Driving a Tacoma around the world

The town of Poznań, Poland. It has an amazing town square but was marred with massive construction.







So we walked over to the Poznań Cathedral. It was damaged in 1945 and took 11 years to rebuild. Early Polish kings were buried in the crypt. Parts of the building are from the second half of the 11th century.


After leaving Poznań we found a great private spot for the night


Wrocław was our next stop. Although it is Poland’s fourth largest city, it’s simply wonderful. It has a simply amazing old town.


We loved it!


We took many more photos but I’ll limit it to these three pics.


Next it’s a somber visit to Kraków and Auschwitz

 

its awesome to see you actually did this! i remember when this thread started and was thinking nobody would actually do it! glad i was wrong! ill have to go back and catch up with everything you have done! how has the tacoma handled the smaller roads since its a larger truck?

 

Ken Burns new documentary “The U.S. and the Holocaust” is brutal to watch, despite having seen so many documentaries on the Nazi atrocities.

That will be a pretty somber visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. All those scenes of torture and mass killimgs, but for me the most jarring scene from the documentary was one photo. Taken in the evening in the Polish ghetto, it shows 2 Nazi officers standing in the light of the street lamps, one on each corner of the intersection. The homes are 4 - 5 storey apartments, and all the lights are off in every home and no vehicles or other persons are on the street. Just those 2 officers making sure no Polish citizen makes a sound or turns a light on.

Hitlers insanity is not much different than Putins current motivation. In the sense that they both view their actions for the supposed glory of their country and for the supposed safety of their ciitizens.

It makes you think not much has changed in 80 years.

 

could that have been to make it harder for air raids during that time period maybe?

 

Well thank you! Yep, Covid slowed us down just a smidge but we hit the road just over two years ago. This winter we will step it up a little and are planning on driving down West Africa. That will be a big change from Europe.

Funny you mention that the truck is larger even though in America it is a midsize truck. It is indeed a very large private vehicle. The only thing bigger is commercial trucks. I am very happy that we do not have a full-size truck even though it would be nice not to be way over GVWR. The truck itself is handling the roads just great. You have to learn to know exactly where are your tires and mirrors as many countries allow parking such that two-way roads become only a lane wide. The British Isles were probably the most challenging with their tight country lanes bordered with stout hedges and stonewalls.

 

The Old town Square, of Kraków, Poland.


Royale Castle in Warsaw. Construction started in the 1600s and was used by the local kings





Onto Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was how the Jews were transported, numbering in the hundreds per car. Many spend three days in the car with no food, water or toilets. In front of the train, they were sorted. 3/4 of them went straight to the gas chambers. The “lucky ones” were marched to the barracks where they were slave labor or worse. They had an average life expectancy of six months before they succumbed to disease or starvation


Here is where the lucky ones stayed. Something like 40 barracks, it was originally a Polish military camp


it was estimated 1500 people stayed in each barracks. Four or five people per bed. People in the top bunks froze because the roof leaked. People froze on the bottom bunk because it was especially cold. Basically there was no heat.


This was one of the two gas chambers. The Nazis destroyed this in November 1944 for some reason. Later that winter they forcibly marched remaining survivors into Germany. The Camp liberated by the Soviets around March 1945.


Unbelievable


This pile of discarded shoes was about 40 feet long, 3 feet high, 8 feet wide. It was discovered by the Soviets. There was also a pile of human hair 4 feet tall, 20 feet long, 8 feet wide as well. The hair was used to create mattresses the shoes were sent back to Germany as clothing for the Nazis. What you see here was just abandoned at the last moment. Probably because they could not get trains to the camp due to Allied air superiority


Wow!

 

A sad reminder of how cruel people can be to other people. The scope of how devastating WW2 was is something I feel the younger generations don’t truly understand. Thank you for sharing your travels with us. I enjoy seeing all the different places you have been. I’m looking forward to your continual travels. Enjoy, be safe and be blessed.

 

Far too many today are losing (or never learned) a full understanding of the brutality of past dictators. The Japanese and Nazis and later Stalin are the most notorious due to the extremely high numbers of victims!

