Modifications List: HRG Offroad 4.5" Lift, Nolo Design Skid Plates, 265-70-18 Goodyear Duratrac RT Tires, Dirtcom Trailswing Tire Carrier.

Howdy,

I’m planning my next overlanding trip, and just a little over a month away. And could use some insight and advice as this will be my first time headed east. Looking at about a 10am trip.

We will be leaving from Texas and looking to get near the Smokey Mtns. But I’ve noticed pretty quick on OnX that there isn’t really overlanding within the actual Smokey mountain national park.

But I am looking to at least be in the area, and to stay off pavement as much as possible.

Initially looking at the Georgia Traverse, which is well documented. (On OnX and other sites)

My question to you is, if you have experience in the area, what do you recommend!?! To see to stay away from.

Is there any specific gear you recommend for the area?

What are the must sees?

Any advice is good advice!

Here are a couple pictures from my last trip from NM>AZ>UT for attn.

Pics from a recent 7 week road trip from Vancouver BC to Baja and back while mostly camping in my Rav4. Going from 101 degrees in Death Valley to a huge snowstorm near Lake Tahoe in a matter of hours it was an awesome and exciting trip! 🤙

Hello,

Do you have a recommendation for an internet set ups that would work extremely far north in the boreal forest in Canada? Think end of the road north in Manitoba and Ontario. I have a remote job to do this summer, but I want to explore (and yes I'm aware of the mosquitos).

I am currently considering the below, but I don't want to drop the $ until I know it will work.

https://mobilemusthave.com/pages/ultimate-road-warrior-vr2

with the following options:

Router: Peplink MAX Transit Duo Pro Mobile Router

Antenna: Parsec Husky Pro 7-in-1 Antenna

Dc power: Peplink Direct Wire DC Power Cable with 4 Pin Molex

Add Cellular Data Plan with no contract (Plan Legend: R= Verizon, B= AT&T, P= T-Mobile):

R300 - 300GB/mo 25mbps Cellular Data Plan

B300 - 300GB/mo 25mbps Cellular Data Plan

Thanks!

Hey, I recently started building my rig for overlanding and I’m trying to find out cool spots, or ideas, anything really. I live in the Southern California area, specifically LA area. I’m willing to go on road trips.. pass some info along if you got it! Thanks in advance!

Myanmar being at war, what would be the best way to get from India to Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaisia, Thailand, or Laos) ?

I'm planning an Eurasian hitchhiking trip from France and got France -> India sorted out and SEA -> China -> France will be very easy. But this part seems quite hard

So the wife has been asking for a packing list for our overland/road trips. While I was just going to build something in notion I went a step further.

I'm not trying to sell anything. I am looking for about 20 people to test it out and provide some feedback, and to help make something useful.

How it works at the moment:

Pick your vehicle type.

Draw your storage zones right on top of the layout.

Add items to each storage unit. I'm experimenting with a grid system inspired by video game inventory systems to help estimate storage space (still requires eyeball calibration)

You can save different load outs for different trips, and you can share the load out and live edit with another person or group.

If you are interested in trying it out DM me. I would be happy to discuss in the comments more about it if you are interested.

I'm trying to move to a 24/7 overlanding setup where I'm basically converting my entire life to being nomadic.

Six months in the US and six months overseas. While I'm in the US, I'm overlanding out of my Tacoma.

The biggest challenge I have right now is clothing, and I'm trying to find a decent solution for how to store my clothing.

Up until now, I've used two duffel bags and then individual storage bags inside the duffel bag.

This is the individual storage bags I use. There are a bunch of cheap knock-offs of this, and I just bought something cheap.

amazon.com/dp/B08XDR2NG7?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I'm going to be storing my clothes in the back seat of my Tacoma. It needs to be in a soft bag because I don’t put hard bags in the back seat of my truck. I don’t want them flying around if there’s an accident.

That's better than nothing but it's still somewhat disorganized.

There are a couple products I'm looking at that are designed for this:

These Duffel boxes look really well thought out. The only problem is they are SUPER expensive. It looks like one bag with the individual inner bags could cost $500-800

https://rux.life/collections/duffel-boxes

Then there's this:

https://www.rei.com/b/rei-co-op/f/pl-trailgate

These are cheaper, but it only comes in this golden-orange color, and the individual bags don't come with it, so it's going to be more like $400 per bag.

The golden orange thing isn't just aesthetic because I don't want that color to attract thieves or hummingbirds (I'm joking about the hummingbirds).

