The most important part of planning a trip is to always be planning a trip. As stated by the Universal Law of Travelers, it is imperative to be forever eyeing the next adventure. 

Plan the trips you will definitely take, as well as the ones you may never take. It’s also important to plan for the trips that you might take. Because when they do happen, and go fully astray from the original plan, that is sometimes the best thing ever.

READ MORE: ALL MOTORCYCLES ARE ADVENTURE MOTORCYCLES

Scheming, preparing, pouring over maps, making waypoints, and researching remote locales are what fuel us. And we must stay fueled. It is mandatory as an overlander. A full tank is worthless without an unknown destination laying out there ahead of you, just beyond the horizon, waiting to be explored.

When it comes time to take the trip you’ve planned, it does not need to be some sprawling monster of a thing. Being a card-carrying weekend warrior is nothing to shake a stick at. You may be relegated to a scant afternoon or a government holiday or long weekend without the kids. Perfect, this is your opportunity. 

You do not need to travel far. However, you do need to go far enough that you can ignore life’s standard operating procedures. You need to find a time to neglect your ever amassing email, your breakfast-lunch-dinner lifestyle, and your regular daily routine. Household chores be damned and may your inbox be left unattended. The Universal Law of Travelers states that this is entirely acceptable when you are going on an adventure.

I highly recommend heading out someplace you’ve never been before. Or, at the very least, head in a direction you’ve gone just a handful of times. This gives you the opportunity to see the world with new eyes, which is what adventure is all about. 

READ MORE: THE PERFECT VEHICLE

When you go, pack your things and hit the road with gusto. Reckless abandon is what we’re going for here. Chug a cup of coffee and crush a hundred miles before breakfast. Head out after work, ride until that last hint of sunlight forces you into camp. Maybe set your sights on something close to home, but hopefully with spotty cell service. Wherever you end up, soak it up completely and enjoy it to the max.

If today is not the day for you to go, perhaps tomorrow is, or maybe next month. But definitely don’t wait too long. Life has a way of getting ahold of us and keeping us in the routine, or worse yet, passing us by all too quickly. We can’t let that happen. It is entirely unacceptable because we refuse to end up permanently trapped in the soggy, grey trenches of humdrum living.

READ MORE: QUARANTINE AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

Of course, we can’t go totally wayward forever. We must return home because that is important too. Home is an anchor and an essential mooring for us travelers. Home is where we connect, reflect, and share. We return there because it grounds us after the wild ramblings. Plus, home is where we keep our maps.

The Universal Law of Travelers states that we are inspired, ambitious, and stoked. We will keep our gas tanks full and our GPS software updated. We will be forever eyeing an adventure and we will always be planning the next trip.

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

EXPLORING OVERLAND

JOIN OVERLAND EXPO FOUNDERS ROSEANN AND JONATHAN HANSON EXPLORING OVERLAND, WHETHER IT’S CLOSE TO HOME OR ACROSS THE GLOBE, THROUGH WORDS, IMAGES AND FIELD ARTS.

FOLLOW ROSEANN @ROSEANNHANSON

FOLLOW JONATHAN: OVERLAND TECH & TRAVEL

It is a cool winter day in July, the Australian bull-dust tamed by recent rains, so I can enjoy a clear view of the passing show of wildflowers out the side window.

Not for the first time, I look across the vehicle at Jonathan and we grin. Four months prior, we had been planning a trip to England for July. Here we were instead, crossing the Simpson Desert, in our own custom expedition-camper Land Cruiser Troopy.

READ MORE: ULTIMATE EXPEDITION VEHICLE PART 2: INTERIOR BUILD & TRANS-AFRICA ADVENTURE

As it often happens with us, it just . . . happened. In March, when I was booking tickets to England to visit friend and colleague Tom Sheppard, as usual I went to Kayak.com, punched in the dates for July 2016, and did a double-take: fares were starting at $2,000 USD per person round trip to London. That was twice what we usually spend on our semi-annual visits across the Pond.

And just then, like magic, a little Kayak fare-alert pops up: “Sale! Round Trip Los Angeles to Sydney $849.”

Whoa. We’ve always wanted to visit Australia. 

Click.

Passengers: 2; 

Depart LAX: 14 July 2016

Return LAX: 11 August 2016

Extra bags: 1 each ($2ea. add-on special)

Special diet requests: Nope.

Calculating fare . . . $851 + tax USD each person RT on Air New Zealand. 

Continue with purchase? 

“Hey, Jonathan . . .”

Done. Australia here we come. 

Fast-forward to July 13, as we assemble in Los Angeles at the home of fellow overlanders and adventurers, Joe and Lara. With us are Graham Jackson and Connie Rodman, Overland Expo’s training director and our team’s staff HQ manager, respectively. Shortly after our leap, we dangled the Down Under carrot and cheap airfare. They only hesitated a few minutes longer than we did.

And so the fun began, tossing around ideas of where to explore a truly diverse and enticingly large-yet-accessible country. Since Graham and Connie had been planning to visit Australia for years, they had quite a bit of research already completed. Graham suggested a crossing of the Simpson Desert via the Madigan Line.

Cecil Madigan (1889 – 1947) was an Australian explorer and geologist. He was involved in geological surveys in Antarctica in 1912 before serving in the British Army during WWI, most notably the Battle of the Somme. Throughout the 1930s, Madigan participated in numerous aerial surveys of the “trackless areas” of central Australia. He named the Simpson Desert after the president of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. 

In 1939, Madigan led the first major expedition across the Simpson Desert and his route, roughly 900 kilometers (559 miles) from Alice Springs, Northern Territories, to Birdsville, Queensland, is now marked by a series of 25 brass markers and is considered one of the more remote and challenging Australia desert tracks one can explore today, crossing some 1,300 sand dunes.

Initially the plan was to source vehicles from one of our Overland Expo Aussie exhibitors, since many of them had been urging us to visit and frequently offered up loaners. But the short notice and bad timing (several big press events for the larger companies had all company vehicles tied up) had us come up empty.

We then looked into renting a couple of Land Cruisers from Britz or similar (from everything we had read about the Madigan Line, we felt Land Cruisers would be advisable over Hiluxes or similar, for the stronger engine and cargo capacity for extra fuel and water).

But not only was a rental looking like $7,500 minimum per vehicle (not including camping gear, or recovery equipment), we also learned we could not use them for a crossing of the Simpson Desert on the Madigan Line, which was one of the “no go” places since it is not a standard tourist route.

About this time Jonathan started emailing me and Graham vehicle listings from websites Gumtree.com and AUStoUSA.com. The latter specializes in selling 25-year-old and older Australian vehicles to Americans and handling the shipping and importation details. Depending on the year purchased, we could drive the vehicle around Australia, and then import it to the US with very little hassle. 

On Gumtree he was finding fully outback-kitted vehicles for very reasonable prices. One petrol Toyota Prado (essentially a 4Runner equivalent) had a roof tent, awning, fridge, and all the necessary camping equipment and was listed for $9,000 AUD ($6,870 USD) — about the price for a rental after taxes and registration and insurance. Land Cruiser Troop Carriers —  “Troopies” — on both sites were showing up for around $10,000 to $12,000 AUD, but with pretty high mileage and most in this range were older than 1991 and equipped with the less-desirable 2H diesel engine. Newer ones (1992 to 1994) were around $15,000 AUD.

At the very favorable rate of exchange this was putting our own “ultimate” overland vehicle well within reach. Over the last 15 years we’ve driven Troopies across the Libyan Desert in Egypt and throughout Tanzania and Kenya. The 1HZ diesel engine is the definition of tough, long-wearing, reliable, and unstoppable, proven by hundreds of thousands of them in service in the toughest conditions on the planet, used and abused by safari guides, NGO workers, and military service people worldwide. 

A couple weeks of searching both sites and Jonathan found a 1991 one-owner Troopy in superb condition, with just 220,000 kilometers on the clock. Aluminum bull bar, no winch, 1HZ, five-speed. During the searches we had the good luck of connecting with AUStoUSA’s Phil Newell, their Gold Coast operations manager and an ace vehicle broker. Phil went to work on our behalf to get a good price. Unfortunately during the time we were sorting things out the owner decided to trade it in at a dealer and we lost it.

Then we found a 1993 at a dealer in Darwin. The photos showed a very clean truck with 244,000 km (151,000 miles) with the 1HZ and five-speed transmission, an ARB bull bar (no winch), TJM suspension, Bridgestone tires in good condition, A/C, and very clean original interior, for $22,000 AUD ($16,800 USD). 

Working with both Toni Young at Dustin’s Auto Sales and Phil, we got the truck for the asking price (the dealer would not negotiate down). One bank transfer and several registration forms later, we were the proud owners of our very own Troopy, which Phil was arranging for transport to Sydney for a reasonable amount (about $1300 USD, a bargain considering the distance and that part of the journey was by train). The whole process was made enormously easy through the professional assistance of Toni and Phil.

Graham and Connie had a harder time finding a vehicle. Dyed-in-the-wool Land Rover loyalists, they looked at Defenders but could find none expedition-worthy in their price range. At the 11th hour they found a higher-mileage (431,000 km) 1994 1HZ75 five-speed with front and rear lockers, OME suspension, factory bullbar, Kaymar rear bumper, dual-batteries, and interior drawer-deck system for only $11,500 AUD ($8700 USD) and arranged for delivery from Brisbane to Sydney. 

Let the adventure begin. 

It turns out, everything you have heard about Australia is true: 

The Outback (the vast and wild desert, grasslands and woodlands comprising the center) is one of the world’s finest overlanding destinations. Actually the whole country is — the stunning coasts, the pastoral highlands, the soaring mountains, and the vibrant cities. The wildlife is legendary for its uniqueness. Even for those of us who have spent considerable time traveling and working in Africa, the biodiversity and oddities of evolution on this long-isolated continent astounds. I don’t think I will ever tire of watching the locomotion of a kangaroo. 

Beer is a national passion. A good pub can be found nearly everywhere. (So can great coffee. Maybe something to do with the volume of beer consumed, not sure, need to test a bit more.) 

The people are friendly. Really, really friendly—and polite. All the Australians who have come to Overland Expos have been exceedingly nice but we were not prepared for the whole damn country to be filled with their likes. In 6,000 kilometers over nearly a month, we encountered just three Australians who were rude (a fourth, a woman at the roadhouse in Kulgera, was from the Balkans, so we won’t count her). 

And the overlanding. The legendary outback overlanders are the most-prepared, most-traveled people we have ever seen. For a continent with fewer people total than southern California, the number of Aussies exploring the Outback in exceptionally well-kitted vehicles is enormous. While driving tracks in far corners of Queensland, Northern Territories, New South Wales and South Australia, we passed more fully equipped overland vehicles than attend an Overland Expo. Our plain-jane Troopies were unremarkable and common, like Ford F150s in Arizona.

Suffice it to say, we fell in love with Australia — and Australians — within a few hours of landing in Sydney, on the southeast coast. 

July is mid-winter in Oz, and the weather was both cool-and-rainy and warm-and-sunny, alternating often in a span of 30 minutes. Our friends Geoff and Catherine Farland picked us up and whisked us to their home in North Sydney; the Farlands’ son, Alistair, was one of our presenters at Overland Expo 2014 EAST, on his way down the Americas on his first big adventure on his KLR motorcycle. Alistair was passionate about inspiring his Millennial generation to get out exploring the world, and he charmed many of us at Overland Expo. 

Tragically, he died in an accident a few weeks after the show, but with his parents we have built a charity fund to help inspire young people like him to pursue their own adventures—and keep his passion alive (see ConserVentures.org/change-your-world-fund). We were honored to carry Alistair’s Aussie flag with us on our journey.

With little time to sightsee (much to the Farlands’ dismay), we headed down to Expedition Centre to meet our Land Cruisers. Finding Daniel Fluckiger was one of those gems that every once in a while drop down out of the internet. We had been googling “Land Cruiser expedition campers” to get ideas for our future Troopy, and three companies in Australia surfaced. I emailed all three. Only one replied, happily the one with the pop-top and camper interior we admired the most. Daniel was professional and enthusiastic, and—maybe he regrets this — willing to take on the work of converting our truck into a camper in a very short timeframe.

READ MORE: TIME TRAVEL IN SOUTH AMERICA: 10,000 KM, 23 DAYS

As the photos attest, we were astounded to find the superb-quality pop-top ready, along with an amazing amount of other work: solar power, dual batteries, full service, and installation of Warn winch, ARB lights, MaxTrax, and tie-down points for our Kanz Kitchen and National Luna fridge. 

image 10 – Shopping spree at the ARB store in St. Peters. and image 11 – Springbok Delights became our favorite provisioner in Australia.

Vehicles sorted, we then embarked on a three-day shopping spree that bumped the GNP of Australia by more than a few points: ARB in St. Peters (recovery gear, tool rolls, Hi-Lift and mount, camp lighting, deflators and more); Kathmandu, a Patagonia-equivalent (warmer boots for me, chairs for Graham and Connie); and Anaconda, a sporting goods superstore that had good prices on cookware, Dutch ovens (“potjie” in South Africa”), utensils, and water carriers. We also girded our loins and went to Ikea for bedding. It has the best prices anywhere on top-quality down and cotton sheets. (Note: It’s just as creepy in Australia as it is in the U.S.). For the rest of our kitchenware and food, we found Woolworth’s (“Woolies”) to be the best (forget Target there, it’s not the same quality as the U.S.). 

The fourth morning after landing we woke early to load up the trucks — to find a decidedly steady rain blanketing Sydney. Cold and damp, we were on the road by 11 am, stopping along the way at Springbok Delights to pick up our pre-packed meat order (Australia has a lot of South African expats, and thankfully these run a butcher shop of the first order — everything vacuum-packed and pre-frozen). By that evening we had traversed the southern Highlands, a paradise of green pastures separated by rolling rivers and rocky canyons with tall eucalyptus, and hove up in Wagga Wagga (just “Wagga” to locals), the first of the old gateway towns to the Outback.

The next 72 hours were a blur of 700-km days as we crossed a vast portion of Australia’s heartland from Wagga to Port Augusta on the coast (north of Adelaide) to Alice Springs via Coober Pedy and Marla. Every night we broke our “don’t drive at night” rule, and paid for it with more near-misses with kangaroos than we can count. It’s a wonder there are any ‘roos left in this country at all, given the obvious carnage on display each morning.

Because we had decided on the Madigan crossing, which required a full nine to 10 days in the desert, we had to move quickly to Alice — not our preferred travel pace. As a result we only had a few hours in the legendary outback locale of Coober Pedy, best known for opals (and the site of filming for “Mad Max” and “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”). Nonetheless we managed to find a family-owned shop has been mining opals since the 60s—dad mines them, mom cuts and polishes them, and son sets them into beautiful pieces of jewelry. Jonathan bought me a gorgeous ring for my birthday. As they say, “Good onya, mate.”

Alice Springs was much more civilized than we’d anticipated from accounts in the earlier part of the last century. We had a strange but hilarious experience at the Overlander’s Steakhouse, which we had to visit for obvious reasons. Take our word for it: don’t, unless you like overcooked meat, bad service, and silly tourist stuff.

Coming up in Part 2: Crossing the Simpson Desert on the Madigan Line — 12 days unsupported in the backcountry.

Header image: Jonathan and Roseann Hanson

EXPLORING OVERLAND

JOIN OVERLAND EXPO FOUNDERS ROSEANN AND JONATHAN HANSON EXPLORING OVERLAND, WHETHER IT’S CLOSE TO HOME OR ACROSS THE GLOBE, THROUGH WORDS, IMAGES AND FIELD ARTS.

FOLLOW ROSEANN @ROSEANNHANSON

FOLLOW JONATHAN: OVERLAND TECH & TRAVEL

Story by Roseann Hanson

It took us most of the morning to skirt the eastern shoulder of the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.

To our left, shimmering at the edge of the golden steppe, lolled the tongues of Grey and Perro glaciers and the eponymous lakes into which they slowly melt each year under Chile’s austral summer sun. Above them were the impossibly jagged towers of our destination, wrapped coyly in bruised-white clouds and evading full view: the Torres del Paine.

The Nissan’s tires had churned out silky grey glacial dust for hours and hours, and yet the three Torres seemed to remain exactly the same size, never growing larger and ever teasing us with the wanting to be there, to finally see one of the most legendary of places on our Bucket List. 

This phenomenon was our introduction to the First Law of South American Travel: An object in the Andes stays on the horizon at exactly the same place for a very, very long time.

We crested yet another hill and suddenly they were there. They literally took my breath away — deep blue-black shards of rock and ice shooting up impossibly high, a full 9,300-plus feet filling all of my vision.

As I gaped at the towers, clouds and circlets of sparkling aquamarine lakes, Jonathan remarked, “Now the perfect thing would be to see a condor.”

And just like that a condor soared over the nearest hill, tilting back and forth in the boisterous mountain air on its eleven-foot wingspan. It seemed to give us a once-over, then banked to the west and sailed off to look for a late afternoon snack on the pampas below. 

I had expected to be blown away by the sheer enormity of this bird, and yet I realized it just looked normal. In the scope of this landscape, amongst the sheer enormity of the Andes, a condor’s sheer enormity is normal. 

I came to know this phenomenon as the Second Law of South American Travel: The enormity of objects in the Andes is directly proportional to place itself.

We were only on day three of our 10,000-kilometer northward journey, driving a diesel Nissan Navara from Ushuaia, Argentina, to Arequipa, Perú, and already we had fallen in love with South America. We had walked among penguins on an island in the Beagle Channel with Antarctica looming just over the horizon; we had camped on the shores of the Southern Ocean as the Southern Cross rose to the east; and we had already seen two species of fox, dozens of guanacos (think wild llamas), several rheas (large flightless birds similar to ostriches), a stunning black-chested buzzard eagle, and now an Andean condor.

Although we had wanted to explore South America for decades, this was an unplanned trip that literally began with a call: “We have a truck in Ushuaia and need someone to drive it to Perú. Do you know anyone who might be able to do that?” This was Lars Caldenhoven, an Overland Expo exhibitor who lives in Arequipa, Perú, and runs motorcycle and 4×4 tours throughout South America with PeruMotors.com.

It was right before Christmas a few years ago. I looked at the calendar—February was free. I Googled flights from the U.S. to Buenos Aires and back; surprisingly affordable on LAN Airlines. I looked at the account where I had been saving up for a new Macbook Pro. Yup, that ought to do it—the old Macbook is seven years old, what’s a few more months? “Jonathan—!” I called over to the next office. “How would you like to drive from Ushuaia to Perú in February?” Short (very) pause. “Sure!”

We were in. When South America calls, you go.

