If You’re Always Ready To Go, You Will!

Packing for overland trips may seem daunting at first. The beauty of overlanding is the ability to travel long distances and access remote locations outdoors; however, the more space there is to outfit your rig, the more likely the proverbial ‘kitchen sink’ will come along for the ride.

In overlanding trips planning (as in life), less is more.

We use Three Cases for Adventure to transport and organize our essential gear for overland trips. While the contents of the cases are always evolving and changing, the core organizational philosophy is the same: be prepared for overland trips and bring only what you need.

Here’s how we distill down our equipment for overland trips and keep our rig and life on the trail as clutter free and efficient as possible!

Overland Trips – Our Approach to Planning

1) Time Prevents You from Overlanding
Invest an hour TO SAVE hours. We can’t be emphasize this enough, especially for those who have limited time to get off-road and back before Monday rolls around.

Time saving preparation begins post overland trip, and it’s a great way to decompress after a journey. Review what’s depleted, assess needs, re-organize, optimize… and then create your overland trips list!

Once you have your replenishment list, you can build fulfillment into your daily life. Need to restock dry goods? Work the items into your weekly groceries.

Lost something on the trail, or need a new piece of outdoor kitchen gear? Order on Amazon and have it delivered to you.

The scenario to avoid is the frantic run to the grocery store, or the last minute sprint to the outdoors store at 4PM on a Friday. And even worse… realizing the thing you need is missing when you’re 15 miles off-road.

When your gear is packed and organized to maximum efficiency, you’ll have more time sitting by the campfire vs shuffling and unpacking, and more time to drink coffee and savor the last morning before heading back.

2) Consider Your Overland Trip Adventure, and Simplify!
Remember, everything you bring, can break. Reduce dependencies.

Think of the various conditions you could encounter, and plan to bring the least required. Example: Each day, you can survive on a cucumber, a can of tuna, 2 gallons of water, and a 3oz biscuit.

In fact, anything more than the water is luxury, so why are you packing a sack of potatoes, a 3lbs roast, a sack of potato chips, salsa, marshmallows, and a gallon of soda? Really think about what you need.

Overland trips planning is an exercise in practicality and precision.

How much kitchen equipment do you *really* need? Can you make your off-road wardrobe more compact? Is there a better way to organize and access your campsite comforts? What has been in your case for years and has never been used? Put pen to paper and break it down!

Example: After we completed a 10-day trek around Arizona and Utah, I was shocked at how little clothing we actually needed. I thought going into it we were already packed light, but we could reduce our clothing load easily by 30%.

Most important, do you have what you need in an emergency situation on an overland trip? Worst case scenarios are less daunting when you’ve visualized and prepared for the situations in advance (and you know you have everything you need before heading down the trail).

3)Learn By Doing
There is no such thing as the perfect overlanding set up. You and your rig are a work in progress. Each overland trip completed is the opportunity to optimize the next, and call upon your past experience to ask the right questions before you start your next overland trip. 

The ‘Pack 3 Cases’ strategy is meant to whittle down gear to your overlanding minimal viable products. These MVPs become the cornerstone of your trips and trip planning. The more you hit the trail with these items, the more trust you develop with yourself and your gear to get the job done safely and efficiently.

Overland Trips – YOU are the Expert!

There are many different approaches to organizing an overland vehicle for travel. The number and content of the ‘cases’ is up to you, but the approach is the same: save time, focus your thinking, increase confidence.

Put the packing and prepping time in before your trip and focus on your version of the ‘3 Cases’ so you can always have a finger on the pulse of adventure and exploration!

What are you packing strategies? Have a tip to share that saved time and space? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.

And don’t forget to leave it better than you found it. 

See you on the trails! Outfit and Explore!