The Truth About Overlanding Gear - Budget vs Premium

What's wrong with everyone? I'm Matt with Ozark Overland Adventures and in this video I want to talk about the team. I see a lot of comments on social media with people badmouthing the equipment people use. They make fun of people with high-. The people on the final team make fun of the people on the

budget

team, um, and it made me think about how much of a difference there is. You know, you hear a lot about the land tax because you know that any team that has the word land tax goes. cost three times as much for those kinds of jokes, um, but I think some people really believe that I've been very lucky on this channel.

You know, when I started doing this, I was and still consider myself very cheap. I don't like spending a lot of money, especially unnecessarily, but as the channel has grown I've had the opportunity to work with different companies and companies have contacted me and asked if I would be willing to try things that I can afford. buy better equipment. From time to time, I've run the gamut from starting with super cheap

budget

stuff, even stuff bought at garage sales and Facebook Marketplace and that kind of stuff. I mean, I have really cool stuff now. So it made me wonder if there was any difference and then I started taking a look at a couple of different things, you know, the topic always comes up when you talk about cookware, you know, cooking stoves, that kind of thing, so I got some stoves, I've been going through some sleeping bags, camping chairs, bags and then of course, you know the debate about the ground tent versus the rooftop tent, so I've been spending the morning playing around in my garage comparing things and that's what I want to do in this video, this video, let me be very clear, this video is not me telling you that if you're going to do this about landing in a car, camping whatever you want to call , you know, vehicle. based on adventure travel, but I'm not the one telling you that you have to have the high-end equipment because that's not true at all.

I'm also not the one telling you that high-end

gear

isn't worth it, uh, because I'm going to show you some areas of how it's worth it and why, so this video isn't those things, so I don't want to look at the comments how do you know any of that crap so walk with me on this let me. let me show you what I found and you'll know that at the end of the day, you have to choose the right equipment for you, you have to choose the right equipment for your budget and there are definitely some good use cases, pros and cons for both, you know budget equipment and high-end

gear

, so that's what we're going to cover at Ozark Overland Adventures, proudly supported by the Moore Expo, the Midwest's number one adventure travel consumer expo.

Artemis Overland Hardware, they have one of the largest selections of undercarriage available great iron overland rally where overland expo meets music festivals shop overland apparel your source for Ozark overland adventure merchandise and more four wheel drive on open roads winch manufacturers and high quality affordable recovery equipment motorhome in the Texas interior, the best place for overland adventure trailers and moon manufacturers of the Moon Shade portable awning, so when you look at the difference between the equipment budget and high-end equipment, generally the high-end equipment will do one or perhaps all four things. it will save you time it will save you weight it will save you space and many times but not every time but many times it will be of higher quality and therefore it will last you longer and I can demonstrate some of that with camp stoves so this It's the Ozark Trail, just your basic everyday camp stove.

I bought it at Walmart and honestly, it's a lot thinner than I remember. These things were my first camping stove that I got through Facebook. market for five dollars was an old Ozark Trail camp stove and that thing you know served me well for about a year, um, until it started falling apart, but, but this, I went and spent 34 dollars on this, this is the Ozark Trail. camping stove um, it's, like I said, it's very thin, but there are some weird things about it, first of all, um, this, uh, it's nice that it has a holder for the gas connector, um, but it doesn't really has it. it doesn't fit flush, there's no way for it to fit flush, so as you know, if you're packing this up if you want to lay it flat, it's not going to, because that's what's sticking out, which is.

Which seems strange to me and you clearly know there is a design flaw. When you put $34 on a camp stove, you can't expect it to be perfect, but it is, it's pretty thin and compact. fold that and then fold these and push them very firmly down, here we go, let me grab my, let's see what's on this side. This is not unique to this camp stove. It would be very helpful if the camp stove companies would standardize which side um your propane connector is going to go on so you know before you buy it how it's going to work or if they somehow made them where you could put them on both sides so any ozark trail propane manufacturer coleman gsi jetboil yes You're listening, that's great, let's just let them do both sides or standardize them.

Get together in the meeting and choose: it will be on the left side, it will be on the right side or it will be in the middle, I'll show you that in a minute, so let's take this and here it is, I mean, these three stoves have a total of 20 000 btu and ten thousand btus from each burner, so they should all be the same, you know, the same heating performance. cooking performance that kind of thing, but um this uh this doesn't have a clicker this doesn't have a way to turn on automatically so if you're going to get a stove like this, you should bring a lighter or something like that.

In fact, this morning I looked all over the house for a lighter, I couldn't find one, so I'm lighting my stove with a flint, here we go. I highly doubt you can see that flame very well, but it's up high. but the most frustrating thing for me about many camp stoves is the flame control. I'm going to turn it down to the minimum, so if I turn it any more it will go out, but look at this, look how much the wrist turns well, that's it, that's all the flame there is, so I have from there to there maybe a quarter of turn, not even half a turn and lo and behold, the dial keeps working without it just keeps working and there is no additional flame. control you can have there, this is all a lot of nothing, it does absolutely nothing for you, so the only flame control you have, if I can get there, come on, so there up there, I mean, a quarter back, that's all you get and then and then it goes off, so depending on what you like to cook at camp, it can be frustrating if you need a nice medium heat or just want to turn it down to low and simmer, You know, going with the cheap camp stove can sometimes be a challenge, but it works, yeah, it works great, it has the same 10,000 or 20,000 BTU output that the high-end ones have and, you know, it looks good. , it's compact, it's well made, but come on. check out the next one, this is the relatively new gsi pinnacle pro, we didn't buy this one, gsi didn't send this one either, my wife won this in a cook-off if you didn't see our video of the great iron land rally, uh, where is it?

