Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal drove a 2025 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness 7,163 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the TransAmerica Path — 3,184 unpaved miles, 29 days, 39 reroutes, zero mechanical failures. A proof-of-concept for soft-roaders on the nation’s most demanding beginner overland rou
By Andy & Mercedes Lilienthal — September 2025
“The TransAmerica Path could be the slowest, longest method to cross this nation because of a principally off-road route that hardly ever hits paved roads, a lot much less a resort with resort facilities.” — Mercedes Lilienthal
We drove a 2025 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the TransAmerica Path. It took us twenty-nine days, lined 7,163 miles, and included 3,184 miles of unpaved floor. The common pace for the entire journey was twenty-five miles per hour. We averaged eleven to 12 hours of driving a day. Our longest day behind the wheel was 13 hours and forty minutes.
We by no means noticed one other TAT traveler all the time.
That is the story of how a frivolously modified AWD crossover — a car that a lot of the off-road group nonetheless considers a “soft-roader” — dealt with essentially the most demanding beginner overland route within the decrease 48. It is usually the story of what we realized about ourselves, in regards to the nation, and in regards to the form of overland journey most individuals by no means suppose is feasible till they struggle it.
The Guess We Made in a New Jersey Parking Lot
The TransAmerica Path was mapped by journey bike fanatic Sam Correro, initially as a route for dual-sport bikes. It runs from Nags Head, North Carolina, on the Atlantic coast, to Port Orford, Oregon, on the Pacific — about half off-pavement, half badly-paved-and-dusty. The GPX recordsdata and paper roll charts can be found by means of transamtrail.com. It’s, by design, the slowest, hardest, most lovely method to drive throughout America.
We picked up our Crosstrek Wilderness from Subaru of America in New Jersey. The plan was to drive it dwelling to our start line in Nags Head, instantly level it again west, and begin the TAT correct. We had a few 12 months of planning behind us, a car with 9.3 inches of floor clearance, and roughly 212 TAT-specific miles per day to cowl for the following month.
The very first thing we did, earlier than any of that, was admit out loud to one another what we had been actually doing. We had been going to take a Subaru Crosstrek — a car most individuals affiliate with a Goal car parking zone and a canine crate — into 3,000 miles of grime, rocks, clay, river crossings, twelve-thousand-foot mountain passes, and climate so extreme we might find yourself rerouting thirty-nine separate instances.
We had accomplished sufficient long-distance work to know that the car is just half the story. The opposite half is whether or not the 2 individuals in it are prepared to be fallacious in public, a number of instances a day, for a month.
Constructing the Rig
The inventory Crosstrek Wilderness is a extra severe piece of kit than most individuals understand. The 9.3 inches of floor clearance is meaningfully higher than a normal Crosstrek’s 8.7. It has a model of Subaru’s X-MODE that features a Snow/Filth setting and a Deep Snow/Mud setting. The two.5-liter naturally aspirated boxer 4 is identical primary engine the corporate has been refining for a decade. The CVT is a identified amount, well-understood by tuners and mechanics from coast to coast.
We didn’t flip it right into a Wrangler.
What we did add:
Armor:
A full Primitive Racing skid plate bundle — entrance, mid, and rear differential. The manufacturing unit “skid plate” is a chunk of plastic; it seems reassuring, it does virtually nothing. The Primitive plates are the only most vital modification we made and the explanation we drove away from each rock backyard we entered. We’d purchase these once more with out considering.
Tires and wheels:
BFGoodrich All-Terrain KO2s in a barely bigger measurement, mounted on bronze Reika R15 Seeker wheels — 17×8, 5×114.3, +38 offset. The broader stance and the KO2 sidewalls gave us the aired-down contact patch we would have liked for sand, mud, and the lengthy washboard sections of the central states.
