Hello from Chattanooga!
Not sure I would call myself and overlander, but I love to camp in off the beaten track kinds of places so maybe I am. We have been using my wife's 2wd Renegade as our adventure vehicle for the last 3 years. Which with 3 of us and a dog is quite a feat. Getting all of our camping gear in there is not easy. That being said, we took a month long 4500 mile road trip from TN to Glacier NP and back last summer in it. camped 18 out of 30 days. It was amazing, but stressful come pack up time. That prompted me to figure out something better.
I bought a RTT and built a trailer to tow behind it, but it became very obvious that the Renegade was not the right vehicle for this. So I started to look for a more capable tow vehicle. I know I know, NOT the time to do this. But I lucked into a really sweet 08 Tacoma SR5 DCLB 4x4 with 163,xxx and a bunch of upgrades for around $15K ( I think that is a great deal in this market)and I jumped on it. Here she is:
View attachment 226165
Upgrades include: Aftermarket exhaust, k&N filter, 17" 4 runner wheels, add a leaf rear suspension, updated LED headlights and foglights, aftermarket Alpine radio, weathertech floor mats. I am sure I am missing a few. Have no plans on doing many more upgrades. Don't have plans to do much serious off-roading other than forrest service roads and some minor stuff.
Here is the trailer I built from a ragged out old 4x6 carry-on.
View attachment 226166
We just took it out for it's maiden voyage a couple weeks ago, plan on getting out for 3 days this weekend. So far it has performed very well.
My goal with the trailer is to take some of the stress out of camping. It used to be me the night before trying to shoehorn everything into the Renegade. Now everything lives in the trailer and is ready to go. Grab some clothes, swing by the grocery store and we are out. If you want more info on trailer build I have a write up here.
My family (Wife, 10 year old, blue heeler and I) have been adventuring out of my wife's 2015 Jeep Renegade for about the last 3 years. Don't get me wrong, we have gone on lots of nice trips. Most recently this summer we took a month long 4500 mile trip from SE Tennessee to Glacier NP and back...
www.overlandbound.com
It is still a work in progress.
Also, wanting to do an easily removable buildout in the back of the truck for those times that we don't need or can't bring the trailer. Wife and I in back of truck, 10 yo son and dog in back seat. Going to do a platform with a kitchen slider and storage underneath.