I won the dessert cooking contest and I won this one, go look, it's a fun Man Big Arnold rally event, but this one is, I mean, it's super slim, this thing takes up very little space when it's on and it even comes with a tote really nice, this one is super thin, so my wife, she, you know, throw this in the back of a wrangler, um, you know, just put it between, you know, put it on top of something, just slide it between bags and stuff like that, I mean, it just fits. cool back there and you have these little legs that open down and you have this thing that goes up, it's uh, I mean, it's very cute, very well made, and there we go, and one of the things I love about this is Another thing is that it comes with a nice little flexible hose, I mean, it's awesome to hook up and I talked about all the left and right standardization, well, gsi put theirs on the back, right there, we've got a handy little one. cover to protect it too and then boom no matter where your gas line is this is long and flexible and it's absolutely fantastic so I love the fact that it's in the middle and includes a flexible hose because that lets you know Depending on how you've equipped your rig, it doesn't matter where your propane is, it's going to work now, the gsi aspect has a clicker so you don't have to.

I have to have a lighter to start this just light it there we go I don't know if you can see the flame on the camera because I can't see it very well here but gsi very nice stove very small and compact it saves a big bag it has a lot of space so you definitely know the build quality, thinking about it, it's definitely a big step up since you know the little 34 Ozark trail, but you still have the knob that doesn't turn that far, so gsi is being a little bit more. Honestly with you, but there's a low level, if I turn any more it's going to go off and then you know there's a high level, so I mean, again, maybe a quarter turn and then it has a little bit more left than it can go. , but that has no value. it's useless to turn, let's do an exercise, same thing, this doesn't have much flame control here, so the price of the gsi pinnacle pro 250 dollars, I mean, this is not a cheap stove, 250 dollars, you are saving some space.

You are getting better quality. It is a much better stove than the $34 Ozark Trail. Is it $220 more? 220 215 dollars more. Better. I mean, I'll let you make that decision, but, like I said, we won this one. I'm going to buy it for my wife's team because in the back of a Wrangler space is limited, so the fact that it's so thin means it might fit, you know, it fits better in the back of her Wrangler, which you know when you're going. For longer trips saving space maximizing space becomes very important, so for her it was worth it to have a stove that is this thin and that comes in a nice bag that has the nicest touches of these things and therefore , for expensive, this stove was definitely worth 250 dollars, but we got lucky and she won it.

Now let's go to my stove. Jetboil. Jetboil has been a high profile name in the backpacking world for a long time and they created this uh genesis camp. system a few years ago uh my wife actually bought this um a few years ago and I took it because I went on more trips than her and I really liked it and it fit my stuff really well, but as you can see, this is definitely. thicker, but that's it, that's what's there, that's the genesis jetboil and you unfold it and you can see mine is well used. I need to clean it, but that's it, it's very compact. um compared to you know even these other two may be thinner, but they're definitely not as small of a form factor and I'll show you why I care so much about this one, but the standard Jetboil connector is pretty standard here on the side. left, not the right side and not in the middle again, you have clickers to turn on your stove, so let's turn it on, there we go, and that's it, now the amazing thing about the jetboil is if I turn this knob, I'm actually impacting the flame There is no dead space on this knob and the amount of adjustment I have with this thing to dial in my flame is unlike any other camp stove I have ever seen.

If I continue I will turn it off but the flame is very very low every time I turn it on there. Now I had to do everything I could to get it fully on. Every part of this is usable. Basecamp Jet Boil just the basic basecamp here 270 dollars so this is definitely the most expensive camp stove that we have and to me it's absolutely worth it just for how small it packs down, the good quality I'm. main cook at camp so I love the fine adjustment of the stove heat that I can get and for me you know for a reason this quality this compact and this amazing for the things I like to cook at camp this it is absolutely worth it. for me now let me have said this at the beginning if you're a weekend warrior yeah, at most you'll go out four times a year um and you know, maybe sitting at base camp hanging around an area that kind of thing you know if you're a weekend warrior if that's your style if that's what you have time for um gear you probably don't care um you know if you're only going to go out a few weekends a year yeah, having something like that um it's going to be cool because honestly you won't care if you're like us or me where I sometimes go out weekly, several long extended trips in a year, that's when these things really start to matter and the benefits of high end equipment come into play. game and for the jetboil I will show you why this is my stove over any other.