Suspension:
Bilstein B6 struts up entrance, taller and stiffer King Springs within the rear performing as overload springs. In hindsight, we’d have gone much more aggressive on the rear spring charge — totally loaded with a rooftop tent, an awning, a RiG’d Provide UltraSwing swing-out, drawers, fridge, and restoration gear, we had been utilizing most of our suspension journey on tough roads.
Energy and comms:
An EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus moveable energy station, charged by an 800W alternator charger that runs off the engine bay whereas we drive. No photo voltaic wanted. A Starlink Mini in a Pelican transport case for the times we completely wanted to be reachable. A Garmin Tread Overland Version for navigation, working the official TAT GPX recordsdata. A paper roll chart because the unbuggable backup.
Restoration:
A hitch-mounted rear restoration level, a kinetic restoration rope, gentle shackles, heavy-duty gloves, and a set of MAXTRAX XTREME traction boards. We by no means as soon as had to make use of the boards, however that was luck, not talent.
Sleep and storage:
A Thule Strategy rooftop tent — comfy, weatherproof, and the explanation we slept in locations that do not have names. An ARB 50-quart Traditional Collection II fridge/freezer, managed by telephone, which Mercedes has publicly referred to as her “lifeline.” Baja Designs XL R Professional LED auxiliary lights on a Rally Improvements gentle bar mount for the darkish forest roads and the lengthy, unlit, dust-choked two-track sections of the western states.
The totally loaded car got here in at 3,999 kilos, in opposition to a gross car weight score of 4,817. That gave us 818 kilos of remaining payload, which appears like quite a bit till you account for gasoline, water, meals, two people, and a month of clothes. We weren’t on the restrict, however we had been on the brink of the restrict, each single day.
Days 1–13: The Jap Part
The TAT begins with a climb into the Smokies from the North Carolina coast, then turns west into Tennessee. We knew from the starting stage that this part had the worst climate of the journey. We didn’t know that “worst” would imply sustained temperatures over 90°F for 28 of the 29 days, with six of them above 100°F, and a storm observe that parked itself over our precise route for the primary two weeks.
On the second day, a storm system transferring up from the Gulf dropped tennis-ball hail on our deliberate routing by means of the Ozark Nationwide Forest. We sat in a Motel 6 in Russellville, Arkansas, for 2 nights ready for it to move. It did not actually move. It moved three counties east and chased us there. We sat in one other motel in Clarksville, then one other in Ozark. We burned 5 days of buffer and felt, in a manner that’s onerous to explain, that the journey was already over.
It wasn’t. However that was the primary lesson: the slowest method to cross this nation is the one which at all times works.
Our first true off-pavement take a look at got here on Warloop Street in western Arkansas. The TAT information describes it as a “average” part. The fact: a slim, principally downhill, considerably overgrown path with rock ledges, off-camber sections, and a few boulder steps that you simply can not scout, you possibly can solely decide to. We aired all the way down to about 22 psi, engaged X-MODE on its Snow/Filth setting, and simply saved gradual, regular throttle. The Crosstrek’s AWD system will determine the place to ship energy, nevertheless it may take a second. You may really feel it working. More often than not, you possibly can crawl over the impediment with no need to “bump it.” That tip, by the way in which, got here instantly from a Subaru engineer. It labored. We cleared the part in an hour and a half, and Mercedes made a small sound that I’m not going to explain in print.
What we seen instantly was how the Crosstrek collected stones within the rear brakes. We have now by no means pushed a car that did this. Small rocks would lodge between the rear backing plates and the rotors, and so they made completely insane quantities of squealing and screeching on each cease. I popped a wheel/tire off as soon as and dislodged them with a screwdriver. That labored as soon as. After that, we simply needed to wait till they fell out on their very own, which is a sentence I by no means thought I would write a few passenger car.
Days 14–22: The Central Part — Warmth, Clay, Kudzu, and a Normal Retailer
As soon as the storm system lastly broke, we bought our first actual have a look at the central TAT. That is the a part of the nation that does not make the spotlight reels. Tennessee farm roads, Mississippi two-track, Arkansas backcountry, Oklahoma purple grime. It is usually, in our opinion, the soul of the journey.
