Transcontinental

A Cummins-powered Jeep that spent two years in the African bush, and beyond

- Jered Korfhage

Jen Usinger and Jared Simpson watched as their Jeep was loaded into a shipping container, ready to begin its journey across the ocean without them. For Jen and Jared, this was the beginning of a new lifestyle that not only required selling their house and quitting their jobs, but building a machine capable of traversing a foreign land while still feeling like home.

Both Jen and Jared began their outdoor pursuits at a young age. Jen called it car camping. It was how she and her family explored the less-traveled parts of Idaho, California, Nevada, and eastern Oregon when she was a child. “I didn’t even see a campground with a toilet until I was 12 or 13,” she recalled. Jared’s introduction to driving 4x4s was on his family’s eastern Oregon ranch, before he even learned to drive on the road. His time in the Boy Scouts contributed to his wilderness skills with lessons in backpacking, navigation, and cooking. After a honeymoon in South Africa and multiple trips across the American West in a home-built teardrop trailer, the couple craved a type of travel much more substantial than a vacation.