With almost no time to plan (we already had a two-week Christmas vacation planned with family), we decided to embark on this trip in the manner we have come to enjoy the most, though it’s not always easy—what I call freestyle travel. My life at the time revolved around intense planning, with two Overland Expos to keeping me hopping. When we go on an overland journey, I really don’t like to plan much. Schedules make me chafe. When we picked up a three-week rental Land Rover in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2010 we had paper maps, a Rough Guide, a GPS-equipped iPad with downloaded maps, and no plans. We just headed south, choosing our destination for the next day usually the night before—sometimes the morning of our travel day.

I love the constant discovery of this way of travel, the fact that every day is an unknown. It guarantees you will experience the extremes of travel—the good and the bad. Hyper-planned travel—with a daily itinerary accounting for every kilometer and every minute—will cut out the extremes on the travel-experience spectrum and deliver a good trip, pretty much guaranteed. But there is something I love about the gems of unexpected experiences that come with freestyle travel. Perhaps it’s because these gems are enhanced by the hard knocks, balancing the process.

A perfect example of a freestyle day on this South America journey happened in northern Chile. Our rough destination was to camp on the coast south of La Serena, but without exhaustive research ahead of time we were not sure what actually existed. So we went freestyle. Which meant we found out about 5:30 pm that there is not any good camping where we had intended, so we pushed on to a supposedly good beach town with lots of inexpensive hotels. Not realizing it was a major two-week holiday period for Chileans, there was nothing to be had. So there we were driving around and around the congested one-way streets of old-town La Serena at 9:30 PM, stopping at every hostería we could find, with no luck.  

Finally, completely weary and grumpy after 14 hours on the road, just as we had resigned ourselves to either sleeping in the truck (freestyle has its limits: driving at night on unfamiliar roads in most rural areas is not a smart thing to do), we turned a corner and found, with secure courtyard parking, the affordable Hotel Cristobal Colón right off the main square.

After we cleaned up we headed out to find some food, figuring we’d have to settle for something quick and cheap—and discovered a vibrant street party on the Plaza, with craft vendors, dancers in Andean costume, and some of the best music we’ve ever heard, a Chilean-Cuban salsa called ”charanga.” 

Munching spicy beef churrascos (sandwiches), sipping a Calafate ale and a Malbec, our blood pressure sank in direct correlation with the cooling the night air. 

We sighed and clinked glasses and reveled in the Third Law of South American Travel: For every annoyance that happens there is an equal and opposite moment of joy. 

THE STATS

Route: Ushuaia, Argentina to Arequipa, Peru, via Ruta 40 and the Pan-American Highway. 

Distance: 9,855 kilometers / 6,124 miles. 

Time: 167 hours driving. 23 days total. 

Accommodation: 7 nights camping. 16 nights hostels or hotels. 

Longest mileage day: 416 miles / 9 hours.

Diesel per gallon: $3.00–$4.81. Average MPG: 25.

RESOURCES

Photography and videography equipment:

Canon EOS 5D Mark II;  24-10mm f/4 L IS; 300mm f/4 L; EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye; 70-200mm f/4 L

Apple iPhone

Truck: Nissan Navara (YD25DDTi 2.5-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel, 188hp, 330 lb-ft) from PeruMotors.com

Header image credit: Jonathan & Roseann Hanson

The west coast is on fire yet again during a tragic fire season. People have lost their homes and their lives. It is up to you as people who use our national forests to know how to prevent wildfires. That way you can become part of the solution, not the problem. Though many of these current fires were started by nature, most forest fires (87% according to the U.S. Forest Service) are caused by humans.

It is your responsibility to check with local ranger stations, forest service offices, or visitor centers for fire restrictions or area closures. Burn bans are in place for a reason. If regional officials ask you to not have a fire, please heed these warnings. The bans are there to protect property, wilderness areas, and human and animal lives. We all love the forests and we want to be sure there’s enough for everyone to enjoy.

If you’ve checked with the Forest Service and fires are permitted, there are some very important things to consider before you light it up for the first time.

Picking a Spot for a Fire

The first thing to think about is where you’ll have your fire. If your campsite has a fire ring — whether provided by the Forest Service, or a man-made rock ring, that is the spot you should use. 

If you are digging your own fire pit, be sure to research whether digging is permitted. Some public lands forbid digging due to archeological or other concerns. If you can dig, choose a site at least 15 feet away from tents, shrubs, trees, and other flammable objects. The site should be open, level, and free from pine needles or leaves that could catch on fire easily.

Never build a campfire in hazardous or dry conditions — even if there is no burn ban. That’s just common sense. Also take wind into account and choose a spot that is free from gusts (or use a product like MC Ranch Overland’s Original Fire Reflector) to provide a wind barrier.

Preparing Your Campfire Pit

Find a level spot and clear a ten-foot diameter area around your campfire pit. Remove grass, twigs, leaves, and downed wood. Don’t keep your fuel or firewood within ten feet of your fire either. Grab your shovel — (I recommend the DMOS Collective shovels as they fold up for easy storage) and dig your pit at least a foot deep and circle the pit with rocks that you find nearby.

You’re now ready for a campfire.

Building Your Campfire

Once you’ve scouted a great spot and prepared the area, it’s time to build your fire. Make sure you have a source of water, a bucket, and a shovel nearby at all times. Bring your own firewood that you purchase nearby (don’t bring wood from home as it can introduce invasive pests into the local environment.) 

If you’re allowed to gather wood in the National Forest, choose three types of wood from the ground. It is a good time to mention that you should never cut whole trees or branches from live trees (live wood won’t burn and you’ll just be damaging the forest.) Dead standing trees are often home to birds and other wildlife. There should be plenty of tinder, kindling, and fuel available right on the forest floor.

• Tinder: Gather small sticks and dry leaves, grasses, and pine needles — enough to catch your kindling aflame.

• Kindling: Gather sticks smaller than one inch around — again, just enough to get your fuel lit.

• Fuel: These are larger pieces of wood including branches and larger pieces. Keep these stacked upwind and away from your fire.

Loosely pile your tinder in handfuls in the center of your fire pit. Criss cross (or build a ‘log cabin’ with) your kindling around the tinder. Ignite your tinder with a match, lighter, or flint. Add more tinder as the fire grows and then add kindling and fuel to keep the fire going. Keep it small and under control. Pay attention to the weather, as sudden wind gusts can blow embers into nearby vegetation.

Maintaining and Extinguishing Your Campfire

Keep your fire to a manageable size and be certain that pets and children are supervised near the fire. Never leave a campfire unattended by an adult. Add wood as necessary to keep an enjoyable fire going. Allow your wood to burn completely to ash if possible.

When you’re ready to go to bed, hit the trails, or leave camp completely, it is time to extinguish your fire. Pour water from your bucket (here’s a great two-gallon bucket from Granite Gear that folds flat when not in use) drowning all of the embers and unburnt wood. Keep pouring until the hissing sound stops completely. With your shovel, scrape any remaining sticks and logs to remove any embers. Make sure nothing is still smoldering. If it is too hot to touch, it is too hot to leave.

Before you go, scout your site and fire pit for any trash. Pack out everything you packed in. No one wants to see your eggshells and beer cans when they find your incredible campsite later on.

Always be responsible when you light a fire in the backcountry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found a campsite with a fire pit that is still hot to the touch. If we all just follow some simple rules, we can prevent the loss of property and life due to wildfires and keep our public lands open for all for years to come.

My last trip to Baja was in February. February now holds space alongside the morning I woke up in Santa Cruz, California to the news of 9-11 happening in New York, my childhood city. February now reminds me of my dad telling me exactly where he was when JFK was assassinated and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon’s surface. In February, the coronavirus pandemic had yet to become a thing and, when it did become a thing, that last blissful trip to Baja was cemented in my mind.

It makes me so happy in hindsight that I spent this February on the road and out of the country. But enough rambling and reminiscing about the days before COVID stole the show … let’s get back to Baja.

Have you ever planned to set out for a long trip, laid out your gear, loaded your panniers and GPS tracks only to look down and realize your knobbies look more like racing slicks than dual sport tires? No? Me neither. Asking for a friend…

Okay, truth be told, that’s exactly what happened to me a couple days before heading to Baja. I had just dropped a chunk of change on a new rear shock and totally spaced attending to my treads. With 48 hours until takeoff, I didn’t have enough time to order fresh rubber from Revzilla, so I headed to the dealership in the next town over to see what they had in stock.

Cochise Motorsports is a great multi-brand shop with lots of dirt bikes, street bikes, and side by sides — plus an awesome vintage collection that’s worth checking out the next time you find yourself in southern Arizona. What they don’t have, other than the occasional Africa Twin, is many adventure bikes or the tires to suit them. My heart sank a little as I pawed through their backroom looking for dirt-worthy shoes for my BMW.

Scanning the stacks, a TKC80 caught my eye. It was the wrong size for my 21 inch front wheel, but next to the Continental was a perfectly sized set of Dunlop Trailmax Missions. They seemed sturdy enough but looked nothing like the dirt churning, traction-inspiring knobbies that I was hoping for. Nonetheless, I brought them home, put them on the F800GS and headed south a couple days later.

Now, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Mexico over the course of my life. It started in my 20s and drifted into my 30s when I was a travel-obsessed young vagabond living in my Toyota pickup with a couple of dogs and the occasional boyfriend. Usually in search of rocks to climb, cheap living, and beaches, I had done a fair amount of mainland exploring, but up until February, I had never been to Baja.

When Sterling, my longtime (i.e., not occasional) boyfriend, and I set our sights on Baja for a winter trip, we had a couple weeks free of work responsibilities at our little motel in Bisbee and plans for a proper vacation on our motorbikes. We crossed the border just a few miles south of Bisbee in Naco. You can’t get vehicle importation permits in Naco, but if you stick to the Zona Libre, you don’t need them. So, we headed south through Sonora to San Carlos to take the ferry from Guaymas to Santa Rosalia.

In classic Mexico fashion, the ferry was a couple days late in departing Guaymas and we kicked around the beaches, bars, and coffee shops of San Carlos waiting to load the bikes onto the lower deck for the overnight water crossing. 

The ferry finally spit us out in Santa Rosalia before dawn and we brewed coffee on the steps of Panaderia El Boleo waiting for the first hot pastries to roll out of the oven. From Santa Rosalia, we spent the next two weeks meandering down, and then back up, the peninsula. Needless to say, the whole trip was pure Baja bliss.

I could go on at length about the tranquility of Bahia Conception or the gnarly delight of the Mulege Road to San Juanico and its countless water crossings. I could also dive into culinary minutiae about the plentitude of fish tacos, the incredible loaves of bread at Caffé El Triunfo, and the pescado blanco that was swimming mere moments before eating it at Playa Buenaventura. The mixologist in me could endlessly expound upon the variety of mezcals that crossed my lips and my margarita aficionado was truly satisfied at the simple perfection of tequila, lime, and salt.

All that aside, our Baja trip was the stuff that adventure motorcycle dreams are made of. There were free campsites whenever we wanted them and cheap hotels when we didn’t. We were lulled to sleep by the sound of the surf on the shores of Cabo Pulmo and occasionally awakened by a tamale guy coming along in the morning. Roads on the map were sometimes just a suggestion, lending themselves to the sort of riding that takes your breath away with beauty and simultaneously keeps you on your toes. After all, you are here for the adventure. 

Sterling, a frequenter of Baja over the years, put a video together that sums up our Baja trip nicely (and politely leaves out the part about me hoisting my bike out of that Mulege Road water crossing). It’s a lovely little video and it will give you a sense of the route we took in February as we ambled around the peninsula. 

Also, about those tires I picked up at the eleventh hour before our departure, I was beyond impressed. I’ll leave out the nitty gritty about tread depth and rubber compounds, but the Dunlop Trailmax Missions were altogether awesome. My pre-Baja concerns were quickly abated as soon as we hit that south of the border grit and the tires far exceeded my expectations. 

The best adventure rides often include long stretches of knobby-polishing pavement and Baja was no exception. Unlike some of the other 50/50s, the Mission’s aggressive tread is carved into the surface of the tire, which makes for tons of grip off-road while maintaining impressive surface contact on the tarmac. 

I should also mention that the darn things last forever. If you’re the kind of person who likes replacing your rear tire every couple thousand miles, this is not the tire for you. Shortly after returning to the states from Baja, I sold my GS with 3500 miles on the Missions and they looked none worse for wear. In fact, Dunlop claims that the rear will last for over 8000 miles, so when I get to spend twice as long in Baja next time, I won’t have to worry about swapping treads mid-journey.

I’m not sure when that next trip to Baja will be, but it sure won’t stop me from daydreaming. At this time, Mexico is still a Level 3 Travel Advisory by the CDC with heavy restrictions from the State Department. Perhaps I just need to make my case at the border that going back to Baja truly constitutes “essential travel.” Because, really, what could be more essential than fish tacos, beach camping, and an endless supply of incredible adventure riding?

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

EXPLORING OVERLAND

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With a 6,000-kilometer shakedown outback expedition completed, the Troopy back in Sydney at the Expedition Centre with Daniel Fluckiger, and us back in Arizona, we embarked on a final round of long-distance modifications based on the specifications we sketched up on the plane en route home (we kept careful notes of all our “wants” and took measurements, created mock-ups on the iPad Pro using the Paper app and emailed them to Daniel).

Daniel manufactured a modular plywood cabinet/galley insert for the Troopy. But he altered it to our design, incorporating a spot to strap in our Kanz Kitchen: a chuck box with pot and dish storage, a drop-down work surface, and an ultra-rugged Partner Steel propane stove. The Kanz can be removed and set up on legs outside in fair weather, so we’re not confined to cooking inside.

The rest of the cabinetry included an L-shaped bench with huge storage underneath and a slot that stores a folding table for outside dining and work. On the counter adjacent the chuck box is a sink and faucet, which draws through an electric pump from a 59-liter (16-gallon) stainless-steel water tank bolted securely underneath the floor between the chassis rails, in the best possible spot for weight distribution. A digital readout below the sink shows the remaining supply, along with battery voltage level.

We wanted to make sure monitoring and maintenance of the various systems would be easy, and Daniel’s cabinet design had that covered. A recessed compartment directly behind the driver’s seat contains the water pump, solar charge controller, and the fuse panel for all the 12-volt accessories. Also hard-mounted there is an ARB Twin air compressor, which I had tested on the first trip and found to be one of the fastest units we’d ever tried. A high-quality compressor is key to being able to air the tires down and up for optimum traction and flotation — and, of course, for easy and fast tire repairs. The compartment has enough room left over to hold a tire plug kit and the remote control for the winch.

Our 6,000 kilometers had revealed serious deficiencies in the stock Land Cruiser seats, mostly from 24 years of what had apparently been proper beefy outback Australians using them. We debated having them rebuilt, but then decided that if this was going to be a long-term, long-distance vehicle for us it would be worth investing, so we ordered a pair of Recaro Specialist M seats with adjustable lumbar support. And, of course, the first thing you do after installing such expensive, beautiful seats is . . . cover them, so they don’t get dirty. A pair of canvas covers from SupaFit will do so while maintaining breathability.

For outside living, we installed an Eezi-Awn Bat 270 awning, which deploys in seconds from a pouch mounted to the left roof of the vehicle to provide 270 degrees of shade and rain protection.  Three extendable poles drop from the arms for support, and can be staked out in a breeze. If we need more protection or privacy, a pair of wall panels can be attached to any of the sides. 

Our last addition was a rear bumper from Kaymar, the Australian maker whose products have brought up the rear of vehicles in the Outback for over 30 years. We added two swingaways to ours. We bolted a spare tire on the right and two NATO jerry cans on the left, one for water and one for fuel. We then added a rack to hold a bulk gas (propane) bottle so it can feed the Partner Steel stove either inside or out.

The next shakedown took us across the Bass Strait by ferry to Tasmania, where we completed a semi-circumnavigation of the island. The combination of Troopy and modifications was perfect — we had a comfortable camp completely set up within ten minutes of stopping, rain or shine. The single thing we noticed was a slight rear droop on the Troopy’s heavy-duty suspension, and a bit more body lean than we thought optimal in corners — hardly surprising given our additions. 

Once more Daniel had the answer, courtesy the modestly named Ultimate Suspension, just outside Sydney. Unlike most shops that would just bolt in heavier springs and shocks, Ultimate Suspension lives up to their hype by first performing a complete analysis of the loaded vehicle, including weighing each corner and graphing dynamometer readouts of shock absorber performance. Ours was . . . not bad. But the company’s techs recommended specific new springs, twin-tube gas shocks, and a product called Sumo Springs Load Share Bump Stops to provide extra overload protection in the rear.

Our third trip — 3,000 kilometers on tarmac and another 3,000 on dirt through the Red Center of Australia — proved the worth of the new suspension. The ride regained firmness, the roll in corners was much reduced, and the truck sat level even fully loaded. We experienced just one issue on the trip: persistent clogging of the twin prefilters in the fuel system. Evaluation at the ARB shop in Adelaide (once we’d returned home) showed significant corrosion in both tanks, so after manager Brad Newham consulted with us long-distance they replaced the front tank with a stock factory unit, and the back one with a Long Ranger replacement, bumping its capacity from 90 liters to 180, and taking the total onboard fuel capacity to an impressive 270 liters (71 gallons) — not counting the jerry can on the rack. 

We exploited that capacity the following summer (winter in Oz), when we returned with Graham and Connie to drive the Len Bedell Highway (and Connie Sue Highway) from Coober Pedy to Perth. We even got to exploit the ARB rear differential lock we had installed at the same time as the Long-Ranger.

From Perth the two Land Cruisers headed (via shared container) to Durban, South Africa. There we joined them in July, 2019 for an epic crossing from one coast of Africa to another, taking in some of the continent’s most spectacular wildlife and scenery.

And that’s a story for another time.

Header image credit: Jonathan and Roseann Hanson

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER, ZACH ELSEMAN.

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We had been traveling full-time for almost a year when we got the idea to try our luck south of the United States border in Baja California. My wife Rachael and I knew that our school bus conversion, as capable and comfortable as it was for traveling US Forest Service roads, was no match for the off-road driving that lay ahead of us in Baja. We found a clapped-out old  Toyota 4Runner, invested just enough money and work into it to make it presentable, and hit the road for Mexico. 

The plan was to housesit at a ranch in Baja Norte near iconic Baja 1,000 stopover, Mike’s Sky Ranch for about four months and use our time off at the house to explore the peninsula. We later found out that round-the-world overland traveler Graeme Belle and his family house sat in the very same house while crossing North America — good company to be in. The homeowners warned us of the deteriorated “driveway” that would take nearly an hour to traverse in 4-HI. The more they told us about the 1,200-acre ranch, the more excited we were to get there and explore.

After saying our goodbyes to family and friends who were insistent that Mexico was sketchy and dangerous, we pointed our 4Runner west. We burned up the state highways and backroads across the Southwest from our town in Oklahoma at a feverish 63 miles per hour and crossed the border at Tecate, a quaint little town known best for its namesake, Tecate beer.

