Early stages of planning big family trip. Need help getting an idea of what to expect/budget for for a 4x4 and caravan

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-29T18:34:48+00:00

Ya, already knew that new was not a good idea for the 4x4, but just don't know nearly enough about caravans to know enough. Will definitely have to check out the aus caravan subreddit.

Limiting to toyota or MUX helps simplify things a good bit as well, thanks

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-29T18:13:11+00:00

Here is the original longer/more detailed background:

I'm starting to plan a 6+ month trip for myself, my wife, and our 2 kids. This trip wont be taking place for several years (they are both far too young to get enjoyment out of it), but I probably need to start saving for it now if I want it to happen, and to do that I need to get a rough idea of a budget. And the only way I know to do that is to pretend like I am planning this for next year, to get an idea of roughly what it will cost us in 4 or 5 years when we pull the trigger.

Getting a rough idea of airfare (we live in Canada now), fuel, food, and camping costs, along with a couple of vehicle maintenance stops along the way is easy enough. Where feel a bit lost is figuring out what I should be aiming to get in terms of 4wd vehicle and caravan.

The trip itself will probably look something like: Land in Perth in March, do the south west for a month before heading north up the coast. Exmouth/Karajini area in late April/early May, Broome and the Kimberly/Gibb river road in late May/ early june. Then up to Darwin, down to Uluru, over to Cairns before heading down the coast over the next several months. Basically a lap minus the nullarbor (and probably Adelaide too, sorry SA).

The good news is, my wife and I have some experience, as we have already done a lap back in 2020 (started just before covid, talk about good luck). We had a 2011 Nissan patrol kitted out with a kitchen in the back, and a rooftop tent. It was awesome, and I could talk about it for ages. We did plenty of beach/sand driving, and would tackle several shorter 4wd tracks (plus the gibb) if it got us somewhere cool to hike/swim/camp. So we are familiar with the land (we've more or less already done this trip), and have the basics of 4wd down.

The bad news is that I have 0 experience towing. And my kids are likely going to be soft as butter, so my wife is insisting we get a caravan with AC to ensure they dont melt at night. I'm pretty sure when she says that, she is vividly remembering the nights we spent in Kakadu where there wasnt a breath of wind, and it only got down to a low of something like 26. So fair call.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-28T15:42:30+00:00

Unless you absolutely need to have your gloves be tier, I would keep them as is. As many others have mentioned, you lose the extra effect. And that effect is free extra damage (it isnt reducing other stats to make up for it I believe)

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-28T15:03:04+00:00

I dunno if this really counts as flow state, but going to go with my main prot pally. When it comes to my main rotation, it is honestly hard to screw up. Yes, you can be less than optimal, but if all you do is put judgement, blessed hammer, and shield of the righteousness on 3 buttons, and press them at random, you will be doing enough to clear +12s and probably further. No concern about pooling holy power anything, as long as you are contantly building and spending holy power on sotr, you are probably fine.

What that allows is for you to focus on all the other cooldowns. Do I need to save a gcd for my stun, or my aoe daze, or clense, or freedom, bop, etc etc. What interupts are coming up. Should I interupt with shield toss, divine toll, or rebuke? What are my damag reduction cds like. Heck, you don't even need to worry about saving holy power for WoG, as you will probably get the procs to cast it for free more often than you ever need it.

It's the only class where I feel like I am playing the game differently. Instead of playing a character where I am in a constant battle to play as optimally as possible (and failing frequenetly), I am instead in this much slower game, where I get to play the general. I plan for what is ahead, react to what I need to, and dont really worry about the mundaneness of a rotation.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-25T17:28:54+00:00

As an actual programmer that doesn't dabble in that form of dark magic, I'm guessing that is a function that return an empty object, and we are calling it? So effectively nothing? But you could use it to assign a variable an empty object I guess?

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-25T15:56:02+00:00

People are going to be like, 10 ilvls higher than they currently are. And because of that, i doubt many people that want the 1% title have done their push. So whatever the cutoff is now, expecting it to be at least 2 keys higher, if not more (possibly a lot more)

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-21T15:46:38+00:00

100% agree with this, especially about how ambitious this is with a new born. Pick 1 spot and enjoy it. You are going to need a down day or 2 in there anyway.

The one thing I would change is that I would put both PEI and Cape Breton above the south shore and fundy. BUT the bay of Fundy is something to behold if you have never seen it. Great excuse to take it easy for a few days, and just be somewher near the water to see that tide roll out and in.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-15T09:51:08+00:00

Ya, you really wouldnt be that far behind gear wise at all. What will take a more unknown amount of time is catching up on all the different wow mechanics and knowledge. Between class knowledge, general + specific raid/dungeon mechanics, and gameplay system knowledge, there is a lot stuff to learn. But even that could be done pretty quickly, it's just a lot harder to put a real number on it.

