We dig this rig! Mak and Owen from Bound For Nowherelive out of this customized Four Wheel Camper full time and sleep on the HEST Dually and Pilllows every night on the road!
Rig Nickname: Jolene
Location: Nowhere
Make & Model: 2023 Toyota Tundra with Four Wheel Camper
Critical dimensions for your bed platform:
Length: 78" Width (at narrowest point): 80” Height: 108" (top of the camper with surfboards)HEST products: HEST Dually Queen &Pillows
Is this your daily driver or getaway car?
What do you like most about your rig?
We love that it feels like home. The interior of the camper is decorated with memories from our travels. And our cab’s ceiling is covered in patches from all the places we’ve been to. When I look around the space, I can’t help but smile because of all the memories it surrounds us in.
On your average weekend adventure, what is the gear set up you bring with you?
This is going to come up a lot, but, we live in our rig. So we have literally everything we own with us at all times. Which is funny to say. The flatbed has four exterior storage cabinets, each contains “garage” type items… you know, your tools and recovery gear, etc. We also have a pull out drawer in our flatbed, in which we store all of our at camp gear. So that is things like chairs, tripods, ground mats, solar panel, things like that. Inside the camper, our dinette seating is all storage, it holds an incredible amount of gear for all of our recreational activities. We carry two whitewater packrafts, full backpacking gear, wetsuits for surfing, some climbing gear, as well as spearfishing gear. Our bed also lifts up to reveal underbed storage. We keep our clothes under there. Last but not least we had our back seats removed and a shop called Terra Quest in SoCal built us a custom rear seat locking storage box for all of our camera gear… We’re photographers and filmmakers so we’ve got a lot of that type of stuff and thus it's important to have a safe space for it!Any custom details?
Our stripes and suspension. The stripes because… well look at them?! You can’t see this truck without smiling. It just feels like it makes this truck feel really “us”. Our suspension is also fully built out to specifically handle the weight of our Norweld flatbed and Four Wheel Camper. In the past, we’ve had rigs that overlooked the importance of a good suspension. With the weight we carry full time it was important that we have a dialed in suspension. Main Line Overland in Philly built out our suspension using all Dobinsons components and that truck drives like it has no idea the camper is back there. It gives us so much peace of mind when we venture down rough roads to know the suspension is built for exactly how we are living.
Coolest place you’ve taken your rig to?
This truck is really new to us, we only finished it a few months ago. So it hasn’t covered much ground yet. The truck we lived out of before was roughly the same, just an older model, so I will use that truck for this question. The coolest place we’ve taken our truck was on the ferry to Alaska. It was a multiday ferry called the Alaska Marine Highway and it takes the innermost passage up to Alaska from Bellingham, Washington. It was a life changing experience. Then, all of Alaska was great too, obviously! But in our time on the road we have covered most of North America including Canada and Mexico.
Any projects in the pipeline to get your rig even more adventure ready?
We’re just about done with this truck. We just have the last 10% left, all of which is very specific to how we will soon be traveling. First up, we’re getting our Starlink mounted to our roof and hardwired into our power supply. It will cut the power draw by half! Once that is done, we’ll be ready to ship this truck to South America to do the Pan-American Highway northbound. It's been a trip many years in the making.
Biggest challenge in your build out?
Jolene was built in partnership with a number of our sponsors and we had a limited window of time to get the whole build done. It took over a year of planning to get all the parts made and gathered in one place so we could knock the entire build out in two weeks. Everything was going well until we were a month out from starting the build. It’s no secret that there have been vehicle shortages over the last few years. To avoid that issue, we ordered exactly what we wanted and were told it would be ready in 6-7 months. 6 months in, we hadn’t gotten any updates on the truck. We called them only to learn that they were unable to place our order due to the combination of packages we wanted because they didn’t offer it together. No one called to tell us that. Now we are just a month away from our build, we have all the parts ready, the camper is ready, everything, but no truck. Thankfully the Flagstaff, AZ Toyota dealership helped us track down the exact truck we were looking for at a dealership in Virginia. Turns out the combo of a long range fuel tank and rear diff locker made what we were looking for very rare. Apparently the truck we bought was 1 of 2 on record to be made for the entire year. Needless to say we were relieved the day we picked up this truck because it was looking like we were going to have to make a major change in plans.
Tips for others looking to do the same to their vehicle?
Our truck is a rare breed and few people need to dive into the customizations as deeply as we did. But my best piece of advice is to always get moving with what you’ve got right now. There are so many valuable lessons to be learned from traveling in something that isn’t exactly right for your needs. It helps you learn what you need and want before you spend a ton of money on what you think you need and want. What we thought we needed a few years ago, is so different from what we need now. All that matters is that you are getting out there and getting to know the world both close and far from home.
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