As we approached the border gate we were shuffled over to secondary inspection, which was expected. Our 1986 Toyota 4Runner was loaded to the gills with a roof tent, a big refrigerator, enough camera gear to shoot a feature film, and all of the things we thought we would need for the next four months. Rachael and I are capable of packing as little as possible for multi-week backpacking trips but we are the same people that have an oven and a diesel heater in a converted school bus. Building and packing the Toyota was a challenge as we sought to balance the items and gear that we would need to be self-sufficient without overwhelming our poor little 116-horsepower engine.  

Our truck was well-loved and got a new suspension setup and a paint job before we embarked for Mexico. In hindsight, the sweet-smelling exhaust and dry-rotting tires should have been addressed before traveling some five-thousand miles overland. Money was low and wanderlust was high. So, we opted to risk it and carry an extra coolant jug and a solid spare tire, just in case. While in Baja, we used both. 

 The agents at the port of entry did a simple search and let us through to submit our paperwork and passports for our stay. The agent responsible for letting us into the country offered to sell us some of his homegrown honey before proceeding to ask for our documents. We handed over our passports and Forma Migratoria Multiple (FMM), basically a visitor permit available to residents of the U.S. and Canada.

The border official looked at us, looked at our paperwork and immediately handed it back and said a blur of words in Spanish so fast that the only word I caught was “Recibo,” Spanish for receipt. Through weak Spanish skills on our end and broken english on his, with Rachael throwing in the occasional German word by mistake, we figured out that we had left our FMM on the printer in a library in Tucson, AZ and all we had to show for it was the receipt.

What had we done?

The sole piece of paper that would give us legal access to Mexico beyond a seven-day stay was left in a rush to get out of town. Crisis was averted when the border official allowed us entry into Mexico and gave us directions to the nearest internet cafe to print our proper paperwork and get on our way. 

After submitting the proper paperwork and getting our vehicle legally into Mexico and of course, buying a jar of honey from the helpful border agent, we pointed our truck toward the Pacific Ocean. We passed through the trash-laden streets of Tecate, leaving town on the “La Ruta del Vino” that winds around the wine country of Northern Baja.

Gently rolling hills reveal vineyard after vineyard, most with open parking lots available for weary travelers to camp at with the purchase of a couple of bottles of good wine. We had our eyes set on a more beach-y location. Our next stop was spending the night in Ensenada to load up on several weeks of supplies and food before meeting the homeowners of the ranch and making the six-hour drive to our house-sitting assignment in the mountains. 

We settled into a camp a few miles outside of Ensenada and spent the evening digging holes on the beach in hopes of locating the infamous hot springs at La Jolla Beach Camp. Our neighbors were Swiss nationals traveling in a massive expedition vehicle on a Pan American trip to Alaska, so we knew that we had at least picked the right place to camp on the first night.

We woke to the sound of waves and seagulls and quickly packed up camp and made our way to town to gather enough food for two weeks at the completely off-grid house. Apparently the locals in Ensenada buy their eggs in bulk because amongst our groceries was a flat of thirty-six eggs, the smallest quantity available at the market. We met the owners of the house, a Canadian couple, at a taco shack near our campsite and got all of the information about the house that we might need.

Solar powered, check!

Water comes from the creek, check!

If you get in trouble, call the Mexican Army … Wait, what was that last part?

We thanked them for the opportunity and hit the road to try and make the house by dark. We were unsuccessful and spent the night on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, one of the best campsites we have ever had to this day. The next morning we were woken up by the sound of work crews walking down to the beach to collect rocks that would later be sold at Lowes or Home Depot in the states. We packed up and made our first Easterly turn in over a week to leave the relative security of the peninsular highway and began driving over sixty kilometers from sea level to the ranch at an elevation around 6,000 feet (1828m).

The first 58 kilometers were potholed and sometimes a little steep for our struggling four-cylinder, but it was nothing compared to the condition of the cow-trail that took us off of the pavement to the house. This first attempt to travel the “driveway” took us approximately 90-minutes to complete once we had left pavement and we spent nearly the entire time in four-wheel drive. Over time it got easier to navigate once we got used to the area and as we built confidence in our vehicle and driving abilities.

After an hour and a half of some of the most fun we had ever had in our truck, Rachael and I in our little beat up truck with all 36 eggs that we had purchased in Ensenada onboard made it to the house that we would call home for the next four months.

We met the groundskeeper, Betto, who instructed us, in the few english words that he knew, how to operate the water pump that would push water uphill to a holding tank for our later consumption. He showed us the solar system and gave us a tour of the beautiful adobe home. And, just like that, he left for his allotted 10-days off each month and left us to marvel at the absolute beauty of the Sierra de san Pedro de Mártir mountain range that seemed to explode out of the ground all around us.

As Betto climbed into his similarly cared-for Toyota 4Runner and bombed down the driveway,  we heard, for the first time, the overwhelming silence and calm that we had been searching for. We had reached a milestone for us — we were in a foreign country, in an unproven vehicle, with no real plan but to recharge and explore. This house in the mountains of Baja California proved to be the perfect place to start a new adventure. 

In the coming months I will continue to tell our stories of traveling down the Baja Peninsula for the first time. I hope to impart some wisdom (things not to do) and inspire you to travel once it is safe to do so.

Header image credit: Zach Elseman

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

In October 2017 (does that sound like a lifetime ago to anyone else?), I was somewhere in the California desert with the autumn sun spilling low across the horizon with that amber light that lets you know it’s time to find a place to camp. I was riding, for the first time in my life, with three other women. 

Alison, Indy, Tina, and I didn’t spend much time discussing gender on our desert ride towards Joshua Tree. Like all motorcycle trips, our roadside banter mainly consisted of route planning, the lingering heat, and those crazy ideas that pop into your head on a long ride. But the truth of the matter was that it’s a rare day for many of us to ride with a group comprised entirely of women.

There are good reasons to explore the female side of motorcycling, considering the huge movement over the last few years to acknowledge and celebrate the women who ride. There are innumerable events, organizations, and groups of gals gathering together on two wheels.

Now I’m not going to dig into the deep inner workings of gender politics, that’s a little too much unpacking for this piece. Certainly, the playing field is still not fully level, but we live in an era where women have a powerful influence and a strong voice. My goal here is to shed a little light on the female perspective of life and, therefore, motorcycling. 

I’ll preface this by saying that I have distinct feminist tendencies. Feminism, to me, is about supporting, cheering on, and empowering all the rad ladies out there to keep on being rad. Unfortunately, the word ‘feminism’ carries an anti-man-ranting, bra-burning connotation. But that’s not what this is about. In my opinion, there’s no reason to knock men in order to lift women up. In the pursuit of progress, it generally does us no good to make people feel lousy. Life is just so much better when we focus on making each other feel good. 

When I get to thinking about it, one of the things I love most about motorcycling is that I don’t have specifically male riding friends or female riding friends. They’re just friends and awesome ones at that. Motorcycling has a way of being a great equalizer and an epic empowerment tool. It is guaranteed to knock you on your ass a few times, make you feel like a boss, push your limits, rethink your priorities, and seize the day in a way that no other activity can. And those experiences are gender universal. 

Women Riders Now maybe said it best: Although the love of motorcycling is universal to those who ride, most women experience the sport differently than men. Women often learn to ride differently, have different requirements when choosing a bike, and face different mental hurdles when it comes to getting into the sport.

As I opened the panniers to start digging into this, I made a few phone calls to some two-wheeling friends to get their perspective on what it means to be a female motorcyclist. What I discovered is that, at the end of the day, like our male counterparts, we women just love riding. 

When I called Alison DeLapp and Azure O’Neil, two of my moto-wielding coworkers at Overland Expo, the conversation naturally skewed towards traveling. Motorcycles are, on the most fundamental level, a mode of transportation and Azure and Alison have certainly put in their fair share of miles. 

“I loved riding internationally as a female,” Azure said, “it garners a level of respect that might not otherwise be there.” She feels like being a woman on a motorcycle is a catalyst for connection. Azure said it “melts some sort of barrier” and opens up communication in a wonderful way. When you pull up to a checkpoint and take off your helmet, revealing that you are a woman, it gives the guy in the uniform an opportunity for genuine curiosity.

When Alison was soloing through South America, she met up with another woman riding alone and they traveled together for several weeks. She recalled instances where the presence of not one but two women took locals especially by surprise.

“But, wait, where are your husbands?” was the gist of the response when they pulled into a campground together. 

“We equate riding with independence,” Alison said. The surprise associated with seeing women on motorcycles speaks to the fact that we are still overcoming some ingrained stereotypes. Alison said riding reminds her that, “the empowerment of being a woman on a motorcycle is more than just being a motorcyclist.”

There’s something particularly cool about encountering other women while riding, especially young ones. Azure and Alison both spoke about how they loved meeting girls on their travels.

“I loved getting to interact with little girls in the remote villages in South America,” Azure said, “by the look of awe on their faces and their initial shyness, I wondered if maybe they’d never imagined, much less actually encountered, a woman who hadn’t conformed to what we think of as a traditional gender role … never mind one who was riding a motorcycle. I liked to think that seeing a woman in pursuit of a dream may have encouraged these little girls to pursue their own dreams one day.”

Is it possible that, by simply going out for a motorcycle ride, we are unintentionally inspiring others and empowering the future generations? How cool that we live in a time where we women are so far along the path to empowerment. We still certainly have some ground to cover, but thanks to motorcycles, we can cover that ground from behind the handlebars. 

Of course, learning proper techniques and building a strong foundation for all riders is essential, but like Women Riders Now says, women learn differently. So, I called Shalmarie Wilson, the co-founder of SheADV and a motorcycle instructor to get the inside scoop on training women. Shal spends a lot of time teaching off road skills and she sees a distinct need for women-only classes.

From her experience, a group ride or a training takes on an entirely different feel depending on whether it is a single gender or mixed group. Neither is better than the other, but “it changes the whole dynamic to have a woman or man in an otherwise single-gender group,” Shal said, “in a co-ed training class, there is often only one woman with a dozen or more men.” Shal sometimes sees women feeling intimidated in that situation. “It takes women longer to process through things; they can get stuck in their heads.”

For women, having an experience where they can learn at a pace that suits them can be the key to success. Shal says women particularly benefit from experiences where they can keep their confidence up and see other women tackling the same challenges. “Plus, we need more women trainers, training women,” she told me.

Erin Sills is a trainer at Rawhyde in addition to being the co-chair of Women Riders Now (WRN) and a record-holding land speed racer. She describes herself as being “predisposed to speed” and over her years of racing, Erin has seen more and more women get into the sport. She told me that “because women are often smaller, they fit the bikes better and tend to do very well at land speed racing.” In 2019, Erin set the current land speed record of 237.275 miles per hour.

Interestingly enough, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the governing body for land speed racing, does not separate for men and women. Of course, that’s a throwback to a time when the FIM couldn’t conceive of something so preposterous as women racing motorcycles, but I think it does wonders for serving gender equality today.

Erin noted that the mission of WRN is to be the “number one resource for women who ride and the men that ride with them.” Truly, we’re all out there together and all that matters is that you’re riding. 

I feel like this is the opportunity that motorcycling affords us. Riding levels the playing field because the machine itself does not differentiate between who is behind the handlebars. I love that I get to live in a time where women and men ride alongside one another and I love that motorcycles are a perfect vehicle for equality.

On our phone call, Erin described her involvement in land speed racing as the “intersection of passion and opportunity.” That concept resonated with me and I’ve been riffing on it ever since we spoke. Motorcycling, perhaps for all of us, falls at that intersection. 

Indy Saini followed that passion across the country in search of other women who ride. Indy is a filmmaker in the process of creating a series called “Women In The Front Seat.” She traveled across the country on her bike interviewing female motorcyclists. What she found was that women ride, not to prove a point, but to do what feeds their souls.

Motorcycling is, in so many ways, a symbol of strength and independence, but that is not the ‘why’ behind ‘why we ride.’ We ride because we love it, because it’s ridiculously fun, because it’s a good way to get through rush hour traffic or see the world, and it’s as practical as it is pure pleasure as it is soul-stretching and challenging. We ride because there just happens to be a motorbike waiting for us at our own intersection of passion and opportunity. 

On her 5,000-mile trip, Indy interviewed women ranging from their 20s to their 70s. She discovered an intense camaraderie and a confidence of sisterhood amongst female motorcyclists. She noticed that women who ride see themselves as motorcyclists first and foremost, before considering their gender. None of the women that she interviewed were riding to prove a point, “I’m just doing what feeds my soul,” they would tell her. 

Indy was awestruck by how readily people would up to her, share their vulnerabilities, and express themselves authentically. She was a complete stranger, but the solidarity of being another woman on a motorbike led to a depth of connection that might not have been there otherwise. The whole experience, “opened my heart and changed me as a human,” Indy said.

If you’ve made it this far in the article, you should definitely take a moment to watch Indy’s movie trailer. It is a wonderful reminder that we are part of a brilliant community. 

Despite all my conversations, I haven’t come up with some laser-focused definition of what it means to be a woman who rides. After all, each one of us gets to define that for ourselves.

What I do know is there are more of us out there riding than ever before, ripping it up at Bonneville, taking on roles as off road instructors, traveling around the world, and inspiring younger generations through our very presence. Between all the solidarity and sisterhood, it’s wonderful to be a woman who rides and I love that we are riding the perfect vehicle.

P.S. The title of this article was inspired by Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s book, “The Perfect Vehicle.” It’s excellent and I highly recommend reading it.

EXPLORING OVERLAND

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Part 1: First You Buy a Land Cruiser, Then You Saw Off the Roof

By Jonathan Hanson

What is the ultimate expedition vehicle? Of course, there really is no such thing. Nominating just one would be as difficult as defining the word “expedition,” which I’ve heard used to describe everything from the Apollo 11 mission to a niece’s trip to a local mall.

But if we agree that an expedition involves something beyond binge shopping, we can also agree that an expedition vehicle must be suitable for something beyond, say, weekend camping trips to the local national forest — not that it can’t be used for such. Broadly, we’re referring to a vehicle designed by the manufacturer for extended journeying in harsh country, where outside mechanical help might be tens or even hundreds of miles away, and where a breakdown that cannot be fixed on site could result in a survival situation if traveling solo.

Thus, reliability is absolutely paramount, followed by its close relative, durability — mechanical and structural integrity sufficient to withstand prolonged use in countries where paved roads are the exception rather than the rule. Add in the parameters of off-road ability, fuel capacity (and economy) for long no-resupply routes, cargo capacity (and a GVWR to handle it), third-world parts availability, and at least a modicum of comfort, and it is clear no single vehicle on earth could top every category.

Several come close in my experience, for differing reasons: The Land Rover Defender 110, the mighty (and mightily expensive) Mercedes G-Wagen Professional, the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited fitted with the world-market turbodiesel. However, given that ultimate priority of reliability and durability, one perhaps comes even closer: Toyota’s 70 Series Land Cruiser Troop Carrier, or ‘Troopy’ as it is known familiarly to legions of professional hunters, guides, scientists, NGO procurement officers, and various insurgent groups.

Combining oversize running gear on a fully boxed chassis, a six-cylinder diesel engine so bombproof it has remained in production for 25 years, a cargo area large enough to return echoes, and other expedition-ready features such as dual fuel tanks totaling 180 liters (47 gallons), and factory optional differential locks, it’s no wonder the Troopy has come to dominate its niche while former fierce competitors such as the Defender have faded away.

Roseann and I have been lucky enough to put thousands of miles on numerous Troopies in North and East Africa doing conservation and guiding work, with stellar service. One egregiously abused example furnished by a crooked fixer in Tanzania had no body seals left, and constantly sucked dust into the cockpit in choking density sufficient to obscure the driver’s vision. We hated that thing by the end of the trip — but it ran flawlessly.

We’ve long speculated on just how cool it would be to own a Troopy, perhaps even import it to the United States, where they were never officially sold. For once, we found time to be on our side. The U.S. allows virtually any vehicle over 25 years old to be imported without the need to conform to current standards. That means the first years of Troopies powered by that superb 1HZ engine — introduced in 1990 — are now eligible (earlier years made do with the equally reliable, but anemic, 2H diesel). In 2016, after purchasing airline tickets for a planned trip to Australia, we found that rental companies refused to let us take their Hilux pickups on our planned route across the Simpson Desert via the remote Madigan Line. It was but a small leap to conclude, “Hey, why don’t we just …”

The good news is, Troopies are as ubiquitous in Oz as F-150s are in the U.S. Online searching via the websites gumtree.com.au and AUStoUSA.com uncovered lots of candidates. The not-so-good news is that, like most 4×4 vehicles of the era, Troopies are susceptible to rust in damp environments. And despite the fact that 70 percent of Australia is desert, 90% of the population lives within a few miles of the coast — and Australians love to drive on the beach and fish.

I found Troopies of “legal age” starting at less than $6,000 U.S., but we decided that if we were going to import our dream vehicle, we should get the best one possible. I finally tagged a low-mileage, rust-free (according to the dealer), extremely clean example in Darwin, on the north coast, for $16,000 U.S. It was a 1993, meaning we’d be able to import it in 2018. We debated, stared at the photos for hours, then held our breath and initiated the wire transfer.

Done? Barely started. Since making the commitment to buy, we’d been brainstorming regarding the way we wanted to outfit it, based on our experiences with personal vehicles ranging from a 1973 FJ40 to a 2012 Tacoma, overlanding setups ranging from backpacking tents to roof tents to Four Wheel Campers, plus a raft of rental and review vehicles with widely different setups. Given the cavernous cargo bay of the Troopy, we wanted to see if it would accommodate a built-up interior that would facilitate extended, self-supported backcountry travel — the very definition of overlanding. Items on the list included adequate storage, seating for two, a stove and sink, a minimum 15-gallon water tank and pump-fed faucet, a 12-volt fridge, and sleeping arrangements. Standing headroom? That would be nice for inclement weather when we needed to hole up, but we didn’t want to permanently alter the profile of the vehicle — no bulbous grafted-on camper units that could both compromise its structural integrity and alter the height, width, and departure angle.

However, our flights for that Simpson Desert trip were now just a few weeks away. What could we possibly have done in that time?

Another online search led us to the Expedition Centre in Sydney. Daniel Fluckiger, the Swiss/Australian owner, specializes in exactly the sort of of vehicle preparation we had in mind, and manufactures an aluminum pop-top conversion for the Troopy (and the Defender 110) that provides standing headroom in the back of the vehicle when raised, and includes a drop-down double bed with mattress, yet when closed raises the height of the vehicle only 30mm — barely an inch. He immediately responded to our emails, and to our surprise said he thought he could have the pop-top installed by our arrival. 

Therefore, shortly after buying a Land Cruiser sight unseen, it was on a train to Sydney to have its roof sawed off.

