Outskirts Overland Podcast
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Outskirts Overland Podcast
The Overlander's Guide to Personalized Gear Organization and Storage
Embark on an odyssey of optimization with our latest overlanding podcast, where we unravel the threads of meticulous gear organization and inventive DIY storage solutions. As we journey together, I impart the wisdom gleaned from life on the road—transforming your vehicle into a stronghold of efficiency. With six weeks of adventure under our belt, I'm rolling up my sleeves to share how I've taken vehicle customization to new heights, ensuring every piece of kit is at your fingertips when you need it most. From designing a modular setup that melds with your travel quirks to embracing the sacred ritual of "get it out, use it, put it away," we're redefining the art of packing.
Wanderlust fuels our hearts, but it's the clever hacks and custom creations that make our travels seamless. In this episode, I take you behind the scenes of my own conversion from off-the-shelf storage systems to crafting personalized drawers that fit my Tacoma like a glove. Hear the tale of how flat pack furniture and alternative materials like extruded aluminum became my allies in the crusade against clutter. We'll explore the cost and space-saving benefits of DIY, and you'll learn why sometimes, the best gear for your rig is the gear you make yourself.
Our journey doesn't stop at the rear hatch; it's a full-circle experience where every corner of your vehicle plays a crucial role. Discover how I maximize rooftop real estate for messy or bulky items and why the right case—whether it's an Apache or a Pelican—can be a game-changer. We'll chat about my favorite channels, like Maria Roaming Reckless and Nikki Delventhal, drawing inspiration from their nomadic narratives. As we wrap this chapter and look to the next, where electrical component essentials await, I send out a heartfelt thank you for your feedback—it's the compass that guides our content. So gear up, tune in, and let's continue to navigate the thrilling terrain of overland organization together.
But I know time's gone by and you know I'm hearing your voice.
Speaker 2:All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to outskirts overland. We're on week six, six, it's not a 10, but it's a six. So how you guys doing? I went with a one minute long. What is it ticker this time? I'm noticing it's taking some time for this thing to, um, yeah, like connect. So that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Anyways, things to just stuff to get out of the way here. One of them, just in case you guys are listening. Later Again I'll bring it up probably every time, just because your friend of mine friend of mine is a big part of a group called Toyota Trucks of Arkansas. They just had their first meet yesterday, two days ago, two days ago. I'm there in spirit. I live too far away to go, but lots of cool guys over there at Toyota Trucks of Arkansas, ttoa it's on Facebook Join the group. Really cool guys over there, lots of cool stuff. You guys would all be better off to join that group.
Speaker 2:Secondly, if anybody ever listens to this, that works for Ghost Fast Campers. Your brother wants to support Go Fast Campers and have Go Fast Campers support me. So again, if Go Fast Campers ever listens to this, I'm in every week until I get a Go Fast camper. I'm here, I'm about it. I want one Gonna make it work out, anyways.
Speaker 2:So today, today I've got it's going to be a little different format than usual. I have a very big topic in the world of overlanding and camping vehicle-based traveling. I'm going to talk organization. I'm going to talk DIY ideas for building organization, making organization, modularizing that's the word. You're set up different kinds of ways that we're packing. Are we packing stuff out so that we have more headroom? Are we packing stuff up so we have more side room? Are we doing all of the above? If we are doing all the above, how do we access it? What is first priority retrievability? What is back-planning? What are all these things? What are form factors, soft form factors, hard form factors? How do we want to mount things? Do we want to mount things? So I'm going to cover a little bit of all that today. So that's going to pretty much encompass the entirety of today. I will put the chat up here after a little bit. There will be no products on my radar because today will be very screen share and product heavy. Just as I talk about things to reference, what I'm talking about is going to require me to share products and ideas and sites and people and places to get ideas, because as these events a lot of the events are done, more is coming up and I don't know who else is going to more. It will be a good place to get ideas and such, but after more, it's pretty much done till mid-summer.
Speaker 2:I was just out this weekend. I went camping. No big deal, but I'm always. I got my stuff set up pretty good now. That's just all there's to it. It's not a big deal. Packing up and unpacking is not a big deal.
Speaker 2:I'm a pretty solid problem solver when it comes to that stuff and making stuff work. I was watching I subscribed to Overland Network, xoverland's app channel, whatever you want to say. I was watching the new Africa series, an episode that I don't believe is out yet. There's a guy that they pick up that travels with Xoverland a lot. He's essentially the mechanical problem solver. They picked him up. He's an Icelandic or Finnish guy, I don't know where he's from exactly. He's a foreign gentleman and he's a really good problem solver. They call him the mechanical problem solver.
Speaker 2:My girlfriend was like you know, that would be a phenomenal job for you, because I'm always like I want to do this thing, like whatever X thing I want to do X thing, I look it up online to where somebody's produced it. It is a lot of money, don't get me wrong. I spend a lot of good money on this hobby, but it's outside my interest of money spent. I'll just figure it out. I figure stuff out in some very not crappy ways but interesting ways. It just got me and her talking about things I do and bringing that to you guys, because one thing that I'm actually very good at is finding applicable ways to search something to get the end result of the idea I'm trying to materialize. As I'm trying to materialize an idea, I'm very good at searching different ways to find that. Even as I was preparing for this podcast probably the biggest thing I was going to try and articulate to you guys I can't even find it in existence. So we finally have a whiteboard so I can draw and show you guys stuff which will lead us into what everybody else wants to talk to later. Talk about later, but today's organization.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk first about first priority retrievability. First priority retrievability is the idea that the stuff that you need first is most accessible. So that means the last thing. So if you're in the back of a vehicle and, for instance, you guys are in front of me. This is the furthest away from the hatch and I'm the closest to the hatch.
