How they do things in Europe

Hey, that looks like the roads where I grew up!

Us hillbillies drove 2wd sedans on them every day. It was so weird to me, when I moved to 'town' and all the cars looked so CLEAN. I think I remember us washing the car once, my whole childhood. The windows, every time we got gas, though :).

Tony,

As an aside, I take our off-road pickup truck on roads like you show - and sometimes on no roads - doing volunteer work in the wilderness.

Some of your photos above remind me of where one of the posters in these very forums take their good old U.S. truck camper. Following is a photo of one adventure they went on out in the middle of nowhere right here in the American West near the Cosmic Ashtray - probably getting nicely pinstriped in the process:

My research was incomplete. This is a Rotel dating back to 1962 on the way to India.

From http://www.rotel.de/

Perhaps a bit upmarket from the Bedford truck with canvas top and bench seats that the hoi polloi had to make do with.

The old Bedford trucks might have rusted away, but not their modern equivalent



see http://been-seen.com/travel-spots/truck-hotel and there are others. We have come across them in South America at Ushuia and Iguazu. Also told they are still big in Africa.

One of the main rites of passage for British and Australian adventurers - overland on or in any vehicle that could move from Australia to Britain without breaking down more than 50 times (a day) - is sadly no longer possible now that previous exciting and interesting countries on the route are permanent war zones. Even so, there is a steady stream of assorted vehicle and assorted people making the trip, albeit with some pretty major detours to avoid most of the danger zones.

As for rampant consumerism giving the poor people a wrong impression of the rest of the world, we certainly did our best to avoid that tag.



Our thoroughly-battered Iveco 4 x 4 got a lot of attention, but not because of its beautiful lines and smart appearance, and an objective assessment of the type of vehicle used by the average traveller further south than the usual haunts of US Class As would show that our vehicle was much closer to the average than any of the super trucks.

Yes, the super trucks are the stuff of boys' toys dreams, but there are very few places they can go with impunity. All of the little tracks in the jungles of Brazil and Bolivia would shred the sides of these superwides, and the so-called highways in the Andes would rip the tops off them on overhangs, assuming of course they could negotiate dozens of hair-pin bends. Even in Australia with plenty of wide open spaces, they could not get along ANY of the iconic desert and red-centre tracks without severe damage.

For instance -
Canning Stock Route
OKA is 2100mm wide and the vehicles that keep the track open are much narrower so it gets extensively pin-striped all along the sides.




Hay River Road
30km along a river bed with overhanging river red gums and the only bypasses available are driving through mature Spinifex grass which is roughly similar to driving over a heap of 50 gallon barrels lying on their sides.



and while they may not seem too difficult, those track conditions go on for tens of miles and there is NO alternative route other than to return 50 or 100 miles and stick to the sealed roads.

As they say - Horses for courses.

These trucks are great and are seen all over the world with mostly Europeans driving them.

There is a history to them.

Back from the 70's onward companies like Encounter Overland were doing overland tours of Africa leaving London and ending in Capetown South Africa. The typical trip was more than 20 weeks carrying 20 passengers and it was mostly camping. Some companies are still doing these trips but on a more limited basis.

At that time most of the Overland tour companies use old English Bedford trucks which could carry about 20 people in the back and still all the camp gear and food etc. These were great trips and true adventure.

This kind of overland travel then became quite popular with many companies doing similar trips through South America, Asia and still Africa.

The market for these truck grew out of that early adventurous overland tour business. Now Sadly the globe is so torn with small vicious wars and religious conflict that these companies find it hard to do true transcontinental trips like the epic London - Kabul - Katmandu - India trek that was the gold standard of the business.

But I'd give my right arm for one of these great trucks and I know exactly where I'd take it....

For all sorts of reasons, campfires don't seem to absolutely essential for Europeans to enjoy their lifestyle.

If you could see the whole gamut of RV vehicles here it would be obvious that there is a huge variation and those monster rigs are usually surrounded by tents and much smaller vehicles. Have a close look at the photo right at the bottom and count the number of bigrigs vs little rigs. One to a hundred perhaps.

Another factor that comes into play is that travelers from the 'rest of the world' - meaning almost every western country apart from the USA, actually travel rather than sitting in one place for most of the year. This means hardly ever being on hookups and often a long way from any sort of back-up so they tend to be a bit more utilitarian in their design. They also need to be 100% winter-capable.

Those type expedition vehicles are way over some kind of top.

compared to a typical class A????

Looks like a long hike up the stairs into those rigs when you need a salt shaker by the fire.

I just don't understand the appeal of those things. Maybe some kind of military fetish? The tiny windows look like gun ports (on an oven). They look like they would terrorize the locals.

pnichols wrote:
Wow ... and to think that the 1%'ers in the U.S. are beginning to have to be more careful with the image that they're projecting among the have-nots!!!

Those type expedition vehicles are way over some kind of top.

I'd much prefer something more modest, like this:

Different needs, different vehicles, that modest vehicle would not be on their Radar

Wow ... and to think that the 1%'ers in the U.S. are beginning to have to be more careful with the image that they're projecting among the have-nots!!!

Those type expedition vehicles are way over some kind of top.

I'd much prefer something more modest, like this:

One special feature of expedition trucks with huge tyres is when they get bogged, they dig themselves a hell of a lot deeper into the dirt so they are just that much harder to unbog. With a 6 X 6, that bogging process just happens 50% faster.

Two years ago there was a lot of rain and the campground turned into a quagmire. There is a picture of a 6 X 6 sitting forlornly in the middle of the campground down to the chassis.

Another notable feature of many - shared by my F350 which is a worry - is they have massive tow-hooks on the front and nothing similar on the back. Hard not to draw the conclusion that they get bogged easily but aren't much use getting others unbogged.