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The original was posted on /r/cars by /u/LetOk8529 on 2025-06-30 13:03:08+00:00.
Thought I’d share my experience with one of these events.
A little background, so when you buy a new Bronco or Bronco sport Ford will cover your admission to one of their all day off road schools called the Off Roadeo. It includes food, instruction, and a truck to borrow. Cash value if you wanted to do it without a Bronco credit is around $2000 for the day. They have locations in Nevada, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, and New Hampshire. We went to the location in Eastern TN which is very close to Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Being in the Midwest, this was the easier of the two to get to and I saw on some forums it was better than the NH experience.
We arrived around 8am to get checked in. First impressions were they pit ALOT of money into this. The base camp was very nicely appointed and had some very cool decor. https://imgur.com/a/FEuuPjh
The day started with a check in process (we got nice branded Yeti bottles with the off roadeo logo, some lights snacks, and a basic introduction. Could just be corporate propaganda, but the instructors went through some basic things and really leaned heavily into “leave no trace“ and how to off road with minimal impact.
Our instructor was excellent. He was actually a former Ford plant worked so he understood the trucks very well mechanically and explained how things were working underneath us. After a bathroom break, we went out to what was called the sluice box. This involved the instructor explaining lockers to us, how to “pick a line“ and just want things looked like from outside the truck. https://imgur.com/a/QzFx2Hp
We then walked over and picked our Bronco for the day. I went with one relatively close to mine. If you’re hoping to drive a two door, walk quick because there were a lot of 4 doors and only a few 2 doors. All automatic and all Sasquatch.
We started with some slow trail drives to get acclimated with how it felt to be off road. My wife drove this part before lunch. During the first part of the day, the instructor would pull over and then walk us through large rocks / obstacles. It was definitely unnerving at times and a few hits I really thought we broke the truck.
We came back for lunch and they had a catered taco bar set up for us. The grounds and weather were really nice, so my wife and I were anti social and ate at one of the picnic tables outside. We finished early and walked over to the merch stand. There is specific merchandise for each off roadeo location so we bought a shirt and some patches for the headliner of our Bronco.
After lunch, I took over. It started with some higher speed trail driving through deep mud. Eventually we made our way to some more technical obstacles. There was a 30 degree hill descent and a dried waterfall. Both of these, the guide would walk you down one at a time. It looked MUCH scarier from the inside. https://imgur.com/a/SN2Mrat. I believe our guide said the max the truck can handle is about 37 degrees and we were around 25 degrees. We then finished up with some more trail driving with our guide calling out any major obstacles (including bear activity evidence). We went back for dinner that was also quite good. We ended our evening sitting around the giant Bronco campfire and just taking in the sunset over the small lake on the property.
Overall, this was an AMAZING experience. The instruction was excellent, the base camp was very nice, and being able to drive one of their trucks without risk to mine made me so much more comfortable . I’d 100% do it again and would actually consider paying for one of the other locations. I guess their marketing worked, because I feel confident enough to now do some light off roading in my truck. Ford is clearly going all in to try and take Jeep’s market share based on the quality of this event.