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Outfit your vehicle for emergencies on your first overland adventure

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Let’s talk about how to make your vehicle ready for emergencies on your first overland adventure. When new to overlanding, you should plan on doing either day trips or short camping trips to get started. I’ll write a separate article soon which covers how to find and choose your first overland route. For this article, let’s say you will likely be driving on the interstate for an hour or more and then driving on a gravel and/or dirt road to your destination.  Use what you have already What supplies should you bring in your vehicle for this trip? If you have seen photos of built up overland vehicles, it would be reasonable to think you might need to go out and buy a ton of gear like mud terrain tires, traction boards, fuel canisters, farm jack, light bars, the list goes on. While that gear can certainly help for certain situations, they are not required for every adventure and may not even make sense for your particular situation. Instead, I would advise you to try and see what you a...
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The Ten Essentials - Part 2

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  This is part two of a two part series. You can find part one here .  The National Park Service (NPS) has compiled a  list of ten essentials  which are items that should be carried with you on every adventure. In this post I will cover items 6-10. 6. Fire Campfires are an iconic aspect of camping that forms a link between us and our ancient ancestors. In addition to it's primal ambiance, it can serve life-saving aid through a variety of means. The heat generated from a fire can help stave off hypothermia. The light cast from its flame can provide illumination rather than relying entirely upon your headlamp or flashlight. The smoke generated can create a signal in the sky for rescuers to be able to find you. It's fiery coals can be used to cook your food if need be. In order to start a fire, you need a flame source such as matches and/or a lighter. If matches, make sure to have a waterproof container to carry them in and waterproof matches are ideal. Pocket lighters...
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The Ten Essentials - Part 1

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While it may seem typical for an overland blog to focus on outfitting your rig as a first step, instead you should focus on outfitting yourself. Whenever you are heading into the backcountry, you should be prepared for emergencies and a variety of weather conditions.  The National Park Service (NPS) has compiled a list of ten essentials  which are items that should be carried with you on every adventure. This list is just as relevant for overland adventures as you may leave the vehicle for hikes, or in extreme examples you may need to abandon the vehicle entirely. Additionally, if you are a passenger in somebody else's vehicle, you can rest assured that you have yourself covered rather than having to rely on their preparation.  For this reasons stated above, I like to carry my ten essentials in a daypack  that I always throw into my rig during overland trips. I prefer a daypack because I can easily carry it with me on hikes and if I had to abandon my vehicle, I would...
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Welcome to Overland Primer

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Welcome to Overland Primer! The purpose of OP is to help you learn the basics of overlanding so that you can get out there and start adventuring. For this initial post I will provide some context about overlanding, primers, and myself by answering some questions and asking one in return. What is Overlanding? Overlanding has become an umbrella term that means different things to different people. According to Oxford Languages, overlanding is simply “traveling a long distance over land”. Wikipedia goes a step further by defining it as “self-reliant overland travel to remote destinations where the journey is the principal goal.”. Colloquially in America, overlanding is typically referred to as vehicle assisted adventure with camping being the primary form of lodging. Often the vehicle is a car or truck with four or all wheel drive (4WD/AWD). Adventure motorcycle travel and bicycles have also been included in the fold. My personal definition is that I am overlanding whenever I am traveling...
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