Innehållsförteckning för Gear Guide 2024 från Overland Journal

ON THE ROAD AGAIN My family attempted the Pan-Am in 2020, and once Covid-19 shut us down, we started to build Legos to pass the time. I built this set right when [Scott Brady’s] sailing episode of the podcast came out. Now that we’re packing up to have another go at traveling south, I thought it might be a fun way to pass an hour or two. I hope you enjoy it. I’ve been following [Scott] since the Expeditions West days, and it’s been awesome to see all [he’s] done. My family is a huge fan of the podcast, and we’ve learned so much and been inspired by all of the amazing guests. I hope to see you at the Overland Expo in a couple of years when we get…

EXPED MEGA PILLOW | $55 I’ve tried all sorts of camp pillows—down, foam, inflatables—and the Mega pillow was the first not to leave me with a good-morning crick in the neck. It provides ample support without being too firm, thanks to its adjustability. The padded aircore pillow with near-vertical sidewalls is quick to inflate and covered with soft tricot nylon, insulated with polyester fleece padding in the air core. At 6.5 ounces, it packs down small (5.1 x 3.9 inches) and inflates to 20.9 x 12.6 x 4.7 inches. Fabric eyelets allow you to attach it to a mat, though I prefer to move my pillow throughout the night, adapting the height as I go with the deflation pin on the inflate valve. It also has a removable, washable cover…

I wake with a splitting headache, my body hurts all over, and I feel disconnected from reality. It takes a full 20 minutes to overcome heavy lethargy before I can crawl out of the swag and confirm Katie feels no better. With nets over our heads to block the unrelenting blowflies, we only feel worse while trying to eat breakfast half an hour later. Although it feels similar, somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, I know this can’t be malaria again. I begin to list our symptoms out loud. We both have severe headaches, joint pain, sore throats, and dripping noses. We’re both experiencing brain fog and feeling strongly disconnected from our bodies as if we’re watching ourselves from a few paces away. This combination of symptoms sounds…

People tend to fall into two—if you’ll pardon the expression—camps when it comes to cooking on backcountry adventures. There are those of us who see it as the penultimate drudgery, a distraction from what we really want to be doing on our overland expeditions, and a source of never-ending dishes that must be cleaned. Others relish mealtimes, packing exotic ingredients, planning elaborate multi-course dinners, and spending lots of energy (and money) setting up their perfect camp kitchen. As I collected the camp stoves that make up this wide-ranging gear review, I had the opportunity to reflect on where I fall on this continuum. I tend to shade toward the “cooking is a chore” side of things, which is surprising because I love to cook at home. But on the road,…

A flat motorcycle tire can stop a journey in its tracks. Having experienced plenty of them, I ride prepared for a roadside repair. Besides a spare tube, patch kit, and tire tools, my kit includes two items for inflating tires. One is an electric inflator, the other one is a bicycle hand pump. This redundancy is a result of having both kinds of pumps fail. FACING UP TO FLATS My riding buddy John and I were each carrying two pumps when my rear tire went flat 40 miles outside of Tonopah, Nevada, a couple of years ago. We found both of our electric inflators crushed and useless. Turns out we’d both packed them in soft panniers, and both dropped our bikes on that side. Things got more interesting when I…

Spanning over 600 kilometers through South Africa’s Northern Cape, the Namakwa EcoTrail is the country’s longest official 4x4 route. The title comes with a certain prestige, attracting those who seek bragging rights associated with completing the route. To be fair, though, most trek to this remote northwestern corner of the country for its sun-scorched ruggedness, biodiverse flora, and riverside bush camps. One can easily explore for days, following the sandy desert two-track (where it exists) through parched riverbeds, over mountains of shale, and into the cool and shady oases of the area’s primary life source: the Orange River. If you want an escape in a far-flung region of South Africa, this is it. GENERAL INFORMATION The trail runs through a vast and arid part of the Northern Cape known as…

DAN GREC Dan Grec is an adventurer, photographer, and videographer. Growing up in Australia, family camping trips gave Dan a passion for wilderness exploration in remote destinations. After studying and working as an engineer, Dan left it all behind in search of a more vibrant life, setting out to turn his dreams of grand adventure into reality. Over a decade and a half Dan has driven his vehicles to the wild and remote corners of 56 countries across five continents, documenting what he sees and learns as he sinks into local cultures. With no end in sight, Dan is now outfitting a vehicle for four-season travel to colder regions of the planet. @theroadchoseme WILL RITCHIE Will Ritchie is a freelance writer with a “day job” in the bicycle industry. As…

way-far-er /'wāferər/ noun a traveler, especially on foot Portable water filters are common kit among backpackers and other travelers of the remote backcountry. Rugged, reliable, and usually field serviceable, they take the guesswork out of securing a clean water supply. The most highly effective among carbon ceramics filters eliminate up to 99.9999 percent of harmful bacteria, not to mention protozoa, parasites, and other larger waterborne nasties. However, as LifeSaver will tell you, there is a big difference between a water filter and a water purifier. A purifier takes the level of filtration one step further—eliminating smaller health threats like viruses and cysts. The LifeSaver Wayfarer, launched in early 2023, falls into the latter category. This compact and lightweight (just 11.4 ounces) hollow-fiber-membrane purifier is made from BPA-free plastic and costs…