We arrived in Australia with our friends Graham and Connie (who had bought their own Troopy) in time to watch Daniel button up the pop-top. He had also hard-mounted a 125-Watt photovoltaic panel on the rear of the aluminum roof, and brackets to secure a pair of MaxTrax recovery mats—the best of their kind in my experience—to the front. The pop-top proved to be just what we had hoped for—extremely rigid yet easy to raise on gas struts, well-ventilated, with a comfortable bed that lifted out of the way on its own struts.

With only a few days before we left for the bush, we now concentrated on functional accessories. Daniel installed a Warn XD9000 winch in the existing ARB bumper, spooled with 100 feet of 3/8-inch Dyneema line. The debate — if there ever really was one — between steel and synthetic winch line ended for me a long time ago: The massive safety advantage and handling ease of synthetic is unequivocal, added to which is the ease of splicing an unlikely break to regain virtually full strength.

It is axiomatic that when traveling in underdeveloped areas of the world you never, ever drive at night. It’s also axiomatic that you always wind up driving at night. Given Australia’s abundance of 150-pound nocturnal marsupials with hopping gaits that crest at about windshield level, high-quality driving lamps are not just a fashion statement. Therefore we installed a pair of ARB’s Intensity 21 round LED lamps, which project a brilliant cone of light down the road, with none of the spurious violet fringing or dead spots of cheaper LED lamps I’ve used. They would prove their worth.

Our plans for that giant cargo area would have to wait, so for this trip we simply strapped in our gear, along with a National Luna Weekender combination fridge/freezer, hooked to an auxiliary battery and the solar panel. While Graham and I shopped for sufficient tools to assemble a basic kit (discovering that automotive tools in Australia are either complete rubbish or very, very expensive), Roseann and Connie supervised the rest of the provisioning. Then we set off on a three-day (and, inevitably, night), kangaroo-dodging blast to reach Alice Springs, followed by a ten-day crossing of the Madigan Line and its 1,100 sand dunes, during which both Troopies performed excellently — and returned an impressive 16 mpg U.S. in the sand, in four-wheel drive.

During this journey we spent a lot of time keeping notes on our wish list for an interior build, visualizing where the fridge and Kanz Kitchen would go, how much storage we would want.

All too soon we were on the plane heading back to Arizona, but by the time we landed we had sketches ready to send to Daniel for a custom interior and additional accessories — and in six months, a plan to return to explore even farther down under: Tasmania.

Look for Part 2 in August’s Field Notes. We’ll also be hosting a Tour of the Troopy during the August 8 Overland Expo Virtual Summer 2020 edition.

Header image credit: Jonathan Hanson

My wife Astrid and I travel everywhere with our 10-year-old rescue Jack Russell Terrier named Sir Digby. Over the past six and half years, Digby has traveled extensively in Western Canada, all over the U.S. – typically in the desert Southwest, and down the Baja Peninsula. We’ve learned a ton by having Digby on trips with us and I hope to share some of the things we’ve learned so you feel comfortable traveling with your dog, too.

Sure, traveling with a dog isn’t easy, but who better to share your adventures with than your four-legged friend? If you don’t currently travel with a companion animal, there are just a few things to think about before you take that first trip. If you already do, I hope to cover some things that you might not have thought about before. If you have any questions, hit me up on Instagram @overlandnomads.

Essential Things to Bring

There are a few essentials to bring with you, if you take your dog into the backcountry. Download the checklist here.

• Food and Water: Bring enough for your entire trip or plan how you will get ingredients to make your dog’s food on the road. Consider how you’ll store fresh food versus canned or bagged. Just like humans, a dog will require at least one ounce of water per pound of body weight per day. For example, a dog like Digby is 20 pounds and requires 20 ounces of water per day. Lots of factors affect how much water your dog drinks, like environmental temperature and exercise. Water is the single limiting factor to spending large amounts of time off-grid. Make sure to bring enough. Don’t forget to bring a dog bowl with you.

• Treats and Snacks: A camping trip just isn’t the same without treats and snacks, am I right? Make sure you bring your dog’s favorites, too. Keep them in an easily accessible place so you can get your buddy some sustenance between meals.

• Leash, Collar/Harness, or Tie Out: We often let Digby roam around off leash when we’re in camp alone. When any other humans or animals are nearby we always keep him on a lead and tie out so he doesn’t bother anyone. Digby has a pretty high prey drive and he will chase any squirrel, chipmunk, or other small animal he sees. A leash and tie out keeps him and other forest critters safe.

• First Aid and Med Kits: Keep a kit with first aid for you and your dog. Most first-aid items can be used interchangeably. Include bandages, gauze, adhesive tape, hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls or swabs, saline solution, alcohol wipes, towels, gloves, tweezers, and antibiotic ointment. Keep a separate kit with all of your buddy’s meds too.

• Poop Bags: There is no ‘Poop Fairy!’ Clean up your dog poop. Enough said? I can’t tell you how many times a great campsite was spoiled with dog poop left in it. If we’re practicing Tread Lightly principles, that includes keeping your campsite cleaner than you found it.

• Toys, Bed, Blankets: Bring along things that keep your dog entertained like tennis balls and toys. Also bring things that make your dog comfortable like a bed or cot and a blanket. It gets cold in the desert!

Essential Vaccinations

To cross international borders, your pet must be healthy, look healthy, and be well groomed or it can be turned away. It is required that all pets are up-to-date with rabies shots and other vaccinations. Carry document(s) from your vet certifying general good health and bring your vaccination records. Check requirements at each border crossing before you arrive so you aren’t surprised. 

There are a few Core Vaccinations and a few Non-Core Vaccinations that are nice to have to keep your pet safe. The only vaccination that we’ve ever been asked about at the border is a current rabies vaccination, but again, check requirements and be prepared. I’m not a veterinarian, so if you have specific questions about these vaccinations, make an appointment with your vet!

• Core Vaccinations: 

  • Rabies

  • CAV-2 Distemper/ Parvo/ Adenovirus

  • Leptospira

• Non-Core Vaccinations: 

  • Canine Influenza

  • Canine Parainfluenza and Bordetella

  • Lyme

A Word About Vets

You’ll definitely need to keep your pup healthy while you’re on the road. Depending on the length of your trip, you will probably need to find a vet in the area or country you’re traveling in to perform routine care & check ups, prescribe meds, and administer booster vaccines. Check forums, Yelp, and Google for vets if you’re not in a hurry. 

If you are in an emergency situation, it is important to be as prepared as you can before you need a vet. Google can help you find an emergency vet if you have service. You can also ask a local (if possible). Make sure you know the word for veterinarian in the language spoken locally.

Taking Your Dog to See the Sights

There is a lot to consider here so your day out on the trails or at the sights is fun for the entire pack.

On the Trails: Make sure your buddy is even allowed on trails. Most State and National Parks don’t allow dogs on the trails. If dogs are allowed, please understand that you are responsible for both your actions and the actions of your dog. Be respectful that some people don’t love dogs as much as you do and keep your dog leashed or under strict voice control at all times. Common sense and courtesy go a long way! A leash also helps here to keep your four-legged friend away from natural hazards like cliffs, boulders, rivers, and wildlife.

Sightseeing: Again, ask yourself if your dog is allowed at the sights. Most monuments and ruins do not allow dogs. What is your plan if your dog isn’t allowed? You can consider boarding or pet sitting if that is an option. Maybe your partner hangs back to watch the fur kid one day and you do it the next so you can see the sights? Make sure you have everything covered to make it easy and enjoyable for you and your buddy. It should go without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – NEVER, and I mean, NEVER leave your dog inside a vehicle on a hot day. On an 80º day, it takes ten minutes for the temperature in a parked car to get to 100 degrees. That’s no way to treat your furry friend!

Where Will Your Dog Sleep?

If your dog is anything like Digby, they’ll be sleeping in your tent with you. Your dog might not be comfortable in a tent and would rather sleep in your rig or in the bed of your truck. Whatever the case, you should always test how well your dog does in a tent or in your vehicle BEFORE you go on that multi-week trip across the country or multi-year trip around the world. Try a test trip one weekend or simply set up your tent in your backyard and test it out there.

Here’s a few things to think about when it comes to sleeping arrangements.

Ground Tent: If you’re planning to use a ground tent for you and your dog, first examine your current tent and make sure it will work. Rugged materials are a must since dog claws tend to destroy even the most well-built tent. Do you have a vestibule? They are a good spot to clean your dog’s paws before heading in for sleep. Two door tents tend to be a better option as well, so you don’t have to climb over your dog to get in and out of the tent.

Rooftop Tent: If you have a rooftop tent you’ll need to consider how you’ll get your dog in and out of the tent each day. It is easy if your dog is 20 pounds, not so easy if your dog is 90 pounds. Also be aware that rooftop tents are often narrower and shorter than many ground tents. Cramming a dog into an already crowded rooftop tent won’t work for everyone and will lead to a lack of sleep for everyone.

In-Vehicle or In-Truck-Bed: Some dogs don’t like to sleep with you, so you’ll need to find a spot in your rig to set up their sleeping area. Consider heat, cold, and make sure they have enough water to last the night. Also consider forest critters and whether or not you want your dog sleeping alone in your vehicle.

Overlanding with your dog is fun! With a little prior planning, your dog can become an integral part of your adventures. By anticipating what you pup needs you’ll all have a great time out in the wilderness! Check out my presentation from Overland Expo Virtual Spring if you’d like!

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

It’s a common practice amongst those of us with a passion for petrol and dirt to cap off a day of exploring with an adult beverage. Be it a gin and tonic or a frosty IPA, there’s something particularly refreshing about the combination of booze plus CO2 to toast out a day of off-camber ramblings.

Whatever your post-ride ritual is, as you pry off your riding boots, why not try a trail-worthy wine spritzer for a twist on your typical Off-Road Mixology regimen? 

For this article, I selected a number of different canned white wines. The thinking was that maybe I would find a diamond in the rough that could become a mainstay for campsite sipping. It seemed like a good idea at the time, considering that canned wine is generally available at grocery stores and travels well. Alas, I did not uncover any oenological gems. But therein lies the beauty of the spritz; each had a chance to shine with the simple addition of soda water. 

The biggest consideration when planning for spritzers in the backcountry is the availability of ice. If you’re traveling in your truck and have a cooler, you’re all set. If traveling by motorcycle, you’ll have to plan ahead a bit more. I often fill one of my insulated bottles with ice at my pre-camp fuel stop and purchase a bottle of water to refill the thermos once the ice is gone. Ice is essential to the wine spritzer, as drinking warm white wine would just be a bummer.

The history of overlanding and wine spritzers is so deeply intertwined that … wait. No, there is actually no connection whatsoever, other than the fact that D.I.Y. wine coolers make for a perfect libation after adventuring. Believe me, I like a good IPA after a long day in the dirt as much as the next girl. But these quaffable cocktails are perfectly suited to warm summer campouts.

The Classic Spritzer

The spritzer has its roots in ancient Greece, when drinking wine without mixing it with water was wholly frowned upon (perhaps that has something to do with the pungent nature of Parthenon-era fermentation techniques?). The modern spritz can be traced back to the 19th century with the invention of soda water and grew in popularity during the robust cocktail culture of the early 1900s.

Believe me, I like a good IPA after a long day in the dirt as much as the next girl. But these quaffable cocktails are perfectly suited to warm summer campouts.

Spritzers can be made with any dry white wine and adjusted to taste. For my classic spritzer, I used Dark Horse Pinot Grigio. It was my favorite of the canned wines I brought to the campsite and, most likely, the only one that I would consider bringing on another adventure for sipping straight. I typically suggest a 2:1 ratio for wine to sparkling water plus a healthy squeeze of lime, but feel free to tweak this to suit your tastes.

• 5oz Dry White Wine

• 3oz Soda Water

• Lime or Lemon Wedge

Fill your cup with ice, add wine and soda, and squeeze a wedge or two of citrus over the top. Enjoy!

The Bicicletta

The earliest definition of a cocktail, circa 1806, is a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters. Although the spirits and sugar have persisted as familiar flavors in the standard American diet, the bitter element is often neglected much to the chagrin of our digestive enzymes. No overlander should be without a strong digestive system, and what better to keep you in top form than the inclusion of that bitter element into your off-road imbibing? 

The Bicicletta features Campari, a bitter apéritif with a citrusy, herbaceous flavor. Those bitters act as a booster pack, kicking your hydrochloric acid and enzyme production into high gear. Mix that with some soda water and you’ve got a great jumpstart on digesting that dehydrated meal packet you brought along for dinner.

The addition of Campari to your wine spritzer is also a great way to mask a less-than-stellar wine. For my Bicycletta, I used a can of Pomelo Sauvignon Blanc, which wasn’t terrible but it probably won’t be invited to the next camping trip. 

• 3oz Dry White Wine

• 2oz Campari

• 3oz Soda Water

• Lemon Slice

Fill your glass with ice, add wine and Campari. Top with soda water and a healthy squeeze of lemon. Saluti!

The Fancy Version 

What’s the best adventure motorcycle? The one in your garage. Don’t have all the bells and whistles bolted to your truck? No problem, just go out there and get after it. I’m a big proponent of not letting a lack of fancy gear stop you from heading out on an adventure. That said, sometimes getting a little extra classy is the right thing to do.

Now I’m sure that when you’re packing for an overland trip, fresh strawberries probably aren’t at the top of your list. But as I raided the fridge for this article, I found strawberries and a bunch of mint that didn’t make it into my mojitos last weekend. What choice did I have but to put gas in the van and bring along some rosé for my third spritzer?

If the thought of a wine spritzer conjures up ideas of syrupy sweet hangovers-waiting-to-happen, you’re probably thinking about the horrific wine coolers of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Notice that there is no additional sweetener in any of these recipes. The goal of your wine spritzer is to create something as light and refreshing as a cold beer: crisp, dry, flavorful, and lower in alcohol than a spirit-centric cocktail. 

For the fancy spritzer, I sliced and muddled a couple of strawberries along with the mint. I used a can of AVA Grace Rosé which blended surprisingly well with the berries but it was a little sweeter that I typically like for un-spritzed sipping.

• 5oz Dry White Wine

• 3oz Soda Water

• 3 Fresh Strawberries

• 6-8 Mint Leaves

Muddle strawberries and mint in the bottom of your glass. Add ice and wine, top with soda water and an optional squeeze of lemon. Sip and be fancy!

Hopefully you’ll find these spritzers delightful after a day of perfect dirt roads. Please remember that consuming alcohol and attempting any sort of vehicle-based activity is a terrible idea (not to mention, illegal). Save these boozy treats for the post-adventure campsite with your kickstand fully down, tent pitched, and fire stoked for an evening of hanging with friends — preferably someplace beautiful and remote.

Cheers to that!

Photos by Sterling Noren

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER, ZACH ELSEMAN.

FOLLOW ZACH @OKIENOMADS.

It is easy to get caught up in the constant barrage of marketing and advertising efforts telling us that we need the newest, biggest, and fastest adventure rig. A lot of energy is expended at Overland Expo promoting new vehicles and new vehicle parts. But nestled in the corner of every overlanding event and down every backcountry two-track is an old adventure truck that still gets the job done, sometimes better than a brand-new vehicle.

Our journey into old trucks began when we bought a 1986 Toyota 4Runner sight-unseen from a farmer in Oklahoma with the intention of spending a winter in Baja. A family member went to check out the truck and make sure it was straight and ran. The elderly farmer, inundated with news stories of murder and beheadings south of the border, almost didn’t sell us the truck because of our intentions to travel and “get ourselves killed” in Mexico. As is often the case in the South, cash outweighed moral superiority and we walked away with a solid truck. We wouldn’t see our new-ish adventure rig for several months, as we finished up a North America tour in our van.

We learned the following benefits of owning an older truck. We hope that, through our process of building a more senior rig, someone else will be motivated to keep an old truck on the road … or off of it.

Repairs and Maintenance are Simple

Arguably the most appealing aspect of owning an old truck is the simplicity. Our truck came equipped with a four-cylinder engine with little in the way of complicated electronics. When something breaks, which is rare in and of itself, diagnosis and repair is simple and often quick. When a major repair is needed, simpler trucks are cheaper and easier to repair. Full engine rebuilds are affordable and engines are customizable with aftermarket options galore. When our 22RE blew a head gasket after over 200,000 miles, we were able to find a competent mechanic to rebuild it within ten miles of our home. 

Buying an Old Truck is Cheap

The most obvious reason that someone would purchase an old adventure rig is the minimal cost associated with buying a truck that is over twenty years old. An aged, well-maintained vehicle will cost a bit more than the same truck in bad shape but good maintenance records are worth their weight in gold. Compared with a new or certified-pre-owned vehicle that costs in excess of $25,000, a $5,000 truck is a steal.

We purchased our Toyota for $2,000 and invested around the same amount in new suspension, a paint job, a tune-up, and a roof-top tent for our adventures in Mexico. On our way down the Baja Peninsula, our original radiator developed a leak and we were able to source a cheap replacement radiator that was in stock to keep us on the road until we could source a high-quality replacement back in the U.S.

Senior Adventure Rigs are Buildable

Old adventure trucks are remarkably easy to make your own. The same truck that started its life as a stock grocery-getter can be made into a round-the-world adventure rig or a long-travel desert runner with the right parts. The longer a truck has been around, the greater the chance that a company specializes in that particular truck and has a solution for any shortcomings it may have. While new truck owners are waiting around for parts to come to market, old truck owners are in the bush. 

Our 4Runner build has been a simple one with balance in mind above all else. We opted for a basic suspension setup from brands like Bilstein and Old Man Emu, an engine rebuild using Toyota parts for the most part, and anything that we couldn’t find in a local parts store, we could order from a specialty company like LCE Performance or Marlin Crawler.

Old Trucks are Full of Character

An aspect of old truck ownership that is often overlooked is the character behind a rig that has stories to tell. Each pinstripe and ding are associated with a memory from a trail in Anza Borrego or a shopping cart in Ensenada. This can sometimes be frustrating when a door won’t open just right or hood takes a couple of tries to close, but it pays off every time we get in the truck.

We meet people all the time that pull up to the gas pump or see us on a beach and go out of their way to share a story about a truck like ours that they had when they were younger or before they had a kid. We love hearing stories like this, because it gives us hope that with enough care, our truck can take us on unforgettable adventure and provide us opportunities to make a lifetime of memories.

Old trucks aren’t for everyone. If your vehicle needs to have power everything, syncing capabilities with your phone and the International Space Station, and heated and cooled leather seats, an old rig might not be for you. It will be cheaper and simpler to buy a newer vehicle with the features you require.

However, if you are looking for a vehicle to reliably take you on an affordable adventure and introduce you to like-minded friends at nearly every gas pump, an old truck might be the right adventure rig for you.

