Outskirts Overland Podcast
Welcome to the Outskirts Overland Podcast, your go-to source for all things overlanding! Hosted by a seasoned adventurer with over 15 years of experience, this podcast offers a genuine and down-to-earth exploration of the overlanding lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting out, join us as we delve into the essentials of gear and equipment, share captivating stories from the road, and provide practical tips for your next adventure. Tune in for insightful interviews, expert advice, and a community of like-minded explorers who share a passion for discovering the world beyond the beaten path. Get ready to fuel your wanderlust and embark on unforgettable journeys with the Outskirts Overland Podcast!
Outskirts Overland Podcast
Unleashing Your Gear: Daily Uses for Overland Equipment
Have you ever considered how much more value you could squeeze from your overland investment? In this enlightening episode, Charlie from Outskirts Overland breaks down the unexpected ways your adventure gear can transform everyday life, making those expensive purchases easier to justify to both yourself and skeptical family members.
Charlie takes us beyond obvious uses of overland equipment, revealing how fridges aren't just for camping but perfect for keeping groceries cold during errands, storing cold drinks at kids' sports events, and eliminating the rush to get home before ice cream melts. His practical approach shows how recovery gear serves countless purposes around your property - from using winches to move heavy objects and extract stubborn tree roots to employing soft shackles and recovery straps for yard work and home projects.
You'll discover how onboard air compressors eliminate trips to gas stations for tire inflation while becoming neighborhood heroes by helping friends with low tire pressure warnings. Weather protection equipment like awnings creates valuable shade for kids playing outside, protects outdoor equipment from harsh sun, and provides comfortable spaces for outdoor projects. Even cooking equipment finds new life outside camping, with camp stoves and Skottles offering ways to cook aromatic foods without filling your home with smoke or lingering smells.
The most surprising revelation comes in how overlanding principles of organization and preparedness enhance daily driving experiences, creating vehicles ready for anything life throws your way. Charlie's enthusiastic endorsement of multi-purpose equipment provides a fresh perspective for both new and experienced overlanders looking to maximize their investment.
Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating or comment on Apple Podcasts, and join Charlie at upcoming events like Overland America in September and Rendezvous in the Ozarks in October. Your feedback helps keep this daily conversation going strong!
The Good morning guys. This is Charlie with Outskirts Overland, trying to catch you guys early this morning a little bit. Today is Top Gun Day. It's like the Tom Cruise movie, top Gun, today's Top Gun Day. I like Top Gun. I'll probably play as a little bit Kenny Loggins today and get my Top Gun on. But before I get too far into anything, I wanted to go ahead and say hey, go on over to Apple Podcasts, rate the podcast, leave a comment. It helps me out. I really appreciate it and it helps keep this thing going on a daily basis, like you guys have been. At least the feedback I've gotten is that you guys enjoy it.
Speaker 1:So big news. So big news yesterday is it looks like there was some type of tariff agreement that took place yesterday. So hopefully that starts to fix some of the supply issues that we were all noticing and potential. You know all the emails with the price increases and and stuff. So we'll see if that helps any of that. But that was announced yesterday. So hopefully all you guys that bought rooftop tents and have been waiting or been told they're going to be extremely far out or can't afford them anymore because they went up etc. Hopefully that kind of resets itself. I don't really know enough about any of it to know how it really affects shipping and stuff still, but let's all hope that's good news for the industry. Yeah, that would be fantastic. I was really hoping that even yesterday I'd start to see some emails come out, but unfortunately. But hopefully and as things get finalized and as people understand what any of it really means, hopefully we see something, see some shifts back to a little bit more normal Lead times and prices and stuff, and that would be really nice for everybody.
