Hey everyone. I'm Adam, from Northern VA, but grew up in small-town-USA near Erie, PA (the only part of PA that touches Lake Erie) most of my life...my family owns around 160 acres of farmland up there. Girlfriend (now fiance) and I moved to the DC area for better/more opportunities for our careers and its been paying off well for last ~5 years we've been here. I hadn't really gone camping since boy scouts and wasn't much into hiking since growing up on a farm you "hike" in the woods all the time haha. However as we settled into this high population area covered with asphalt and a**holes, we started to rely on getting out to the country as an escape to stay sane.
We had done some simple car camping with her Grand Cherokee, but when we bought our first house a few years ago, I decided it was time to get rid of my fast and comfy car (Ford Fusion Sport, great for long commutes, bad for avoiding speeding tickets) and go back to a 4x4 like I grew up on (we needed a bed for all the work we were doing on the house). I've always really preferred driving manual transmissions (and I still do, even in DC area traffic surprisingly), so my options were pretty limited, as nowadays its not easy to find a truck with a stick. That led me to a Tacoma, which I've never owned but always appreciated. Against my own concern, I ended up buying a new 2017, because the best used 2nd gen with a manual transmission I could find was 5 years old and asking price was only about $5k less than a brand new one. When I got the truck I wasn't into offroading or overlanding at all, just some car camping. I've only ever "offroaded" in back roads and fields growing up, don't think I ever used 4Lo in the past to be honest, definitely never in a manual transmission. So I decided I didn't need awesome offroad capabilities and chose the TRD Sport Tacoma rather than TRD Off-Road, so I'd get that cool looking hood scoop! (we make mistakes so we can learn from them...) Only a couple months after getting my truck, I was already talking with some people on OverlandBound and we met up to do some beginner-level offroading. First time I used 4Lo with a stick. I don't remember anything that technical on that first maiden voyage, but I do remember how bad my clutch stunk because the Jeep at the end of our group mentioned he smelled it during the drive haha. I fell in love [again] with 4x4, which, combined with our yearn for quiet country views and secluded primitive campsites, quickly evolved into our current love of "overlanding". Everyone describes that term differently, but my take on it is "traveling to and camping in locations that you can't get to in a minivan, while being fully self-sufficient". To get away and discover all the natural beauty that this world has to show you besides what's in your backyard.
Nowadays I'm constantly working to improve my truck as an overlanding rig; reorganizing this thing and that, researching and buying a new gadget to improve comfort while on the road or setting up the campsite, etc. However my primary initiative ever since that first offroading trip is to get better at driving stick through technical terrain [without burning out my clutch]. I've tried some small helpful tips and tricks from other drivers, I've tried relying on the clutchless start button, and I've tried some other stuff. But I'm still not satisfied with the amount of clutch I have to use to avoid hopping around, jerking, engine dying, etc. I've driven manual transmissions most of my life so far, and at this point I've driven my truck for years on as many overlanding trips as we could fit into our weekends, most requiring 4Lo, including a bunch of pretty narly technical crawls, constantly trying to focus on improving my stick game. So I get pretty frustrated when I ask for tips and tricks online and no one offers anything other than "you just need more pedal time to learn your clutch you'll get it" or "you should just use 4Lo it crawls forward on its own".
I look forward to meeting everyone from beginner to expert, and hearing some real advice from experienced drivers and trainers so I can keep working to get better at this, like everything else.
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