Gear and Skills Archives : American Adventurist

Overland Expo West 2023

We are now 14 years into this Overland Expo thing, and based on the 2023 edition of Overland Expo West, enthusiasm for the event is as strong as ever. The original Overland Expo continues to be a gathering of community where folks from all over the world and all walks of life spend the weekend catching up, checking out the latest gear and vehicles, and attending classes on everything from Drones to Driving techniques. As …

3D Design for a sPOD SourceLT and Universal Mount

Gear and Skills Vehicles

3D Printing and Vehicle Modification

The affordability of 3D printing has changed the way I modify my vehicle.

Gear and Skills

LTR: SureFire Stiletto Pro

A good EDC flashlight needs to be versatile, easy to use, and able to hold up to absolutely everything life exposes it to, day after day. Surefire is known for making some of the best illumination tools money can buy, and their Stiletto series of lights offers a unique feature set that makes them incredibly versatile and useful while hitting all of the standard Surefire checkboxes like quality, performance, and durability. For the last few …

Gear and Skills

LTR: Wagan Tech Lithium Cube 1200

As time goes on, we humans tend to possess an ever-increasing number of powered devices. These devices do so many great things for us, which is why we want to bring them with us wherever we go. Yet thankfully the world isn’t covered in a grid of easy to access power outlets, so we have portable power supplies to keep our gear powered up when we’re off grid. A good power supply can provide any …

American Adventures Gear and Skills Vehicles

The International 4WD Trainers Association: Inside the Testing for Certification

This is an inside look at the I4WDTA. My goal here is to provide some level of transparency for an organization I believe in. To that end, I’d like to provide you with a glimpse inside their Testing for Certification process and the extremely diverse knowledge, skills, and aptitudes required to be successful. There were eight Candidate Trainers and a large number of I4WDTA staff present whom I will refer to here as Cadre during …

Adventure American Adventures Gear and Skills Vehicles

Overland Expo East 2021

This was a busy year. Overland Expo East was to be our third Overland Expo event within the space of a few weeks, and it seemed like I had just returned from Colorado when it was time to go again. Overlanding is different east of the Mississippi, and I was keen on seeing how the East Coast version of Expo was doing. As usual, I left Northwest Florida a couple days early for a bit …

Adventure American Adventures Gear and Skills Vehicles

Overland Expo West 2021

For what feels like forever, Overland Expo West has been part of the calendar, like a holiday or some event that is just always in May. It’s just always assumed that it’s going to be there, it’s just a question of which weekend in May. Then things changed, and May came and went twice without Overland Expo West. Meanwhile, the folks at Lodestone Events persevered, and thankfully they were able to lock in dates for …

Adventure American Adventures Gear and Skills Vehicles

Colorado or Bust: Overland Expo Mountain West 2021

Overland Expo Mountain West almost didn’t happen. For most of us, the last year+ was like a dystopian B movie on many levels, complete with terrible casting and an even worse plot line. Because of all that, there was an uncomfortable feeling right up until the day I drove away from Florida for Colorado that this event would somehow get derailed too. I know the event organizers likely aged a few years with worry and …