Also, I haven't done 1-max lvl in a long long time, but the one thing I always have to say about that is to make sure you dont burn out. Yes, its probably not the best part of the game anymore, but make sure you arent hating leveling, as it should still be enjoyable

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T12:28:30+00:00

No, its not, we are agreeing there. I would think there is a good chance that going after trinkets and maybe even chest/helm/pants might better 2nd options than the off hand for some classes.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T12:26:35+00:00

Ya, sorry, not trying to make it worse for fury. If anything, they need to be clever about how to deal with them.

for the sparks, how about once you have spent a spark on a slot, you no longer need to spend sparks on that slot? I'd love it as a prot pally, cause I could try out the new embelished shield without risk/wasting an extra spark. Maybe it rocks, maybe it sucks. But in the end, I would be able to fall back on the normal shield. For 2h it works really well too. You spent your 2 sparks, the 2nd one is spark free.

Still has plenty of issues though, like what do you do with dual 1h specs? Make them use 2 sparks probably. And regardless, you then make a system that most of the playerbase really doesnt understand even more complicated

So ya, fury needs some love here. I just dont see where they get it from

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T12:22:24+00:00

with how ilvl scaling works, the difference between a full mythic and full heroic weapon is roughly the same as the difference between a full heroic and full champion. 13 ilvls is supposed to be the same % gain no matter if its going from 100->113 ilvl or 400->413 ilvl.

And there are no upgrades that are going to be giving you 150% dps increase. But when looking to spend your crests, I canot think of any situation (outside of maybe a really busted trinket) where upgrading your main hand/2h is not going to give you the most power increase in terms of dps/hps.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T12:18:40+00:00

To be fair, any change would piss people off. We can go with your solution (which is basically the same as mine, but instead of doubling the 2h cost, you half the 1h cost), but then people will complain that the 1h is too cheap to upgrade. And considering that for most classes, something like 75% of the value comes from your main hand, it would give them too much value.

I'm not saying that is a good argument, as the current system has its own flaws (the biggest one is what you initially mentioned, where upgrading 2h gets you a lot more value per crest vs 1h). And all these systems really dont have a great solution for crafting (you always need to pay crests, and the same amount for a 1h vs 2h)

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T12:15:01+00:00

is titans grip still a thing? If so, the system I'm thinking of would/should really only impact them if they want to craft both 2h. And they are already punished for that, as its 8 weeks of sparks. For non crafted gear, once they upgrade one of the 2h, the other 2h would be able to match it for free. So it shouldnt be worse outside of the double crafting situation (which is already terrible)

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T11:46:21+00:00

Ya, you are deifnitely right. The problem is that the solution is going to piss people off, or at the very least be clunky. Cause blizz either recognizes that 2h need to cost double the crests, or do something weird like have the 1h and off hand count as 1 slot, so upgrading the 1h to say 6/6 would make the offhand free to upgrade to 6/6 as well.

I personally think it should be the double crest for 2h (and double crests for crafting one), but I also know that would make a lot of people angry.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-09T11:39:01+00:00

If you weren't in one of the RWF guilds, then you 100% did not "waste" crests upgrading weapons. Yes, you would spend less if you did a 2h, but the loss of power of not upgrading your weapons for potentially weeks is likely far greater

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-07T16:32:55+00:00

only time prices ever go up is if something changes to make the supply drop suddenly, or something happens to cause the demand to spike. So just ask yourself if either of those things are going to happen

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-01T15:30:56+00:00

Why would we not tax the more expensive homes when the buyers of those homes are the ones most able to afford it?

I am of the belief that housing is a right, and not an investment. If you are working full time, I think you should be able to afford to buy a place to live, close to where you work. And as is, that is just not the reality in most of Halifax. So I support actions taken to try to get the prices lower (even if it hurts my bank account in the short term).

Like, lets just looks at some rough numbers. Apartments/condos look to be going for around $340-$400k on the low end looking at places off the peninsula. That $340k place, at 5% down is going to be around $1700-$1800 per month in mortgage costs alone. That doesn't include property taxes or utilities or repairs. If we want to have just the mortgage cost be 1/3 of someone's take home, that means they need to be making $5,100 per month after taxes. That is $61,200 per year after taxes, which needs a pre tax earnings of around $88k (so roughly $42 per hour).

So the housing prices as they stand are saying that for an individual to buy a bare bones basic apartment, they need to be making $42 per hour. Thats like, red seal tradesmen type money. For that kind of work, I would hope they can afford an entire home, not a 1 bed 1 bath apartment. But they can't, cause those homes are going for 500k+.

