Top Tips Learned While Traversing 7,163 Miles of the TransAmerica Trail In A Modified 2025 Subaru Crosstrek

There are weekend warriors who car camp and then there are transcontinental travelers living out of their vehicle for weeks, months, or even years. Both are great forms of getting out there, but for my husband, Andy Lilienthal, and me, the latter suits us better. 

We drove and camped in a German-market short-wheelbase VW ID. Buzz EV van across nine countries around the Baltic Sea over 16 days and 4,771 electrified miles. We tackled Canada and Alaska’s remote terrain for a 10-day, 5,000-mile road rally on the Alcan 5000 Rally three times, once in a 2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness. I also drove four different vehicles across the Nevada and California deserts to the tune of 1,500 miles each while camping in extreme heat and tackling challenging off-road terrain for a major competition. Yes, this was all done willingly. 

We just got back from our longest endurance effort yet, completing the TransAmerica Trail, or TAT for short, from the East Coast to the West Coast, with much of it off-pavement. It took us 29 days, averaging just 25 miles per hour for the entire trip. TAT is made up of dirt, gravel, rocks, and paved country roads. Most of TAT goes through isolated places in rural America and is outside of cell or internet service.

Andy and I have tens of thousands of off-road miles under our belts, so we specifically built a 2025 Crosstrek Wilderness for TAT. Based on our experiences, we knew we had to have specific upgrades and equipment to live out of this AWD rig for a month while crossing the continent. The following are things we learned while conquering TAT. Perhaps these lessons will be helpful for anyone looking to tackle remote, long-distance self-supported travels—especially in an AWD rig like a Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness.

As the driver, Andy had the following to say about the 2025 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness:

1. The Crosstrek Wilderness is more capable than you might think. Be sure to select the right X-MODE drive mode (Normal, Snow/Dirt, or Deep Snow/Mud), however, for the type of terrain you’re traversing. It can take you through areas that might surprise you. It certainly surprised us.
2. A Subaru employee passed on this advice: With the car’s AWD system, keep the throttle steadily when off-road. When you get to an obstacle, keep applying slow and even throttle. The AWD system will figure out where to send power, but it might take a second. You can feel it working, and most of the time, you could crawl over the obstacle without needing to “bump it.” 
3. This isn’t a true 4WD vehicle with the robust parts 4x4s feature. All-wheel-drive vehicles typically won’t have low range, lockers, or other off-road capable accoutrements. AWDs will also have less ground clearance, too, although the Crosstrek Wilderness is 9.3” at stock height. You’ll need to be more careful choosing lines, avoiding big holes and other trail hazards.
4. If you’re planning on pushing your Crosstrek Wilderness off road, invest in real skid plates. The front “skid plate” on the Crosstrek Wilderness isn’t going to offer much protection. We used Primitive Racing’s front, mid, and rear skid plates. They protected our chassis from some gnarlier-than-expected rocks, holes, and trail hazards. 
5. It’s easy to bring a lot of stuff with you on a trip this long. The good news is the Crosstrek Wilderness has a stout 4,817 lb GVWR. Its curb weight is 3,369 lbs., giving you 1,448 lbs. worth of payload capacity. We weighed the vehicle with about ¼ tank of fuel, the RiG’d Supply UltraSwing rear tire carrier, Primitive Skid Plates, and upgraded BFGoodrich KO2 all-terrain tires on Reika 17×8 Seeker Wheels and it came in at 3,999 lbs. (that’s also with the roof top tent and awning). That gave us 818 lbs. of payload to work with.
6. A last-second upgrade was a set of Bilstein B6 struts and taller, stiffer rear King Springs, which acted like overload springs. If you’re going to outfit a Crosstrek Wilderness and have lots of gear, we highly recommend adding better rear springs. In fact, we would’ve gone taller/stiffer yet if we were to redo it. 
7. We packed smartly and successfully lived out of a compact crossover for 29 days. If you don’t overpack, you can easily travel for extended periods of time with a Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness, especially with a rooftop tent.  
8. We’ve never driven a vehicle that collected as many stones in the brakes as the 2025 Crosstrek Wilderness. We had countless small rocks lodging between the rear backing plates and rotors. They made crazy amounts of squealing and screeching. I popped a wheel/tire off once and dislodged it with a screwdriver. That only worked once. Otherwise, we’d have to simply wait until they fell out.

Here are other tips to help make a major remote trip successful:

1. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. You can’t drink enough water, especially when temps tip to over triple digits and severe humidity is constant.
2. Pack clothing for all types of weather and temperatures and use durable bags to put them in. And if you’re off-pavement, dust can get into nearly everything. We used nearly everything we packed and did laundry along the way.
3. We’ve never traveled this long remotely before. So, we brought along an EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus power station and installed their 800W Alternator Charger in our Crosstrek Wilderness. While we often travel with a power station to charge things like a fridge, camera gear, laptops and other devices, we never used an alternator charger before. It recharged the power station and other items while driving. No need for solar. Better yet, it can be reverse charged via a smartphone app when off-grid. The system will send power back to the car’s 12-volt battery, keeping it topped off overnight or when you’re stationary for long periods of time. It was the first time we used this type of power system before; it worked great. 
4. Having a safe way to bring food with you on longer trips is a must. It’s much easier to do this when your road tripping it on the interstate with a cooler and ice, but when you’re doing something as remote and as long as we just did, investing in something better pays off. We used an electric fridge/freezer which kept food, drinks, and even medicine safe. We used a smartphone app to monitor the unit, see if it’s running or idle, or even change its temperature if desired. Additionally, we also packed protein-laden snacks and Mountain House freeze-dried meals for quick-and-easy breakfasts and dinners. 
5. A rooftop tent can be a great place to sleep when you own a compact vehicle. While the Thule Approach rooftop tent worked well and was comfortable, but if we were to do it again, we’d go with a more aerodynamic hardshell rooftop tent. This might save on fuel and look more streamlined. Rooftop tents keep you off the ground, away from critters and other annoyances, and are sturdy.
6. Bringing multiple methods of navigation on extended, remote trips can help keep you on track. For TAT, we used a GPS device to view our intended route, see elevation changes, and track our progress. onX off-road helped us get real-world trail information, find dispersed camping, download detailed offline maps, and more. We also used paper maps and turn-by-turn directions, available for purchase from the TransAmerica Trail website. We used all of these extensively and most times together, especially when deviating off the route due to a whole host of issues, most of them caused by Mother Nature. We rerouted 39 total times during our 29-day trek.
7. We brought along key vehicle recovery gear, including a hitch-mounted rear recovery point, kinetic recovery rope and soft shackles, and heavy-duty gloves. We also had MAXTRAX XTREME traction boards, which can help your vehicle get out of a stuck situation. FYI: The company just debuted LITE vehicle recovery boards, geared for small SUVs and AWD vehicles like the Crosstrek Wilderness.
8. Plan for contingencies, allow extra time, and bring extra cash. Things never go according to plan. Add a few extra days to your trip and bring some cash. Most organized camp places we stayed at (before we dispersed camped in the western half of the United States), had no cell/internet reception and required cash to pay for our stay. We blew through the bills we brought and took more out for these types of instances.

Being flexible and patient when things go awry helps with any long-distance adventure. Did everything go according to plan during our TransAmerica Trail trip? No. Did we have one heck of an excursion, though? Heck, yes! We continue to learn from every long-distance remote trip we take and adjust things as needed. With proper planning, research, upgrades and gear, you most certainly should have a memorable trip, too.

[Images © 2025 Mercedes Lilienthal, © 2025 Andy Lilienthal]

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