DIPSTICKS & DIFFERENTIALS

DIPSTICKS & DIFFERENTIALS IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO SALES DIRECTOR, ANTHONY SICOLA.

FOLLOW ANTHONY @OVERLANDNOMADS

Even though rooftop tents became popular in the U.S. over the past decade, they are not a new phenomenon. In fact, rooftop tents (RTT) have been around since the late 1950s and can be traced back to a single tentmaker, Stefano Stogl, in Milan, Italy. The brand Stogl created is now known as Autohome around the world.

While build styles and materials have changed over the years, RTT remain fairly true to their roots with the two distinct styles: hard-shell and folding fabric models known as soft-shell. 

Picking which one — hard- or soft-shell — is right for you requires some weighing of priorities and prices.

The path to ownership of a new RTT is going to set you back some considerable cash. Before you leap in with both feet, consider how often you’ll be using the tent. If you occasionally camp with your family (four to five times per year), you might want to consider an entry-level RTT. Entry level tents will most likely be soft-shell and will range in price from $1,100 to $2,500. If you adventure more often and/or are looking for something sturdier with often higher quality materials, you should consider a hard-shell fiberglass, carbon fiber, or aluminum RTT. Those are going to set you back $3,000 to $4,000.

A new contender is Redtail Overland’s RTC or Rooftop Camper. This 100% hard-sided tent/camper has built-in solar, a diesel heater, interior and exterior lighting, and more. These are more than a RTT and the price reflects that, retailing for more than $20,000.

Whatever RTT you end up choosing, you’ll want to take into account the advantages and disadvantages of each setup. Usually the only way to do that is to try them out yourself in real-world situations. Luckily, you have access to a guy (me) who had both types of tents and can give you an honest assessment.

Soft-Shell RTT Advantages:

Since folded fabric RTT have a hinged base that cantilevers away from the vehicle, the overall footprint of a tent like this takes up far less room on the roof rack than a hard-sided version. Depending on the total surface area of your roof, that could be a quarter to half of the roof rack that remains open for storage cases, MAXTRAX, or anything else you might want to carry on the roof.

Another advantage is the shade that a cantilevered tent creates over the back or side of your vehicle. If you add an annex room to the underside of the tent, you have a ton of space for storing gear and you have a nice spot to change clothes if needed.

Soft-Shell RTT Disadvantages:

Simply put, folded fabric soft-shell tents aren’t that easy to set up. The tent itself is protected from the elements by a heavy, waterproof cover. To access the tent, one needs to unzip that cover, fold it back and away, open the tent, climb the ladder, tighten the internal frames and insert window fly stays. This requires all sorts of climbing on and around your vehicle.

Most soft-shell RTT can not accommodate your sleeping gear, so that needs to be taken out of your vehicle and set up in the tent. This whole process can take 15-20 minutes. Putting it away is far worse. Like trying to insert a square peg in a round hole, getting the extra fabric folded up neatly so you can get the cover back on is a chore in itself. Never mind if it is raining or extremely hot while you’re trying to break camp.

If you’ve ever been in a soft-shell RTT in a wind storm, you’ll know that peace and quiet is lacking. The soft window flies flap around and the tent sides often slap against the internal tent frame creating what can only be termed “a ruckus.” I’ve had many a sleepless night in the desert Southwest as the temperatures cool down at night causing thermals. One thing I never left home without when I had a soft-shell RTT were a pair of earplugs.

Hard-Shell RTT Advantages:

One word: aerodynamics.

A hard-shell RTT is usually tapered from front to back and even though some models are quite heavy, that tapering allows for wind to rush around it instead of slamming into the brick wall of a soft-shell tent sitting atop your roof. If you drive an old Land Cruiser like I do, you’ll appreciate the extra gas mileage.

Setup is infinitely easier than using a soft-shell RTT. I can literally flip two buckles on my Alu-Cab Expedition III and the gas struts will open my tent for me. I just grab the ladder, set it up, and close the windows. The entire process takes four minutes — that’s all. I’ve timed it. I can have my tent fully set up and my awning fully deployed enjoying a post-drive beer in less time than it took me to set up my old soft-shell RTT. Breakdown takes a tad bit more time, but we can be packed up and on our way in about five minutes.

Hard-Shell RTT Disadvantages:

Weight is the one factor that could turn people off from a hard-shell RTT. We can jump into a whole debate on gross vehicle weight ratings and how most overlanders have zero regard for it, but suffice to say a 150- to 180-pound hard-shell tent is most likely well above what your gutters are designed to hold.

Another disadvantage is that a hard-shell RTT takes up your entire roof. That makes it difficult to carry anything else on your roof. Some of the aluminum hard-sided models have load bars on top of the tent for just such an issue, but I really don’t recommend loading anything more than a set of MAXTRAX up there, as it is difficult to access.

So Which Do I Choose, Hard- or Soft-Shell?

Ultimately, that decision lies in your hands. You know best how you’ll use your tent. If I had to choose, I would 100% go with the ease and convenience of a hard-shell, even if that means giving up roof rack storage. If you can afford the initial investment, you’ll be much happier in the long term.

Header image credit: @overlandnomads

EXPLORING OVERLAND

JOIN OVERLAND EXPO FOUNDERS ROSEANN AND JONATHAN HANSON EXPLORING OVERLAND, WHETHER IT’S CLOSE TO HOME OR ACROSS THE GLOBE, THROUGH WORDS, IMAGES AND FIELD ARTS.

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We remember the first time a fellow walked up to us in a dispersed BLM campground, pointed at the large folded contraption Jonathan had just uncovered on the roof rack of his Land Cruiser, and asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s a roof tent,” Jonathan replied, combining two nouns he had clearly never heard in the same sentence.

“So you carry it up there?” 

“No, it stays there. Watch.” Jonathan pulled a cord and the Technitop blossomed open in all its canvas glory.

He looked at it, open-mouthed, walked all around it as Roseann hooked up the ladder. 

“So you sleep up there.”

“Yep. Very comfortable. And it can’t blow away.”

He walked away back toward his camper, shaking his head. “I’ll be damned. A tent on a roof.” 

How different things were just 13 years ago, when that incident occurred. Back then few people in the U.S. had heard of or seen a roof tent—or a portable 12V fridge that could keep ice cream frozen, or a camping trailer that could follow a four-wheel-drive vehicle down the roughest of trails.

In fact—this has been verified by historians—in 2007 very few Americans were even aware of the existence of a company called Snow Peak.

It’s not like we didn’t camp. Americans had a long and cherished tradition of heading out for the weekend to a national park, national forest, or BLM land and enjoying a few nights under clear skies and sharp stars, fishing, birding, canoeing, or just relaxing in our webbed aluminum beach chairs. But the tradition was generally more of an out-and-back activity—you went somewhere and camped, then you went home. And, with few exceptions, car camping equipment here had strayed little from a formula followed for decades: You either had a camper mounted on a pickup truck, or you had a canvas or nylon tent and cots. If you wanted cold food and drinks, you brought along an ice chest. You cooked on a pump-pressured white gas Coleman stove or, later, its propane equivalent.

This newfangled—at least to us—thing called “overlanding” was different. For overlanders, the journey itself was the goal, not any particular destination. It was about exploring new country, being completely self-sufficient. When possible, organized campsites were spurned in favor of more remote, pristine vistas. While a weekend trip might qualify perfectly as overlanding, there was also the potential to extend that weekend into two weeks, six weeks—or six months or six years. And the equipment available from sources in South Africa and Australia was designed to turn a four-wheel-drive vehicle into a comfortable home away from home suitable for extended exploration. “Overlanding” was the right conceptual tweak at the right time to a well-established pastime, and it took off.

Humans have traveled and camped for millennia, from the first migration out of Africa into Asia and Europe, to later ventures across the Bering Strait and through the Americas, right up to the westward expansion of Europeans across the North American continent.

But it wasn’t until the early 20th century that we started doing it for fun. And it was the internal-combustion engine that made that possible (few people would have called overlanding by covered wagon and a two-brace draft of oxen fun). Pierce Arrow debuted the Touring Landau in 1910, with a rear seat that converted to a bed, a fold-down sink, and a chamber pot. Henry Ford’s Model T hadn’t been on the road for long when enterprising craftsmen began constructing elaborate motorhome bodies on them. By 1923 you could buy a kit from the Zagelmeyer Auto Camp Company that would convert your Model T into a pop-top camper with fold-down side beds—the top lifted automatically as you folded down the sides. Shortly thereafter another iconic invention appeared, one that would be critical to future outdoor activities: In 1927 the Girl Scout manual published the first official recipes for S’mores.

About this time, African safaris began to evolve from foot to motorized. The same year the Girl Scouts were touting their S’mores, the first three cars visited South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The year after saw 180, and those numbers grew rapidly. Meanwhile, a wayside stop on a track in Kenya originally known simply as Mile 326 grew to become the center of a huge safari industry, and adopted the formal name Nairobi.

A sea change took place after WWII, partially due to the introduction of civilianized Jeeps, the Land Rover, and, a bit later, the Land Cruiser, along with other affordable four-wheel-drive vehicles, and partially due to a burgeoning economy. The 1950s and 1960s in the U.S. witnessed an explosion of outdoor recreation. In 1953 Don Hall introduced the Alaskan Camper, with rigid walls and a lifting roof, reportedly fashioned after a hat box his wife showed him in camp one night after their truck almost overturned. In 1972 Dave Rowe lightened the concept considerably with soft sides, and produced the Four Wheel Camper. These seminal products pioneered the idea of a comfortable camper that only minimally reduced the capability of the truck on which it was mounted to access remote backcountry destinations, while providing a weatherproof, self-contained shelter. 

In the mid-1970s Jonathan began following the exploits of a couple named Gary and Monika Wescott, who traveled full-time in a highly modified Series II Land Rover 109. Through the succeeding decades—and succeeding pickup trucks starting with a (suspiciously short-lived) Chevrolet followed by several Fords mounted with Four Wheel Campers—the Wescotts introduced the concept of long-term overlanding to me and other readers dissatisfied with the dominant paradigm of weekend “wheeling.”  In 1984 Jonathan stumbled on an article in the British magazine Car by a chap named Tom Sheppard, who had led the first west-to-east traverse of the Sahara Desert, and who now specialized in off-tracks journeys in its most remote areas. Jonathan had found a new hero. 

Fast forward 20 years. We had writing careers of our own and, with both a Land Cruiser and a Toyota Tacoma/Four Wheel Camper in our driveway, we were committed disciples of traveling so “the journey itself is the goal.” Thus it made sense to combine the two, and in 2007 I became the founding editor of a new magazine called Overland Journal. There was nothing else remotely like it on this continent, but despite (or because of) that, growth in subscriptions was slow at first, so Roseann came up with the idea of a combination trade show and instructional gathering called, logically enough, the Overland Expo. The first one was held in  Prescott, attracted 900 people and some very brave vendors. 

And the rest, really, is history. This new/old concept caught on in a huge way with thousands of people who owned or wanted to own four-wheel-drive vehicles or adventure motorcycles but had little interest in just looking for tougher trails every weekend. As the word spread, we heard from more and more readers and attendees who were inspired to expand their worlds through travel, even if they were still limited to two weeks per year. And more than a few were captivated enough by the stories of fellow travelers, and of pioneers such as the Wescotts, Tom Sheppard, Ted Simon, Lois Pryce, Elspeth Huxley, and others, to drastically alter their circumstances and make travel the centerpiece of their lives.

In 2011 it became clear Jonathan needed to move on from Overland Journal, and just last year it became clear that the Overland Expo had become too big for Roseann to manage if she still planned to do any traveling herself. But the momentum is unstoppable now. In fact, you know a concept has arrived when people start rolling their eyes at the overuse of the term, and its application to things totally inapplicable. It happened in the shooting world with the term “tactical” a few years ago, and it hit our world just as hard. No matter—it’s a natural period of adjustment, and soon the word overlanding will seem no more odd than the word camping did 30 years ago.

Despite numerous attempts at narrowly defining the term, however, there remains a skeptical contingent who fail to see anything but marketing differentiating “overlanding” from “camping.” If you’re among those skeptics, we offer here, tongue firmly in cheek, this simple guide on the subject:

If you have a sleeping bag and tent in the back of a pickup, that’s camping.

If you have a sleeping bag and tent in the back of a Land Rover, that’s overlanding.

 And, finally, 

If you have a sleeping bag and tent in the back of a Land Rover with your name stenciled on the door, that’s an expedition.

Whatever your own definition, just make sure you get out there and participate!

Header collage credit: Roseann Hanson

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

For years my daily driver was a well worn 2009 BMW F800GS. And it is clearly an adventure bike. It was obvious in every category: knobby tires, long-travel suspension, durable luggage, and all the nicks, scratches and gnar to prove that it occasionally hits the ground in rugged terrain.

That said, I guarantee that if you ride a motorcycle, you ride an adventure motorcycle.

I’m not saying that you must ride a GS or a KLR650 or a street-legal Frankensteined enduro. But, in my humble and wanderlusting opinion, every motorcycle is — on a fundamental level — an adventure bike.

The first time I went to Overland Expo, I strapped my duffel bag to the back seat of my 1979 Honda CX500 and rode out to Mormon Lake. I had just moved to Flagstaff from Estes Park, Colorado and the thought that my trusty CX wasn’t an adventure motorcycle had never dawned on me. 

Navigating my beloved vintage machine along the lumpy lakebed road into Moto Village at the far end of the exhibitor area, I found myself surrounded by real adventure motorcycles. The field was full of giant, farkled-out machines wielded by spacemen standing on their pegs. They had luggage that didn’t require an intricate system of bungee cords to keep things in place. Their motorcycles were probably even built during this century, a far cry from any bike I’d ever owned at that point. 

As if I wasn’t out of place enough already by riding my old cruiser to Overland Expo, I was at the event to meet my buddy, Josh. We were going to spend the weekend promoting the crazy charity idea we had schemed up over cajun tater tots and beers at Satchmo’s BBQ a couple of months prior.

Josh and I were both recent transplants to Flagstaff and had become fast friends over a shared love of vintage bikes and snarky humor. Josh had a 1972 Honda CB100 that was collecting dust in his storage unit and I was eyeing a Trail 90 as companion to my CX. We were both up to our chinstraps in work and craving an adventure. As we doused our tots in remoulade, we decided that we would take those little bikes on an inappropriately long ride and use our foolishness to raise some money for a good cause. 

We pitched our popup tent for the weekend alongside the other moto exhibitors, strung up our Tiny Bikes: Big Change banner, and spent the weekend explaining why we would be riding from California to New Mexico on our ridiculously small, and obviously unfit for adventure, motorcycles. 

We just want to see if we can.

And that, my friends, is what adventure motorcycling is all about. Riding is simply steeped in adventure and we should dispel all myths that you have to have the latest KTM 790 to go on an adventure ride (although, if anyone at KTM is reading this, I’d be happy to take one of those 790s off your hands). 

The need for adventure is a basic human instinct. At some point in humanity’s history we no longer had to worry about keeping the cave fire stoked and fighting off saber tooth tigers, as we migrated on foot across the savanna. But we were still wired for exploration. After millena of traveling by horse, yak, and camel, we were bound to come up with something that was as fun as it was practical for transportation. Enter the motorcycle — that brilliant feat of human innovation. 

Let’s take a moment to consider the origins of two-wheeled motorized travel. Though the internet can’t seem to agree on which of the early bastardized bicycles is actually the first motorcycle, what’s clear is that all of the early motorbikes are a pure exercise in adventure. These early inventors were treading in uncharted waters and pioneering in ways we can hardly imagine today.

The origin of motorcycling is often attributed to Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, but prior to the invention of their “Reitwagen,” Sylvestor Howard Roper created his coal-fired, steam-powered “velocipede.” Built on what was essentially a bicycle frame with a steam boiler under the seat and twist-grip throttle, the machine put Roper in an early grave at the age of 73 whilst proving that he could hit 40 miles per hour on the track. Although historians (those with far more credibility than myself) often exclude his steam engine from motorcycle history, I have to give this guy credit for motoring around on two wheels long before the big names stole the spotlight.

By 1885, coal engines were getting to be so 1860s, so Daimler and Maybach, a pair of German inventors, created the Reitwagen with outrigger wheels (training wheels for your GS, anyone?). The Reitwagen featured hot tube ignition: a platinum tube running into a combustion chamber, heated by an external open flame (that sure seems safe). Thus the internal combustion engine was born. From what I can tell, no journeys of great length were ever taken on the Reitwagen. Although the inventor’s son did ride it almost five miles one time and achieved the impressive speed of seven miles per hour. 

With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, around the start of the 20th century, fuel-injected motorcycles began pouring off the assembly line by the dozen. World War One brought a massive boost to motorcycle manufacturing and drove the fledgling industry worldwide. During WWI, motorbikes were used for everything from moving ammunition to evacuating the wounded to couriering messages between units. If you think riding a BDR is adventurous, try riding on the front lines during trench warfare.

When Josh and I took off for our ‘Tiny Bikes’ ride, it was hardly trench warfare. But it was a blazing 108 degrees in the lowlands of the Sonoran Desert. We had collected a group of friends who also had bikes that fell into our definition of tiny: sub-200 cubic-centimeters. Our ragtag posse of four old Hondas were accompanied by Josh’s mom; Joy was driving the motorhome and pulling a flatbed trailer — just in case. We donned our gear and headed east over sweltering pavement across Arizona and began the process of rattling loose every bolt on our little bikes. Our top speed of 40 mph hardly cooled us off as we made our way no faster than Roper’s velocipede.

Our journey, like all great adventures, was fraught with mechanical trouble. Fortunately, Josh’s favorite pastime is restoring old things: mostly motorcycles and the occasional vintage lawnmower. His roadside mechanical prowess proved invaluable throughout the trip and he spent almost as many hours swapping spark plugs, changing out carburetors, and replacing the starter in the rescue motorhome as he did riding. 

Despite Josh’s wrenching skills, my shiny new 1976 CT90 ended up with an unrepairable rectifier issue and spent the rest of the trip on the trailer. I swapped bikes with Nadji, who prefers her moto miles on dirt anyhow and certainly didn’t balk at the air conditioned comfort of the motorhome. I ended up continuing the journey on her ‘79 Honda XL200.

I almost hate to admit in public that we had a support vehicle along on our ride (can I save face by assuring you that I haven’t had one since?). Especially considering that 111 years prior, George Wyman took his leather belt drive, wooden wheel, 1.5-horsepower motorized bicycle across the entire country. He covered 3,800 miles over the course of two months, completely unsupported. His account of the journey is a fun read. It is the kind of story that makes you want to pack your panniers and hit the road — on the comfort of your fuel-injected GS with cross-spoked wheels and heated grips, that is.