Speaker 1:I'm yawning like crazy today, guys, but today I got to after I get home. I got to wash the truck today. It's a freaking mess and I think I told you guys I'm going to uh record with benji tomorrow night, newfound overland, so that'll be available for you guys here in the next week or so. I'd assume you know whenever he decides to release it. But I'm gonna wash my truck because I'm going to drive it. I don't want to. I mean it's real muddy, really muddy. So yeah, I've been trying to look at new product and innovation and stuff and I talk a lot about product guys, but I'm just not seeing it right now and I'm hoping that that changes with the increase in prices and stuff I do. I do feel like you're going to get a decrease in innovation just due to production costs and stuff. So that may be leading it. But, like I said yesterday, I didn't see any other overland vehicles on those arts this past weekend and it wasn't weekend and it was a nice. I mean it was a nice weekend Still nobody. So I don't know what that means for anything. Really, that's a good litmus test. I've told you guys I'll be at Overland of America in September. I'll also be at Rendezvous in the Ozarks in October.
Speaker 1:Tickets just went live for Rendezvous in the Ozarks. So if you guys are interested in that event, hear a bunch of us in the Midwest talk about that event. It's a good place. You can get out and trail. It's where people share stories. There's a lot of people that actually you know get out and travel and do trails at Rendezvous in the Ozarks. So if that sounds more like your jam it so if that sounds more like your jam, it couldn't be further from the Moore Expo, like it couldn't be further from Overland Expo. It is more of a. It's more of a meet up to go explore event and they have prize, giveaways and stuff, and in the evenings everybody kind of hangs out and parties, but they do. They do night runs too. People do night runs as well. So it's a really big, I'd say an adventure event. You could make it a sit down, chill out event if you want it, but it's that has not been my experience with it at all ever. So Rendezvous in the Ozarks just opened up. Tickets for Overland america are currently open and so, yeah, those are the next two events I'll be going to.
Speaker 1:I'll be camping a lot in in between here. You know, uh, just as I do like, as I normally do. So I'm not like next time you'll see me out ever is september. I'll be out a ton of times between now and then, but September I'll be out a ton of times between now and then. Sorry guys, I'm yawning a bunch, I'm not tired. There it goes.
Speaker 1:One thing that I was asked to talk about or was brought to my attention to talk about is when you buy all this, when you build out a rig. You build out a rig, you've got all kinds of recovery stuff, naturally, living stuff. But somebody said why don't you talk about how you use overlaying gear or how you use your gear in your truck outside of just camping, and I was like, oh easy. I mean I've talked about it briefly before, but never I don't think I've made it a subject yeah, easy, I have a fridge, a 12-volt system, I have kids charging iPods, ipods, ipads, powering the fridge. Having cool stuff in the fridge I think I've talked about the fridge before, like even kids sports games and stuff having Gatorades in there.
Speaker 1:If you are with your kids and it's a hot day and you want to go to the grocery store at a less busy time and your kids want to go do something after, like go to the arcade or the park or whatever, keep your groceries in the fridge so you don't have to worry about your groceries going bad. Like when I was a kid. I remember a lot like I got groceries in the car. We got to hurry up, you know. But when you've got a fridge, you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1:Um, I always have a way to recover stuff. So, like if I ever am working around my house and something gets stuck or something needs pulled or something needs moved, I've got a means in which to do that, whether it's soft shackles, ropes, winch, like I use that stuff you know not use it. I just went and again, I'm a guy that uses a winch. Okay, like a lot of people have winches and probably don't even know how they work. I just winch self-recover myself this last weekend.
Speaker 1:So I mean, in a great time, to learn how to use a winch is during any household thing, like if you need to drag a big piece of something, find a way to get your winch around it and pull it like big rocks, like if you got, if you're somebody that does like landscaping I'm not saying you want to drag a huge rock across your yard, cause it'd be a problem, but like you could if you needed to, or just to move something large. So you're not picking it up if you could drag it okay. Now, what I've also done is whenever I've had something that I've put like a four-wheel cart but it doesn't roll real great on like gravel or grass or something, I've hooked the winch up to that and it goes slow enough to where you don't have to worry about, like just exerting yourself outside of your comfort zone, like you can just four up a hill, or I mean I use a winch. I feel like I use my winch a lot and if I didn't see the need for doing that I probably wouldn't have one. But I've recovered numerous people Myself.