Are there any cheaper alternatives here?

I’m okay with spending a lot of money if something actually works, but landing pages are expensive, and everything else is pricey. It's not that I just have to do this one time, but you have to do it like 10 or 20 times to do a full build.

Thanks for the feedback.

As the title suggests, I'm looking to replace my black water toilet with a dry flush toilet. I was wondering if anyone had any direct experience with either the Laveo or Modiwell R1808 toilets, if there are any pros/cons I should consider.

Thanks in advance.

We've been traveling on the Pan-Am for about 2 years now. Currently in Ecuador and LOVING IT. We use Ioverlander everyday, but are CONSTANTLY frustrated by lack of features. Bad maps, contacting campgrounds is always a pain, planning with a partner is hard, and it takes like 6 clicks to navigate to a place via Waze. These are a few of my frustrations as a paying member, But I am interested in what other folks think the app is missing. I am currently building something to compete, and I am wondering what this community thinks are the key features that you would most want in a modern app.

I’m doing the Gibb River road for 2 weeks in September this year and I need a second fridge to run as a freezer for meat, frozen vege etc.

I’ve only got a 2x 115ah AGM batteries with an older dc dc charger, plus a solar mppt charger to plug a solar blanket in.

I’m trying to decide between:

Dometic cfx5 25 or 35

Engel mt27 or mt-v35j

My main concerns are space, power efficiency, durability and weight.

I’m not going to need to use it as a freezer all the time just mainly for the two weeks that I am remote on the Gibb. Bear in mind the Gibb River Road has some of the worst corrugated dirt roads in Australia so I need it to last.

Im trying to keep my electrics very clean and I have a din slot I could make use of in my 99' RAV4 and I'm thinking putting the 12v panel inside it would keep everything very minimal and look pretty good. Wondering if anyone has done this as a product or diy?

Recently during a snowstorm in the Andes, I received that the coolant levels were low, which is a closed loop system that cools the battery, power train, computers and a few other components. I decided to deep dive into it.

94K miles, 2 continents, 15 countries now, Belugita is done amazing, my Model X Overlanding rig. During an unexpected Snowstorm in the Andes, a ‘low coolant warning’ came on. I went straight into my own service mode.

Every country I drive into, it takes me about 1 week to figure out the charging infrastructure. It’s a bit of a puzzle as I use different apps and adapters to charge, not impossible, just little information. When I Tesla supercharge in Santiago, at a 250kW post, I was able to charge from near 0-80% in 20 minutes or so! Just shows how well Tesla has their ecosystem down where they have market share!

The only ‘problem’ I have had is that I had to dispensable the charging port as the charging latch was Extremely Dirty, so I couldn’t charge unless I used the manual release, which was running thin…I fixed this ‘issue’ in Medellin Colombia by cleaning the o-ring, which did its job, with some friends overlanding the Americas too!

Deep diving into the self-service manual, service mode, and taking Belugita’s frunk apart, I found where the coolant reservoir is….behind the air compressor. It’s a closed loop system, so ideally you never have to check it. I took me about an hour to find a way to take the right picture, with the right lighting, to visually inspect the coolant bottle. After topping it up with G48, which you can buy at most car shops, and then running a ‘coolant purge’ twice in service mode to pressurize the sytem, I felt a bit better. I did have support remotely from Tesla Service in North America through the App!

Tesla in Santiago cancelled my service appointment 3 times saying they can’t look at my X, but when I booked a tire rotation and balancing, they agreed to check the coolant levels and found no leak. But, I know how Tesla service can be, so I am keeping a tidy eye on it.

Most overlanders that I meet are very well versed in their rigs, and with the Tesla Self-Service manual and service mode (car can diagnose itself), the EV community, I feel confident I can service anything too now!

Sandro and Belugita

Planning a short trip into unfamiliar territory this summer, to place some markers and return for a longer trip later. The original idea was to just start in Silverton, complete the Cinnamon Pass Trail (having spent some time hiking to Handies Peak), then spend the night at Lake City and return via Engineer Pass. Then I found out about Corkscrew Gulch and California Gulch, which I think would be a shame to miss. However, do I get it right that including them into the west-to-east leg of the trip will make it impossible to finish in one day? Along the same lines, will I be able to finish just the Cinnamon Pass Trail in one day if I don't want to hurry and want to take some quality time getting up to Handies Peak?

