The Art of Overlanding: Tips and Tricks from an Expert

As I reflect on my overlanding experiences, I'm reminded of the importance of having the right tools to navigate the wilderness. One piece of recovery device that proved to be invaluable during our expedition was a Garmin inReach. With its GPS capabilities and emergency button, it allowed us to stay connected with the outside world even when cell phone signal was scarce. The device itself is relatively affordable, with prices starting at around $99 for the basic model, making it an accessible option for those just starting out.

However, as I emphasize to my friends and family, you don't need to break the bank to start overlanding. In fact, many of the most memorable experiences have come from camping in our vehicles with minimal modifications. For example, I recall a two-month expedition where we spent our days exploring the wilderness and sleeping on the ground, with nothing but some beef jerky and a bottle of water to keep us going. It was exhilarating and humbling at the same time.

Of course, as you gain more experience and confidence in your abilities, it's natural to want to upgrade your vehicle and equipment. But there comes a point where excess can become a hindrance, making it difficult to navigate even the simplest trails. I've seen it happen to friends who have invested thousands into their vehicles, only to find that they're no longer able to enjoy the very thing they built.

The key is finding that sweet spot between comfort and practicality. For me, it's all about simplicity. A good pair of boots, a warm jacket, and a reliable vehicle are all I need to tackle even the most challenging terrain. And as for budgeting, I always say that you can go out and do a lot with what you already have. Tate Morgan from The Gambler proved this when he bought a $500 Toyota Corolla and still managed to have an incredible adventure.

Ultimately, overlanding is about embracing the unknown and being willing to adapt. It's not just about having the right equipment or vehicle; it's about being present in the moment and enjoying the journey. As I look back on my experiences, I'm reminded that there's no substitute for getting out into nature and experiencing it firsthand. So, if you're thinking of embarking on an overlanding adventure, don't be afraid to start small and see where it takes you.

Finding Your Stride

I've always been passionate about sharing my love of overlanding with others, and I'm excited to connect with like-minded individuals who share my enthusiasm for exploring the great outdoors. You can find me online on Instagram (@zachary Zachary) and TikTok (also @zachary Zachary), where I regularly post updates from my adventures and offer tips and advice for those just starting out.

If you're looking to get involved with overlanding, there are plenty of resources available online to help you get started. From blogs and forums to social media groups and online communities, there's a wealth of information waiting to be discovered. So, take the leap and join me on this journey into the unknown. With a little bit of planning and a lot of determination, I'm confident that you'll find your stride and start exploring the world in no time.

The Fun Never Stops

As I look back on my experiences, I'm reminded that overlanding is all about having fun. It's not just about reaching a destination; it's about the journey itself. Whether I'm camping on the ground or cruising through the wilderness in my trusty vehicle, I always try to approach each adventure with a sense of wonder and curiosity.

And as for what's next? Well, I've got a few ideas brewing. One day soon, I'll be linking up with some friends and taking our trusty vehicles out into the woods for a weekend of camping and exploring. We'll bring along our gear, our tents, and our sense of adventure, and see where the trail takes us. It's going to be a blast, and I'm excited to share it all with you.

