Overland Expo Archives : American Adventurist

Building a Community in the Desert

Desert Rendezvous began as a modest effort to build a community by creating opportunities around our shared interests and values. Building a community was a conscious choice back then, and today it requires continued dedication, vision, and consistency in order to remain successful and relevant. Most don’t realize it, but there’s a lot more to organizing these large-scale Rendezvous events than meets the eye. It takes many months of hard work behind the scenes with …

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

The 2021 Mountain Rendezvous

For the past couple of years, we’ve been restricted in our day-to-day activities. With life slowly returning back to normal and our regularly scheduled programming coming back online, we collectively decided that it’s time to get our 10th Annual Mountain Rendezvous penciled in and official at our go-to MRV location: Camp Tahquitz in Angelus Oaks, CA. With the weather just passing through earlier in the week, all our Adventurists were greeted with the best weather …

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 …

Gear and Skills Vehicles

TESTED: Armorlite Flooring System

We test out the new Armorlite Flooring System for Jeeps

Adventure American Adventures Vehicles

Jeep fires back at Ford with new JL Wrangler Xtreme Recon Package

A new Jeep® Wrangler Xtreme Recon package raises the bar for the competition while taking the brand into new territory. June 25, 2021 , Auburn Hills, Mich. – Jeep® 4×4 capability is legendary, and the brand continues its leadership position as the most capable 4×4 in the world. As the brand continues its 80th Anniversary this year, it is elevating its capability game yet again with the introduction of the new Jeep Wrangler Xtreme Recon …

American Adventures Gear and Skills

Battle of the Boxes: AluBox vs Zarges

We put our trail tested Alu Boxes up against their rivals from Zarges

Adventure Gear and Skills

Throwing Shade

Reviewing Force Protector Gear's entry into the Overland vehicle market

Gear and Skills Vehicles

TESTED: Lightforce Lights HTX2 Twin Pack

For the last ten years, I’ve had a pair of Lightforce Blitz lights on the front of my Tacoma – and they’ve been awesome lights. Ten years is a long time to have any product, and it’s even more impressive when you consider that these lights have been outside for that entire time. These lights have baked in the Arizona sun, and frozen in the Colorado winter. They’ve held up to more than 150,000 miles …

Adventure Gear and Skills Vehicles

Rebuilding Icon Vehicle Dynamics Shocks

Along with good tires, your suspension is THE single most significant upgrade that you can make to a vehicle, and ICON Vehicle Dynamics (IVD) makes some of the best rebuildable off-road shocks around.