Mississippi is the half we get requested about essentially the most. The roads there flip right into a slippery purple clay once they get moist, and so they get moist virtually each afternoon in the summertime. We crossed one hill that different vacationers had clearly been caught on for years — it was deeply rutted, slick as cleaning soap, and the locals had carved two bypass tracks round it that had been virtually worse. We aired down additional, locked the differential by way of the X-MODE setting, and went up the unique line. The Crosstrek’s AWD system plus the KO2 sidewalls was precisely the proper mixture. We bought up in a single go. The Subie-bashing corners of the web would have been proud.
The kudzu is one thing else. The TAT runs by means of stretches the place the two-track is actually a inexperienced tunnel, the vines hanging ten, fifteen ft off the bottom on both aspect, swallowing the highway and the air. It’s a lovely factor to drive by means of at fifteen miles an hour with the home windows down. It is usually, in case you cease, immediately stuffed with mosquitoes the dimensions of your thumb.
The only finest cease on the central part was the Oark Normal Retailer in Arkansas. It’s a small white constructing on a single-lane highway, has been there since 1928, and serves a burger referred to as the Oark Burger that’s, genuinely, the most effective issues we ate on all the journey. We sat on the porch with two locals who had pushed up from the river, ate fries out of a paper bag, and listened to them clarify which roads had been washed out. The shop is on the TAT. When you do the TAT, you’ll find yourself right here. You need to plan to be hungry while you do.
Days 23–27: The Rockies
We knew the excessive nation was coming. We had not totally understood what “excessive nation” means in a non-turbocharged engine at practically 13 thousand ft of elevation.
The San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado are the form of place that makes you bear in mind why the West was gradual to settle. The TAT runs over Cinnamon Move at 12,640 ft and Ophir Move at 11,790 ft, each shelf roads, each unfastened shale, each constructed on grades that will be unlawful in a state with a functioning freeway division. We cleared Cinnamon Move with out drama — the Crosstrek’s 9.3 inches of clearance was sufficient, the KO2s had been sufficient, and the AWD system was sufficient. On the prime we bumped into a neighborhood in a brand-new Toyota Tundra who appeared on the Subaru with the expression of somebody who had simply been instructed a tax joke, and requested, “How’d you get that up right here?” We had been the one Subaru on the summit. We noticed loads of them at decrease elevations.
California Move was the second the journey virtually gained. It sits at 12,930 ft, and the simpler bypass round it was blocked by ft of snow in early summer season. The highway to the highest is graded, slim, and has one quick, very steep pitch close to the summit. We hit the pitch at 12,500 ft in second gear, foot flat to the ground, and the Crosstrek didn’t speed up. The non-turbo boxer 4 had run out of breath. There is no such thing as a supercharger choice for this engine. The CVT, designed for gasoline financial system on flat floor, couldn’t generate the momentum the air was now not offering. We slowed. We rolled backward. We circled in a large spot 100 yards beneath the pitch and went again the way in which we got here.
The journey was not over. We needed to drive Cinnamon Move once more, in reverse, in afternoon solar, with the engine hotter than it had been all month, to succeed in Lake Metropolis for the evening. There was no disgrace in it. There was no disgrace in it as a result of the one car that will have made that move was one with a forced-induction engine and floor clearance we didn’t have. We had been, by each cheap measure, within the fallacious car for that precise line. And we had come inside 100 yards.
The lesson, the one we saved relearning, was that the TAT doesn’t care what you’re driving. It doesn’t care when you have a winch and a snorkel and forty-five-inch tires. It’ll discover the road that defeats you. The job is to know which traces to stroll away from.
Ophir Move we cleared with out incident — not onerous, nevertheless it’ll quicken your pulse. An enormous, slim, cliff-side shelf highway with unfastened shale, the form of drive the place the partner within the passenger seat is making good use of the door deal with.
