In my Four Sprinter Adventure Tales post I shared some yarns about great adventures with Sprinters, including stories of Tree & Stevie Trujillo and their surprisingly thoughtful SprinterLife blog. Their recent post about overlanding in a Sprinter struck a chord with me: not for the Sprinter expedition camper van pics, but about the people they had met on the road, and what they had discovered about themselves and the world.
How about the casual chutzpah of Mathieu and Charlotte, a French couple from Nice – they decided to go overland through not one or two, but four continents, starting off in South America, then north and east to Canada, resuming at Cape Town north through Africa and the near East all the way back to France. Oh, and did I mention they have five children aged 5 to 11 with them?
Why does some wandering matter? Because of what it can make of you – think of those five kids. What will this trip build in them? The same qualities that a 7-week road trip built in my kids this past summer, in vastly greater amounts:
Curiosity
Many of us seem to have little real curiosity about the rest of the world, perhaps because we’ve been lulled into believing that TV, magazines and the Web show us what the world is really like. But only experience shows you what the world is really like, right now, firsthand. And what people are really like: in my experience, all the fear that our media inspire in us about those other people “out there” is replaced by the knowledge that most people you meet are pretty decent. In my travels, I’ve come up with the “70/20/10 rule” – about 70% of those I met would help a stranger for no reason, 20% didn’t care one way or the other, and about 10% were out to get whatever they could from you.
Self-reliance and self-confidence
When was the last time you had to weld an axle support back onto your own vehicle? Approach a mechanic in a language not your own? Ask for a place to stay the night? All these random acts where you have to meet the unforeseen challenges of the road, and ask for help, as well as learn how to receive it. I think much of the time we try to spare our kids (and ourselves) the experience of failure, making everything easy and thinking this will build confidence, when what they really need is the confidence that they can get themselves out of a jam, because they have managed plenty of times before.
Wonder
How much do you really notice about where you are day-to-day in your own environment, do you really see the faces passing by you, or the hills and trees? All these things are brand new again in a different place, especially a landscape where you can see the volcanos or canyons or powerful rivers, the forces of nature that remind us of the true stature (and short lifespan) of mankind and our mechanical contrivances. We take for granted a sense of wonder in children, but we seem to expect to lose this as adults (Chip Conley has some unique things to say about the value of a sense of wonder in his book Emotional Equations).
What really matters
Day to day, most of us are concerned with money (or maybe worse, how much we’ll pay for 20″ chrome rims for our Sprinters!). And yeah, especially for food and shelter, but also for toys: toys we don’t really need, and that aren’t really making us happy, especially in relation to all the time we spent slaving for them. The happiest, most joyful people I’ve met have been those who have the time to find and develop their passions. And they are those not enslaved by their possessions, and how much time it takes to simply care for them – if you live out of a van, you don’t have much room for stuff. Even in a 170″ wheel base Sprinter!
The real advice for overlanders
It’s not necessarily about getting the right Sprinter RV (though I am biased that way!). It’s about getting off your duff and going! From an interview Tree & Stevie did with Overland Journal:
“WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO ASPIRING OVERLANDERS? Stevie: One of our favorite quotes is by Toni Morrison, “Wanna fly, you gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.” First get rid of the irrational fears, the allegiance to other people’s dreams, and especially the voice in your head that makes excuses about why it can’t be done, because it can be done, and you can do it! Then, start telling everyone about your upcoming journey while you slowly get rid of everything that doesn’t fit inside your vehicle. As much as possible, stop spending; step outside of the consumerist cycle of ownership and debt because it weighs you down. Start reaching out to other travelers through websites like Overland Expo, Facebook,Twitter, and blogs to keep you inspired. Then, set a launch date and go!!!”
ASKING YOUR FEEDBACK: What epic trips have you made in your Sprinter? Have you been inspired by the epic journeys of others?
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