Speaker 2:Okay, so visualize that the stuff you're going to get out last needs to be in the back. The stuff you're going to get out first needs to be closer toward the front of the vehicle because you're going to get at it last. The stuff you're going to use and need first needs to be at the back. So anything to get set up needs to be at the back. That's important to you. Table chairs, I use a step ladder to get my rooftop 10 out. That's all in the back.
Speaker 2:Then, secondly, first priority Well, what else is in the back? Propane, because I'm going to cook back there, right? So, like I prioritize things that way, all my power needs and stuff is all in the front because it'll never move. I don't get it out, it never comes out. But then that brings me to my and that's to get set up. But then you got to think in reverse. Well, how do I tear down? Do I tear down in a reverse order? How do I tear down Because that's also going to matter, what goes in last. How do I tear down? Because, like, oh, I pick up the chairs first.
Speaker 2:Well then, now you're in a situation where you're disorganized because you're packing two separate ways. Over the weekend You've packed your truck two separate ways, so I like to make sure everything has a spot. So, although I do like first order, you know first order availability, first priority availability. It is unique in overlanding versus. You know that comes from a guy. One of the co-hosts, smith Busters actually came up with it and it really applies to your shop in your toolbox. So, like, the stuff you use the most is like out but organized, but out, so you don't even have to open a drawer for it. But in overlanding you're getting stuff out to essentially construct amp, but then you're also going to deconstruct it and put it away. So you have to organize for two. You have to organize for two things and try to do it one way.
Speaker 2:So I felt like, as I talked about this with my girlfriend watching Xoverland and how they do everything, I was like you know, this is something that I don't, I just don't think it's talked about. So I see you guys in the chat and let me know you're following, because I really want everybody to follow with. Everybody's packing to get to a place they're unpacking, but then nobody's ever considering how do I break down camp and pack the same for that? So that's where we get into that reverse engineering. So if the first thing you do at camp is fold out your rooftop tent, well now the last thing you do at camp is put your rooftop tent up so that the things that you're organizing are getting put up the same. So if you see you got to flip it around. I see this happen a lot. I see people bouncing out of camp with just crap everywhere.
Speaker 2:The reason I bring this up is because if you ever go on longer trips or multiple stops, that can wear you out and then you'll end up with a little bit of that decision fatigue, that stress, anxiety of your stuff getting jastled all over and now your food stuff got mixed with your clothes stuff. It just takes away from it. I would love to see everybody go for much longer than a day or two. You can make a day or two happen with just throwing shit in your car, but that's not going to make 10 days go very well. So you want everything to have a space and you want it to be easily accessible For me.
Speaker 2:I want it to be organized not organized to the 10th degree, but it needs to fit where it goes and it needs to go there. I am a big person I get it out, I use it, I put it away. I have a drawer system, so that's not going to apply to everybody, but if you've got a box, you take it out of the box, you use it, you put it away. That keeps you from missing stuff, losing stuff. That's not something I've always done and I've lost a lot of stuff, predominantly plates, bowls, silverware, like incidental things. You don't think about bags of coffee. Get it out, use it, put it away in its spot and it's not taken away from anything else because it's got a spot. So think about what's important to you as you prioritize your stuff.
Speaker 2:So, first thing, organization. What do we got? Are we in a truck, like I have? Are we in a huge truck? Are we in a suburban? Are we in a trunk? Are we in a forerunner, a Land Cruiser? Whatever? What are we in?
Speaker 2:First thing you got to do is you got to look at your space. Then you got to decide All right, you got to look at your space and you got to go and I'm going to get to budget in a second because I got. Obviously you can buy things and again, I literally just talked to one of my friends. You can buy something, but everybody's going to do it a little different. You're going to modify what you buy. So just bear with me as I work through my talking points and I'll probably touch on something you want to hear. So, first thing, you got to look at your space. Now everybody's got a little bit different idea how they want their space to work.
Speaker 2:So for me, I have a drawer system and that's the baseline, but that's not to say I don't have stuff on top of it, but I don't have stuff on top of it across the whole bed. I have essentially a high side on top of it and a low side on top of it, and all of it can be reached from the back. That needs reached Again. My battery is all the way in back. I can't reach it and I do not need to. It's all plugged in. We're good to go. I don't need to touch nothing back there. The next thing that's in the back is my air mattress and I put it in the tent last. That's why it's in the back and I take it and put it away first, because that's how that works and that's why it's in the back and that's why I do it that way. But again, that's not something everybody's thinking about as I'm coming to find out, you know, because I try to get ideas for what I can pass on to you guys.
Speaker 2:So look at your space. Now, what if your space not everybody's space is a perfect rectangle or square? Your space, more than likely, has a wheel. Well, so it's going to go out. It's going to turn into kind of that U shape, you know, because you got a wheel. Well, well, that leads me to well, what can you? What does that lend you to? Because usually you'll have more space on the very bottom than you actually have up. So you got to think about that.
Speaker 2:And that brings me to my next thing form factors. So the one thing that you can't change the form factor of, and your form factor, is the shape, size and like density, like material, different things like form factor. For instance, like this is a form factor, but it's it's not a solid one, right? So that's your soft bag. But then you got your pelican case. Like you can't make this shift. It is what it is, it's solid, and what I'm doing for you those of you don't know, don't, don't, don't get to watch. So I'm flopping a piece of paper and I'm showing my cell phone the piece of paper, I can stuff shit on top of it and it'll move Right. That's a soft duffel bag, that's. You can shove it. You get a hard case. It is what it is, so it's not going to that form factor, isn't going to fit in that window space. So you got to be familiar with the hard form factor and the soft form factor and how they can work together.