The list of adventure riding throughout the 20th century is impressive, to say the least. Carl Stearns Clancy circumnavigated the globe in 1912. Hungarians Zoltán Sulkowsky and Gyula Bartha traveled through six out of seven continents and put over 100,000 miles on a Harley Davidson sidecar between 1928 and 1936. Max Reisch outfitted his 250-cc Puch in 1933 with a large format camera, typewriter, and pillion friend. He set out from Vienna to Mumbai, completing the first overland journey from Europe to India. Notably, Reisch can also be credited for beginning the historic overland tradition of packing everything but the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, the BMW R80 G/S, the first ‘real’ adventure motorcycle, was still a half century away from being invented.

The thing that fascinates me the most about these early moto-travelers is how raw their adventures were. They had no proverbial safety nets to speak of. In the first quarter of the century, outside of the cities, roads were rudimentary at best and often nonexistent. You purchased your gas from the chemist’s workshop. There was no Garmin or Butler Maps to plot your course. There were no online forums to consult or Overland Expos to attend to get the inside scoop on what might be in store for you. You just packed a simple kit and hit the road with your wool jacket, handgun, tools, and the occasional 50-pound typewriter. There were no knobby tires, overnight parts delivery from Revzilla, or waterproof Klim suits. Josh’s mom was definitely not driving the motorhome to pick up the pieces.

There is nothing contrived about these early journeys; you simply pull out of the driveway, pick a direction, and let the adventure unfold. Nowadays our world is so developed, regulated, and safe. We have handrails around everything and safety precautions ad nauseum. How then are we to have a proper adventure, an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity? Unlike the early moto-explorers we have to put in a different sort of effort to create our adventures.

Now we have to push our creativity in order to push our comfort zones. Our world is so different compared to when Florence Blenkiron and Theresa Wallach set off from London to Cape Town in 1935 on their Redwing Panther with a sidecar and trailer. We have such a secure infrastructure, even in the wildest places, compared to what they encountered.

“Motorcycling is a tool with which you can accomplish something meaningful in your life,” Wallach said. “It is an art.”

The spirit of our adventures are the same now as they ever were. It starts with a question, a curiosity, an inquiry into the boundaries of our limits.

We just want to see if we can. 

I believe that it is our responsibility to live fully and, with that, comes the need for adventure. To be clear, high-speed lane splitting during rush hour in Los Angeles can certainly feel like an adventure. But that is pure adrenaline. The sort of adventure I’m referring to is adrenaline-producing, but in a way that also involves curiosity, ambition, and stretching yourself culturally, physically, and emotionally.

Adventures do not require one-way plane tickets to the other side of the globe, they do not require weeks or years, gobs of money, or high-tech adventure bikes. Adventure is a state of mind and your motorcycle, whatever make and model it may be, is the vehicle. You already have everything you need. Whether on your GS or your Trail 90, you simply need to set your sights on something that captures your imagination, pull out of the driveway, and let the adventure unfold.

We have people to follow in the footsteps of like Ted Simon circumnavigating the globe on his Triumph Tiger and Helge Pederson logging a quarter million miles on the R80GS during his 10 Years on 2 Wheels. But even if we’re not pioneers in long-distance travel, our adventures can still be authentic if we keep the spirit of inquiry at the forefront of our minds.

Are you doing something unfamiliar that will push your mental, physical, and cultural comfort zones? Do you have an open mind? Are you riding a motorcycle? If you answer ‘yes’ to these questions, you are most certainly riding an adventure motorcycle.

After shaking off the uneasiness of our mechanical troubles, Josh, Wade (on his 1969 Honda CT90 that somehow ran flawlessly the entire trip) and I carried on towards New Mexico. Our struggles were rewarded with that sort of delicious riding we all live for: perfectly cool temperatures in the high country, pristine dirt heading east out of Prescott, the freshness of ponderosa pine wafting through our visors along the Mogollon Rim.

We spent our evenings laughing around the campfire about how to achieve the perfect racing tuck position on a CT90 and about the look on the faces of the bewildered Germans on shiny rental Harleys as our motley crew pulled away from the gas station.

When Josh and I left for our Tiny Bikes ride, we just wanted to see what we could do with a handful of days and our most improbable motorcycles. There was never a doubt in our minds that what we were doing was an adventure. It certainly didn’t land us on the grand list of motorcycle history or pave our future as Marxist revolutionaries (that’s a Che Guevara reference, of course), but our Tiny Bikes ride is one for our own personal history books.

Shortly after that first Overland Expo, I did end up getting a couple ‘real’ adventure bikes, a KLR650, followed by a couple of GSs. Of course, I still have my vintage Hondas. But they spend more time in the garage than they do out on the road, overshadowed by my fancy BMW.

Writing this makes me feel a little nostalgic for the days when it was just me and the old Honda meandering around in a big unexplored world, rearranging the bungee cords on my duffel bag, without a doubt in my mind that I was riding an adventure motorcycle.

EXPLORING OVERLAND

JOIN OVERLAND EXPO FOUNDERS ROSEANN AND JONATHAN HANSON EXPLORING OVERLAND, WHETHER IT’S CLOSE TO HOME OR ACROSS THE GLOBE, THROUGH WORDS, IMAGES AND FIELD ARTS.

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FOLLOW JONATHAN: OVERLAND TECH & TRAVEL

Picture a route two and a half thousand miles long, stretching from Mexico to Canada, traversing Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, with elevations from 4,000 feet to a cloud-scraping 13,000 feet.

The path criss-crosses a single geologic feature that rules over most of the North American continent, influencing weather, determining which oceans receive the outflows of thousands of watercourses, creating and dividing habitats — and offering spectacular views to those who challenge its heights.

This is the legendary Continental Divide, also known as the Great Divide.

So remote and inspiring is the route that Land Rover chose it as a challenge for the North American introduction of the Range Rover in 1989, when six Range Rovers became the first vehicles to complete the entire journey.

In May/June of 2014 and 2015, we gathered two groups of overlanders willing to test out their vehicles, equipment, and skills on a four-wheel-drive journey from Bisbee, Arizona, along the Divide in New Mexico and Colorado, and into Montana if weather permitted.

The routes (there are multiple iterations, to allow for “bail outs” if there was too much snow or mud or both along certain passes) were developed over four years by Jim Hyde, owner and operator of the famous RawHyde Adventures. The brand is best known for their epic motorcycle tours and training. However, they got their start at the turn of the current millennium as a 4×4 tour operator. 

Jim invested thousands of hours in researching and scouting the routes first for adventure motorcyclists and then for four-wheel-drives. He recruited us to gather up enough overlanders willing to test the waters — or mud and snow, as it turned out.

Here we share images from both journeys — the good, the bad, and the muddy.

RESOURCES

Photography and videography equipment

Canon EOS 5D Mark II;  24-10mm f/4 L IS; 300mm f/4 L; EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye; 70-200mm f/4 L Apple iPhone 6

Truck

2012 Toyota Tacoma Access Cab with Four Wheel Camper Fleet, BFGoodrich All-Terrains, BOSS Suspension, Warn 9000 winch, ARB rear air locker with engine mounted compressor and fill station, MaxTrax, Hi-Lift Jack, 50W Yaesu 2M radio, OCENS satellite phone.

Header image credit: Roseann and Jonathan Hanson / ExploringOverland.com

DIPSTICKS & DIFFERENTIALS

DIPSTICKS & DIFFERENTIALS IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO SALES DIRECTOR, ANTHONY SICOLA.

FOLLOW ANTHONY @OVERLANDNOMADS.

Unless you’re the type of grizzled, old-school camper content with heating a can of Pork & Beans on a campfire, gnawing on a piece of stale white bread, and drinking warm beer, you’ve probably considered a cooler or fridge for use in your travels. Way back in the Paleolithic era of overlanding, when it was simply called “camping,” a person really didn’t have the plethora of choices they have today. In fact, if you wanted to extend your trips in the backcountry, your only choice was a cooler. That’s it.

Coolers used to get a bad rap. A few decades ago, using a cooler as your sole food-preservation equipment meant soggy lunch meat, waterlogged veggies, and that plastic freezer bag full of bacon that somehow allowed water in — even though you zipped it entirely closed. Figuring out the correct amount of ice to keep everything cold used to require an advanced degree in physics. Inevitably, your frozen water would be gone by the second day and you’d be heading back to the store for more.

Read Next: Overland Expo’s Favorite Overlanding Fridges, Coolers, and Camp-Kitchen Accessories

Coolers have come a long way since those days. The ice tends to last longer and they are infinitely easier to clean now. Do I still use a cooler? Yes. I keep one stocked with ice for camp cocktails and for keeping my beer cold. It allows me to keep my perishable food in the fridge without taking up all the room with bottles and/or cans. Check out my review of the Pelican Elite Cooler that I took to Baja in December.

When my wife and I built out our 80 Series Land Cruiser in 2010, we knew we wanted to avoid dealing with finding ice. So, we installed a second battery. Word to the wise: Never run a 12-volt refrigerator off of your starter battery. If you do, you’re asking for a world of trouble and can potentially get stuck somewhere in the wilderness not being able to start your vehicle.

For our in-rig fridge, we went with an ARB 50 qt. Single Zone Fridge Freezer. At the time, it hit the delta of the least expensive and highest efficiency model we could find. The 50 qt model has an average DC power consumption of 0.7 to 2.3 amps per hour. At the maximum estimated power usage of 2.3 amps per hour, the fridge will use approximately 55.2 amps in a 24-hour period.

Depending on your setup and whether you’re augmenting battery power with solar, you’ve just extended your ability to be out in the backcountry exponentially. As a side note, and for the sake of keeping this a cooler vs. fridge comparison, I’ve left out a mid-tier option which is the powered cooler. Powered coolers can usually cool 30º below ambient temperature, while a fridge can cool up to 90º below ambient temps. The fridge is by far the better choice here for any travel in hot climates.

One trip with our new fridge sealed the deal for us. We were converts and would never go back to a cooler in this lifetime. The 12v fridge literally changed the way we travel and allowed us access to cool, fresh veggies, cold meat storage, cold beer, and all of the cold condiments we want (we definitely have a condiment problem and we aren’t seeking help for it). We can fit at least five and up to nine days of fresh food into our fridge, the power consumption is low, and there’s an LED light in the fridge compartment making it much easier to find things in the dark.

One nice thing about most fridge/ freezers is that they can run off 12v and 110v, so if we happen to be in a place with accessible power, we can run the fridge off shore power instead of drawing on the battery.

The downsides of our fridge are that we have to stack our food in the main compartment, which makes it difficult to find things that migrate to the bottom on bumpy trails. Also cleaning can be a major chore. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had food leak from going over rough terrain and we’ve had to remove everything in the fridge to clean it up.

The final con is that our fridge is its single zone, meaning it can be used as a fridge or a freezer at any given time. Obviously the pros outweigh the cons here. I should also mention that our investment brought us ten years of use without any issues.

Buy quality if you do decide to make the leap to a 12v fridge. My dad used to say, “Buy once, cry once.”

Newer dual-zone fridges from most manufacturers allow you much more flexibility. You can use them as a fridge, a freezer, or a fridge and freezer at the same time. This is likely our next purchase because who doesn’t want ice cream in the middle of nowhere? If just having a bit of ice for a camp cocktail is your thing, Dometic recently solved that problem in the CFX3 55IM by introducing a “rapid freeze plate” that can make ice and keep your food and beverages cool simultaneously. Genius.

Along with all of those innovations, most fridge freezer models have some sort of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi compatibility that allows you to check and change the temperature and get diagnostics from an app. I mean, who wants to get up out of their camp chair after a long day on the trail just to check your fridge temps?

In the end, the choice of cooler vs. refrigerator in your overland rig is purely your personal preference. I know what side of the fence I’m on.

Header image credit: Anthony Sicola

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR, ZACH ELSEMAN.

FOLLOW ZACH @OKIENOMADS.

I hope you have had a chance to read the companion to this article: Why Outlandish Vehicles Make Bad Overlanding Rigs. In that article, I cover some of the negative aspects of traveling in an obscure and outlandish vehicle-mostly retired service vehicles, a lot of which we did not expect before leaving for two years of extended travel across North America.

Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

When living in a school bus, ambulance, or otherwise unconventional service vehicle, there is enough room to bring anything you would need for an adventure. We have a very small bus and are still able to cram in a queen-sized bed, a big refrigerator, all of the camera equipment, four bicycles, two kayaks, and more books than we will be able to read through the course of a summer.

Our school bus is around 75 square-feet of living space and that is a lot compared to overland built pickup trucks, most vans, and truck campers. We have friends that travel in off-road trucks with slide-ins or rooftop tents and the first thing they comment on is the space. “There is so much room for activities!” All Will Ferrell quotes aside, when it rains, snows, or drops below freezing, we are warm and dry inside.

Customization is Limitless

Another aspect of traveling in a unique and outlandish vehicle is that the design is 100% customizable. The builder can customize the design and layout however they see fit. Once the original equipment is yanked out, a vehicle can be built to include anything that you can fit in the space. Cruise the internet for a bit and you will find Skoolies with 2000-Watt (or more) solar systems, LMTV’s with full showers, and ambulances rolling around on 42-inch tires.

We built a simple interior using remedial carpentry skills and equipment, but it has served us really well so far. After a year of traveling across the American West, we found that our preferences had changed so we were able to rip out our interior and build it again to fit the way we travel.

Medium-Duty Vehicles are Surprisingly Capable

An aspect of Skoolie ownership that we did not expect is that Skoolies, especially short Skoolies, are surprisingly capable off-road. No, we are not seeking out off-road opportunities to test the flex of our suspension or drive through four-foot deep mud holes, but to get to more remote campsites we have endured some off-camber and sketchy situations.

Smaller busses and ambulances are built on similar chassis to full-size trucks. So, in general, there shouldn’t be much difference between taking a Chevy 3500 truck and the Okienomad’s Skoolie down a Forest Service road. The motor in our bus is shared with the military HMMWV and a lot of farm trucks and Suburbans of the past 25 years. So, it is no surprise that when geared right, busses and ambulances like ours will climb up and over mild obstacles once the Forest Service road turns rough. Like anything, 4×4 conversions and off-road-oriented suspension can be outfitted to nearly any vehicle — for a price. We prefer our two-wheel drive with full-size truck ground clearance and good tires to explore beaches, two-track, and tons of pavement in between.

Obviously ex-military vehicles like LMTV’s are extremely capable out of the box and present the opposite challenge, making them more pleasant to drive on the pavement. The addition of “highway gears” and creature comforts like air-ride seats will wake up a military vehicle into a more comfortable over-the-road adventure rig.

Skoolies are Slow

As mentioned in Part 1 of this article, one of our favorite and least favorite parts of Skoolie overland travel is that Skoolies are slow. How slow you ask? We got passed by a full-size pickup hauling a trailer that had to have been 12,000 pounds or more like we were standing still. I couldn’t even recognize the make of the truck it was moving so fast, or err, we were moving so slowly. The relatively slow speed of heavier overland rigs up mountain passes, around sharp turns, and over washboard roads makes them the perfect overlanding vehicles, you simply see more than if you were flying by at 75 miles per hour in a new sprinter van.

Another benefit of traveling slowly is the reduced wear and tear on vital suspension and steering components. By taking it slow, you minimize the chance of a catastrophic mechanical in the bush and spend more time traveling and less time on your back in the garage.

If we had a choice, we would travel slowly. But since our rigs are slow, we don’t have a choice … so we travel slowly.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

One of my favorite aspects of bus travel is that our bus is able to continue to be in use and not end up in a landfill or junkyard to rot away. Keep in mind that traveling a ton of miles in a less-than-efficient vehicle through beautiful forests and deserts is not exactly healthy for the environment. However, keeping a big hunk of metal out of a scrap yard and in use is a win for the environment when you consider the alternative of buying a newer RV or full-size truck camper. We have recycled our bus from its previous life of shuttling kids to a new life of seeing beautiful things every day.

Additionally, we have found that we consume much less water, fossil fuels, and supplies when we live in a vehicle than we would in a standard house. Our onboard water storage is only about 40 gallons, but that can last the two of us five to seven days off-grid. The average American uses an estimated 88 gallons of water each day. Consider that we use propane for cooking and diesel for heating through extremely efficient appliances and all of our electricity is solar powered, we are consuming much less as nomads than we would be if we still lived in suburbia.

Once we are done with our travels in the bus we will likely park the bus somewhere nice and quiet and use it as a cabin in the woods or a suite for the visiting in-laws or parents. We will only need to add a composting toilet or outhouse and a small shower area to make the Skoolie 100% livable off-grid, reducing the need to use a ton of new material to build a new house someday.

Used Service Vehicles are Often Cheap

Last in our list of reasons why a retired service vehicle makes a great overlanding vehicle is that lightly used service vehicles are usually cheap. School districts, churches, military and EMS, and metropolitan transit companies are constantly shuttling out (pun intended) gently used, fleet-maintained vehicles for rock-bottom prices. Most of these vehicles have been maintained since day one by competent mechanics and are usually on the auction block with fewer than 200,000 miles on them. This is a considerably small sum in regards to the life of a well-maintained diesel engine. This is not to say that all builds on these platforms are affordable for everyone. If you have the skills, tools, and time, though, one can assemble a capable vehicle for much cheaper than an off-the-shelf offering.

Our bus came to us with 107,000 miles on it and other than some neglected maintenance issues by the second owner of the bus, we have had 40,000 plus trouble-free miles out of it. We have approximately $10,000 invested in our vehicle including maintenance and tires and have a hard time justifying other adventure rigs when our little bus ticks so many boxes.

Resources like govplanet.com, publicsurplus.com, and individual state, county, and city auctions are great places to find used vans, buses, ambulances, and military vehicles. The typical sale ads on Facebook and Craigslist are also good places to shop and potentially find a vehicle that fits your needs.

Not only are these vehicles cheap to buy, they are cheap to build. You don’t need to have an Insta-famous porcelain tub or a teak-wood deck on the roof of your bus. You can build a vehicle that is built simply, slap on a little paint and you are good to hit the road. Our bus was built with materials that are cheap and available at any hardware store with tools that most people already own. 

If you haven’t noticed, I am a fan of repurposing vehicles to fit the ever-changing needs of the modern traveler and within certain conditions. I believe that a retired vehicle makes one of the best overland vehicles that money can buy. My wife Rachael and I have enjoyed our two years of full-time travel in our school bus and are even working on converting a full-size Skoolie to take on more adventures around the continent.

If you enjoyed these articles, check back for more blog posts about the outlandish overlanding rigs, unconventional trips and destinations, and unique gear that isn’t always in the limelight.

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER

OUTLANDISH OVERLANDER IS A BLOG HOSTED BY OVERLAND EXPO VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR, ZACH ELSEMAN.

FOLLOW ZACH @OKIENOMADS.

