Planning a cross-country trip for most people means purchasing airline tickets and booking hotel rooms — keeping travel and lodging concise with the destination. For Gary Henderson, Gary Tomlinson and Shawn Bishop, however, it means open roads, campgrounds and Jeeps.

The three friends departed southern Utah on April 26 and will conclude their trip when they reach Butler on Thursday, June 12, for the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival. They’re calling their trip, “Wheeling America 2025 — The Southern Tour.”

For Henderson and Tomlinson, this will be their second trip to Butler, first attending the festival in 2022.

“Gary and I host a podcast called ‘The Jeepcast,’ and Bantam reached out to us as listeners in 2018, but we finally made our first trip in 2022,” Henderson said.

The pair started their podcast in 2016. At the time, it was called the “Northwest Jeepcast” — a forum for two friends to share what they had learned from the Jeep community and to discuss the successes and failures they’d experienced from their own trips.

It wasn’t all roses and glory in the beginning. According to Henderson, the group didn’t fall head over heels for the Jeep life right away.

“I don’t know that we initially had a love for Jeep, but once you get into the Jeep life and experience so many great people in the Jeep community, it grows on you,” Henderson said.

With a warm welcome from a community that often feels more like family, the group was struck by the kindness of members of the Jeep community, he said.

Jeeping brings together people from all walks of life, allowing them to shed their day-to-day lives and worries and focus on the one thread that weaves them all together — their love for Jeep.

Even still, a warm and welcoming community isn’t enough to decide to place your life on hold for two months and trek across the country — and for that, Henderson has a simple answer.

“Trips like these literally start with amazing wives,” Henderson said.

The men credit their accommodating and supportive families for allowing them to do things like this.

“Being away on this type of adventure is only possible because of the strong support systems we have at home,” Henderson said.

According to Henderson, planning a trip like that to the festival is not without its obstacles. The group had to create a plan that included camping accommodations, periodic access to laundry services and arriving at world-class off-roading destinations.

“And then you have obstacles like truck problems, camper problems and Jeep problems, all of which require thinking through a solution with limited resources and time,” Henderson said.

Obstacles like those are just a part of the excitement for the men.

“Dealing with obstacles like that is a big part of why we build and wheel our Jeeps. Putting yourself outside of your comfort zone is a great way to (find) personal growth through overcoming adversity,” he said.

According to Henderson, the people they’ve met along the way and the kindness they’ve shown has restored his faith in humanity.

The trip to Bantam, of course, would not be complete without the sights they along the way.

In 2022, Henderson and Tomlinson visited national landmarks such as Mount Rushmore before setting off to the “national landmark” for Jeepers — the Bantam Jeep factory. The pair met with the owners and were gifted memento bricks straight from the walls of the dilapidated factory.

“One of the most memorable events from that trip was gifting Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival Director Patti Jo Lambert one of the bricks,” Henderson said.

Henderson and Tomlinson documented this on their podcast.

This year, Henderson, Tomlinson and Bishop plan on stopping at the Pentagon and Capitol building for a tour.

In the 15 years the men have been wheeling their Jeeps, the three friends have had some amazing times together.

“My favorite memory is experiencing the high Rocky Mountains outside of Aspen, Colorado,” Tomlinson said.

“Giving Patti Jo one of the bricks from Bantam factory — I could tell it was meaningful to her, and it was emotional to be a part of sharing that with her,” Henderson said.

“I’d have to say, the first trip my daughter and I took with the Hendersons on a trip to the Rubicon Trail. I got to share some great one-on-one time with my daughter, who also loved driving the Jeep,” Bishop said.

For all three men, having the opportunity to take these trips together — and with their families — is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Even more special when the destination is the festival in Butler.

“The Bantam festival is the holy grail of events, so well run with many activities for all to enjoy while carrying forward the culture and heritage of Jeep,” Henderson said.