Speaker 2:And I've got all kinds of screen sharing for you guys here. So I bring that up. Like I have drawers, for sure, got drawers. But if you want to make the best use of your space, there's a place you know I tend to think you make your base out of a hard form factor and you organize that for the things that you know you're going to get in and out of. Often, like I have my cooking supplies in there, silverware in there, coffee stuff in there. So it's a way and I can get it out and put it back away, but there's certain stuff that stays out the whole time table chairs, fire pit, you know whatever. Maybe your chainsaw Just depends on what you have out all the time. In some people's cases, a speaker like those things don't need to have a space in the drawers because they come out and they don't go back until you're leaving and then they come right back out again. So that's the different thing that I'm talking about there.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to screen share the back of a forerunner here to explain what I'm talking about. So here we go. Forerunner rear storage. Okay, you guys should be seeing many forerunners here. I would like to, and I don't even know what this is modular system. It's somebody selling something, but I liked the picture, okay, so you guys can bam. There you go. Oh no, do what I want to do. Share this tab. There you go, all right. So we're looking at this. Let's make it bigger. There you go. So you guys are looking at this rear and if you look at it, you can see exactly what I'm saying. And they're trying to sell me something. Of course, you can see exactly what I'm saying when I talk about the form factor being different If you look at the back of this forerunner and this is selling some type of Molly kit, but there's space from that Molly kit into that window.
Speaker 2:You see what I'm saying. You could put toiletries in there, quite frankly, on suction cups or if you've ever seen those. They're not zip ties, but night eyes makes them and they're like a wire tie. You could hang stuff in that corner there, where that Molly is. That could be your toiletries and you can reach in. That's easy to access at any point in time. You could reach in and get that from the back of the truck at all times. That's never going to be a problem. But you can see what I'm talking about here. The very back has the most horizontal space, because you've got that wheel well there. So you got to consider that too, because you want to make the best use of all your space.
Speaker 2:So I show the forerunner because that's just a common one and it's going to be similar to your. I mean the most SUVs, right, it's got all that stuff, like when you're packing to like, take into account on this forerunner, it's got those power plugs back there. Well, you probably don't want to cover those, do you? So then what do you put in front of those stuff that comes out of the truck and stays out of the truck, because then when you're at camp now you have access to the power plugs. So don't put stuff in front of the power plugs. That's going to stay in front of the power plugs because you just kind of killed yourself there.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to go to so just that's just stuff to think about. Guys, like, think about that stuff, because if you're not thinking about it, then what are you doing. So, as I go back to that forerunner and I'll go back, just give me a minute so, as I go back to that forerunner and I did a lot with forerunners but I've got lots of different ideas here like, here we go and I'm going to this is going to be a ton of products and guys, by no means in my selling products I'd be clear with you on that because I think you guys can all make this because you're studs, so load full. So I, and I do believe that you guys can all you guys can make things. You guys are cool. Come on, yoda mafia, do what I want. Okay, all right. So here we're going to share this tab. So here, so we got this tab.
Speaker 2:These are the Dobbinsons drawers which I feel like, quite frankly, any of you could could no offense to Dobbinsons, but I think a lot of us could could build these. So we got the Dobbinsons drawers, but if you look over here, we're covering up those power plugs. Man, I don't like that, that's not. I don't think that's good. But what you'll see as I go through these slides is these are a couple of good ideas. Okay, so they've got the drawers all the way back. I think you could get rid of these, those sides. But you see, this is exactly like how I had mine set up. The fridge is on top of one side and this is a perfect example here the dogs on the other side, and then they actually move their power over here, because the design of these drawers covers up the power over here, which may or may not be for you. So that's what drawers could look like, which, if you look here, it shows those drawers are a ton of money. So we're going to pivot to Etsy and you should be on Etsy with me now and you can get plans to make drawers for like these are literal plans for drawers to make drawers for $30 and $40 and they'll tell you all the supplies you need.
Speaker 2:Personally, I saw this one and thought this was awesome and a great start, because it's just a flat pack. It doesn't get rid of any of your space here and you can still have these pull out, and I just thought that was a great idea. I think that's a phenomenal idea there. If you were looking at the flat one there, this guy right here, let me see if it, if that translates to you guys, but I won't. It's not translating to you guys like I would like. Okay, it changed tabs.
Speaker 2:So this is the flat pack one I was talking about. Bear with me while I figure out how to be all over this, and that's actually flat, and I freaking like this guy and I made something super similar to this in my truck, but those are just drawer slides like that, ain't. There isn't zero fancy going on there 45 bucks for the file, seems, and that's all there is to it. Look at that. Freaking sweet. You see, the thing I like about this, too, is you can fold it in half Also sweet. And this is just the stuff you guys could be looking at. Like. This can probably be built. You know I don't have a CNC, nor do you, but this could probably be built for, you know, could probably be built for far less than 1400 bucks. And that's to say you know, like that, maybe that's you want drawers. Like maybe you want drawers. So let's go to these drawers, let's share this tab. These are legit drawers. Yeah, johnny said it Build your stuff. I've built drawers.
Speaker 2:I bought drawers this time because I went to. I had a DIY set of drawers and I wasn't set on drawers. I was. I was not at all in on drawers. I was like I don't know if I want drawers, I might want boxes. You know that I pull out, I just don't know what I want. You know, like I wasn't set on drawers. So I had a deck system in my first truck. I saw some positives and negatives, learned from it, built my own drawers in my Tacoma.