I need to clear this up before we get to the good stuff: My wife and I live full-time in a school bus conversion, by choice. We love the freedom and simplicity that comes from a life with 78 square-feet of living space and having the whole world as our playground. That being said, there are aspects of traveling in an outlandish vehicle that we did not expect. We continually meet travelers on the road that share these sentiments about their school buses, ambulances, and other outlandish and unique rigs too, so we knew we were not alone.

Most Outlandish Vehicles are BIG

Even if you purchase the smallest modern school bus (which we did) it is still 20-22 feet long, eight feet wide, and over nine feet tall. After we gutted the interior, built out the inside, and filled up our water and fuel tanks, our bus weighs over four tons — very close to the manufacturer’s gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). The size of these metal behemoths makes them difficult to navigate down narrow four-wheel-drive trails and some forest service roads and the height and width can also make traveling through some tunnels equally as difficult. The tunnel entering Zion National Park from the East was going to charge us $20 to pass through their tunnel, luckily, we had time to spare and drove around the southern end of the park to enjoy Pink Sand Dunes State Park instead and entered Zion from the West.

Situations have presented themselves where we have wanted to air down and follow our 4×4 friends on to the beach to play and camp in the sand. But after having thought twice about it, we decided against it. Unless you have four-wheel drive (pretty rare and/or expensive comparatively), reliable recovery gear, and some know-how, you are going to get stuck. Expect to need a fairly large truck or tractor to pull your 10,000+pound (4,536 Kg) butt out of the dunes.

Some skoolies can reach lengths of 40 or more feet (4.2 meters) and over 30,000 pounds (13,600 Kg) and at that point, forget about going very far off the pavement and parking in any parking lot other than a big box store like Wal-Mart.

Service Vehicles are SLOW!

While we are on the topic of driving slowly, expect to drive slowly … very slowly. Unless you commit significant amounts of money to increase your busses horsepower and torque, your bus will probably be underpowered. Expect to travel at speeds much slower than traffic around you and commit a lot of time to making the extremely coveted left turn across traffic or to pass a Volkswagen van traveling slower than you are.

If you read Part 2 of this post, you will see that this point also shows up as a positive of traveling in a retired service vehicle. Hop on over to that article to find out why.

School Buses, Ambulances, and Military Vehicles are not built for comfort.

Think back to when you were a child and you rode the bus to school. If you were one of those kids whose mother’s coddled them with a ride to school in your SUV, just imagine with me. You are engaged in conversation or a game of M.A.S.H (don’t lie, you know you did). All of a sudden you hear a noise. A split second later, you are catapulted, levitating several feet in the air along with everyone else on the bus — except the driver, of course, she’s buckled in.

I can remember riding the bus back from high school sporting events as a student. After exhausting myself on the court or field, I would seek refuge in the plush pleather seats of the school bus and drift into a restful nap just in time for the bus to catch a small pothole and lift me several inches in the air and drop my face back on the seat with exceptional force. Riding in the passenger area of a school bus is not much different.

Now imagine that most of your belongings, your computer and camera, maybe even your dog is somewhere in the rear of your Skoolie conversion and you are driving through Southern California on your way to the Sierras. You hit an unavoidable pothole and now your belongings, passengers, and tastefully hand-crafted cabinet doors are at the mercy of your top-heavy, overweight school bus.

Some modern-day school buses now come equipped with air-ride suspension, air brakes, and sometimes even seatbelts for children. Ours, however, didn’t even come with a rear sway bar. Therefore, we roll over obstacles with the front wheel fine and feel the wrath of the rear axle as the bus topples side to side. Cornering with no rear sway bar is interesting as well as the risk of roll-over is greatly increased. We solve these problems by traveling very slowly, even through traffic. We have since added a rear sway bar, air-bag helper springs, and upgraded shocks and those things have improved the ride, but a used commercial vehicle will never ride like a Cadillac.

If there isn’t a secure home for every item in your RIG, it becomes a projectile.

This is more of a common issue with living and traveling in a large vehicle in general. When we first laid out our plans for the interior of the bus, we never knew that we would need and want so many cubbies, shelves, drawers, and hiding places for the miscellaneous junk that finds its way onto the bed every couple of days.

Who knew that sitting four or five Nalgene bottles under the kitchen table and driving down a twisting mountain road would cause a ruckus like you have never heard as the bottles tip, tumble, and fly around the cozy passenger compartment?

Since moving into our bus full-time we have added shelves, baskets, nets, and a few other containment solutions to keep our at-hand items from hitting us in the head on the freeway. When you see the #vanlifer on the ‘Grams with pictures hanging on the wall and glass mason jars on the counter with fresh flowers in them, understand that the scene before you is carefully crafted. And in the event that the vehicle in question is actually driven, those items are stowed somewhere or they are stowed everywhere.

When something breaks (and it will break), Obscure vehicle parts are not always easy to come by, especially on the road. 

We will use our bus as an example. Our bus is technically a 2000 Chevrolet 139-inch wheel-base Cutaway with a 6.5-liter turbocharged-diesel engine. This means we share a motor with a lot of different Chevy trucks, busses, vans, and even a few military and civilian HMMVV’s — and not much else.

So, when we need an air filter, we can just order one for the 6.5L and be done with it. Easy, peasy. However, when we needed to replace a home-welded trailer hitch in 2018 near Concrete, WA, we didn’t know what model to buy. If we search for the 2000 Chevy Express Van, which works with other parts, we will soon find out that the frame widths and construction were completely different between the two models and that our bus more closely resembles a full-size, heavy duty Chevy Pickup truck. The only challenge was then to find the model of Silverado with the same frame width as the bus, then order that model online, ship it general delivery to Concrete, WA, and install it in the post office parking lot with a cordless drill and hand tools. Conversely, if you were traveling in a five-year old Tacoma, you could stop in any off-road shop and walk out with an off-the-shelf hitch solution in a matter of a couple of hours.

Homework assignment: Go to your nearest parts store and tell the chap behind the counter that you need a driver’s door handle for a 2000 Chevy 139 Cutaway. Wait patiently, you will be there for a while.

Finding a medium-duty mechanic isn’t always easy

Lastly, when you break down and the repair is above your skill level, finding a mechanic to work on a Skoolie is not easy. A lot of shops that we have spoken with during our travels won’t even touch our rig because it is a heavy-duty or medium-duty chassis, and therefore bigger than they want to mess with or bigger than they are capable of messing with.

In Oakhurst, CA in summer 2018, we needed a simple brake job done and didn’t feel comfortable replacing pads and shoes on a dirt forest service road in the Sierras. We contacted six shops and not a single one would even consider looking at our brakes. One even went as far as to tell us that the only way they would work on it is if they replaced the rotors too, at $215 a piece. We finally found a shop that had a cancellation and would fit us in, but it wasn’t cheap.

The journey continues

If you are still hanging on through all of that negative, I hope you have the chance to read Part 2 of this article. We are really happy with our choice to hit the road in our obscure and outlandish vehicle and we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

Considering all the current shelter-in-place measures, please do your research before heading out on a One-Tank Adventure. I’m not an authority on traveling during the pandemic. Depending on where you live, scooting out on a socially distanced campout right now might not be the right thing to do. If that’s the case, save this for when things loosen back up.

So often we set our sights on far-flung journeys. We want to go big, cross continents, sublet our houses and hit the road for months at a time. Alas, now is not the time to cross state lines, let alone set out on the transcontinental journey of our dreams. But please keep those dreams going, the time will come!

One-Tank Adventures (OTAs, for short) are all about leaning into your immediate locale. Even when there isn’t a pandemic going on, OTAs are awesome. Get your weekend warrior fix. Nab a mini-adventure when you can’t steal away on a long journey. Use it to take your camp craft to the next level or dial in some new gear. Explore the overlooked corners of your own backyard — there’s more there than you might realize.

Think about that feeling when you first travel to a new place … You know nobody. You hardly speak the language. Everything feels new, a bit off kilter, exciting. When we go on our big trips, we show up with wide eyes and a hunger to explore. When you set out on a micro adventure, tuck that sense of awe and awareness into the seat pocket in front of you for easy access, despite the fact that you’re not flying halfway around the world. Pivot your perspective and find that freshness, even if you’re close to home. 

Your OTA is an overnight dose of location therapy, guaranteed to bring luster back to the well-worn patina of daily life. Burnish that shine by leaning into the subtleties and appreciating your home turf in a way you never have before.

In writing this article, I felt that it was my duty to do some hands-on research and take an OTA specifically to test my theories. So I hit the road into the Dragoon Mountains with Sterling for an 86-mile, 24-hour, eight-gallon round trip. Was it the high-adrenaline adventure of a lifetime? Certainly not, but between the beautiful drive, running with my dog, cooking steaks on the fire, and catching shooting stars from the Lyrid meteor shower, it was a great success.

I highly recommend heading out on a similar jaunt and here are a few tips to make your One Tank Adventure the best overnighter since summer camp.

1. Home On the Range 

The idea of an OTA is that you need to leave and return home on the same tank of gas, so you want to start with determining your range. There’s no sweating about running out of fuel on an OTA. You’ll be back in the driveway before the gas light comes on. 

So, get out the maps and start scouring all the places within a 50- or 100-mile radius of your home. I often start with Google Earth for the birds-eye view and then cross reference with the Gazetteer to dig into the nuances of the roads and terrain. Obviously, you can make your plan with whatever mapping system that suits you best, but I personally think paper maps are perfect for planning; they’re old-school and tactile. The goal here is to avoid the same old routes you usually take and hone in on those in-between spots that you tend to skip over.

2. Pack Like a Pro

You’re only going to be gone for a day on a one-tanker, so this is a perfect time to dial in your gear. We’ve all ditched stuff on long trips, often because an item doesn’t live up to its promises. Since you’re not trying to set a distance record here, this is the time to demo a new piece of equipment. Field test your new camera, truck awning, or hammock that charges your cell phone as you swing (a million-dollar idea, if you ask me). 

Remember, this is not the overlanding olympics. Think of this as high-intensity interval training to dial you in for that big trip you’ve been planning since the start of the toilet paper shortage. Use your OTA to keep your skills, systems, and gear sharp. Being so close to home means low stakes (in theory, a little more on that later). This is a time to decide what to bring along or leave behind on the post-quarantine journey we’re all daydreaming about. 

3. Take the Long Way

If you’ve only got 24 hours and one tank of gas, taking the long way might be a bit of a misnomer. However, the perfect OTA blends awesome riding/driving and mellow campsite chill time. So, get creative with linking forest roads, exploring the detours, and selecting routes that slow you down somehow. 

That said, going back to the aforementioned low-stakes of an OTA, keep your limits in mind. No need to practice your trials skills on your GSA or stage rallying your Sportsmobile during quarantine. This is not the best time to be burdening the local search and rescue team and hospital resources because you pulled an Evil Knievel on an overnight campout. Pick a route that looks interesting, gets you into camp early, and won’t get you into (too much) trouble.

4. Campsite Feng Shui

I don’t actually know anything about the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui, but I do know a sweet campsite when I see one. Because you’re probably less than 100 miles from home, you should be getting to your destination with plenty of time to select a stellar spot and make it extra awesome. 

If you’re truly doing a one-tanker, you’ll have a fairly short day of travel. That means you’ll have plenty of daylight to pick the perfect plot for your tent or truck. Once you’ve found your home for the night, get classy with it. Stretch some string lights across your handlebars. Hang up your hammock, pull out the camp chairs, table, lazy boy recliner, and set it all up nice. You’ve got plenty of daylight and lots of time to enjoy it.

5. Make It a Multi-Sport 

Going multi-sport on your one-tanker makes the whole thing feel richer and more multidimensional. Take advantage of the daylight after you get into camp and hit the trails on foot, crush a couple miles in a new location, or mess around with one of those toys that’s been gathering dust in the garage for too long. 

If you came in your truck or van, you may have a few more options for a 24-hour multi-sport trip than if you came on your motorbike. Either way, bring your mountain bike, paddleboard, binoculars, running shoes, hiking boots, pogo stick, or whatever floats your boat. Mixing up multiple activities is like eating tapas; lots of bite-sized goodies make for a great meal.

6. Chill Like a Champ

You’ve had an amazing ride, discovered a hidden gem of a campsite that looks like it belongs in the Patagonia catalogue, your trail run was top notch, and now it’s time to take a deep breath and relax. Break out a good book, write in your journal, take a nap, scroll through your plant id guide, kick back and watch the stars with your dog next to you. 

While you’re hanging in your hammock, take some time to notice the nuances of the natural world around you. Remember, this is a different kind of trip. This one is about the subtlety and slowing down enough to appreciate the good things. The world is a little crazy right now and, if you’re out on a One Tank Adventure in the midst of this pandemic, you’ve surely earned some quality chill time. Enjoy it.

7. Cuisine de la Campsite

Get gourmet on your OTA! One of the benefits of a quick trip is that you don’t have to worry about produce spoiling or getting your nourishment from gas station snacks. Plus, everything you need food-wise will easily fit in one cooler, along with some frosty cold beverages.

Before you head out, do some kitchen prep to simplify a Michelin-worthy meal ahead of time (this has nothing to do with your tires, but you should check those too). I’m a big fan of marinating meat in a plastic bag, chopping veggies to the right size, and planning cocktails to pair with my menu. 

Try your hand at shish kebabs over the coals, assembling a charcuterie board, and experimenting with dutch oven peach cobbler for dessert. Unleash your inner mixologist — especially since you’re not driving anywhere tonight.

8. Play with Fire

The cornerstone of any great campout is hanging by the campfire. Now, I know you’re all pro’s at making a great fire, but here are a couple things to take into consideration when sparking the evening’s entertainment.

Location, location: If there is an established fire ring where you’re camping, use that. Otherwise, select a site away from dry brush, your extra gas can, or anything you don’t want to burn. Scrape the area clear of debris and maybe ring it with rocks. Bringing along a fire pan is another good option, especially in sensitive areas. 

Gather the goods: Tinder, kindling, and fuel are the holy trinity of a great fire. When you’re gathering wood, cover a wide area and make sure you’re not leaving things noticeably impacted. Find some bigger branches for making cooking coals, as well as extra kindling to toss on throughout the night. Your campfire is, after all, the feature presentation for the evening. Juicing it up with smaller sticks has a way of ramping up the mood and keeping you entertained. 

Put it out: Nobody wants to be the guy who burned down the forest. Smother your fire or douse it with water, depending on what’s available. And while you’re at it, practicing a little LNT is always a good idea. Even if you’re in a developed camping area, you have the opportunity to leave the place better than you found it. Obviously, you’re going to pack out everything that you brought along, but you should also scout around for nano-trash and erase all traces of your fire scar from the night before.

9. Wash, Rinse, Repeat

When you’re back in the driveway, refuel and replenish anything that you depleted overnight, fill your tank, and do some vehicle maintenance. Once that’s all done, might as well get out the map and start scheming on your next trip … like, how about tomorrow?

Whether for pleasure or necessity, being able to head out at the drop of a hat is a skill worth mastering. Think of One-Tank Adventures as training runs for that overland marathon you’re planning. When the time comes again for big trips, all your systems, skills, and gear are in peak condition. Also, not to get all survivalist on you, but there may come a time that you’ll be glad you’ve got extra rations in your AluBoxes and you’re fully prepared to quickly take the high road if things go south. 

We do micro adventures to keep our skills honed, muscles flexed, and senses sharp. I’m not saying that a One-Tank Adventure will qualify you for hazard pay or be the trip of a lifetime, but heading out on a quick overnighter is a ton of fun and way more productive than another quarantined night of watching vehicle builds on YouTube. If you play your cards right, you’ll return home invigorated and stoked for another adventure. Maybe next time you’ll even get to burn two tanks of gas.

Header photo credit: Eva Rupert

As Director of Sales for Overland Expo, I’ve had the opportunity to have some amazing conversations with our exhibitors over the past couple of weeks about the things they are doing locally and nationally to help combat the pandemic. Many shifted their manufacturing to making personal protection equipment for first responders and healthcare workers, others are already producing necessary products like first aid kits and hand sanitizer, while others are thinking outside of the box and doing something completely different. I thought it was important to highlight some of those companies that exemplify the spirit of our overland community; innovation, self-sufficiency, and stewardship: 

• Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), which includes Jeep and Ram, will provide help to police, EMTs and firefighters, as well as to workers in hospitals and health care clinics by manufacturing and donating more than one million protective face masks per month. Distribution will initially be across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

• Showerpouch is known for their massive body wipes. However, after the Coronavirus outbreak, they’ve had a huge surge of orders for their Adventure Hand Sanitizer. They’ve had multiple police departments, fire departments, EMS, border patrol officers, nurses, doctors, and general health care providers throughout the US procure their hand sanitizers in bulk quantities. They are helping those who are putting themselves in harm’s ways to protect the most vulnerable – those infected with COVID-19.

• Yukon Outfitters pivoted from making hammocks, rain flys, and waterproof bags to producing face masks, face shields, and isolation gowns full time. They are working 12 hour days, six days a week producing 52,000 face masks, 4,000 face shields and 2,000 isolation gowns a week. They expect that number to grow another 25% next week. They are only charging for overtime labor and materials used in this process. Preston Powell, founder of Yukon Outfitters said, “We are fortunate to have the opportunity to keep our employees ‘in work’ while assisting folks in need all over the country.” 

• Thule Group, makers of Tepui tents and Thule outdoor/ active lifestyle bags and car racks, is utilizing some of its resources at their regional headquarters in Connecticut to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Using 3D printers on site at their headquarters normally used for rapid prototyping and testing, Thule Group staff are now using the machines to create plastic components for face shields to aid hospital staff during the current pandemic.

• The Team at VanDOit has been busy making homemade masks according to CDC guidelines. Once made, they are being distributed to local hospitals and throughout their community. 

• BOSS Strongbox/ BOSS Safety Products started making cloth masks for purchase by the general public. For every mask purchased, BOSS will be donating $1 to Feeding America to provide meals for people affected by school closures, job disruptions, and health risks. If you need a mask, check them out at https://www.getclothmasks.com/.

• Adventure Travel Sport Rentals suspended their rental program and is offering their campervans to first responders, medical professionals, and front line workers in Colorado who need to quarantine away from their families. 

• Zeal Optics, an eyewear manufacturer based out of Boulder, CO partnered with Goggles for Docs, to provide goggles to health care workers. Goggles for Docs is a creative grassroots program that materialized in the medical community in response to the lack of eye protection for doctors and nurses on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was originally started by an ER physician from NYC who was unable to source enough eye protection for his team. His aunt is a race coach at Catamount Ski Resort, and they had an “aha moment” that resulted in a system that allows hospitals to request goggles based on their needs. Zeal sent their first shipment the week of April 6 to multiple hospitals and health care facilities across Southern CA and the Denver, CO Metro Area.

