“To travel to remote and interesting places all around the world in a vehicle I created, that is capable of providing me with all the comfort and space of a motorhome, the off-road prowess of a Land Rover, but at a fraction of the price of a traditional truck build.”
Hello, and welcome to Project, Overland. I’m David (aka Projectblue or Project) and this is/was my vision. Whilst the other sections will change as time progresses, this section should stay reasonably constant. I say reasonably. Who knows what the future will bring us? Look what’s happened already in that since buying a truck, there has been a world pandemic and almost all the borders, ever where, are shut. I must say, my vision and foresight didn’t see THAT coming!
Anyway, the vision or; ‘How I combined two hobbies and came to this very expensive and challenging project’. Firstly, writing a ‘vision statement’ is a really useful way of concentrating and capturing your feeling of what you want to do. It should be one sentence summing up everything.
The photo above captures many elements of what my vision entails. The road less travelled, the emptiness away from mass human population, the test of driver skill, the wild and unknown lands that differ so much from the known homelands. All of these feelings rolled in to one image. A vision statement in a photograph. Something was pushing me, driving me to follow this ‘feeling’. If you have come here because you too have one or more of the above similar feelings, why not write them down. Edit them until they become one sentence?
My vision will expand below to encompass where I will go and how long I will go for. Ultimately, how I can maintain any journey and of course how I could fund it. That bit I have yet to get to. Because I often do things in an obscure route, like buying a truck before I actually have a licence. I figured once I’ve got the truck, the licence bit should be a formality (turns out it was, but you never know!)
My personal vision encompassed some specific locations, which grow all the time when I discover somewhere I want to visit. I keep reading things and learning things that need adding. But I have some really high-level headers and these are;
I have a set of places I want to get to. Clearly some would be harder to drive to than others and so a bit of planning wouldn’t go a miss. Also, I was going to need wheels. So, my visionary brain went off in search of stuff. You can read more in the blogs, but in essence a VW van was too small. A Mercedes Sprinter probably big enough for me, but didn’t quite do it for me. Whatever it ends up being, it would need road presence.
I came really close to buying something smaller and leaving it in North America. Saves on shipping, and this wonderfully sorted Toyota 4x4 Pick up was so keenly priced. But eventually I chickened out as it still wasn't cheap and in reality, although amazingly sorted, it's really only a Hi-lux in disguise.
Really, I needed a truck. Something bigger than a long wheel base van, with four-wheel drive and a flatbed that can be converted easily enough. I went searching and found a variety of trucks. The ones that caught my attention are here. Each truck is linked to their own site, so if you would like to know more about each truck and their builders, click the photo (it will open in a separate browser window so you don’t lose this one 😉).
By now the vision was solidifying. I knew what I wanted to do; I knew what I needed to do it. I just couldn't afford what I wanted. Well, not without some serious rearranging of my existing situation. What I needed, was a PLAN.