Speaker 2:As time went on I decided I liked the drawers and I was going to actually build myself a nice set of drawers like let me see no-transcript Let me get it pulled up with extruded aluminum. So I was going to make a set of drawers out of extruded aluminum, so something like Let me find one here for you guys and I'll pop it up. Dang it and I'll get it popped up here and I'll show you what I mean by extruded aluminum it's like nice fancy looking drawers and such. And as I started to price out the material, for me it just didn't make sense. It just didn't make the sense to do and again, it could have looked cooler for sure. So this is extruded aluminum. Let me get his stuff pulled up here. And I've actually seen this rig. This is sponsored by Wifeys Rig and I'm going to share it and that's extruded aluminum. So it's essentially like PVC board and extruded aluminum on the sides here and that's what that looks like. So that's extruded aluminum. This is what this is here. If you see, let me go to it here, this stuff.
Speaker 2:As I looked at building this out, I was going to make a nicer drawer set with it and it was going to cost me the same in supplies as it would cost me to just buy a set. So I was like, hey, I'm not going to spend that much money and take that much time away from actually getting out there to build a super nice set. So I recommend DIYing for sure. I was at a point where I just was wanting a nice set for myself and I have the skills to do that. So I started to look at it and I used the term the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze for me, like what I could build, that I had in my head I wanted was actually going to cost more than just buying the DEX system. Now, those of you with SUVs, the DEX system is not an option but, quite frankly, for what the DEX system is, it's extremely affordable. When you look at Goosky and all these other things for SUVs, they're $2,000. I mean, we're talking $600, $700 more than a DEX system. That's a lot of money and it's a lot smaller space. So I highly recommend for you SUV guys, build your stuff. It's no different than building drawers in your kitchen. They're just bigger. Just scale them. It's just bigger.
Speaker 2:Now a lot of guys talk about these really heavy duty slides. You don't need them. Get soft, closed slides. Put two on each side. Doesn't have to be one. Put two, double the power. Make it affordable. It'll work just fine for you period. They even make ball bearings that go on top so you can put a piece of wood here and a drawer on top and it'll just. You don't even need a slide. It'll slide over to the vertical ball bearings. Let me find them here and those will help you here.
Speaker 2:Flat ball bearing Like this guy, harbor Freight, $1.99,. Of course, it is All right, I'll get this guy up there for you guys. Flat ball bearings you could literally put these on the floor and slide stuff over. You could put a board. You could put 12 of these down along the sides in the center and put a board across and it will slide. The board will slide out. The negative to these is there's just no stop, so your board is going to keep sliding out. But 14 of these would be $24. So, again, it's doable. You don't even need to have side slides, so at all. You could just put these single ball bearings and stuff will slide on top of them or beneath them, however, I mean, whatever. Sky's the limit, guys.
Speaker 2:And this see, stuff like this is exactly why I'm bringing you guys this stream and podcast today. This is a one inch roller ball bearing. For those of you listening later, it's at Harbor Freight, but I would highly recommend everybody that listens to this later. This is going to be on YouTube and I'm screen sharing a lot, so it's worth your time to come to that, to come watch it actually. So you could put these on the bottom of something and slide stuff across them.
Speaker 2:If you're not that comfortable with how precise you can measure things, that allows you to be a little more loose or tight without having to factor in the size of the slides, so that way your drawers aren't too tight or loose. You can kind of build your drawers and just don't put the top on and then put those underneath so it slides, then put your top on. So for those of you that kind of think like you're showing me all this cool stuff but like how the hell do I do that? There's ways to make it easier too. So I wanted to show you guys those. I've used those before. I think these are great. I mean seriously like Harbor Freight is a great place to look.
Speaker 2:Now that brings me to my point where you could literally put a bunch of those down, put a board across and then literally just organize boxes on top of that one piece of plywood and just make some type of stop like a hook, stop to stop that board from sliding and mount all the boxes down to that board. So you could. You could get all those little D ring hooks. You get all these little guys here. Let me find the cheapest ones. There we go. I like it D ring hook. You guys will all be happy with me on this one. This is a D ring hook. Screw it to that board and then put a little tie on it into your box, your Plano box, your Apache box, and then put all your things in those boxes. Now you've got your, you've got the drawer. It's one long piece of plywood.
Speaker 2:There's numerous ways you can make that work. You can screw these into the board and then attach them and don't attach them over the top, because you want to be able to open it right Attach them to the sides. Attach them to the sides with like paracord. It doesn't need to be waterproof, they're inside the vehicle. Great, freaking idea. Put a bolt through it. You'll have secure things in a way to slide them out. And again, I've just showed you bearings for $2. I've showed you these hooks for a buck 49 each and again any Westlakes, menards, harbor Freight, they got this stuff. It's cheap, you could find it. It's not a big deal. I use this kind of stuff all over my truck, all over my truck for mountain stuff. So just don't think it's that difficult.
Speaker 2:When you're trying to organize which brings me to my next thing when you're looking to organize and you're looking to make your space work. One thing that I have done to find out how my space works is I get online and do a lot of research about how big or small something is, so like, depending you know how big or small is this thing, I'm going to pop up hey, marvin, I'm going to pop up on screen share just Pinterest. Because, again, etsy and Pinterest definitely seem to be things that you guys wouldn't typically think at, but there's lots of ideas there in Pinterest. So, as I just BS come here, bud. You guys are going to get to see Marvin. Come here, buddy, come here, bud, come on. Oh, there's the Marvin. You guys see this freaking guy. Oh, I got rid of him, sorry, there's this guy here, the Marv. Oh, come here, buddy. This is my baby. This is Marvin. All right, there we go.