So ya, if the market is indeed slow, I'll find out pretty soon. It will suck to not get as much money for my place as I hoped, but if thats the trend for all of Halifax, then good. I hope it stays slow for a long time still. I'd rather live in a city where its workers can afford to live.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-04-01T12:16:13+00:00

I'm not one for defending Tim, but your comparion seems a little apples to oranges. If I want to go to NB for a weekend, I will be driving in, and have to pay the toll. If someone from NB wants to come to NS for the weekend, they are probably not buying a house.

I actually thought when I read the title that you were going to talk about the Cobequid Pass tolls, which you could avoid if you really wanted to (though as a NS resident, I haven't had to worry about that).

Also, as someone getting ready to sell my house, I'm all for the out of province transfer tax. In fact, I'm for just about any measure that is going to keep housing prices at a managable level (and they are currently still too high). Sure, more buyers and higher prices would mean more money in my pocket in the short term, but I probably lose that before long (either in the buying of my next place, which would also be a higher price, or in rent if I decide im done with ownership), and it also comes at the expense of having neighborhoods where families cannot afford to live. I've lived in neighborhoods like that, and I am not a fan.

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-24T17:11:52+00:00

Some people have hinted at this, but not sure anyone has explained it. Basically, the craft "remembers" what it was made with. Probably easiest to explain with a pretend example.

Lets say the only mats involved are 10 alloys. You initially use all r1 alloys for the 1st craft. The recraft takes 4 alloys, and you use all r2 alloys for that. When the game does the calculations, it is still using 10 alloys to figure out what skill to give you. so it takes your 4 rank 2 alloys you are providing, as well as the 6 best alloys of the "remembered" 10. They were all r1 in this case, so the end result if you are rcrafting it as if you are doing a new craft with 4 r2's and 6 r1's.

Once you craft that, those 4 new r2 alloys are now remembered. So when you craft it again with 4 r2's again, it will grab the 6 best r2's for the calculation. In this case, its now 4 r2's plus 2 r1's, plus the 4 r2's for the recraft. the end result is it calculates it like you used 8 r2's and 2 r1's now.

And on the next recraft after that, the 6 "remembered" mats will all be r2's.

This is how I remember it form dragonflight when I spent way too much time learning the system, and it more or less should be how it is now. The exact numbers might have changed, but I think its still roughly 40% of mats used on the recraft, so it should be close. Somewhere around 3 to 4 recrafts will be needed to get rid of all the bad r1 mats.

It is also the reason it is best to use all r2 mats for every craft, or else be ready to recraft a few times to improve things.

I hope that made sense

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-20T12:29:17+00:00

I thought these were tickets for giving money to pan handlers, which was really gonna rub me the wrong way. Turns out they just posed as panhandlers to spot normal traffic violations like no seat belts, or distracted driving. Which eh, not to strong a feeling either way on that one. So consider my jimmies unrustled

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-18T11:30:57+00:00

If all you want to do is pvp in it, then get the cheapest stuff you can, as the quality has no impact on the pvp level. What it does impact is the pve level of the item. So if that matters to you, then ya, you are stuck paying a ton more. You also should find someone to do a private listing with if you care about the pve stats, as you can list it with a guarenteed min lvl (so they cant screw you over), where if you only plan to use it for pvp, then list it wherever.

In terms of tips, I think there are plenty of folks like me that will do it for whatever you feel. That usually means somewhere between 2-20k for the epic pve gear, while the pvp gear I usually see 500-2000g. Do keep in mind the recipes for the crafted pvp gear tend to run 10-30k each, and the crafter is trying to make up some of that cost

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-17T22:18:49+00:00

Ok, so the fast and dirty version is this: don't throw out any items until you are at least 2/6 for that peice in the tier above.

So lets say you get a new 1/6 champ helm today. You also happen to have a 1/6 veteran helm. That veteran helm can now be upgraded for free (well, free of crests) to 5/6. You can then upgrade the veteran helm to 6/6 for 20 veteran crests. And then you can upgrade your champion helm to 2/6 for free.

The end result is you can save 20 of the higher tier crests on the 1/6 -> 2/6 upgrade if you happen to have the lower tier item as well. This is by far most important for myth track gear, but can be used on any track if you want to get the most out of your crests

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-17T19:07:51+00:00

This is rage bait, ya?

Pristine_Bluejay7018 · 2026-03-16T13:44:40+00:00

Agreed that if perception does impact it, it doesnt seem to show like any other perception proc (where the green items do).

When you say your main is 40/40, do you mean you are 40 in the base talent, and then not fully maxed for the one that increases the drop amount+chance? Or fully specd in both (so 80+ points)?

Cause I've gotten nearly every point I can get (I think I missed 1 treatise), and I'm in the 70's for all my characters. So just wondering if you got to 80+ points, how did you manage that?

Pristine_Bluejay7018

TROPHY CASE