Speaker 1:You know, I just for the first time self-recovered myself. I've been winched out before backwards I have never been. I never winched myself out myself, but I've winched a bunch of other people out, and at least before this weekend when I did, but it's all the same, like not like it was some hoopla, like oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing, like super familiar with what I got going on, like nothing crazy at all, like like no big deal. But yeah, I use the fridge, I use, I use my radio a lot for weather because, like your radio is going to pick up weather local to the area.
Speaker 1:So I use my Midland radio on the weather and to check the weather. Like my kids all think it's like what's the weather and I turn it on and they all think that's cool. So I use that for the weather, my radio. I just press the WX on your radio and you're going to get the weather. But anytime the weather's like crap, crap, I take the truck. So that's a reason to take the truck versus any normal car, and my truck is a very fancy trail rig toy.
Speaker 1:Second vehicle, recreational vehicle, but I still treat it as if it's. You know. It's not the car that I'm worried about getting a scratch on, so I kind of treat it that way too if I ever go anywhere, like okay. So another reason I bring my truck to work is in the winter. The girls at work are forever having low tires and they'll. They'll be like can you bring your truck tomorrow so you can air up my tires? My light's on? I do that like four times a year, like actually Because air costs money and I got compressor in my truck. It's like not, and it's not a big deal. I just got to drive the truck one day to air up their tires. It's totally cool, like all the time, whatever, totally cool girls Like I'm on it, I got you, but I use air compressor to air up other people's tires like just regular life stuff like these are not the girls at work are driving, like you know, regular commuter cars, like they ford edges and grab fours and pathfinders and tahoes. Like they're just, they're just their family car. They just know I have an air compressor and I can help them out. So I use the air compressor, oh you know, many times a year for those folks I have used my kinetic rope to, you know, to like, essentially pull a tree out, because you can use the kinetic energy to get a route out, hook to the back of the truck on a hard, shackle Steel bumpers. You know, because of having steel bumpers and such, I can do that recovery so the steel bumpers have a place.
Speaker 1:If you ever go out in your yard when it's wet, it's not the. You know it's nice to have four-wheel drive so you're not spinning tires in your wet driveway, so you can go slow, so you can keep your your, your driveway, so you're not tearing up your yard if you need to go out in your yard for something like. Those are all things that are are useful because I mean, quite frankly, like is my truck way heavier than my four wheeler? Absolutely, are my tires, even the aggressive tires on my truck, way less aggressive than my ATV tires? Absolutely, like you, you, you're going to do less damage with the truck. Then we have a tractor too. Then the tractor, the tractor tires or even the four-wheeler, if you really got to pull something and it's going to cause it to dig in, the truck is the better tool for that. Obviously you can pull a trailer with your truck or suv if you're equipped to do so. I still do have a bed in my truck. I could still use the bed of my truck.
Speaker 1:I use my awning for any number of things, so like when the kids are outside and they're sitting on something or whatnot like bike seats get real hot, I'll put the awning out and they park their bikes under the awning. It's just in my driveway. I'll park the lawnmower under the awning so the seat doesn't get super hot or split or anything like that. Um, I put it out and for my dog to lay under it. Like I use the awning. Yeah, I probably use the awning more for not camping than camping. To be completely honest, um, I do use it camping. I just use the awning quite a bit. The awning I use gets used quite a bit, as well as the fridge. The awning in the fridge really get used a lot, like so much another. You know like, like I can't even a lot like a lot, a lot. I use the compressor to air bike tires, basketballs, like that all the time soccer balls. I use the compressor to air up slip and slides, inflatable pools, you name it. So I use the compressor a lot Like if you guys are looking for pieces of equipment that you could sell your spouse on or it makes sense to you like air compressor, awning fridge like super useful.