Speaker 2:So he's obviously here in Amazon. Get delivered. What's up, bud? You okay? So, as you guys build this stuff and you're looking at it, don't think it has to be expensive, don't think it has to be crazy, don't think you can't Like, if you aren't engineer minded like myself, don't think you don't have resources like me here showing you things or buying plans on Pinterest or Etsy, spend $30 for plans and then you take the guesswork out of it yourself and you could put in drawers, whatever. So the next thing I'm going to show you is say that that's a lot for you. Say that's a lot for you, like, oh man, these plans are so hard, I can't conceptualize this. Cool, let's go to Revere Overland. Oh, what do we got here? Flat pack overland drawer system. You can build it along with him. Take your phone outside and pause it and go. You can build this with him. He makes them online. If you're a follow along, you can literally follow along here. I have done all of these things to build systems in my truck.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, if that's not for you, let's talk about the idea that I had with the D hooks, the vertical bearings and just pulling a piece of plywood out. Talk about that. What does that look like? Well, let's look at cases. Here are Harbor Freight Apache cases. I honestly think they're a little expensive for what they are. These littler ones are cheaper. This big one is a lot Harbor Freight cases. They open on one side. Put them to where they open to the outside, not the inside, so you can access them Hard mount them. You got cases, easy Milwaukee Packout cases. You could even make put Packout stuff on the bottom of that plywood and put Packout cases on it. If that's how you so see it, it's also something that's easy to take in and out, so it's not always a hindrance.
Speaker 2:But you've got these and I'm just going to show you guys. Take a pair of contrasts. These Apache cases, it's like Harbor Freight they're cheap. But, guys, you go to Pelican cases and I'm going to be real honest with you guys. Pelican vault cases Are are not a whole hell of a lot more expensive. I'm showing you guys all super expensive one. There's a pelican vault one same price as the Apache. Those are what I have on my roof. But, guys, just look, not everything is as expensive as you think it might be. So so do your research, because you might end up spending more money when you think you're spending less. But there's pelican cases you could hard mount those there's. These are.
Speaker 2:These are one that I like a lot. These are these are front runner cub packs and wolf packs and they make I Don't want your support and they make. They make drawer slides for these. So you could too. I mean not a big deal, but I like these a lot. I, I really like these wolf packs and you could even get a quad set for two hundred fifty two dollars. Now, again, it's it's some money, but it's not twenty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:I like these personally, and they seem like they're real modular. They stack on top of each other. I I think these are great for the price 259 dollars for two. You could get one for 74 bucks or something, but even so, maybe that's too much money. All right, let's go to a soft case 44 dollars. You know like, just think about it, just start thinking about ways. But then so I'm still talking about in inside storage, I haven't even gotten to outside storage. So those are things to be thinking about. Then we can go. Even so, we went to front runner. That's seventy something dollars a case. We can go even cheaper Plano box, sportsman's trunk.
Speaker 2:Make drawers around two of these, mount these down 39 bucks a piece. That's, that'd be awesome. You could take two of these, put them side by side, easy, mount them down to a piece of plywood, the sides out. You literally have my deck system. It's very similar and you probably don't have a hundred and twenty dollars in it. It'd be a good way to see if that's something you like and and then you could put a board over top. If you want to sleep on top of it, it's up to you, but that's you can.
Speaker 2:You could go all day now say you are somebody that wants to have Everything and it's just its own container and you label all those containers and you play Tetris like if you're the Tetris guy, every group slash, they got a Tetris guy. Well, if you're a Tetris guy and you want to just have, like, every little thing in its own container, you know You're not a big box guy, a big drawer guy, a big, you know case guy. Step 22 has a phenomenal amount of options for that. There are a lot of money. They got a trunk bag but they got little bags too and they're they're highly renowned like they're. They're very renowned for all their baggage. They've got tons of bags, tons they're, they're, they're bag company. But but if you're this guy Maybe, maybe your part, maybe you're kind of this guy, maybe you're not always this guy they got a little freaking bag for everything and again, some of them are expensive, as some of them aren't.
Speaker 2:Just look zipper pull, I mean, just think about it like that's a form factor that could be large but that's soft, so it's gonna have a little pliability within it and maybe you build your system off of that to pull it out. Something to think about if you are a Guy that that does a system with cases. If you put a piece of rope on the back case, you can and keep and just push your back case back. You can grab the piece of rope to pull it forward. So just put that piece of rope on the ground and then put your front the box closest to you over that piece of rope. So when you pull the one out closest to you, the rope will be under and you just slide your other case towards you. But but to say all this, I'm even still still looking at all camping equipment.
Speaker 2:You could do any of this with rubber made tubs to 100%. You could do this with rubber made tubs. The only negative to rubber made tubs and I have Extensively used rubber made tubs is when you screw into them they tend to crack. So Play knows don't, but I've used rubber made play know I've built my own wooden boxes and drawers and Slides and I've done. A lot of it covered my own stuff with carpet, rhino line stuff. I Mean, at the end of the day, if you were making something out of wood, I'd highly just recommend you stain it polyurethane stain probably the easiest of all of it, it's probably easiest to do. So. Those are all just different freaking things we could be doing and using To to pack our stuff and make our stuff.
Speaker 2:Now I'm gonna come back on the screen. I've shown you guys a ton of stuff. I've talked about a ton of stuff and I've talked about drawer systems and packing inside. You could you could apply everything I just said to your back seat. Fold your seats down. You could apply all this to that.
Speaker 2:But now, what have I not covered is my favorite Exterior storage. I love exterior stores. Let's talk exterior storage, guys. So let me get step 22 off from swinging along our screen. Exterior storage Well, hell, guys, get yourself a plain old box, a wolf pack box, I mean. Get anything Bungee, cordless, sucker to the roof. Now you got storage on the roof.
Speaker 2:I love roof storage, roof storage open my freaking whole setup to the next level, like so much. The roof storage is where it is at. I have roof storage for things that that are okay being dirty. So when I ground tanned. That's where the tent went, the roof. I don't want that shit in my truck and in any X to any extent. That's where my toilet is. That's where my recovery stuff is. It gets muddy, it gets nasty. It's on the roof. I Love roof storage.
