Getting ready for our next off-road adventure (aka making a big mess in the garage) gives me something to do that feels adventure oriented. So that everyone can feel the burn too, Hula Betty videoed the magic, we call loading up the rig. It is only one minute and 14 seconds and you’re not doing anything at work anyway. Turn the monitor so your boss who is way too uptight and does not appreciated your need for internet social interaction, cannot see and enjoy sometime that is rightfully yours at work.

BTW: If you work for me… get back to work before you’re fired! Just Kidding!

Sunday, Boy and I head out on this years Last Great Road Trip. We’re heading to Ouray, Colorado for FJ Summit to meet up with 200 other FJ Cruiser owners and run the trails near Telluride. Joining us on this father son adventure… you guested it Hula Betty!

Hula Betty hitched a ride up to the Arctic Ocean with Dad and me but mysteriously disappeared from the rig on the way back. Although accusations were made, no charges were ever filed and no suicide note or body found. Now just like the mangy flea covered, tick infested pet who tracks down its owners after being abandoned in a cross country move, Hula Betty is back. And she looks better than ever.

Hula Betty is not just another pretty bobble doll, she is away of life that embraces adventure and promotes tolerance. Tell us about your Hula Betty… or at least send a picture. Look for Hula Betty in the up coming pictures and videos. There are even discussions about a full length movie featuring Hula Betty… but those are just rumors.

“Why would anyone want to sponsor you… What makes you guys so special?”

Really??!!  Thx!

When I get this question usually I just smile and let them think about it. However, if you really want to know than lets talk.

Something to consider about having sponsors…  it’s work!  Work to get them. Work to keep them and work to keep your promises to them.  You may be better off financing your off road adventure through other means including friends and family who won’t expect much in return.

First and foremost if you want a sponsor for any activity you need to ask yourself “what is in it for them”. Companies are looking for advertising with high returns that will translate into sales. It is that simple, with the key being high returns. Individuals on the other hand have any number of reasons including the desire to help a worthy cause.

For my sponsor quest, the first thing I did was take inventory of what I had to offer that would translate into high value advertising and sales potential  for sponsors. Surprisingly my list was longer than I first imaged. That list included:

• An easily recognizable and well positioned brand “Last Great Road Trip”
• First page Google search results for several key word phases (adventure road trip, off road adventure, last great road trip, road trip blog and others)
• High traffic web-site (www.lastGreatRoadTrip.com)
• An engaged social network on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumbler and Pinterest
• Published writer (did you see the cover of 4wd Toyota Owner April 08?) with articles showing off our sponsors in several magazines including Toyota Cruiser and Truck (TCT).
• Highly noticeable Rig (its hotter than a Tijuana night on spring break)
• Active membership on several Toyota and overland adventure forums
• Videos on YouTube (over a million video views, 1000+ subscribers), Vimeo and other video distribution sites
• Digital images on Flicker, Snapvillage, Nikon Picture Town

Once I had my inventory, I needed to decide what it was worth. To determine a value I reviewed my Google Analytics and discovered I have approximately 8,000 plus visitors a month. The majority of visitors are from the US followed by Europe, India and Australia. The demographics showed men are the primary audience (no surprise there). The site and videos show only 5% of viewers are women although most of the website’s comments come from women.

When it came to the vehicle I kept track of where the rig spent its time, miles per day commuted and check of the number of stares per day. The rig gets a lot of stares, 27 on average… I counted.

With all this data I decided on a sponsor package, wrote a cover letter describing the adverting opportunity along with a description of Last Great Road Trip. I made sure to included my site’s demographics and traffic (eyeball) counts. Finding the right corporate contact was more often the hardest part of the process. My top level sponsor package offer includes the following exposure:

• Sponsor’s 200 pixel wide by 75 pixel high web site banner with a link to their web site.
• Sponsor’s name included on press releases.
• Sponsor’s name and product worked into multiple trip blog entries.
• A web page will be created discussing the sponsor’s product with an installation how-to.
• Posting on the forums “member buildup” with links back to how-to with digital images of the rig showing sponsor’s product installed.
• Seven lines of descriptive text about the sponsor, their products and contact information displayed on the “Support our sponsors” Page.
• Sponsor’s sticker displayed prominently on trip vehicle.
• NEW
  • A You Tube video will be produced (campy but highly rated) discussing the rig and sponsor’s product.
  • On other future videos, the sponsor will appear in the credits. These videos will include wheeling, how-to and interview videos.
• Although we can never promise, we also work with media publishers to run new articles. These articles include product installs and topics 101 ( such as explaining various components of lighting and what goes into selecting quality products).