The ridiculousness of not teaching it ALL properly in schools today just astounds me. We can only learn to not allow it to happen again if we know about it in the first place.

(Dacau Concentration Camp, near Munich, still has the ovens and gas chamber intact for public viewing. The gas chamber was marked "Showers".)

Really appreciate your photos and shared travel stories!! Happy Trails to you both.

 

I agree that young people don’t think that this type of thing could happen again. I believe people haven’t changed much and besides all it takes is one nasty person in power in a country with a leak democratic tradition. People (politicians especially) here in Europe are eating crow because of Putin’s war.

I’m honored that you’re interested in our travels, thanks Jeff!

 

Hey! How was your experience truck camping in Germany? Was it tough trying to find spots to free camp like this? For the most part I thought they were fairly strict or verboten?

My family and I are moving to Germany soon and bringing over our taco with a camping setup. Rtt and RSI shell... Not as nice as yours, but will get the job done and we are excited about traveling and doing some camping in Scandinavia.

 

Absolutely! I really believe in the famous quote by the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.”

Thanks for commenting!

 

We found that Germany was not a difficult country to find free camping spots. We use an app called Park4nite. It’s simply great. Just make sure to read the most recent reviews. If we were not living in our camper full-time for years on end we would definitely use a rooftop tent or a GFC setup. I dream about building a custom super lightweight camper and imagine how much better gas mileage we get. Germany’s price is right now for gas is USD $1.85 per liter which is about $7.50 a gallon. At least Poland’s price is $5.20 per gallon. Scandinavia is a wonderful place with some great camping but realize that things are very expensive there. Gas is about nine dollars a gallon in Norway, a latte is around $6.

 

That's refreshing to hear about camping in Germany. Fortunately for us gas will be a bit cheaper for us in Germany, since we can utilize affes pricing through the military installations. Yeah, I remember how pricey Norway was when we traveled through there last time abiut 4 years ago... I can only imagine fuel has become even more expensive due to the current conflicts. Oh well, not much to do, still, that part of the world is so beautiful and ive always wanted to bring my rig to camp there! Last time we did more of a backpacking/camping trip through the fjords.

 

On a side note. How is your rig holding up on the autobahn(fuel economy, keeping with traffic, parking)? Have you had any issues with inspections, due to all the aftermarket equipment?

 

thats awesome! keep on going man! and do what all of us want to do but many cant!!

haha ya thats true about it being a midsize but if you look back to full size trucks in the late 90s and early 2000s our today sized mid size trucks are not to far off on dimensions! man a full size would have been interesting over there! thats pretty cool thou ive always wanted to drive on those back roads maybe one day haha

 

a very good quote but sadly thats how life is...
some may say the younger generation doesnt understand the scope of it but some do the rest have more or less realized even if we know it still might happen again as one already stated it just takes one crazy person in power to cause issues world wide.

fyi im the younger generation haha

 

I've driven full size trucks all throughout Germany, Italy, and various parts of Eastern Europe... it sucks. Broken many side mirrors from getting ripped off by passing 18wheelers or narrow roads. Also, parking sucks and near impossible. Side note, you get a lot of weird looks from locals almost like youre a celebrity, it's more rare driving a f-250 over there than a Ferrari.

 

haha i could imagine! it sounds like a massive pain! now could you imagine bringing a old 90s f250 crew cab long bed? that would be a show and a half!

 

So true! Even with payload. My truck weighed 4,240 lbs stock and empty and came with a GVWR of 5,600 lbs. That means a max payload of nearly 3/4 of a ton, not too bad for a mid size. Except I’m 1,500 lbs over that…. So far so good.

Our trucks rated weight by axle is this: front - 2,910, rear - 3,280 lbs
Now, our empty, dry weight is this: front - 2,860, rear - 3,700 lbs

Not too bad, but then adding in some gas, water, food, gear and us it changes to this: front - 3,100, rear - 4,015 lbs

 

Amazing it is doing so well with all that driving and so much over weight.