Speaker 2:Roof storage is another place you could put stuff. We could talk about Exterior mounts whether you got a rack, whether you've got, you know, a hitch mount storage thing you could do. Roto packs Rotopax makes rotopax. That are cases. Not all rotopax are just fuels, waters, so let me even I'll get those up here. Hmm, rotopax makes a case. You could freaking put rotopax on the side that aren't for fuel. I Think those are an option. I mean, definitely Find them here, but I mean, naturally you've got your water and your your water and your gas and stuff. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Roto pack storage Share this tab. Here's a Roto pack. You can mount this on the side with a suction cup mounted on the roof. And let's go down here, guys. Look at that. It's a box. It's not even for liquids. Mount it on the outside of the vehicle. You can put yourself some space. So you got a lot of kids, you're bringing the dog, whatever. That's a way to mount stuff on the outside. Great, great, freaking idea. A little more expensive, but again, storage is the name of the game. Storage is the name of the game. Storage is the game. So make sure you guys are doing that.
Speaker 2:Now. I brought it up earlier how do I find out how big my space is? Well, first things first, a tape measure, obviously. But what I do is, if any of you guys have a spouse, kids, anything I save boxes, cardboard boxes, and I will get on a site and find out how big like, for instance, that Plano box is. It has dimensions. I'll measure out those dimensions and I'll take those cardboard boxes and I'll cut those cardboard boxes up, tape them together in that kind of sort of size and throw them in the back and be like all right, now I got this thing here. I got the one thing. I got the one thing here. Now you can build all this shit around it. So you got to find your focal point, for sure, and then you can build around it.
Speaker 2:But I'm up in here doing cardboard box construction, like I'm reworking cardboard boxes, two sizes of things I want to put in the truck you know whether they're more vertical, or I've even used paper and like, how tall is that? I'll cut a piece of paper to that length and put in them, like because you know, sometimes stuff sounds different than when you put it in the space. I mean, I'm not an interior designer. I know I'm sounding a little, you know, feng shui here maybe. But like, seriously, get something, make it that size, or find something around your house and then you guys go put it in there. Oh man, that takes up a lot more room than I thought. Oh, that's actually not bad at all.
Speaker 2:Maybe I could fit two of those or three of those, or maybe I could stack them on top of each other. You'll start to, it'll start to make sense to you guys. It'll start to turn into Legos real quick. And then you'll be like, oh, I could do this. Like, if you just put that cardboard together, you can make a wooden box. If you made a cardboard box, you can do it. Screws in a saw, saws all even, I mean. And one thing I mentioned earlier like if you're anywhere that has a career center, a lot of places like that will let you rent time. There's a lot of shops that let you rent time and you can use all the tools. So maybe that's the way to go Get one of the buy one of those plans, cut all your stuff, take all your cut pieces home, then build it at home. Maybe that's an option. But I definitely think.
Speaker 2:I've been looking at drawers, whether it's for Jeeps, whether it's for four runners, whether it's for GX's, whether it's for trucks, even hatchback cars, subaru's. They are ridiculous. I have built two sets of drawers and I bought two deck systems. I have probably spent less money building two sets of drawers and buying two deck systems than a set of Goose Gear drawers costs for a four door Jeep. All of that it's nuts.
Speaker 2:And again, it's super quality stuff. Guys, I'm not saying it's not super quality, but I'm here for the beginners. I'm not here for the people that are traveling the entire world, have an enormous budget for this, have dedicated a huge budget to it and are willing to do that stuff Like I. I myself am in the middle. You know I'm definitely not a beginner anymore and I'm definitely more interested in in spending a little money, but that's not to say I now know what to spend it on because I've built so much stuff to again have an idea of kind of what I want to go with. Do I want to go this route or that route, based on what I built and sometimes what you built is better.
Speaker 2:Again, I have a Tacoma, so there's tons of stuff. But when I had my Titan, there was no stuff. So I was building everything, which was fine too. It just you just got to know what you're getting in for, like what you're in for. So I wanted to bring all this up to talk about all the freaking storage.
Speaker 2:How do I do it? Where you can find stuff, what stuff's out there, how to look at your space. You know, are you building up, are you building out? Do you want hard stuff? Do you want soft cases? How do you want to do it? Do you want it to pull out? Do you want to just stack crates? Do you want to have a bunch of little things? Do you want to have a combination of all of that? You know what do you want to do. You could probably get big, big crates and Velcro soft things to the top of them, multiple soft things to the top of them. That would work. I've seen that again. I was in the military tactical community. That's actually really big in that community. A Plano box with Velcro on it and you've got, you know, first aid kit on it, toiletries on it, extra mags on it, all Velcroed in their own separate patches, and just pull them off of the main Plano case. That's an option.
Speaker 2:Again, I got more things in my head than you guys will think to ask me, so I'm just trying to offload as absolute much as I can to you guys because I think this is a topic that you know. I'm not going to be able to answer that. I don't think that there is a podcast or stream out there talking DIY stuff. And I am good at that. I am good at that problem solving. So I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to really find my space here and I got a lot of ideas for stuff like that. Like I'm very good at make it work, I'm very good at make it fit, I'm very good at looking at a space and understanding I need a round form factor, I need a square, a rectangle, like I'm very good at figuring those things out.
Speaker 2:But that's from reconstructing a lot of Amazon boxes with duct tape and an X-Acto knife for a long time and kind of learning what products you know. If you've put, if you've measured one, jerry, can you know what every Jerry can essentially size is. If you've done this propane tank, that you know propane tanks, you know one pounders, five pounders, 11 pounders, 20 pounders Not a big deal. Second thing, not second, 65th thing If you carry a 25 pound propane tank, it'll fit in a milk crate and that'll keep it from falling over. Put your 20 pound propane tank in a milk crate Now. It has a flat base and you can kind of put it wherever 20 pound propane tank, milk crate Great, great thing to know, put it in your truck.
