Overland Expo is an amazing learning opportunity. I am very green at this overlanding and offroad thing and came to the expo to soak in as much knowledge as possible. Besides the organized classes, seminars and panel discussions I learned a lot from just talking with other adventurers at vendor booths, campsites, meals and around the campfire.
Tid bits that I took away from the Expo:
-Propane isn’t necessarily the best option for world travel. It can be hard to find, even harder to find the correct adaptor and is usually butane, which doesn’t work as well with some hardware. For me the van has a propane stove and furnace, with a built in tank. This could be problematic in many parts of the world. If money wasn’t an issue I’d switch these systems to diesel, so as to have common, readily available, fuel systems throughout the van.
-When traveling in Mexico: need a tourist card, need different visa for traveling through country rather than going in and out at same border, need to buy Mexico specific vehicle insurance, need a vehicle import permit, Diesel pumps are black and Gas is green and the Baja-Almanac is one of the best sources for “accurate” maps.
–Carla King gave a great talk on social media for the overlander. Things like: linking my personal FB page to my business FB page, instead of linking direct to the business website, making sure to use keywords in your Twitter Bio, use the same business photo on all social media avatars, bit.ly is a great way to say more in a Tweet by shortening URLs and that directly linking Twitter to FB could clutter your FB page too much.
-One way to avoid/determine a checkpoint bribe is to demand a receipt for the transaction.
-Do not travel with weapons. A machete and a chainsaw are essential, and are considered farm implements in most countries. Carrying your machete on the driver’s door is a great for protection and quick access to help clear trails.
-Left foot braking is an amazing skill/tool to use to keep traction to the wheels on the ground and control the suspension of your vehicle. Relatively heavy left foot breaking on my Sportsmobile allowed me to smoothly move through some large articulation obstacles, as my van does not have any type of traction control.
-A quality spotter is invaluable when offroad driving! Thanks Kelly Hearn, you the man:)
Only real gripe about the entire Expo is that no attendance was taken at any class, especially annoying after the very lengthy registration process. For classes that where for people who paid for the Overland Experience package only, there should have been some way of checking who was in attendance. I’m sure that many day pass holders attended many of these classes for free. The small issues I ran into was during a driving class that was supposed to be limited, 14 vehicles showed up and severely cut into the driving time of each participant. The instructor handled it well and I had a great time and learned a lot, it just would have been much better had the instructor checked attendance against the course registration and only allowed those registered to attend.
I look forward to next year’s Expo and absorbing even more knowledge. Hopefully I’ll have some experience under my belt and will be able to offer more to the discussions and take some of the more advanced classes. I’ll see you there!
