We’ve spoken with a number of Overlanders, and the biggest complaint we hear about rooftop tents is keeping them clean. And for some reason it’s the men who don’t seem to care, while the wives just hate sleeping on the scratchy, gritty, sand that collects on the mattress. This short article lists the few things we do to keep everyone in the household happy!
The biggest strength in OziExplorer is its ability to display georeferenced, scanned paper maps. But many really good maps don’t come in the rectangular format that OziExplorer likes to display - there are often city cut-outs, indexes written down a sidebar of the page, legends, and even advertising. Using the moving map feature, your track would run through the middle of these areas, making them useless to you. So, what can you do?
International Travel Maps have some of the best paper maps available for expedition and adventure travel. Based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, these guys have been producing maps for over 20 years. This article describes the process we use for calibrating the maps for use in GPS software, and shows how well they actually work.
We’re seeing more and more fully customized CF-28 Panasonic Toughbooks out there, particularly on eBay. Vendors are buying old laptops in poor condition, pulling them apart, and refurbishing them. This article is a quick review of what you might expect to buy.
Lonely Planet Travel Guidebooks have grown to be the biggest and largest guidebook company in the world. They have been an invaluable resource on our travels - this article lists the books that we have bought for our South American travels.
Do you have the discontinued Garmin GPS 35 TracPak GPS, and you need the manual? OverlandResource.com has a free copy available for download.
One of the issues with a dual battery system is to keep both batteries equally charged. This applies whether you have a 12 volt series system to make 24 volts or more, or if you have a 12 volt parallel system for extra starting power or maybe a secondary power system for recreational use. This article describes how to charge two batteries so that both of them are charged the same.
Do you fear travelling to a foreign country, and not understanding the language? This is how I, a Canadian, learned Spanish on the fly, in real time, on the road. And you know, it was fun. Really fun.
Part of expedition travelling is about taking time from our regular lives to take on the world outside. One of the things we need to consider when doing this, is how we’re going to give back to that world, the one far from home, the one where people have not and have less. This article discusses some ideas you could consider.
Finding good maps of South America can be difficult, especially if you don’t want to spend a lot of money. This article summarizes our research on good south american topographic maps, especially for GPS use.
A vacuum operated 4-wheel drive system is used on many Toyota Land Cruisers in lieu of a standard lever shifter. This article describes why these systems are less than ideal, especially for an expedition vehicle.
Some people need to know whether a small handheld GPS unit is sufficient, or if they need a full blown laptop computer with a GPS. This article discusses the pros and cons of each.
Here is our video review of the Katadyn Combi Water Filter. We know this filter - we used it every day for about six months and all in all it’s a great unit.
Travelling with a laptop has a lot of great advantages - but expedition travelling requires something a little more robust than your average computer. However, new fully rugged laptops are beyond most people’s budget. This article describes what to look for when buying a used Panasonic Toughbook laptop.
How a canoeist sits in a canoe is really important - there are two opinions in this area. Either you sit high up on a seat in a canoe, or you kneel, low down. This article discusses the two approaches.
Canoes are made from various construction materials including wood canvas, cedar strip, aluminum, fibreglass, and kevlar. This article describes the different material types so help you decide what you material you would prefer for your own canoe.
There are six really important elements in the design of a canoe hull. In no particular order they are tumblehome, bottom profile, rocker, rise, depth (freeboard), and length. This article explains each component to help you decide what style of canoe is best for you.
Kayaking in the Baja is a great experience. You can do it through a tour operator, and sometimes you can find good rentals. This article talks about one of our experiences renting in the Sea of Cortez, and one of the gifts that came as a result.
Expedition travel can take you to some amazingly remote areas of the world, where malaria is endemic. This article provides a step-by-step process to help you prepare for a trip to a malaria affected area.
Keeping your food cold is really important while expedition travelling. Options vary from simple ice chests, to thermoelectric coolers, to high-end refrigerators. This article describes our extensive experience with a mid sized thermoelectric cooler so you can decide if it is the right technology for you.
When you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, all kinds of things can go wrong, in far from ideal conditions, with no-one to help you out. On one of our expeditions we sustained a hole to our truck battery. This article describes the field fix that took us back to civilization.
If you own a 24 volt Land Cruiser, then there’s a good chance you’ve had battery problems, especially if you run 12 volt accessories from one of your batteries. This article talks about the solution to your charging problems - installing a charge equalizer and what it can do for you.
This article describes how to calibrate a scanned paper map into OziExplorer mapping and GPS software. Watch the video how-to and read the extra details that follow in the text.
Having clear and agreed upon roles and responsibilities while travelling is really important. There are many unknowns and stressful situations that you will encounter on a routine basis, and dealing with them safely and efficiently works best when everyone knows what they are supposed to do. We talk about this through one of our encounters with the police in Nicaragua.
We’ve owned a Katadyn Combi Water Filter for the past 5 years, and used it extensively. This article describes our experience with it so you can decide if it’s the right one for you.