of like we said, you can do it on all, all kinds of levels, that can be a DIY van that can be an Earth Roamer. That can be a UNICAP we didn’t really talk because you can’t really get those here.
Scott Brady: Not really.
Matt Scott: You know, but yeah as long as it gets you out. That’s what I’m all about.
Scott Brady: And if you’ve got further questions on expedition campers you can always reach out to Matt and myself. You can find me on Instagram at scott.a.brady and Matt, I think has suspended… have you suspended your Instagram?
Matt Scott: Becoming a bit toxic for me… I don’t know. I’m just not doing Instagram for awhile. I’m taking that, that time that we all spend on social media, which is hours a day, and I’m putting it into other aspects of my life and spending the rest, trying to get out and travel.
[01:04:00] Scott Brady: Yeah good for you. You’re actually having those experiences instead of taking photos and sharing it.
Matt Scott: I do occasionally log into Facebook and I posted something like, did some really cool stuff last week, forgot to take pictures for the internet, you know? But I guess you can reach out through, my company, through Adventure Imports. We’re on Instagram.
Scott Brady: There you go! Yeah. Go to @AdventureImports on Instagram and you can somehow find your way to Matt from there.
Matt Scott: Yeah. Sounds good.
Scott Brady: And thank you all for listening and we will talk to you next time.