The world is full of endless possibilities, and overlanding offers a unique chance to explore them. So, if you're feeling adventurous, grab your gear and hit the road – you never know what amazing experiences await you just beyond the horizon.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello and welcome to another episode of ask an expert today I got my buddy Zachary deal on the show Zack thanks for coming on yeah absolutely thanks for having me uh so you've blown up the last few years as kind of a a go-to face in the overlanding and off-road Community but uh for those who watching this who don't know who you are why don't you tell us a little bit about your background where you got started and how you got to where you are now sure um I'll try to keep the story short and sweet I'm not very good at doing that usually but I'll try my best so um I actually only started making videos maybe about a year and a half ago or so um and then I went into this fulltime about eight or nine months ago and basically you know I just got my start with like anybody else kind of in the overlanding thing I just started going out finding places to go um adventuring further doing more and more and then it got to a point where my my buddy JP who I give all my credit to he was like hey man you should really start making some videos about doing this he's like you're really passionate about it so you should start doing something with it and I was like no I don't think so and finally he said it enough times that I just was like sure you know what I'll make a video so I made some videos and then it um you know the long and short of it is that it led me here so that's basically but um from there yeah I'm just uh now I'm sort of a world traveler and I I do overlanding 24/7 so that's my whole gig that's awesome what what what um before you started making the video side of it what were you doing that that led you to this like did you already own a certain truck and you're like I want to go camping or did you grow up with uh May parents or or people in charge of you who said let's let's go to the woods this weekend yeah so I mean so the vehicle that I owned when I started doing this was is the same vehicle I own now which is a u 2016 Toyota 4Runner so it's the most basic overlanding vehicle that you could possibly pick yeah but it's a great platform to start on it's why so many people pick it but um yeah that's that's what I owned and that's that's what got me into this but I guess what really like spurred the interest was uh I grew up in Maine so uh I would say 90% of the driving in Maine is off offro driving whether you want to be off-road driving or not you're going to be off-road yeah good Celtics fan yeah some Boston Sports Go good to have but uh yeah no so so it really got me into the off-roading thing with just living in Maine and growing up there um and then I got more and more into it as I got older and the other big kind of um impactful uh life experience that I had is that when I was like 14 my my parents took us on a road trip across the entire United States so we went from Maine all the way out to California through the northern states and we came back down through the southern states and back up to Maine and um I I already like to travel but that was just one of those where I was like man road trips are I think that's that's my passion so that does it yeah that's a good trip too I've driven cross country a few times and it's all every time it's it's great once you're out there doing it yeah uh so today's question and the reason I brought you on is you do know a lot about off-roading and overlanding you know specifically so it's blown up a lot in the last few years Overland Expo has grown from like a few people hanging out uh in in the woods to just thousands of people booths crazy stuff crazy bills um but someone sitting on the sideline who wants to get into this they might see like oh do I need to buy a $200,000 Sprinter or or you know do I need this vehicle or that and the answer is no but I wanted to really put that question to you to explain like what's a good way to get started vehicle wise and then if people want to take mods like what what's the good path to to start doing this I mean that's a great question and it's um it's a it's a question that I hear a lot and I've like thought a lot about and I really like the answer that I always come back to is like the best way to start is just to start with whatever you have so I mean there's no like vehicle there's no accessory there's none of that that you need to go buy to get started all you really need to do is is go out and and start adventuring and you know like the other thing is to if you go out and buy a $200,000 Sprinter van or whatever like you don't actually ever really learn anything from it like some of the things that really give you like true experience so that when you you come into like a you know a hardship I guess on the road you can get yourself out of it you know you know I remember you know growing up like first of all the the trip that I was just talking about with my family across the United States we did that in a VW EuroVan pulling a camper and like man what an experience because it burned out the breakes by like Sacramento it was just like it was just typical VW EuroVan things you know I learned a lot on like how to remedy that I guess with my dad on the side of a road you know we blew out a tire on the back of the camper going through the middle of South Dakota on a Sunday afternoon at like 5:30 p.m. you're not finding any tires then um and yeah it's just there's that then you know growing up in Maine like I started doing this kind of stuff um in my buddy's old um Jeep Cherokee WJ and it was like it was a complete piece of junk it had 300,000 miles on it and it was not in good condition but you know learned a ton about how to fix it and like things to do with it so so I mean it's just I think it's better to just use what you have go out it and then you don't need to you don't need to like we see everybody on Instagram posting like wheels in the air on these trails that are like you need a four-wheel drive vehicle but the truth is there's so many accessible Trail heads that are fire roads that you could drive a Camry down and you can ground tent you know um I mean hell if you're short enough you can sleep in the car which you and I probably can't do but but you're right and you pack some lunches and technically in that sense you are overlanding yeah yeah and you know I know like the word overlanding gets abused a lot and a lot of people are like oh it's so stupid it's just car camping but to me which is true like you're not necessarily wrong about that but the thing is is that the term overlanding has just become like a catch all for like a multitude of different things that you want to