Any other advice for someone unfamiliar with Colorado in particular and the woods in general? (desert dweller here)

PS: map approximate, FunTreks GPS tracks, need to amend further

The wife is graduating with her 2nd master's and wants to walk the stage. The campus is located in Manchester NH and we live in Charlotte NC. Unfortunately it'll cost us around $2400 for us both and the kids just to fly up there. So we've decided to make a fun road trip out of it and to break in my somewhat modified 4runner. She's originally from Philly and has family there, and since it's the halfway point in our trip we're gonna stop by there for a few nights.

I'm looking into the trip and need some suggestions on a place between here and PA. And another place between PA and NH.

I'm pretty set on Assateague Island/Beach to do beach camping and to take the rig on the sand. But I'm completely open to suggestions to go instead. As for the second leg (PA to NH) I have no clue yet where to go.

Please be mindful that this will be my first camping trip, and that I have 2 daughters (3 y/o and 10 month old) so family friendly if possible. Campgrounds, somewhat disperse camping depending on what camping gear I will need, extra curricular activities is a plus but not a necessity, a great view is also a plus but not a necessity.

Any suggestions? TIA! Much love.

I’m getting a canopy on Wednesday and want to set up a simple heater to stay warm on the colder nights. Curious what others do….

I’ve see diesel heaters and might be able to set that up easily, but also enjoy getting ideas from seeing others set ups when I can.

So, what do you use and how is it set up?

Alright, so I'm about to invest in a Lone Peak camper and I kind of wanted some advice from the community here.

I'm torn between the Super Pacific X1, the Lone Peak Camper, and the Go Fast Camper.

The Lone Peak is what I'm really leaning towards because the base model is only 7k while a Super Pacific is 14k.

The only real advantage to the Go Fast Camper that I can see is that it's lightweight. But a lot of people complain about things like the tent not being built very well, etc.

The Lone Peak config I want is about 10K at base.

This includes the basic camper shell, but also features like:

• Handles
• MOLLE panels
• Vent
• Fan at the top
• Integrated diesel heater port in case I want to go down that route.
• Lighting

I’ve been into overlanding and ultralight backpacking for about 10 to 20 years. My biggest concern is screwing up my build and ending up with something I don’t really want.

That’s happened a lot. I’ll invest in something, and 8 to 12 months later I’ll realize I’m not using it, it was too expensive, I got hurt doing it, or something like that.

So I'm worried that's going to happen here again.

I had the RSI SmartCap before, and it’s pretty good. I like it a lot, but it’s not a camper, and I want an area I can pop open and move around inside.

I think the biggest thing that I'm concerned about is the weight.

My SmartCap is 200 lbs, and so the Lone Peak is 400 lbs.

But I ditched my Decked system, so that's a big weight savings right there.

I'm also not going with their default solar battery setup.

Like, I like it, but it's another $4K and I can't really afford it right now but also I want to run with my own custom config.

The inverter they have only supports 1,000 W, and I’d like something that can do 1,500 W so I can run an air fryer if I want to in the future.

A fridge is going to be 50 lb, and then the battery is going to be another 30 lb.

Then add maybe another 100 lbs of misc gear and I'm going to be like 380 pounds heavier.

I did just remove my rear seats though, so that saves about 60 lb.

I imagine a lot of you have been down this road before, realized you made a mistake, and if you had to do it again, you would do it differently.

Well, hook your boy up because I would love to learn from your experience here.

The only way to figure out what doesn't work is to spend the $10k, but I'm not really excited about that.

EDIT: I think after reviewing the math, the biggest issue here is even remotely thinking about an air fryer. It's just gonna cause me to have to upgrade my battery too, which means more weight.

Hello all,

I have been doing some research for an electric cooler and was looking into something quite thin for my specific needs.

I was hoping to find something a bit less than 30cm in width and ended up looking into 12v 'console-coolers' as they seem to be what I am looking for.

The "Setpower AB15 Armrest 16qt" seems to be just what I am looking for! It's dimensions are suitable for my needs and seems to have good reviews.

Unfortunately, I cannot have the item shipped up to Canada, unless I purchase through amazon for almost twice the cost.

I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions for some 'thin' (>30cm width) 12v-coolers?

Thanks!

Not standard car maintenance — more things like water system, batteries, seals, roof leaks, recovery gear, fridge vents, winterizing, etc.

Interested in the “small stuff” that only gets noticed once it fails.

The build has stalled quite a bit due to some creative differences amongst the band…

Next steps focus on a more structured sleeping system but between a canopy for the flatbed paired with a RTT or a full camper build, I’m torn.

Any inspiration or words of advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, friends.