Packboat is my made-up word for easily portable boats that roll into a bag but deploy in minutes, in contrast with hardshell kayaks or canoes in aluminum, plastic, or composite. I’m here to suggest that if lugging a cumbersome hardshell on your overland rig isn’t for you, then a packboat weighing from 2 to 40 pounds and never bigger than…

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal, Summer 2018. Photography by Joe Fleming and Scott Brady TRAVEL CHANGES US IF WE LET IT. There is something different about Peru. On my third trip to this variegated country in as many years, it became clear. It is easy to say that the difference is in the water, that…

Have you ever noticed that on most phones and computers, overlanding auto-corrects to overloading? Call it a fun coincidence, but it’s also appropriate given our tendency to weigh down our vehicles with bumpers, winches, armor, tents, and other equipment. Any of these upgrades can add comfort or capability, but they also make the engine work harder, reduce acceleration, decrease fuel…

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal, Spring 2018. I still remember my very first overland trip, a 4-day journey across El Camino Del Diablo, the infamous border road with Mexico that crosses the most remote region of the Sonoran Desert. The track has been in use for over 1,000 years, including the first European crossing in…

“…as woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” -Virginia Woolf Six months ago I became the “woman behind the phone” managing the Women Overlanding the World Instagram account. On that site, I share tales and photographs sent from women adventuring all over the globe. It is a privilege…

It was two days after Christmas with the temperature in Johannesburg sitting at a boiling 37 degrees. Abby (my American pit bull terrier) and I were desperately looking for some activity or adventure to keep us occupied during the holidays, and I knew that staying in Johannesburg was not going to be an option. We needed somewhere to go. It…

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a mountain bike that I wanted more than anything in the world. It was green, my favorite color, with knobby tires, big shocks, and a price tag that seemed impossible to an elementary school student. Every time I went to the store with my parents, I would stare at that darn bike,…

We had the best seat in the house to witness the sunset and for the following day’s hot air balloon show, which was scheduled to arrive as the sun rose, a hundred multicolored balloons competing in an endless Turkish sky. Parked on the rim of a canyon overlooking Cappadocia in central Turkey, we watched bemused as a relatively large white…

Do you ever stare at an advertisement and think, “I wonder what adventure led to that photo?” On the surface, it’s a girl standing atop a mountain, but how did she reach the summit, and what else did she see along the way? I used to stare at images and contemplate these questions all the time, but then I joined…

Held deep in the expansive deserts of Sonora, Mexico, the Yokohama Sonora Rally is a five-day off-road navigation rally and a true Dakar-style adventure. Created by Dakar veterans Darren Skilton and Scott Whitney in 2014, the venue has brought rally raid, a mainstream attraction in Europe and Africa, to the forefront of the North American automotive world. Organizers have fueled…

I still remember falling in love with the first generation Discovery. Its boxy yet elegant lines, stadium seating, and alpine windows seemed to beckon me towards the driver’s seat with a promise of adventure, and there was no question of whether or not it had the capability to deliver on it. After all, this was an era when Camel Trophy…

“Expedition Portal gets a first look at the newest, and most durable MaxTrax yet.” I remember the first time we really, really, really needed Maxtrax. The Expeditions 7 team was deep into the Canning Stock Route in Australia and encountered a half-mile long, water-logged track. We had already been stuck many times that day, but this would prove to be…

With synthetic winch lines, lower crawl ratios, more articulation, more payload and even more power, the new Heavy-Duty line of RAM trucks is a force to be reckoned with.

Four years. That is how long my family and I lived in a roof top tent. The four of us camped almost every day of those long years—cooking outside, living outside, and sleeping between walls of canvas. As the kids grew and our journey evolved from an adventure into a lifestyle, we realized that it was time for a change….

Yesterday will undoubtedly be a day remembered in the history books of heavy-duty trucks. For the first time ever, RAM has broken 1,000 pound-feet of torque with a factory full-size, ripping past their previous numbers, their competition’s numbers, and setting a new standard for performance. It’s all thanks to their 6.7-liter Cummins high-output, turbo-diesel, which produces the earth shaking, stump…

I love Instagram for so many reasons. It gives people an open view to the world, breaking down borders and barriers through the universal language of imagery. It inspires people to see new things, try new hobbies, and witness sights they would otherwise never be able to experience. Most of all, it is full of wonders that bring us together,…

I’ve wanted a Belstaff Tourist Trophy motorcycle jacket for a while. That classic, British, belt-waisted jacket made famous by just about every American actor who’s thrown a leg over a motorcycle. Most notably, Mr. McQueen (see: here). My good friend Andy has one, something he scored from a smelly thrift shop in the Pacific Northwest. He encouraged his friends to…

It seems like yesterday that we were sitting down to write this same story on 2017, and now here we are aggregating our favorite trips and memories from 2018. Holy cow, were there a lot. This past year held some of our biggest adventures to date, from right here at home all the way to the Greenland Ice sheet and…

The trail rating was “moderate to difficult” but the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the track we were driving on that cold afternoon was anything but moderate. It was tough going. Tough enough that the Defender 130 needed low range and diff lock to conquer some of the steeper, muddy switchbacks as we climbed the Rif…

With nothing but a line drawn on a map for guidance, Tom Collins leads a team to forge a route for the 1994 Camel Trophy.