go out and do with your vehicle so it's like this is the problem that I find with like well it's not really a problem but it's just like sort of a necessary evil I guess of like uh rock crawling which is the fact that like you have to keep escalating the rock crawling like it has to keep getting harder and harder and harder and kind of the beauty of overlanding is that like it doesn't have to get harder and harder every time you go out you can just go out and enjoy and you can you can find hard scenarios for yourself where you're rock crawling something or crossing a river or whatever it is but you can also just go out and go down a forest service road and go camping and you know get off the grid for a few days and that's also overlanding you know like yeah kind of everything so it's that's why I like it now and I I completely agree with your advice that you just got to get started um you just got to go out there and even if you have any vehicle just just go camping just go camping in the woods and you're going down the path if someone said to you but I want I want to hit those Trails like and you mentioned your Forerunner what what vehicle if if someone said I want to buy a vehicle where would you go what do you thinking what would you recommend them um probably an 80 series Land Cruiser because it to be totally honest like it's just it's it's probably not my favorite vehicle that I've ever driven um I don't even know if I really have one but they're just they're so bulletproof and not to mention the fact that like they just they have all the right things like they solid axle front and rear I mean they're they're a good size like whether or not you're yeah you're camping with like just you or like three people or four people or something like that like you could definitely do all that yeah they just they have all the right things that you might need you can get them triple locked you can uh yeah yeah like from the factory you don't need to modify it and you're good if you were camping alone that's one you could sleep in you don't need to do the rooftop 10 thing and all that stuff yeah um what are there any good resources or skills someone should learn if they're looking to go further like how to get yourself in and out of situations have you come across any people or classes or anything out there uh based on like some simple recovery stuff now we're we're drifting slightly more four-wheel drive here offing then specifically overlanding but but what are some good skills people should learn and then if you have any classes or people you know teaching those those things you can feel free to shout that out to Barlo is a great example of that yeah so um um there's a there's a guy I'm struggling to remember his last name his name is Mike he teaches a couple of classes in North Carolina um and up at Patriot mountain is where he he's at and he's great he taught me a lot when it came to um like vehicle recovery and stuff stuff like that just some some other like helpful like tips and tricks for getting yourself out of like a sticky situation I guess I really think though that the best thing that you can teach your or like learn and really practice is like how to stay calm in a situation um I think that that's really more valuable than um than learning like a specific technique because I think there's kind of a million ways to do a a lot of different things when it comes to like recovery or when it comes to like uh an emergency or something like that and you can make your way out with like a lot of different methods but really like the people that are able to stay calm and like rational and think clearly and like get people organized um especially if you're in a group setting like those are the people that definitely are able to thrive the most when it comes to this kind of stuff that's always an impressive skill uh yeah I did an Overland off-road trip in the ozar region of Arkansas and a guy on that trip owns a recovery school where he teaches like CIA level stuff it was wild but we had to winch an 80 series truck that we thought the lockers were working and they weren't and so we had to winch through some sections and um and I think he's also an ambassador for Midlands radio like all this stuff but he was so calm PE if people started walking near the winch line he wasn't like hey you know it's like don't be here here's why you know I'm you over there you stay there eyes up driver you watch my signals like and it was like this guy if I was stuck in the woods this is the guy to be stuck with um yeah so to learn those skills from someone like that is is is just a bonus absolutely yeah um have you been on any Adventures lately that have um because doing this you can kind of get jaded in this sort of thing have you been on any trips Adventures or driven any Vehicles recently where you're like man I still EI either roked the passion or kept it burning that yeah uh that's a really good question um I really appreciate that one yeah I mean I've I feel like kind of every trip gives me like a little something that like kind of rokes the passion a little bit some more than others but like definitely there was one I was on not too long ago in the Black Rock Desert we took out um a 60 series Land Cruiser an 80 series Land Cruiser 100 and a 200 plus like a support vehicle and that was just like a really fun trip we we encountered just everything I mean it was cold the entire time um and we just we had we had like four tire blowouts we just we had all kinds of stuff that happened it we got snowed in on top of a mountain one night I mean it was just there was a lot going on but it was just it was an awesome trip and just a ton of fun the type of trip you explain that to someone they're like that sounds terrible you're like no this is we we have all these tools on our trucks and we never get to use them yeah yeah no that's kind of how it felt I mean I I haven't been on a lot of trips where we haven't used at least like some of our recovery gear or whatever but you know it's again it's like a first aid kit it's like you never really want to pull it out but you know yeah no every car I own I have a fire extinguisher in and I I hope to not use it and I've talked to other peoples who have it and they're like the only time I've used it is when I've seen other cars on fire so even for that reason it's good to have yeah is there a piece of overlanding gear or kit or equipment that you think is uh overrated so I have an answer for this uh overrated um um I'll tell you my answer while you think of an answer yeah you go first every truck I see with a sparkling clean high lift Jack because that Jack never gets unstrapped and if it does nine times out of 10 I'd go 99 out of a hundred times the person who owns it has no idea how to actually use it and if you don't know how to use that you