Speaker 1:Having four wheel drive like super useful. Dual purpose winch very multi-purposed. And even having a winch, guys, I don't use it. I don't know that I would call this everyday life, but I pulled a lot of cars out in the winter that end up in ditches. But that's the use case for it. So that's what I'm doing with it when I'm camping or overlanding as well. Just because I'm not actually doing that thing, I'm still pulling out stuck vehicles. But still, if you're somebody who notoriously you know, say your wife notoriously is in a ditch and you're sick of paying tow bills, like you know, a winch might be cheaper than a tow bill. You know it might I don't know be cheaper than a tow bill. Yeah, you know it might, I don't know. Um, obviously, overland equipment they use elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Obvious things camp chairs, bluetooth speaker like you have those anywhere. I have a like one of those waterproof like it's like a waterproof in a pelican case speaker. So it's like completely and totally not a problem so you can have getting rained on music, if you want. That's awesome. I think that's great. I like it a lot and so I've got that.
Speaker 1:What's the more gear that I have that gets used a bunch? I mean, I use my Scotl. I have a iCamper Disco and I use that at the house too. It's better for, like fried rices and stuff like that. So, like cooking, I use the Scottle. It works great. Sometimes you also want to cook something like what? The Scottle is really nice.
Speaker 1:Using a camp stove at home is nice for baking, because when you're in your house and you're cooking bacon it smokes up the whole place. But you can just do it outside on your camp stuff. And I've found that doing a pot or a pan on a camp stove or even using your scottle, it's not the same as like putting a pan on the grill. You know like a lot of people don't have that. If you have a Blackstone, you could do that too. Um, but again, I'm not taking thinking multi-use Like I use my scottle to do that. I'm thinking multi-use. I use my Scotel to do that, my disco stove to do that, versus having a Blackstone and a disco stove because they can't go together. So that's something you can use multi-use and it's helpful for sure. And I think that's about. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1:I mean I use all my recovery equipment for any number of things, like tree savers, and I mean I use my tree saver and a soft shackle to re-spool my winch. So I sit in the truck and I spool the winch so that it's tensioned and it pulls the truck to the tree. So I mean I use my tree saver to re-spool my winch. I you know and and again, like I said, pulling stuff out but pulling the truck to it too. Too, I use the tree saver to grab trees.
Speaker 1:Um, when I'm cutting wood I'll like loop it around a tree and pull it out, pull, pull big logs out. Sometimes I get I do wood in the winter and sometimes the logs get kind of like suction to the ground. And I'm not trying to herniate another disc, you know like, look at the winch, truck winch, whatever. Just pull it out. It's not a big, it's like not hard, just leave that stuff hooked up. Um, I'm trying to think. I mean I have a number of things that end up that I end up using elsewhere and I can't think of them all always off the top of my head, but it's good that I talk about the ones I use mostly. You know, like most the time, um, I think that I do think that about covers it and when I think about being in my daily, even some of it I've applied to my daily.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I've always got a little bit of recovery like soft shackles in here, just in case, you know, I have to get towed and I don't want them hooking it up under my you know, my lower control arms. I keep a couple of soft shackles in this vehicle. Do I winch? No, but somebody may want to winch me. I have a cooler in here so I can still do groceries and stuff. I have extra coats and stuff in here. There's some stuff that I've even applied. I don't have a fridge in here. I could. I only didn't because I wanted to see how a cooler works. It's been a long time since I had a cooler, so I got a cooler to see how it works. I could have a fridge. I'd rather have a fridge, but a cooler does work. Yeah, that's. You know.
