Ticking Boxes before Packing Boxes

Getting ready for your adventure

The trip is the most important thing. But if you can’t leave RIGHT NOW, then getting ready is still fun right? As long as you keep perspective, don’t get too caught up in the latest trends, and pare down the cargo to “must have’s”, rather than the “must be seen with’s”.

I’ve got three months to get ready. The most important thing I can do in that time is go on shorter adventures. Nothing prepares you for a trip like another trip. So… I currently have two outings on schedule, and will use those to gauge my state of readiness.

In the meantime, here’s how I see my systems, and their priority. As these boxes get ticked, I’ll come back and link the item to it’s specific page.

The List

• VEHICLE/MAINTENANCE (this will include the prep before we go and the tools, equipment, and spares that come along for the ride but hopefully won’t be needed if I’ve done a thorough job beforehand)
• Shelter (if you’ve been here a while, you know there will be some sort of shenanigans related to rooftop tents)
• Water (its heavy, it takes up space, and we can’t live without it)
• Kitchen (this will include food, food storage, and food prep)
• Storage (literally packing/checking the boxes)
• Options (the fun stuff: lights, coms, navigation, cameras, recovery, etc. The stuff you CAN do without, but probably don’t want to)

There are many ways to sort out your setup, and most of them have merit. So much depends on your trip, your method of travel (right down to vehicle choice), and who’s going with you.

The Players

In our case, I’ll be travelling in my 1991 Land Cruiser HZJ77, alongside Big Bird‘s 1996 Mitsubishi Delica, and three dual sport motorbikes.Our route varies from blacktop to just-opened mountain passes, through varied terrain, and elevation. Distance will be a big factor for the motos, which have a fraction of the range of the diesel 4WD’s. We won’t be acting as “support vehicles” as such, since the riders want their own adventure and independence, but we will carry a few things to make life easier for our two wheeled travellers.

Spring has only just started in the Northern Hemisphere, and north of the 49th parallel we are still in winter camping mode, but we can still embark on smaller trips to fine tune our respective fit outs. The Land Cruiser 77 has a payload capacity of 1760 pounds, so even if I subtract for storage, drawers, water, and RTT, it still leaves a pretty sizeable amount for extra “stuff”, but I’d rather stay on the lighter side of heavy if possible. A few trips before “the trip” will ascertain what I can leave behind and what I can’t (comfortably) do without.

Ticking boxes comes first. But if our list is complete, the boxes we pack should contain everything we need, and nothing more.