could Beyond potentially hurt yourself you could kill someone if you don't know how to use a high LIF Jack I actually I think I'll second that I I I say this to people all the time but I'm just like high lift Jacks I mean they're Farm Jacks that's what they started oh yeah you move barns with them yeah exactly but they are super lethal and most yeah like you said most people that have them they have no idea how to use them and I'll I'll even admit like I've had experience with them I still wouldn't be 100% comfortable operating one I mean I've been around them and stuff and I've used them before but like they just that that ladder mechanism the double pin ladder mechanism that it uses like it will bite back like very and I've had it almost take my fingers off a couple times but oh yeah yeah i' I've had to do challenges with them where I'm supervised by people who know what so that's helpful like so I could do it in that situation but if you put me in the woods right now I'd be like oh I got to click this thing down and I gota do this and and it's and we've had to move Vehicles up hills with them it's like yeah the point of it to do it in that situation is a challenge in a competition but the vehicle we're doing it has a winch on the front I'm like why are we doing this we have tree straps all this stuff yeah and winches can be dangerous but there's no comparison to a high LIF Jack um and most of the times most of the times these vehicles people have the high lift mounted to there aren't even points on that vehicle to use the Jack correctly yeah oh yeah no totally I've seen that plenty of times myself I guess the thing is is like the high lift Jack itself isn't overrated because it's an incredibly useful tool it can rebeat a tire you can use it as a winch you can do all sorts of things with it but it's just I guess overrated in terms of actual user applicability in scenarios yeah that's a good way to put it it is a very useful tool it's just in the wrong hands of the time yeah I'll totally agree with that do you do you have something though that you won't leave home without I mean that the hard thing now is that I I I don't really have a choice because I I basically live out of my duffel bag so I don't like I don't get to pick and choose what's on the cars most of the time but um I would say like though with with my car when I do drive it with my 4Runner I mean Max tracks are like I know they get like dumped on all the time but they are a really useful tool I mean it absolutely it saved me in uh in Alaska it was the only piece of recovery device that we had and it was if we hadn't had it we would have been I mean we would have we would never have made it out of where we were yeah like period and we would have probably died there I mean we were like 15 miles into the Alaska range like off of the Denali Highway and you know we had a I guess we did have a Garmin in reach with us but I mean we had we hadn't had cell signal in two or three hours I mean it was of driving so I mean garment in reach is is a good piece of Kit too for those who don't know it's a GPS device and you can spend as little or as much as you want on them I think like the device itself is maybe $99 or $100 and then there's um the cheapest Subscription Service might be like 12 or 24 but you can turn that on and off as you need it so you're not just constantly paying for it and you can you can have it as simple as like some basic text messages or like hey here's the emergency button more screwed yeah yeah they are they are very useful and very handy to have especially in like certain parts of the country um I always tell people like in the Southeast if you're overlanding in the Southeast or whatever like you don't really need it you're you're within a hiking distance pretty much wherever you are to get back to like cell phone signal but if you're if you're going around Montana or Alaska or whatever like it is a necessary piece of yeah of Kit absolutely um so we got we got the basics I think I think the through line here is that to start overlanding you don't need to go out and buy a 4Runner and then immediately throw thousands on suspension tires and wheels um start with what you have just pack a lunch you don't need a thousand doll dtic fridge in the back of your whatever even though we both probably have those uh they rule so that's that's the that's the other side of it if you have money and you want to spend money there's an Endless Sea of insanity that you can yeah no totally and you know again I say this to people a lot but it's like you know if anything you do to like because you can go out and do a lot of things in a Toyota Corolla for $500 I mean like Tate Morgan from The Gambler 500 has proved this but yeah exactly I I know I know that's why I had to bring it up yeah but um you can go out and do a lot of that stuff every dollar you spend above that is making your life more comfortable and it's true and there is a point at which there's a Tipping Point in that and it actually starts worsening your experience because I I know plenty of people too that have like built you know 150 ,000 forerunners or Tacomas or Tundras or whatever it is and it gets to a point of such excess that it becomes not usable and then it's like a drag but there is somewhere in between the Z spend and the $150,000 where your your comfortability your ease of use like drastically improves but you know that is a completely subjective measure as to how comfortable you feel that you need to be um and it's you know the thing that I like to do is I get to experience all this kind of stuff which is great but I still find like some of my favorite times are taking out a vehicle that has very little to any um like modifications really you know like maybe it has bigger tires and wheels but that's like about it yep and I Cowboy camp on the ground I just sleep in the dirt and that's you know have some beef jerky and that's about it I I've had fun doing those and I have fun doing I you know I spent two months in a $1.3 million camper last year so I mean it's like there's both ends of the spectum there's love it's it's nice having a toilet um yeah yeah exactly and a shower yeah Zach thanks so much for coming on and having this chat with me can you tell where can tell the people watching where they could find you online I think Instagram's probably the main spot or maybe YouTube as well I'm not sure yeah yeah no Instagram and Tik Tok are like the the main two places you can find me is it's uh Zachary z a c h a r y and then it's deal d i l and that's pretty much the exact same on any platform that I'm on and you can find me there and we're always doing fun things so yeah awesome well again thanks for so much for coming on and uh one of these days we link up and drive bad Vehicles out into the woods yeah let's do it I'm excited\n"