Portlanders Mercedes and Andy Lilienthal with the 2025 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness Wilderness they are planning to drive across they are planning to drive along the Trans-America Trail. (Courtesy photo: Jason Nugent)

Taking a cross-country road trip isn’t such a big deal anymore. If a person is determined about it, they can drive coast-to-coast in about four days. With the Interstate highway system, the greatest challenge they’re likely to face along the way is finding a clean restroom.

However, that’s not what Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal are doing. The Portland couple are planning to drive along the Trans-America Trail, a winding, mostly off-road route that stretches from the Atlantic coast at Nag’s Head, North Carolina to the Pacific Ocean at Port Orford, Oregon.

“In total, it should be around 7,100 miles,” Andy said. “It’s everything from farm roads to trails that are more for motorcycles and four-by-fours,”Mercedes adds.

This will not even be close to the first time the Lilienthals have completed an ambitious road trip. The couple are three-time veterans of the Alcan 5000 rally up to the Arctic
region, and are accomplished off-road and overlanding experts. The Trans-America Trail is just the latest challenge to pique their interest.

“We’re criminally insane,” Andy jokes. “One of our passions is long distance travel. When we were thinking about trips that we could do, the Trans-America Trail was on our bucket list. So we decided to pitch a vehicle manufacturer to let us borrow a car and really test it on this journey.”

The automaker who said Yes was Subaru. The company is lending the Lilienthals a 2025 Crosstrek Wilderness for the trip.

“Andy and I were both invited to drive the Crosstrek Wilderness when it launched in the Zion area of Utah,” Mercedes said. “Subaru put us in a good off-road course with a really big, steep silt hill. We’re both pretty experienced off-roaders and we were surprised they would try that in a street vehicle, but we made it up! We can’t believe the capability in the Crosstrek.”

In addition to the usual Subaru Wilderness model upgrades, the Trans-America Crosstrek has a few special features. The preparation for the trip starts with a roof- mounted tent for camping, plus a vehicle refrigerator. The Crosstrek’s underbody is protected by Primitive Racing’s skid plates for the engine, transmission and rear axle.

Then there are rally lights, strengthened recovery points, and BF Goodrich all-terrain tires.

“We plan on camping the majority of nights,”; Andy said. “Frankly, I think that the biggest challenge for us is going to be the weather. I am not too keen on sleeping on top of a
vehicle in a severe thunderstorm!”

Instead of a short week, the Lilienthals expect to spend a full month on the road. They’ll be back in Portland sometime in mid-July, if all goes according to plan.

“All of our social media is @crankshaftculture and our website is crankshaftculture.com. We will be posting updates on Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky. We should have
Internet everywhere we need to go,” Andy said.