• Metal-tech 4×4 is designing an easy-to-fabricate open-source hospital bed. The design is intentionally simple so it can be manufactured anywhere in the US by the very community that may need them using commonly available materials. When the design is finished they will be putting it online as a free, open-source CAD file including instructions and bill of materials per unit. If a community immediately needed to add more hospital beds they could hire local welders to build these quickly, at a relatively low cost. This will keep the money in the local communities since their local fabricators can build these.

• At their Phillipsburg, NJ location, vehicle outfitter OK4WD is giving free labor toward vehicle maintenance, at-cost replacement parts, and deep discounts on tires to healthcare professionals and front line workers to help them keep their cars and trucks on the road so they can keep fighting COVID-19.

• TO Extreme Off Road is a 40-year-old full-service metal fabrication shop and adventure trailer builder (Twin Oaks Industries, Inc.) located in Salina, KS. The other part of their business makes parts for agriculture, medical, construction and forestry companies. They are devoting all of their trailer building hours to making sure all these essential businesses have the parts that they need to continue normal operation without an interrupted supply chain. This also keeps their staff 100% employed.

• WARN, AT Overland, Equipt Expedition Outfitters, and many more essential businesses implemented CDC social distancing guidelines in their factories and shops and have extra cleaning, sanitizing, and logistics procedures in place to protect their staff and customers. These cleaning guidelines are no small feat and can add up to two hours per day to already full schedules.

• STEP 22 Gear is thinking long-term and giving a percentage of their sales to conservation organizations that are focused on stopping the wildlife trade that is so often the cause of the spread of diseases like COVID-19. They’ve partnered with 1% FOR THE PLANET and the Wildlife Conservation Network. A portion of every dollar spent at STEP 22 Gear are going to conservation efforts that make our planet better for today’s adventurers and the generations to come.

• For the month of April RIGd Supply will give 10% of their profit to Feeding America and CORVA respectively. Because of the crisis and job loss many have been placed in situations where food shortage is a reality. Feeding America provides food banks and services to those affected most by COVID-19. Services include food delivery for the elderly, local food banks, and providing food for children who normally rely on meals from schools. With many businesses suffering and regular fundraising events canceled or postponed CORVA fundraising has taken a hit. Luke Wronski, CEO of RIGd says, “When this thing is over, we’ll need our precious public land access more than ever. It is vital that CORVA continues to receive our support to fight for public land access.”

• Exhibitors DeMello Offroad, Expedition Essentials, Mountain Hatch, and Spirit of 1876 along with many other offroad shops and outfitters will donate a portion of every sale they make to Project C.U.R.E., a nonprofit making their resources available to the hospitals and first responders in our C.U.R.E. Communities.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but it is a great example of how the overland and outdoor industry is mobilizing to help the greater good. We’re so proud to call them our partners and clients. Most of all, we’re inspired by the many stories we’ve heard over the past few weeks coming out of the overland community. If you have the means right now, be sure to support your local shop, your favorite retailer, or just hop online and order some parts to work on your vehicle while you’re stuck at home.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands. We look forward to seeing you on the other side!

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

A little over two weeks ago, I crossed the border back into the US after an awesome motorcycle trip in Mexico. When I left in February, my plan was to take a little time off before the event-planning season kicked into high gear. When I returned, the world was in a much different state.

I’ve started and re-started this blog post a dozen times since my return. I assumed that I would get back from Mexico, knock out an awesome ride report and point you in the direction of my favorite fish tacos, beach camping, and dirt roads along the Baja peninsula. But with the current COVID-19 situation impacting every aspect of our lives, I’ll save that ride report for another day when I’m not busy laughing at toilet paper hoarding memes and pouring over my favorite pandemic map (is it weird to have a favorite pandemic map?).

I know I’m not the only one out there who heard social distancing and immediately thought this is a great time to go riding… I assume that, if you’re reading this, you’re an overlander. You’re stoked on adventure and thrive outdoors. You probably have a rig that has at least two wheels (off-road unicycling is struggling due to the stock market situation, unfortunately). You’re a motorcyclist, hiker, four-wheeler, RTW pioneer, avid camper, van-lifer, or weekend warrior. 

Because of your overlanding spirit, you are well-equipped to handle whatever may come your way, be it a breakdown or novel virus. So, I thought to myself, what better than a pandemic to go for a ride and riff on these strange days. Well, actually, there are a lot of things better than a pandemic… pandemics suck, but I still think you should go for a ride.

Since you’re going to use this time to do a bunch of moto-distancing, you definitely want to be doing regular pre-ride inspections of your trusty bike. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Pre-Ride Checklist is a great refresher to remind you of all the systems to take note of. Their acronym is T-CLOCS and it stands for: Tires/wheels, Controls, Lights/electrical, Oil/fluids, Chassis/suspension, and Stands. For actual information, grab the MSF’s checklist for the technical stuff because I’m about to ramble on with a bunch of mechanical metaphors. 

After scooting around on a socially-distant Sunday ride and washing my hands thoroughly, I got to thinking that if we do regular pre-ride checks on our motorcycles, we ought to be giving ourselves a thorough inspection, as well. So, I put together a mental checklist to run through while doing a standard bike inspection. I suggest giving your bike a once-over, heading out for a ride, and have fun riffing on your own metaphors. Here are my musings from my ride the other day…

Controls… Motorcycles are brilliantly designed with all the controls right there at your fingertips, so make sure your levers are lubed and adjusted for your freshly sanitized, gloved hands. One of the things I love most about riding is that you are in full control of your machine (except for when you’re going down those steep descents over a bunch of rugged loose stuff… oh wait, am I supposed to be in control then too?). On your bike you get to decide what line you’re going to take through the gnarly sections of the trail. This pandemic state of affairs is no different. When it gets rough, keep it smooth and stay on the throttle. You can’t control the terrain, but you can control how you react to the situation at hand. Stay loose and maybe cover the clutch because, at some point during this quarantine, you’re going to have to slow down and you don’t want to stall out when that happens. 

Fluids… You know how when you put lousy, low-octane gas in your tank and your bike starts running really rough? There’s that disturbing knocking sound and your MPG drops significantly. Well, the same thing happens when you spend too much of your quarantine time sitting on the couch binging on Youtube and Doritos (I know, it sounded like a good idea at the time). Keep your body running strong with healthy food, exercise, and plenty of quality time outdoors. Check your oil levels and make sure your chain is clean and greased before you head out. Once your bike is back in the driveway, I’d also recommend a nice bourbon to take the edge off if you plan on watching the 6 o’clock news.

Electrical… You and your vehicle are fully wired for success. Over the next few weeks or months one of the most important things will be keeping your battery charged and, like your bike, you have to keep moving to do that. Right now, our normal momentum has been disrupted and we all know what happens when we leave the bike sitting in the garage for too long… So for those whose daily routine is out of whack or has come to a halt, you might have to give yourself a jumpstart to keep on rolling. Now, I doubt that will happen to many of you because overlanders all know that getting out into the mountains is the best thing to clear your head.

Tires… For weathering COVID-19, I believe that the Center for Disease Control recommends a solid 60/40 tire to be prepared for a variety of changing conditions. Just kidding, the CDC doesn’t have a recommended tire… but who wants to stick to the pavement during a time like this. Check those spokes, look for signs of bearing wear, and always keep an eye on your tire pressure. Just as temperatures affect tire pressure, the emotional climate is going to affect your patience. We all know what we want our cold tire pressure to be at, but your PSI increases by about a pound for every ten degrees that temperature rises. When stress levels rise, your patience can get stretched thin. So if that guy on Facebook spouting epidemiological nonsense is pushing your adrenals to the max, take a deep breath and air down. Stress has a way of compounding itself, so check your internal PSI on a regular basis so you’re not dealing with a blow out when you’d rather be riding. 

Finally, the Kickstand… your stands are always always there for you, keeping your bike upright when you get home from a ride, after you’ve hoisted it up out of the pile of rocks that you dumped it in, when you’re prying a nail out of your tire or adjusting your chain. The kickstand has your back, that unsung hero that we rarely take time to acknowledge (until your kill-switch malfunctions and you can’t figure out why the bike won’t start… asking for a friend). When you’re doing your pre-ride check, make sure the spring tension is good and that there’s no damage to the stand. While you’re at it, call your mom, call your friends, reach out to the good people in your life and remind them that you’ve got their back. We all need someone to lean on when things get tough… not in the literal sense though, since we’re all supposed to stay six feet away from each other. 

Anyhow, hope you’re all hanging in there and that your life hasn’t gone through too much of an overhaul since the coronavirus swept across the globe. I figure most of you are at home, pouring over maps and planning your next adventure for as soon as the travel restrictions are lifted. In the meantime, have fun detailing your rig, get out on some solo adventures, and remember to wash your hands.

Photo Credit: Matt Beaty @mattbeaty

KICKSTANDS & KEVLAR

Kickstands & Kevlar is a blog hosted by Overland Expo’s own Motorcycle Community Ambassador, Eva Rupert.

Follow Eva @augusteva.

Like all great love stories, this one begins in Las Vegas*. And, it’s not really about the KLR. I’m about to hit you with a good old fashioned love story. Because, you know, it’s Valentine’s Day, but I promise it won’t be too sappy.

*This may be the only great love story that actually began in Las Vegas. Ever.

It’s easy to talk about love and motorcycles in the same sentence. The wind in your hair, the dirt-scrambling, free-wheeling, camp out under the stars kind of love. You love your friends that you ride with. You love your bike. You love that it’s the weekend and you love that you’re not stuck in that damn office. 

And sometimes, your moto ramblings send you down a lucky two-track and you cross paths with the love of your life. For me, that started on a KLR650. 

When I first met Sterling, my boyfriend and partner-in-all-things-awesome, I was riding a KLR650 that I had owned for a month or two. I bought it in the middle of a Flagstaff snowstorm from a guy who was hunkered down in the trailer park off I-40 on the east side of town. Prior to purchasing the KLR, I religiously rode my beloved ‘79 Honda CX500 on all sorts of adventures, but, having attended Overland Expo for years, I was feeling a bit out of place amongst the Klim-clad GS riders standing on their pegs and riding gnarly trails that would make my old Honda cringe.

It was clearly time for an adventure motorcycle, but BMWs were far too fancy for my vintage tastebuds. KTMs were nothing but orange-clad intimidation. For all I knew, beyond that, the ADV bike options seemed to come to a screeching halt.

And then I found it. A gently used KLR on Craigslist, with enough dings that I wouldn’t worry much about dropping it and carbureted enough to ease my fears of high-technology motorbikes. A quick dip into the farkled-out Kawasaki forums made it clear that this was my next motorbike, which was soon to become the vehicle for meeting the love of my life.

My first KLR trip started out like any other moto ride. A bit of planning, a glance at the map, and a new set of tires. Donning a fresh pair of double-front Carhartt overalls (safety first, you know) I set out with my duffle bag bungeed to the back of the bike and a light drizzle misting the route to Las Vegas.

The plan was to head to Vegas for a screening of the new Backcountry Discovery Routes movie, then west to Death Valley for a BDR fundraiser and an opportunity to ride with some people who were so good at adventure motorcycling that they didn’t wear canvas overalls.

In Vegas, I had a dirt-bike riding girlfriend that I knew through Facebook who had a place to stay in the city. After the movie ended, I made my way on the KLR through the crowded Vegas streets to park the bike for a safe night of urban recklessness on foot. 

My friend had assembled a small posse of adventure motorcyclists, which happened to include the filmmaker from the movie screening. We set out for a classic Vegas night full of drinks, drinks, and more drinks followed by a morning so fraught with hangover I could hardly tell the tailpipe from the handlebars when I stumbled out to my KLR in the morning. 

One night in Las Vegas is more than enough for me and, as they say, what happens in Vegas, stays. Except for me… and Sterling, the filmmaker from the night before. He was traveling in his van, with a BMW GS somehow strapped to the back bumper (can you see where this story is going?).

Sterling and I were both headed to Death Valley for the next BDR event. We had a day before we had to be at the next destination, our conversations were rich and intriguing (even through the whisky haze of the previous evening) and he seemed to be a good travel companion. Sterling suggested that we spend a night at the hot springs in Tecopa, a defunct California desert town crustier than my Carhartts. An evening of soaking in the mineral water was just what the doctor ordered and by sunset, the hangover had subsided and I was back to feeling like a million bucks.

Sterling and I hung out by the campfire, probably a little too close and probably verging on the sappiness I promised to leave out of this story, so let’s get back to the KLR…

That night, something I had never seen before came through the campsite: a trio of 20-something comrades who called themselves the Lost Boys on bikes no different than mine… a whole group of people riding KLRs! Who even knew that there were others out there rambling around on these odd machines? At least one of them was wearing double front Carhartts as well.

They stopped for a bit of moto small-talk and social media contact swapping before making their way down the road to some free camping on BLM land.

Departure day for Death Valley followed a night so blustery that crumpled beer cans from the next campsite pelted my bivvy sack till sunrise. We packed our things and set out. Sterling hit the road early, having a deadline to arrive at the BDR event in time to film the opening of the event. I rolled out after a second cup of coffee with the intention of taking my time before registration began.

Not 10 miles down the road my KLR came to a perplexingly quiet halt.

No twist of the throttle or flip of the fuel reserve gave her any more speed and I pulled to the side of the road perplexed. Fuel gauge, fine. Ignition and engine, no problem. But the chain was nowhere to be found. 

Having ridden the CX exclusively for years until I bought the KLR, the chain, as a concept integral to the forward progress of the motorcycle had eluded me completely. The Honda CX is a shaft drive, allegedly pinched from Moto Guzzi’s smooth cruising design in the 70s. The thought of chain maintenance was so far from my mind that I found myself alone on a desert roadside.

Like grandma looking for a lost contact lens, I scoured the immediate vicinity to no avail. So I started walking back the way I came. A quarter mile back, there was the chain, in a neat pile in the center of Route 127. The master link had let loose without announcement, leaving me stranded.

Now, there are many great advantages to being a lone woman on a motorbike, but the only one I need to mention at this point is the ability to draw attention to oneself when broken down. Hardly a car had passed before I could hitch a ride to Shoshone and the nearest payphone to call in the tiny, necessary, part from the city.

I’ve never been one to get stressed about mechanical breakdowns that happen without injury. This is, after all, an essential part of adventure. Plus, I had a bike stocked with camping supplies and I certainly had enough time that nobody would miss me if I’m running behind schedule. 

Since it appeared that I would have a day of waiting for the part to make its way from Las Vegas to my middle-of-nowhere detour, a cold beer seemed in order and I sat in front of the convenience store sipping an icy brew, contemplating my next move. 

No sooner did I crack the cerveza than Sterling’s van, riding low with his GS on the hitch tray, crested the road. Needless to say, the sight gave me a bit of unanticipated embarrassment about the breakdown and a little flush of excitement at the same time. Of course, I had to play it cool in these early moments of a burgeoning crush. I sipped the beer and explained to him that I had someone running the part out from the city later today. I was taken by surprise when he said that he turned back because I hadn’t passed him yet (clearly he was impressed by the mighty speeds that the KLR could sustain). I’m sure I managed to keep my blush concealed at the idea that someone was actually looking out for me.

We were making a plan for remedying the breakdown and along came the flock of KLR Lost Boys from the night before. We all got to chatting about the weather and whatnot when one of them asked me about where my motorbike was. “Well, um, I slipped the chain back on the road to Tecopa and someone is bringing me a master link from the city this afternoon.” As if the stars weren’t already well on their way to alignment, the Lost Boy pulled a zip-locked part out of his overall pocket. He had picked it up the day before in Vegas for just such a situation. With my jaw on the floor at the coincidence, I gave them the rest of the six-pack with gratitude.

Sterling gave me a lift back to the KLR’s roadside resting place and pulled a cooler from the van to prop the bike’s skid-plate on to do the repair. The repair and the ride into Death Valley went smooth enough, and beyond that, it all gets a little blurry. There’s some riding and some socializing, but all I really know is, that weekend, I spent every available moment hanging around with Sterling. And we’ve been hanging around each other ever since.  

It’s been years since I’ve been to Vegas and I ride a BMW GS now (quite a luxurious step up from the old KLR) and my double front work pants have been replaced by some high-tech kevlar. Sterling and I have, of course, outlasted both. We’ve been on countless moto trips and now make our home in southern Arizona running a little vintage motel for travelers. 

I don’t quite know how to end this story, since Sterling and I are in it for the long haul. I will say, in conclusion, that love and motorcycling draw from the same wellspring when it comes to metaphor. Whether you’re in it for the rapture, the battlefield, the journey or destination, you should definitely just keep riding and make sure you keep a master link in your tool kit if you’re on a KLR.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Pelican, they make rugged carrying cases used by travelers far and wide to store sensitive tech gadgets, camera equipment, and more. I use Pelican cases in my Land Cruiser to store my recovery equipment and first aid supplies. While Pelican is known for these tough cases, not many people know that also make a damn fine ice chest.

Pelican sent us their 20 QT Elite Cooler*, and I was stoked to get my hands on it for testing on a recent trip to Baja. To be honest, since I bought my 12V fridge/ freezer in 2009, I haven’t thought about coolers much – aside from wishing I had some ice for a refreshing backcountry camp cocktail after a hard day on the trail.

Pelican 20 QT Elite Cooler Specs

The 20 QT Elite Cooler features .78” thick polyurethane foam insulation encased in a polypropylene body with thick ABS resin latches. The handle is polypropylene and features a thick rubberized handle that will not slip out of your hand. Dry, the entire cooler weighs 12.5 pounds. It holds up to 15 cans (you’re gonna have to trust me on this one, I put this to the test) OR four bottles OR 19 pounds of ice. The cooler also features a lockable hasp for keeping bears (or your buddies) out of your beer stash.

 

 

 

I filled the cooler with beer and ice while sitting on a beach in Baja, and two days later I was surprised to find that the cooler still held ice. In fact, the cooler stayed cool for four days even though the ice had long melted. In my opinion, this cooler is perfect for long weekend trips or even longer if you can replenish ice occasionally. Being space conscious in my rig and knowing that every item I bring with me has to serve multiple purposes, I am pleased to let you know that the Pelican 20QT Elite Cooler makes an amazing camp stool, workstation, and foot rest. The depressed can holders in the lid make a perfect spot to store your beer while working on your computer.

Let’s not mince words here…12.5 pounds + beer + ice is HEAVY. You’re not humping this thing up a mountainside to have a cold beer at the summit of your favorite hike – but being vehicle-based, this cooler works well for my needs. I can see it becoming core kit that I take with me wherever I go – and because I’m taking it wherever I go (and knowing the beating I put my equipment through) it is nice to know Pelican backs up their coolers with a lifetime warranty.

The 20QT Elite Cooler retails for around $155 and is available at Pelican.com*.

*This article may contain affiliate links. All reviews on overlandexpo.com are professional reviews based on each author’s personal experiences with a product that will reflect the quality of the product being reviewed in an objective way.