What did I want for all this? I decided on cash, gear or discounts as long as I believed in the product or service. The key being “I believed in the product or service”. I’m promoting the sponsor’s product from the prospective of I use and believe in the products. Unlike magazines that simply provide space, I need to be comfortable when evangelizing the sponsor’s product with other wheelers. At the end of the day I feel good that I can say Baja Designs has partnered with us and their off road lighting systems work great on the trail because I chose the product first and than asked for sponsorship.

We sent letters to the big national guys but their advertising dollars were already spent on NASCAR, X Games and Survivor Timbuktu . The local shops, dealers, and small guys however were looking for affordable ways to increase their local and Internet exposure. While Toyo was not going to through any love our way, the local Discount Tire dealer gave us a great discount on tires. Metal Tech is always there for us when we need custom fabrication work, 4×4 tube bumper, advice or other high-end off road adventure accessories. Even our local Toyota dealer discounted services up to 40% in exchange for a little advertising exposure.

The opportunities for sponsors are endless. To take advantage of those opportunities prepare your package and cover letter so corporate and individual sponsors know you are serious and can easily see what is in it for them. Think and act as a business person when approaching potential sponsors, your selling your advertising space. Success is as much about luck, timing, a willingness to ask and having your pitch ready. Unless your NASCAR running a companies stick on you truck alone is not going to give them the exposure they are looking for.

You will find after a couple of sponsors initially sign up, your task of attracting others becomes easier. Our efforts really paid off after we had a couple of trips on the books, several videos, a published magazine article and a track record of success. As my dad always said “You’ll appreciate it more if you have to earn it”. Although I’m pretty sure I would be OK with everything given to me, we continue to work for our sponsors and to attract new supporters.

Every once in a while an idea comes a long that is brilliant. The idea is usually not revolutionary… but evolutionary, simple and elegant. The brilliance is in seeing what we take for granted everyday and raise it to a new level. Issuu.com is one of these brilliant ideas. Take a simple PDF which is already a good thing and a staple in document sharing. NOW… make it feel like a real magazine that you can hold in your hands, hear the pages turn and see the reflection of overhead lights bounce off the pages… Now you have something.

If you are looking for the obscure, hard to find or foreign rag try Issuu. These guys have made Internet publication very good and so simple. Look for Hula Betty to start publishing articles about Last Great Road Trip in Issuu.com soon. In the mean time check out a few of these.

At Last Great Road Trip we are always looking for ways to thank our readers and bring content that can help our readers be more successful on their next off-road adventure road trip. As a result we are pleased to introduce a new category of articles written by industry experts.

By teaming up with subject matter experts we hope to publish information on everything from earning gas money for your trip by carrying packages along the way to better understanding suspension components for your rig and style of wheeling adventure.

You will find these posts with credit to author and a link back in order for you to follow up with them for more information. Our first guest will discuss some of the points to consider when shipping your rig around the globe in order to start or end your off road adventure in a remote location.

Our goal is to post articles that will help everyone plan their own great adventure, so please let us hear from you with thoughts about guest writers and topics you would like to read about. If you are a budding writer with a field of expertise don’t be shy. Let us know how you would like to contribute and help celebrate diversity in the world.

If I hear one more time… so that was not the LAST great road trip I’ll…

last [last, lahst]
adjective a superl. of late with later as compar.

1. occurring or coming after all others, as in time, order, or place: the last line on a page.
2. most recent; next before the present; latest: last week; last Friday.
3. being the only one remaining: my last dollar; the last outpost; a last chance. final: in his last hours.
4. ultimate or conclusive; definitive: the last word in the argument. That which is ultimate (literally, most remote) is the last that can be reached, as in progression or regression, experience, or a course of investigation: ultimate truths.

The idea of going on great off-road adventures came to me while sitting in the ferry line one dark and stormy northwest night as Jimmy buffet played in my head

Just a semi-normal person
Thought he had the future planned…
…Now he’s somewhere over China
Lookin’ down on all the trails
On the mountains lookin’ back at him
It’s a real live fairy tale
Put a little distance
Between causes and effects
Like a day old fortune cookie
Askin’ who or what comes next

For the next several weeks I could not shake the idea of driving on the ultimate (definition #4) off road adventure. Of course if you are going to measure an off-road adventure’s worthiness you need to have a yard stick to compare it against. A few historical adventurers immediately came to mind including:

• Marco Polo’s spice run set the standard for great road trips
• Sacagawea lead Lewis & Clark on a pretty good trip
• The Oregon trail was another good off-road oriented adventure
• Apollo 11 lead by Commander Neil Alden Armstrong was far out

That mental exercise set the bar pretty high and what came out was to drive to the ends of the earth. Deadhorse Alaska on the North End and the “Land of Fire”, Tierra del Fuego on the other.

