After a recent verbal exchange I had with Mary Hannah Hardcastle, better known as MH, and Andy Ellis, the duo Expedition Rove, where we talked about the best European road vacation they had just returned from, I couldn’t help but be encouraged by the couple.
They live a life that many other people dream of, traveling around the world in combination on a bespoke landing pad that would blow anyone away, and they do so with such authentic joy and enthusiasm. It’s hard not to fall in love with them and the adventurers. life they lead.
But, like everyone else, they had to start somewhere.
For them, what started as a long-distance date turned into road trips across the United States at every opportunity, turned into something none of them could have imagined.
Their first road vacation, and one of their first dates, took them through the Smokey Mountains on a two-week adventure in a Jeep Liberty. Their next highway vacation took them from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Sequoia, Las Vegas, Zion National Park, and then to Salt Lake City. Before they knew it, they moved to California together and their sporadic roadside vacations turned into weekend excursions: Joshua Tree, Yosemite, the Mojave Desert, Pismo, Utah and more. They were traveling, even putting their apartment on AirBnb on weekends, which helped pay for the vacation they undertook.
After two years together in California, they made the decision to redouble their adventures by placing their attractions on the Pan-American Highway. Leaving a thriving career, MH was fully on board, leaving her nine to five and beginning independent photography and videography. business so you can keep running away to some point from the road and live a life of travel instead. Since then, they have never looked back.
After a quick upgrade of MH’s Jeep Liberty, and with Andy determined to hold on to his British roots, his first land vehicle was a $1,500 2003 Land Rover Discovery 2. From there, they upgraded to a $3,000 2005 Land Rover Discovery 3 (known as LR3 in America). And, after a little work, it was the vehicle that would take them to the “Lower World” as a component of the Pan-American adventure.
Today, the duo in a 2010 Land Rover Defender 110 named “Tango,” for its orange color, which they remodeled from a production Land Rover to an expedition-ready vehicle with an internal RV conversion. That’s how they did it, and how you can do it too.
Read: 17 countries, 114 days on the road: Expedition Rove stores European road trip
MEET THE ROVE EXPEDITION
Breanna Wilson (BW): You’ve just rebuilt the interior of Tango, your 2010 Land Rover Defender 110 to load some new essentials. Which update are you better off with?
MH Hardcastle and Andy Ellis of Expedition Rove (ER): The conversion of the Alu-Cab roof has absolutely reshaped the spaciousness of the space, but I think it’s the mix of the sunroof and the actual conversion of the RV with all the amenities. From home: a refrigerator, a sink with filtered running water, a shower, built-in induction cooker, this makes this structure nevertheless feel at home. We spent a hundred consecutive nights in this setup on a holiday between the UK and Turkey and didn’t spend a penny on hotels during the total holiday. That’s a great comparison to our Pan-Am vacation, where we spent about $4,000 on solo hotels over the nine months (an average of $445 consistent with the month). It’s hard to attribute this to a single piece of equipment, as this setup is radically different to the one we had on our past vacation, however, having a shower on board has played a major role in us no longer needing to stalk campsites/hotels to cool off.
Inside the conversion of Tango 2. 0.
BW: What recommendation do you have for starting your own structure and landing trip?
ER: Don’t overcomplicate things! There are countless magazines, channels, websites that explain all the lists of essential landing devices. At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have, it’s about getting out. We began to “land” in California with a tent on the floor and some small boxes of undeniable gadgets, all stacked in the back, and slowly built our configuration over the next seven years to become what we have today. , so it’s more productive to go through shorter vacations and have a genuine concept of what you need/want before making a big money investment. Every vacation you take will teach you something different, so it will be an endless adventure to compose things and create a configuration that has compatibilities to your liking.
Tango the last expedition of the United Kingdom in Turkey.
BW: One thing other people don’t realize is that flooring becomes temporarily expensive. How do you treat yourself (or the budget) for this kind of adventure?
ER: In fact, this is the consultation that has been asked the most in recent months. It’s becoming increasingly clear that many other people think you have to be incredibly rich to like this, but that’s not the case.
Here’s what for us:
● Work/Savings: Even before it was considered our Panamericana, we worked full time and were very smart to save money and make budgets, instead of going out and spending lightly. This meant that when we made the decision to take the (October 2018), it wasn’t that far-fetched for us, and with a bit of final effort and a little creativity over the next few months, we were able to hit the road in a few months (December 2018) without monetary worries. .
