land cruiser — BLOG — gondirtin - Outdoor Cooking, Overlanding, & Camping

LEAVE NORMALITY: Breakaway to life in Baja California Sur

Karissa and I were peacefully woken up from our slumber by the sound of soft waves breaking on the beach. It was a distant, but gentle, pop. It was infrequent, but just frequent enough that, through our crusty, dreary, eyes, we were curious enough about it to poke our heads out the tent’s window.

Pop... pop... pop….

Our eyes strained to focus against the tent’s mosquito netting. But it didn’t take long for us to spot the source of the noise: a distant pod of whales playfully slapping their fins on the calm pink and purple predawn water.

blog, TroopygondirtinSeptember 14, 2023baja california, troopy, troop carrier, land cruiserComment

RIG TOUR: Our Overland Toyota Land Cruiser Troop Carrier RV, "Troopy"

There’s no such thing as a perfect travel vehicle. It has quickly become a social media hot take to get those precious, precious clicks. Overlanding is a very personal type of lifestyle. No one truck, or setup, can be considered perfect for a wide swath of people with very different outdoor lifestyles, cultures, interests, or ways of living. Not everyone wants to rock crawl for endless miles to poop in a hole. Some prefer the calmer routes that lets them experience the world around them. Everyone brings something different to the table. Everyone has different needs, and check boxes. Just because the market is currently pushing everyone to own full-sized trucks with slide in, or flat bed, campers, does not mean that’s the way forward.

TroopygondirtinAugust 21, 2022land cruiser, troopy, troop carrier Comments

WINTER IN YOSEMITE Or: How I learned to Combat FOMO

Living in the moment is something I always find myself struggling with. We patiently waited for the winter weather, and our schedules, to align for our trip to Yosemite National Park. We’re always on winter weather-watch. We missed most of the big snow dumps this season, and was quickly becoming late season. Snow days were becoming rarer and rarer….

bloggondirtinMarch 19, 2021yosemite, national park, land cruiser, troop carrierComment

TROOPY Pre-build Walk Around Tour

So, the dust has settled. We’ve finally come to the realization that this 1994 Land Cruiser Troop Carrier RV is actually ours, and not a figment of our imagination. It’s a real thing. Take a walk around the truck with us as we go through how the Troopy came to us from Australia, and how it was modded by the previous owner.

TroopygondirtinMarch 4, 2021land cruiser, troopy, troop carrierComment

We Imported a Land Cruiser TROOPY to the USA from AUSTRALIA!

Here it is. Our new rig. It’s a 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser Troop Carrier. It has come a long, long, way before it nested into its quiet parking spot in California. It was trucked across the land mass of Australia, boarded a giant ocean-going ship, floated around the major ports of Australia, toured the whole of South East Asia before making its way to China, Korea, and Japan before it made the huge leap across the massive pond.

TroopygondirtinJanuary 7, 2021toyota, land cruiser, troop carrier, troopyComment