Speaker 1:One thing that is a ridiculous thing that I use all the time is I'm talking about working in and out of your truck and all this stuff and the Subaru the same is. I got seatbelt extenders and I like cut them down so I can be in the truck without it beeping and annoying the ever living heck out of me. Like, if I'm in and out of it a bunch and I'm working at the house or I'm even out on the trail, I click that seatbelt extender in, so it's not so, so it thinks there's a seatbelt in there, so it's not beeping at me all the time. I do have friends, and I do have. I do have Toyota tech stream to Toyota tech stream. Don't work on the Subaru, though, but there are vehicles and dealerships that will not shut that dang chime off. So I just got seatbelt extenders from Amazon and cut them off like short, so I can just stick the clip in there and I don't have to listen to this thing beeping at me for 65 million years when I'm driving, you know, 15 feet across my house.
Speaker 1:That's a huge thing that that I, I and I use that on the trail. The reason I say I use that on the trail because those of you that trail and maybe I'm, I mean maybe this isn't something you guys do, but those of you that trail and maybe I'm. I mean, maybe this isn't something you guys do, but I I rarely wear a seatbelt on the trail because I don't want to be in a scenario where the truck's going and I'm. It takes me any longer than it needs to for me to get out of it, and I've been in that scenario, so sometimes it's nice to just dip out the truck. So I very much.
Speaker 1:So do not trail with a seatbelt on, like I don't, and some people say that's less safe. I tend to think it's more safe, because if you're in a situation where the vehicle is going to go and you don't want to go with it, me, you want to get out quick. That's the way to do it. And if you don't want to be annoyed by the chime I used to, I mean I've also clicked the seat belt and then sat in the vehicle too, like just sit, essentially like the seat belts behind me clipped in. You could do that too, but I really do like those little seat belt extenders. It's 15 bucks. I got two of them, one for each car, and whenever I take my girlfriend I got two for the truck put it in the truck or another.
Speaker 1:Another time I use those seatbelt extenders is Marvin. I have a dog, marvin. He's an Aussie doodle but he's somewhat heavy. So he sets off the airbag alarm in the car seatbelt extender. He can still sit in the front seat. I don't have to make him super uncomfortable by putting the seat on and different stuff like putting the seatbelt on, and he's got to try and get comfortable laying on it because he likes to chill here in the front seat but I don't want to hear the beeping. So seatbelt extender click it in. Good to go. So your dog is another reason you know.
Speaker 1:So anyways, those are a few products and a lot of ways I use them outside of overlanding and what they are. And hopefully that touches on your question for the one that asked and kind of brings that to light. That also kind of brings that also could help you prioritize gear. You know I don't think those are necessary. Those are, those are some of the bigger ticket items that you might need for this hobby. But again, if you live out in the country, if you do a lot like landscaping or anything like that, if you have kids and grocery shopping is a thing and maybe you live far out of town or maybe you want to go to Costco two hours away, or who knows what the scenario is. A fridge is a good thing.
Speaker 1:These are multi-use things. They're not just for this and I use them often for other stuff. I mean, I've pulled lawnmowers out, tractors out, forklifts out cars, trucks. I've moved dumpsters with my winch like slid dumpsters out of the way Like I don't know. I use that a lot. I mean a lot, a lot actually, and I think if you don't learn how to use it, I wish that everybody that had one really learned how to use it, because I think a lot of people don't use it just because they don't, like really know how they have them, but they don't really know how great tool, super awesome tool, like such a good tool that everyone should be like.
Speaker 1:If you're any type of like outdoorsy-like person and you think you need a tractor, you could probably in a lot of ways if you need to pull stuff out is why you need a tractor or a bigger lawnmower or whatever. You can do it with your truck, you can do it with your 4Runner or whatever with a winch. So anyways, hopefully that covers the topic for everybody. I'm going to go ahead and hop off of here. Have a happy Top Gun Day. Have a good Tuesday and I'll catch you guys tomorrow, and thanks for being here. Please don't forget to go rate the podcast or leave a comment. Really appreciate it if you would, and have a great day.
