Full-time living out of my 35k mile 1st Gen!

Hey Y’all!

After getting back from a 2 month trip in Baja California, Mexico, I felt like there was no one better to share how stoked I am on my truck besides you guys. The truck has performed spectacularly, and this forum has helped me since before I even bought it.

I started building it out in January after graduating college with my girlfriend. By the end of February, we had crossed the border over to Mexico, where we spent most days camping and surfing.

The car didn’t see much dirt until Guerrero Negro, where I promptly got stuck in some deep mud looking for a sleeping spot in the salt flat. We got free, and then parked about 50ft away. I should have took that as a sign of impeding water levels, because the next morning I work up in about 1ft of sea water. We had taken the presence of another car as a sign of safety, but apparently they were about 2ft higher than us. After a panic attack from my girlfriend, and me being blessed with some drifting plywood, we managed to get to safety without the sea water submerging any essential components. We got it cleaned in town and stayed inland for a few days after that.

We spent many days ‘off the road’ with plenty of Baja being soft dirt and sand, but nothing too testing until we decided to take ‘El Camino Real’ or the 1 Highway. This is from Scorpion Bay to the East Coast, and looks innocent enough when you route your phone and it casually tells you to take this path. We were told by some local friends to not take ‘La Purimisa’ and by the time we came into town I was too stubborn to take the 4 hour detour around. Well… this path was about 45 miles of rock crawling, cliff hugging, tree scraping fun that took at least 3 hours.

All in all, the truck handled great, didn’t have a single issue (that I didn’t induce), came back with 35k miles on the odometer, and 2 happy campers.

We are currently heading to Alaska for some seasonal work, and then will be heading back South of the border this winter.

Ive been pleasantly surprised by my budget build. I got both my rear and front bumper off another tundra for $1000 right before we left (rustoleum didn’t stop the rust). I did an LED housing swap as well, but rarely drive at night so haven’t gotten to enjoy them much. The camper was less than 5k from USA Campers, with all accessories purchased and installed myself. The interior build was cheap besides the used domestic fridge, the Jackery we already owned, and the 8 inch RV mattress. I got a set of Open Country tires for $250, and haven’t had to do much maintenance besides fluids and the timing belt.

This truck was purchased last year for 10k at about 25k miles. Bring a trailer might have won if it wasn’t my dream truck.

 

This is great! You should really post this in the 1st Gen forum. I think everyone would love to see this.

 

Will do!

 

Wow.... I have no other words! Thank you for sharing

 

Hell yeah, that's a great trip!

Get any good surf? Say, Scorpion Bay, perhaps?

I haven't been on any Baja trips in awhile, I miss it. Used to go a few times a year when we had use of a house on the bluff overlooking this pointbreak.









I remember your posts when you were getting ready for this and doing the build out... glad to hear everything went well.

 

Scorpion Bay was actually one of our least favorite spots we visited! Beautiful land leading out there, but the gringos and the monetization of the camping around the surf was pretty lame (also the 1/2ft surf).

We spent over a month at the cape. I surfed El Pastora outside Todos Santos mainly, and got an amazing week at Nine Palms. Conejo was also a personal favorite for the surf, it was overhead and I had the point to myself most days.

That point break looks epic. It was a great time of year to go because things felt less and less busy through out the trip. By the time we came back, we weren’t seeing the hundreds of other campers driving and camping that we saw on the way down.

 

My last Mex trip we spent a week in Todos Santos (Well, Cerritos technically)

Super cool vibe in that area. Waves were just okay, kinda' walled up most of the time and I was riding a rental that wasn't super responsive, but still fun.

Saw Whales breaching just outside the lineup most days.

 

I’ve loved the surf at Cerritos on a previous visit. I took my girlfriend there to see there was about 300 people on the beach. It’s a busy spot nowadays but can be a great surf spot.

 

Yeah, I definitely saw the potential. There was some pretty good waves at the point now and then, but you had to hug REALLY close to the rocks. (The exposed and jagged rocks) Then when it hit the sandbar on the inside and line up, there was a freaking sea of humanity... surf schools, noobs on rental boards, swimmers, waders.

Most days I surfed the beach break just south of the point... more spread out and much less chaos.

 

My dream trip!!! Glad the truck worked great! We did 1800 miles in Baja earlier this year. We zigzagged from the Pacific side to the gulf side. Spent some time in San Ignacio petting the grey whales

 

My first two weeks at La Pastora, by the time I got back to my car some part of me was covered in blood! The rocks are serious down here, and seem like a huge liability until you figure out a spot. East Cape was pretty rough too.

 

As much as I advocate for respecting wildlife, both my girlfriend and I really want to pet those whales too!

 

It's one thing at a spot you know well, something else entirely rocking a rental board at a spot you've never surfed!

Mason Ho I am NOT, I generally try to avoid dry jagged reef.





At least the locals are friendly.





I freaking LOVE street dogs in Mexico. Two of my three rescues were picked up as strays in Baja.