The historian Hellanicus recorded the first reference to letter writing, a handwritten note sent in 500 BCE from the Persian Queen Atossa, mother of Xerxes and the Achaemenid Empire (Roberts, 1843). There is little doubt that messages were sent across longer distances in earlier times, but they are lost in the sands. The process changed little for the next millennia, with only the speed of communication improving through messengers on horseback and eventually with the Arabs employing pigeons. Still, the letter remained the form of communication until 1830, when the telegraph became viable for rapid and longer-distance messaging, but it was far from portable. Finally, radio communications arrived at the turn of the 19th century, as Guglielmo Marconi transmitted a wireless message 1.5 miles across the ether. For the modern…

Paper maps depict a seeming state of perfection. If only I could live there, content on a page, with everything lining up. In reality, on the ground, life is different and anything but perfect. We were testing a route I’d put together connecting trails from various paper and digital maps. It linked Williams Lake, British Columbia, to Squamish, crossing southwestern Canada’s Coast Mountains. It was intended to be bikepacked—think loaded bicycles with enough gear for four to five days. We had five people, three vehicles, three bikes, and six days at most to figure it out. On paper, it looked somewhat confusing but feasible. The most convoluted portion was between the Churn Creek Protected Area of south-central British Columbia, lining the Fraser River, and Gold Bridge, a tiny hamlet next…

Parked in a construction quarry beside a quiet, muddy road between the villages of Loubetsie and Kibangou in the Democratic Republic of Congo, my son, Keelan, struggled to cook a meal as we dealt with a debilitating mechanical issue and the sunset. We had recently run out of propane, and now the price was being paid; Keelan was forced to scavenge for dry firewood in a region known for Gaboon vipers, cobras, and bright-green black mambas. We had miscalculated and found the limitations of the supply of our chosen cooking fuel, impressive though it had been. Over the years, we have tried every portable cooking fuel available to man while traveling globally. Each fuel source has its pros and cons, its strengths and weaknesses. But one fuel source, carried in…

He slapped my shoulder with the back of his bear-like hand and practically knocked me off my feet. I half turned around to confront the guy and stepped back a little as he stared me down with his ice-blue eyes. An intimidating growl punctuated with words followed: “What do you want with a six-cylinder diesel engine?”. I tried to explain, but he just laughed. With a menacing but mischievous smile, he said, “If you put a Cummins 5.9 [liter] in a Volkswagen van, I’ll give you the damn thing.” We were at the Barrie Automotive Flea Market in Ontario, Canada, in early June, and it was already hot. After arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two months prior, my wife, Dee, our 6-month-old daughter, Willow, and I had made our way…

The Grenadier is starting to arrive in consumers’ hands in several markets worldwide, including Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Southern Africa (among others). Along with that comes rapid innovation of aftermarket accessories to complement this much-anticipated overland platform. Front Runner was one of the first to bring products to market, including their Slimline II full and 3/4 racks with a long list of accessories. We have been fortunate to get access to a Grenadier for a Trans-Africa adventure and needed to add a few items to prepare it for the task. Primarily, we needed a 3/4 rack that would allow full use of the safari windows for game drives and serve as a platform to mount MaxTrax, 40 liters of fuel, and a camp table. Given that the…

Since our overland vehicle is also a daily driver, packing and preparing for spontaneous trips has been cumbersome. My family is forced to choose between comfort, preparedness, and the simple ease of minimalism. In the last decade, a new class of capable overland camp trailers has mitigated this trade-off. We now store all of our overland and backcountry gear in our trailer, meaning last-minute, unplanned departures are as simple as hitching the trailer and heading out. Our trailer keeps the whole family comfortable and gives us some of the benefits of a dedicated overland vehicle but with less depreciation and maintenance. And when we leave camp to explore, we appreciate being able to detach from the trailer for excursions even farther into the wilderness. With lightweight materials, high clearance, and…

On a cool January night, we sat tucked into a small shelter made of piled stones and tried to warm ourselves beside a stubborn fire. This part was supposed to be the relaxing bit after a long day’s ride. Dinner was almost ready when an odd flashlight pattern was revealed in the distance, scanning the hillsides as if looking for something. We walked a few paces to look over the ridge our camp was nestled behind and saw not one but half a dozen high-intensity beams spread over a few kilometres—all scanning, all steadily marching along the mountainside. These were not shepherds looking for a lost flock, which left only two reasonable possibilities: either this was the Peshmerga, a Kurdish military force whose name means “those who face death,” or…

OUR DREAM OF TRAVERSING THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY started when we were driving home from Kyrgyzstan to Austria in our small 4x4 Fiat Panda. We were ready for bigger things (vehicle included) and decided to embark on a new adventure with a soon-to-be-purchased Mercedes-Benz G-Class Puch G, which we converted into an off-road camper. The restoration and conversion of our Puch G, a former pickup truck of the Austrian military, took much more time and effort than we had anticipated. Finally, after a one-year delay and endless days and nights spent in the workshop, we were ready to load the truck onto a ship and schedule its pickup in South America. We started our journey going south to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. After getting stuck there for almost…

Think back to 1972 (if you can). Some of you may remember when The Turtle Expedition, Unltd. was exploring the backroads of Mexico and Central America in our trusty 1967 109 Land Rover. At that time, we had one battery, and its functions were to start the 6-cylinder gas engine (that choked on Mexican Pemex Nova regular), turn on the single dome light, and power the little 12-volt oscillating fan over the windshield, the essence of our air-conditioning at night. During the day, the two big vents under the windshield that will be familiar to those who know Land Rovers were adequate for keeping us cool, along with the sliding side windows (not electric or rollup). Fast forward 50 years, and you’ve probably noticed that overland travel has gotten very…