We missed a 12.3-mile graded grime highway proven on onX maps. We drove 160 miles and three hours across the mountains to succeed in Silverton. We stopped at Flower Subaru in Montrose to repair a dented skid plate that was vibrating in opposition to a warmth protect. The service author got here out to the car parking zone, appeared on the Crosstrek, and mentioned the precise phrases: “You are those who did the TAT.” The web strikes quicker than the truck.
Days 28–29: Utah, Idaho, and the Coast
Moab hit 111°F the day we had been there. We camped within the Sand Flats Recreation Space, which is a spot that’s roughly the floor of the solar for eight hours a day, and we drove Gemini Bridges and the San Rafael Swell The Dune, which seems like a set from Star Warsand which we’ll always remember. The temperature gauge within the automotive didn’t go beneath 110°F for all the day. The fridge saved the water chilly. The fridge is a hero.
A very powerful second of the journey, and the one we now have not instructed in public earlier than, occurred on a distant part of highway close to Wendover, Utah. We got here round a bend and located a lady standing subsequent to a small sedan with a flat tire and a lifeless telephone. She had been dwelling off-grid, her tire had gone flat, her cell service had been gone for 2 days, and she or he was crying. We had a tire plug package, a 12-volt compressor, and a Starlink Mini. We plugged the tire, aired it up, charged her telephone, and referred to as her native tire firm on the Starlink to verify they’d a alternative. We additionally charged her telephone by means of the EcoFlow. She requested how she might ever pay us again. We instructed her the following time she noticed somebody damaged down on a again highway, to do the identical factor. That’s the deal. That’s the solely deal.
Idaho introduced bombing-range grime roads and the one mud of the journey that genuinely bought into the cabin air filter. Then we crossed into Oregon, and the threats modified. We had spent the primary month dodging storms. We now spent the ultimate days dodging wildfires. The air high quality app on our telephones confirmed smoke readings that had been, in some locations, thirty instances the protected allowance. We took extra motel nights in Oregon than we had within the earlier three states mixed. We weren’t going to die of smoke inhalation on day 28.
The final day of the journey — day 29 — tried to interrupt us. We had been someplace on NF-3353, in a steep part of nationwide forest, once we got here round a nook and located a six-foot-diameter sinkhole in the course of the highway. The forest service had not but closed the highway. They’d not but posted any warning. We’d have pushed into it at pace if Mercedes had not been watching the proper aspect of the highway at precisely the proper second. We rerouted by way of NF-5325, then Elk River Street, and reached the coast at Port Orford late within the afternoon, thirty-eight days after we had began planning and twenty-nine days after we had began driving.
We had fish and chips at The Loopy Norwegian in Port Orford. We drank champagne out of plastic cups within the car parking zone overlooking the Pacific. We sat within the entrance seats of the Crosstrek and didn’t say something for a very long time.
The Numbers
StatValueTotal distance7,163 milesUnpaved surface3,184 milesDays on the road29Average pace (general)25 mphAverage driving hours per day11–12 hoursLongest day13 hours, 40 minutesRoute deviations39 (climate, flood, fireplace, sinkhole)Days over 90°F28 of 29Days over 100°F6Trip excessive temperature111°F (Moab, UT)Highest level reachedCinnamon Move, 12,640 ftHighest level attemptedCalifornia Move, ~12,500 ft (turned again)Different TAT vacationers seen0
What the Automobile May and Could not Do
The Crosstrek Wilderness might: – Crawl over average rock gardens with regular throttle, no low vary required, in Snow/Filth X-MODE. – Air all the way down to 18–22 psi and grip purple clay, moist rock, and unfastened shale higher than it had any proper to. – Carry a month of meals, water, and kit for 2 adults at 3,999 kilos, with 818 kilos of headroom. – Run an EcoFlow and Starlink off the alternator with out straining {the electrical} system. – Cross river fords as much as about two ft of transferring water with the consumption and battery protected by the skid plate bundle. – Drive eleven to 13 hours a day, every single day, for twenty-nine days, with no single mechanical failure.