Although we have traveled from time to time for the past 4 years, we still work as hard and as possible. While Andy was a Land Rover technician in California, he is an electrician in the industry and between each and every vacation we do, he worked like an absolute madman from Sunday to Thursday, running at night, looking to save as much as he could between vacations. Deciding to hit the road, I moved to the independent world and had the opportunity to paint with some of our favorite brands over the years. Videography and photography for them, as well as writing where I can, to help subsidize our trip.
● Pay our debt. We make sure all student debt, car bills, etc. were reimbursed before hitting the road. We knew that having monthly bills once we were on the road would lead to unnecessary worry, so we worked hard to pay for everything before our Pan Am trip. This meant that any source of income could be saved, rather than spent.
● Minimize our expenses. We regularly check our expenses and do our best to minimize as much as possible. I find it much less difficult to do this when we have a concrete purpose in mind, because each and every one acquires and each and every resolution is weighed against how it will effect us in achieving our goal. purpose for our next vacation. We didn’t buy a space when we got stuck in England during Covid, nor did we rent a flat, but built a 10ft container space which we lived in for two years. We don’t eat out regularly, but we cook at home. We don’t buy new cars; we buy older cars than we can afford with cash. We don’t spend grocery shopping every weekend, we buy gadgets that will last for years. But I’m not just talking about big spending, I mean combing each and every one and everything and seeing where we’re spending. To give an example, I even canceled our Amazon Prime subscription, my Spotify Prime, our gym memberships, and our phone plans during our 4 month European vacation. This might seem like a stretch to some, but between those 4 subscriptions/memberships, the total was $420. It’s pocket money considering we didn’t use any of the subscriptions along the way.
● Sell everything: After the Pan American trip, it was time to downsize and sell almost all our belongings, from our furniture, our Discovery 2, my Jeep Liberty, clothes, televisions, everything. It was not worth paying for long-term garage for replaceable items.
● Partnerships: For the past 4 years, we have partnered with brands in the automotive and outdoor industries. From Dometic and Front Runner to WARN and BFGoodrich, working with those brands has allowed us to build our dreams. Each of those relationships is different, however, depending on the wishes of your team, we work together to put in place a plan that will give them a price: for some brands, it is promotion, for others it is content or even occasions in some cases. I deserve to upload here too, infrequently I think other people are obsessed with social media, however, we started working with brands when we had a hundred “followers” on social media: uploading has a price, infrequently you just want to be creative.
The Expedition Rove LR3 crossing a river its adventure along the Pan-American Highway.
BW: What advice do you have for other people to save cash along the way?
Emergency room:
● Cook instead of going out to dinner. Ninety percent of the time, we cook instead of eating out and do our best just to enjoy food that we really look to where we see the local cuisine. The same goes for beer and drinks. We’ll prevent it at a brewery or bar, but nine times out of 10 we’ll only have a drink at a local grocery store if we feel like it and we’ll take it around the campfire.
● Enter the adventure with an “expedition” state of mind. Everyone travels differently, but when we embark on these types of adventures, we do so with a different mindset than we would have if we were “vacationing”. On a two-week vacation, it’s a short-term escape and we can spend more freely as we’ll be going back to work to fill our budget soon after. But on our holidays we do not splurge on excursions, meals, etc. since we are in it for the long term. For example, when we arrived in Greece, my eyes were on Santorini. After doing some studies and analyzing the costs, we learned that for a 2 or 3 day vacation in Santorini, we would spend around $2,000 or more if we reveled as I imagined, adding ferries, hotels, food, etc. He opted for a $40 return ferry to a small Greek island and used that $2,000 to see a totally different aspect of Greece and traveled to Turkey instead. Santorini will be there in a few years.
● Wild camping: Wild camping is one of the simplest tactics to optimize your budget when you’re traveling. Instead of having campsites or hotels, end up saving a lot of money in the long run if you don’t pay for a position. Sleep at night. We spent a hundred consecutive nights camping on our holiday from the UK to Turkey, ending up with $0 in hotels. The weather was not so suitable for long-term travel.
● Learn more about your vehicle. With any long-term trip in a vehicle, there will be breakdowns or maintenance needs. When you are in a hurry, you don’t have much bargaining power and you have to pay the current fee for the service, but there is a lot of cash. to save if you can paint on your vehicle yourself.
BW: What is the biggest challenge you face on the road: personal, vehicle or otherwise?
ER: The biggest challenge is getting on track. From there, each vacation is a series of countless obstacles that arise in another bureaucracy: vehicle breakdowns, language barriers, currency barriers, navigating other cultural differences, border crossings, transportation, and logistics. etc. There are so many external points in the paintings for a long-term journey, so having a little courage, determination and a lot of patience will go a long way.
Follow MH and Andy as they embark on their next expedition to Africa in 2023 on Instagram.