Speaker 2:So I have jabbed for about 50 minutes about all of this stuff. So I am going to now, because it is a stream, bring all of you guys back on the chat. I'm going to put the chat on the screen so that you guys still do get a little bit of time to kind of to kind of get it, to kind of go at it here. But as I see all your guys comments, I know I just really threw a lot at you guys and if you weren't ready to take notes, I have all of these things, these things bookmarked at the top.
Speaker 2:Step 22 soft bags, plano cases, front runner cases, pelican cases, apache cases at Harbor Freight. Pinterest for ideas on drawers and shelves in your vehicle and plans, etsy, same thing. Dobbinsons drawers, moly systems from Victory 4x4. Flatball bearings, e-ring hooks, rotopax cases all freaking things that you could get or use for packing and you could build around them. You could make any case a drawer with a slide. A case can be a complete drawer if you make it slide out. It's a drawer, then, and that's very, very, very easy to do.
Speaker 2:And again, you might not look the coolest guys Like, you might not be YouTube ready, but you're freaking adventure ready and that's what matters. That's all the freaking matters. Who cares about anything else? And once you start to hone in these skills on kind of how to do it, then you're like, oh man, I mean you'll start to figure it out and it will start clicking for you. And I tend to think screwing it up is half of the fun and learning how to get out of that screw up. You know, I don't know how many times I've built stuff that's a square and I'm just crappy, I'm not steady-handed and I cut it kind of crooked. And then you wonder what I learned. I do bevel edges Because it ain't a square, no more. So I learned how to bevel edges because I'm not gonna go buy a whole new piece of wood. Hey, you know making lemonade out of lemons, so. But I see up here a couple guys. You know, venture Arkansas said you know, I'm gonna build more on the roof. I love playing O'Case's Tyson said he's building a forerunner. You know, and these are all just things for you guys. Hopefully any of it makes any sense. But I guess I'll get into my ex-capades.
Speaker 2:This weekend, this weekend, I went camping two nights. I Went to a park, we did a lot of hiking. It was a good time. We actually hiked a bunch. That's like I said something I'm gonna try and do more of this year. We did do a lot of hiking. It was great. We sat around, read books, chilled out, even watched a little YouTube out there.
Speaker 2:Watch a little one of our favorites, maria roaming reckless. We really like Maria. She's, she is a. I really like Maria and so does my girlfriend, because she is not, she's not, she's not real. I don't want to diss her because she's really doing the thing and she's done it for a long time, but she's very not privy to a lot of skills. She's really not privy to a lot of skills and she's fun to watch because she's she's really good at articulating through YouTube, like her Thought processes as she's figuring it out, and she's travels all the time full-time with her dog and she's in a Land Rover. So if you guys want to go to the Land Rover, so if you guys want a good laugh or you want to get your spouse, your female spouses, involved, maria's is a lot of fun roaming, reckless Maria. So it's a ton of fun. I'd also, if you're a female and you're looking to get your spouse into it, I'd also highly recommend. I'd also highly recommend Nikki delvin thall as well. She lived in a Prius for a number of years and now she's in a van. But Nikki delvin thall is a it's a plethora of knowledge as well. Both of those two are on the female side.
Speaker 2:On the male side I don't. I don't follow too many males that Overland full-time. I follow a lot of males that homestead and build cabins full-time, but there's not really a lot of guys that travel full-time Solo. There's some families I follow, but really it's it's it's women. So I mean I don't know who everybody follows, but as far as full-time on the road overlanders, it's pretty much married or girls. Not very many single guys. The only single guy that I know and he's on YouTube so much anymore, that is a solo guy overlandings down to mob and Dan Greck, but everybody else is like a family or a couple, so, but down to mob does it on his own to. He built his Gladia. I don't know if he built a gladiator, it's a four-door Jeep but he built a camper onto it. But he's not on YouTube so much anymore, but he built his own deal.
Speaker 2:Everybody else kind of like me. They go out for you know, short or extended periods of time, come back home anyways. But so, tyson, like the idea, the table, I think that flat one I showed where it's just like a real flat space with the two tables that comes out. I think that is a fantastic Because now you got a flat platform in the back and you can pull those tables out, you can put your cases over that flat part I and then you can cook on those tables. You don't have to carry that fold out to crap anymore. I like that. I mean I have a tailgate and that is my table.
Speaker 2:But I really there's some stuff that if you could build it right, he's gonna save you a bunch of space actually versus like the thing you know, like yeah, anyways, so and and and Tyson also said he wants to get to where you can do everything out the back of his truck and yeah, as you guys go, more you're gonna find, you're gonna find like a lot of your enjoyment it, the allure of just going, because you know again I've mentioned it earlier it requires a little dedication, but the excitement of going it. It's not that it wears off, but if it's kind of a pain in the ass to make everything work, it does start to seem like a chore, which is where this organization piece comes in. Like you can buy all the stuff and have all the stuff and that's cool, but eventually, eventually, your excitement to go in your you know, you know dumpster fire of a setup Are gonna, are gonna hit head to head and you're either gonna figure out how to make that dumpster fire Into something more organized and easy to deal with or it's gonna be on Facebook marketplace and that's what I see. And I'm here, literally I'm here.
