What We Wish We’d Known Before Overlanding Full-time (Part 4)

Welcome back, as I blog my in-progress ebook. This is Part 4. As a quick introduction, I’m Brittany Highland, and I’ve been traveling full-time by vehicle with my husband Eric since February 2014. We’re currently driving around the world with our five-year-old son, Caspian. We originally taught about what we wish we’d known before overlanding full-time at several events in 2021, including Overland Expo West.

There is a lot to share on this topic, so I decided to turn our presentation into my first ebook. Once the ebook is complete, I’ll be emailing it to all our subscribers for free. That way, you can download the PDF file and refer to it whenever you want to.

If you need to go back and catch up, you can do so here:

• Part 1: Stuff is a sad substitute for experience
• Part 2: Stuff is a sad substitute for hands-on training
• Part 3: Payload capacity doesn’t go away if you ignore it

Now let’s continue on to the next lesson!

4/Overlanding involves intentional self-deprivation

This is the lesson that hit me hardest when we moved into our Jeep Wrangler in March 2021 and started overlanding full-time. As I was going through the transition of staying in my parents’ comfortable house during our planning phase, then moving straight into a Jeep with my then four-year-old, I had a realization:

Hey, overlanding requires intentional self-deprivation! I am going through challenges right now as I give up many first-world comforts, but I’m doing so because I intentionally choose to. In return, I get the privilege of experiencing some incredible things.

Over the next few lessons, I’ll talk about the different ways self-deprivation manifests itself. But I should probably clear something up. For the weekend or part-time overlander who is returning to a comfortable home, this “lesson” may sound more like whining at first. Part-timers often use overlanding to escape the trials and stresses of life at home. It can still be disappointing when things don’t go as planned on the road, but these challenges are part of the adventure that’s being sought.

Full-time overlanders have a different perspective. We’ve given up the trappings of “normal” life and don’t have a retreat (or endless hot water) to go back to for recuperation. This is our life. So, yeah, we have to come to terms with what we’ve given up, if we’re going to make this lifestyle sustainable in the long-run.

With that out of the way, let’s go back to what I mean by intentional self-deprivation. For starters, there’s this little math term called volume.

Comparing the capacity of a four-door Jeep Wrangler to the typical single-family dwelling is like comparing the size of a human adult to a blue whale in your favorite biology textbook. We can’t hold much.

No walk-in closet here. When we started overlanding, my husband, son, and I each had a duffel bag for clothing. Whatever fit in the duffel bag got to travel. (We have drawers now, but they actually hold less than our old bags.)

Fortunately, the challenge of cargo capacity fades with time. On February 21, 2014, we locked the door to our two-bedroom apartment in Austin for the last time and began a life of constant travel. We chose an RV as our first home on wheels when it was only Eric and me. But by the time we sold that motorhome in December 2018 and moved into our Wrangler short-term with a one-year-old, we were attuned to how few possessions we needed to function and thrive.

Those weeks we spent with our son in mainland Mexico were thrilling and instructive. Each overlanding trip we took, we tracked which items we used, which we didn’t, and the things we wish we had packed. Over time, we were able to make the necessary tradeoffs with the confidence only experience can bring.

We learned to monitor not only an item’s footprint, how much space it fills, but also its weight (refer to lesson #3). Some desired objects won’t fit when you do your final pack-out, but you can live without them in favor of the experiences you’ll gain.

COMING UP: Logistics involved (can’t play constant tourist)

Stay tuned for the fifth lesson I share, as I blog my in-progress ebook. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up for a copy of my complete ebook, which I’ll email you for free as soon as it’s finished.

Thanks for participating in my blogging experiment. We’ll see you soon for the next lesson we’ve learned–the hard way!

-B