Not having unlimited resources, super powers or any pull with small militant guerrilla groups the off-road adventure had to be planned in manageable chucks. The first chunk let us concur the northern portion driving up to the Arctic Ocean. In 2011 we completed our Baja off-road adventure following the most famous desert race course in the world the Baja 1000. In between a few off-road adventure trips though the Rubicon Trail and we even found time to explore the Utah backcountry discovery route.

I know we are not the first to make these treks. But we are making this our own by going out of our way to explore and celebrate the diverse cultures along the way. Each leg of our journey offers us a chance to make new friends, involve more readers, and learn how the differences between people can pull us together as we share tales of our lives. Of course we’ll write stories and post pictures the entire way, sharing the last great road trip with everyone and encouraging each to start their own adventure.

“What the hell did Marco Polo think
When he ran into the wall
Or the crazy Flying Tigers
Doin’ spins and loops and stalls
Just a taste for somethin’ different
Perking up a borin’ day
Now our man from Poulsbo
Feels exactly the same way…
…We’re all somewhere over China
Headin’ east or headin’ west
Takin’ time to live a little
Flyin’ so far from the nest
Just to put a little distance
Between causes and effects
Like an ancient fortune teller<
Knowin’ who and what comes next “

We drove to the Arctic Ocean… twice… and experience the solitude of the tundra, amazing wild life and giant expanses… but no snow. Now we’re making up for that and making a few snow runs in preparation for the next off road adventure.

The rig can go just about anywhere… but occasionally you want to go where the rig is not allowed, a bit north of the last trail marker. The boys and I put in a quick training run. And what are we training for? No, you need about 20 dogs for the Iditarod and I have 3 dogs because my wife said I could 3 dogs not 20!

We are training for Survivor Arctic Circle… Ok so Jeff Probst and CBS are not on board with this idea yet… and it is really hard to show half naked hotties in -30 degrees where anything sticking out is likely to fall off. But the Igloo cam has potential and of course there is the Ice Hotel if you looking to chill out in the ABSOLUT ICEBAR…

Stay tuned for more Survivor Arctic… the dog sled story

Everyone has been telling us they want a Last Great Road Trip t-shirt. Here is an easy way to win a free t-shirt.
Rules of the game:

• Begins August 23, 2007
• Ends September 14, 2007
• One Entry per picture or video posting
• Enter as many times as you want

To enter:

• Capture the Last Great Road Trip rig on video or digital image
• Post the picture or video anywhere you like with the caption “Celebrating Diversity: Last Great Road Trip”
• Leave a comment on our BLOG with a link to your video or picture of our rig
• Include the date and location you spotted the rig along with the link to your picture or video
• Post with your correct email address since that is how we will contact winners.

Winners:

• Ten winners will be randomly drawn from all the qualified entries.

If you don’t win you can always you can always go to our Last Great Road Trip Facebook page and get a free decal.

Thank you to Working Web Solutions (WWS) for setting up the shopping cart. Without WWS’ help we’d be hawking our shirts out of the back of a truck. Thanks also to Custom T-shirts, Screen Printed T-Shirts for providing all the custom shirt work.

Update: Did you miss out on our give away?  You can still get a free gift by following Last Great Road Trip on Facebook

You’ve got to watch this… It is long but well worth the time… what else where you planning to do with an hour of your life. It’s an Internet hour not like a real hour.. You spend more time than that at work surfing Amazon and ebay. Top Gear races a Toyota against a Dog Team to the North Pole.

It is a little further north and a lot more winter than we are going to face but we can only hope to have as great a time. But with less pain and agony.

Let us know what you think!

Maybe next time I’ll let get Chinook, Glacier and Tundra to lead the way… BTW: the dogs are blowing coat and the garage is filled with so much fur there is no room for the rig.

Thanks to Taylor Made T-Shirts we have the commemorative Last Great Road Trip t-shirts. This makes it official we are over the top… Custom car graphics, T-shirts, world wide press coverage and our own blog.

Mike at Taylor Made was great. He had his guys over there at Taylor Made take a version of our banner and create a silk screen. Than they ran a few shirts and look how cool the Hula Bettys are in her Last Great Road Trip T-shirt. The shirts are sure to become a collectors item… ok maybe not a collector’s item but tell us what you would do for one.

We are planning to give the shirts out to folks we meet along the way.