This is a dumb comment by a person who thinks its a smart comment.

Agreed. And yet in my town/area i am seeing Broncos all over the place. Western slope folks are just hell bent on spending large percentages of their net income on 4x4s. 

If my dumb subaru dies on me (quite possible) ill be looking for exactly something like that. I just keep nursing it along and hoping for the best.

I live in the sticks and see Broncos a lot now. But these sticks are filled with Raptors and every other 4x4 you can imagine.

This looks very good and thats a very competitive price and so i think Mazda is going to have a real hit on their hands. Well done!

I just did a re-read of ASOIAF for the first time in almost 11 years and the last two books held up better than i recalled. However, out of those 2000+ pages probably 700 of them could have just been edited out.

I think the rental idea is a wise way to go. I hemmed and hawed and weighed all my options for more than a year before pulling the trigger on this and i am still not totally convinced i did the right thing. If you can try before you buy it might help you come to a firm conclusion one way or the other. Good luck. 

Pretty sure we have the same engine and i see the same MPGs. Iirc there is a small transmission cooler but honestly to be sure id have to look it up. Im sure part of it is that i tow through mountains and rolling desert hills at altitudes b/n 5k - 11k. Thanks for weighing in. 

Last Fall was the first time i stayed in an official campground and my Tigermoth got all sorts of attention even from ppl with objectively far nicer and fancier setups than mine.

My Xterra engine has similar output to your Taco but even w/the Tigermoth its hell on my MPGs and i get a lot of transmission heat when towing through the flaming gorge or just all the up/downs of desert/mountain driving. So, well done on feeling like the Taco handles it fine.

I was 99% going to by a mammoth and i called an audible at the very end mainly cause i camp out in the desert in off season when its constantly windy and in the mountains when it can rain/hail/mosquito apocalypse on any random afternoon.

Ha! Well maybe you could as you are undoubtedly more mechanically skilled and resourceful than me. But even at my level of incompetence i can hold it together for a little bit. This is my first trailer and i really didnt want to overwhelm myself with all sorts of overly complicated stuff i didnt have any idea how to…

I have the smaller Tigermoth Overland and i like it although the general experience of towing w/an Xterra is not blissful. But the Tigermoth itself is quite nice and i might upgrade to the Mantis if i decide to keep going w/a trailer. Im undecided.

Good to know!

2nd Gear - Adam, the Crosstrek is nice! As the article you linked to it from Raph talks about. It goes lots of places, is OK on gas, is super practical, etc etc. 

Thanks for the detailed response and im glad you are enjoying your van. Im not a vanlife person but my wife and i spend usually 3-4 weeks out camping a year and as i have gotten older there are fewer and fewer nights backpacking and more nights car camping. 

How do you like your transit? If i were to get rid of my 4x4 and my teardrop for more of a one stop solution the Transit vans seem like a good choice. 

Yes, i have a seen quite a few of these as well. A good friend has had and beaten the shit out of her Titan XD for many years. Its rough but very solid.

1st gear - this is indeed a good idea and i hope they do it!

I meani agree w/you. Other than a handful of cities public transportation is an iffy thing, at best, in this country. Fixing that and the suburbs and exurbs and the culture of car dependency they foster should be damn near job one imo. But as a country were totally fucked and nothign will happen.