Speaker 2:I didn't use the whiteboard because I didn't need it, because I had so much screen sharing going. Sorry, squirrel, right. Anyways, somebody said did we use the whiteboard? No, we didn't. We didn't need to because I could find it all online, so we didn't. We didn't need to. Today, I think I covered it all on screen share and if you guys, this is a perfect example After this is on YouTube, if you guys think of any more questions later, put them on the, put them on the stream once it's on YouTube, because I can even make smaller videos, whether using my own truck or the whiteboard, explaining things that maybe I didn't explain so well via this, this medium.
Speaker 2:So that's that's definitely something to to think about. You can always Get. Get me, yeah, and Tyson said right here, tyson and Tyson's very active today. But Tyson said when you build it, you know how it all works so you could fix it if something goes wrong and To counter that, you also know when you could improve, like you could improve on it too, and that's important as well. And if you build it and you build it cheap enough, you can carry extras, like you carry an extra slide and a couple screws and a drill, or or you know, like stuff like that, like it's not a big deal, carry some liquid nails.
Speaker 2:I Mean is it? Is it really then to the world? No, it's not. But again, organization is something I just have so not dove into. That is such a huge part of this and I'm packed all the time because I mean I hit that wall of Continuing the hobby or Facebook marketplace. You know this isn't working. This is sliding around, this is getting bent because it's, you know, jumbling all over like I Can only buy so many ratchet straps and retighten them and hook them in. There's only so many places to hook them.
Speaker 2:And I have been through it, guys, and it is a it takes a little. It takes a little bit of time To and somebody like me whether it's me here or somebody else on YouTube or somebody on Instagram it takes you finding somebody to start to get the right headspace of things you could be doing. You know, and Once you start doing it, it'll be easier to find more of what you want, because now you're gonna go oh, I built a fridge slide. Oh, I want my fridge slide to tilt, but I don't want to buy a new one. Well, how do I do that search? You know, like I know, my friend Johnny's on here and me and him had a fridge slide exactly the same. We built a slide and then we wanted it to tilt. So we put a piano hinge on the front and cut off a ratchet strap and screwed it in and it just tilted.
Speaker 2:I have a fancy one now, but that's what I had before, so and it worked. I mean, I really only have fancy stuff now just because I Mean the gray in my beard is not. I'm not my 20s anymore like I, I just wanted nicer stuff now. But I did 10 years without nice stuff, probably, you know, without any nice stuff, and learned and then still have some of that stuff from then. I mean, my jet boil is freaking, very old, pretty freaking old.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, guys, we're at an hour. Anybody got anything else? If not, um, I would. I mean this might be one you have to Relisten to to catch it all. I knew it was gonna be a lot. Well, I was preparing last night for it, because I got freaking tabs on tabs, on tabs across here. I got a whiteboard over here, I got notes over here. I got stuff all over the place for this one and and I I'll probably listen back to it and I missed something or 10 things. So this might even turn into another short video or something, something throughout the week on Instagram or YouTube or something, because there's a lot. There's a lot to you know pun intended unpack here. So, anyways, guys, I will leave it at that and I'm Next week will be back to us, kind of our normal format I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:I will start dipping into electrical next week a little bit. Right next week I'll talk batteries Fuses. I'll probably talk batteries fuses, adding fuses, the positives and negatives, why you would go to a bigger battery, an AGM versus a lithium versus a life PO4. I could even talk a little bit about you know alternators a little bit, because modern vehicles kind of have different alternators than older vehicles and there is like a split even between, like the 2015's and the 2020 plus's as far as charging systems are concerned and how they work. So I might get into like just basic electrical.
Speaker 2:I might get into just basic electrical like what is stuff? It's going to have to be multiple parts like this is what this is, this is what this is, this is what this is, this is what a, what an X is and how it works, and then this is how that could do this for you here. Here's how you could get into, you know switches and how do switches work in paralleling switches or plugs and just little stuff. Little stuff like watt hours to amp hours because most batteries are amp hours and most power stations are watt hours and how that stuff works. And figure out draw. Yeah, tyson just brought up draw Like. At one point I explained to him like, draw, in a way of like how an inverter draws power and now you're using twice as much power as the unit's using because you're converting that 110 to 12 to make it work and that because what's going to happen with electrical even when I do get into it is like you got to pay attention to all those things to know how long your stuff's going to last, or attempt to. I mean, it's no different calculating out how long your battery is going to last than how long your fuel is going to last Very similar and you want to make sure you have enough of both fuel and electric power, whatever. So, yeah, that's where the whiteboard will come in handy, because I'll, I'll and I'm going to get it mounted here and I'm going to get a new webcam so you guys can see me better for the whiteboard, because that's, that's going to be a big one and I'll probably even the whiteboard will probably be a place I'm still thinking about also.
Speaker 2:I'm just rambling, but I'm also thinking about getting some people on here for some different perspectives and what they're doing. I just still have so many topics that I'd like to go over selfishly to try and just get out on the Internet. You know for you guys that watch live and ask questions, but I have a lot of people listening now too. So, and again, if you listen to this, I'm going to post it tonight, wednesday night. If you listen to this later, leave a comment.
Speaker 2:I got a couple comments. I really appreciate you guys. Seriously, it's awesome. Keep listening, keep giving me content. Again, I don't care if you tell me you hate me, if you tell me you love me, I love you either way and I love that you commented one star, five stars, I mean, quite frankly, if you gave me one star, I'm psyched that. If you gave me one star, you listened to it. I mean cool, I like it. That's awesome. So you guys, have a good night. I will start to get into a little bit basic, basic what stuff is electrical next week and I'll probably tie that in with the things on my radar, like different power stations or batteries or things that I think might be worth it to you guys. That'll all tie in together and then we'll open the chat up for half of it again, just like we did, you know, every week up to now. So either way, guys, have a good night, enjoy it. Have a good weekend. I'm coming, it's here. I'll start getting out more and I'll talk to you guys later.