The Crosstrek Wilderness couldn’t: – Climb a steep 12,500-foot pitch in skinny air with a non-turbo engine. We realized this the onerous manner. – Get unstuck from deep mud with out aggressive throttle management. We realized to maintain our momentum up. – Match a Wrangler Rubicon on technical traces. This isn’t what it’s constructed for. We aren’t pretending it’s. – Fake to be a inventory car. The skid plates, the tires, the suspension, the lights, and the rack had been non-negotiable. With out them, the journey would have been a brief one.
The Three Issues We Received Improper
1. We trusted the high-altitude efficiency. A naturally aspirated engine at 12,500 ft has roughly 65% of its sea-level energy. The mathematics is simple. The fact is more durable. We had assumed the CVT would assist us; as a substitute, it compounded the difficulty. We should always have had a forced-induction backup plan for the excessive passes.
2. We packed greater than we would have liked. The basic overlander mistake. Half the restoration gear by no means got here out of the bag. The second spare gasoline cell was lifeless weight for 4,000 miles. The medical package, the dimensions of a briefcase, might have been the dimensions of a sandwich. We might have shaved 200 kilos off the load.
3. We underestimated the mud. A full-face respirator would have been price the price and the load. The cabin filter did its job, however the air contained in the automotive for the primary three hours of each driving day had a nice purple haze. We should always have run the fan on recirculate from the second we began the engine, every single day, no exceptions.
The Three Issues We Received Proper
1. We had redundant navigation. Garmin Tread working the GPX recordsdata, onX Offroad for real-time path data, paper roll charts for the sections with no sign, and an actual human navigator (Mercedes) who learn the highway forward. No single level of failure. This was the only most vital operational determination of the journey.
2. We had life like expectations in regards to the climate. The thirty-nine reroutes weren’t an indication of dangerous planning. They had been the plan. We had budgeted two weeks of buffer. We used every single day of it. The TAT in summer season, in a non-stock car, on this nation, on this local weather, is just not the journey you wing.
3. We went with a companion we had accomplished onerous issues with earlier than. The 4,771 miles within the German-market ID. Buzz throughout 9 Baltic international locations, three Alcan 5000 rallies, 4 autos throughout the Nevada and California deserts — none of these journeys had been the TAT, however they had been all the identical journey in the way in which that issues. We knew methods to talk beneath stress, methods to divide work, methods to again off a foul line collectively, and methods to chortle when the state of affairs was already absurd. The TAT is not going to save a relationship that doesn’t exist. The TAT will, nonetheless, present you precisely the place the perimeters of your partnership are. It’s higher to be taught this at 8,000 ft in Colorado than on the day you really need the assistance.
The Slowest Means Throughout America
The TransAmerica Path is just not the neatest method to get to the Pacific Ocean. It isn’t the most cost effective, the quickest, or essentially the most comfy. It’s, nonetheless, the route the place you possibly can drive for a complete day with out seeing one other car, the place the one lights at evening are stars, and the place the small cities nonetheless have normal shops with handwritten indicators within the home windows.
The Crosstrek Wilderness is just not the proper car for everybody who needs to do that journey. It’s, nonetheless, the proper car for the model of the journey that we wished to do — the one that did not require a second mortgage, the one which may very well be serviced at any Subaru seller within the nation, the one whose limitations we might be taught round quite than overpower.
We by no means noticed one other TAT traveler all the time. The path, the route, the highway — no matter you need to name it — continues to be there. It’s principally empty. It is not going to be empty perpetually. The longer you wait, the much less of it will likely be the way in which it’s proper now.
We suggest you go.
Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal are overlanders, motorsport journalists, and the authors of the three-part OVR Journal TAT sequence. They dwell in the US and are slowly working their manner by means of each named backroad on the continent. Pictures by Mercedes Lilienthal until in any other case famous. Car supplied by Subaru of America. Modifications and opinions are their very own.