This is one of my bags. I keep two of these in the back of my gladiator. In fact, I'll get into bags. next, but this is my bag, they're identical, uh, the cheap Walmart, it won't fit in my bag, which means this thing will have to be loose and, you know, hanging around somewhere, the pinnacle of gsi. Very nice stove, it doesn't fit, it doesn't fitin my bag, so I would have to have it lying around somewhere. The jetboil genesis fits perfect, so the fact that I can put it in my bag I have it on hand protected from the elements and dust and, you know, jingling, that It's the number one reason why the jetboil is what goes on my gladiator.

Does the $34 Ozark Trail Stove work? Yes, is there a solid use case for it? Yes, absolutely, will anyone look down on you because you put out the Ozark Trail stove versus the Jetboil? No, no one is going to care, it depends. what works for you for your budget for your riding style and I mean even if you know you have a jetboil and you never use it but you can afford it and you like to have good equipment, who cares, who cares, so if you have a jetboil and you have never used it but you like it and then you have it and you got the money and you bought it good for you do you spend your money your way if you have a million dollars in the bank but you are thrifty and this works for you for your couples trips a year, awesome, but if you're going on longer trips several times a year and you need quality, you don't want to hear this, you know, on the back of your team all the time you want to make sure that at the end of the journey it's going to last, you have to know that it fits in the right places, so yeah, get the good stuff that you actually have, there are reasons to have a jetboil or a gsi pinnacle versus those artistic trails, so you're excited, let's totes totes is another thing that I see asked a lot on all social media, Facebook groups, forums, that kind of thing, uh, comments on YouTube videos, um, people ask me what totes.

Are you using what works and what doesn't? That kind of thing and handbags are definitely something where you can know how to get the job done with something very cheap and economical or you can spend a ridiculous amount of money on handbags, um, and that's where a lot of people you know come in, they see people with , you know, the Rome cases, those are the famous Pelican cases and people go crazy about how expensive those things are and why would you use something like that. That is if. this is this is a plan a sportsman's trunk.

I use it on the back of my Wrangler when I had my jk and this bag served me very well, I mean, flat bags, I mean, they just work, they're not. Well, they're pretty thin, but they have pretty straight walls and you can put a lot of stuff in here and if you do, you know how to get out of the back of an off-roader like a Wrangler or a Forerunner or something like that. So something like this makes a lot of sense because you don't have to deal with the elements, all your stuff is protected, so this is what I used, this one was mine, I think I paid like 40 bucks for it at that academy. or somewhere I don't remember where I got it, but it's, I mean, it works, but I switched to the gladiator, all my equipment is in the bed of my gladiator, if I was using this one, this one is not dustproof, this one is is.

I mean, I don't think water will get in here because of the way the edge is designed, but it's definitely not dustproof, so I didn't want to go down the road and have all my stuff get dusty, so I bought this, this is the 23-0 70 liter bag, very similar to the roaming cases, I mean, almost identical to the roaming cases, the 23-0 boxes, their own boxes, almost identical, but this is A much thicker material, lid with sturdy metal latches that is hinged and a strut to keep it upright. It is much better built than flat boxes.

This thing slides on the back of my gladiator and it overcomes big obstacles because I like to take the hard lines uh, when I'm on the road, I think I get bounced and you know, all my gears here moving, this thing is very difficult and Most importantly it is completely sealed against water and dust so I know I mean my gear has been in here on many trips and there is no dust on my gear which is what I cared about it has metal handles really strong, it has a drain plug so if you have stuff in here and you know it spills and you need to wash this, it has a drain plug so you can drain your stuff pretty easily, but I've been using them since I bought the gladiator so about a year ago and these things are amazing now the flat tote is 40 bucks.

This one is $270 a box, but it's a really good box and if you're traveling in the back of a van, I think you know where bags like this are worth the money. I would never wear flat back bags. My truck with the trips I do because everything will get dusty and it just won't hold up to the type of things I do now. Yes, can you use flat bags in the back of the van? Yes, absolutely, my friend Nathan. When he had a zr2 he loved his Plano bags, I think two or three of them lived in the back of his truck, but he didn't make as many trips as I did, he didn't go out as often as I did.

So, you know, he weighed the pros and cons and the forty dollar bag made sense. He actually upgraded to roving boxes later, but then sold them because there were too many and went back to flat bags, so no rights. or incorrectly, it's what works best for you and me, this works best for me if you're in a wrangler. My wife doesn't have the luxury of fancy bags, but they are all waterproof, weatherproof, and everything she didn't need them for. So she has cheaper bags, so whatever works for you, but in my case, this is fantastic. Did I buy these?

I switched to a friend of mine who is a 23 zero dealer. He had two of these. He had a Jackery 500 that we were no longer using so I traded a 500 jacket for two of these and it's a win-win so we bought the Jackery 500. So we bought them but what would I spend my money on these? Yes, because for my setup, it's worth it, next let's talk about sleeping bags because this is an area where I have evolved over time. You know, you can get sleeping bags at Walmart. The first thing you'll need to consider is the temperature rating and Now you know how you're going to use it, you can stack several cheap sleeping bags and stay nice, warm and cozy on a cold camping trip, but that takes up a lot of space.

What I have here are three different ones, uh, three. different phases of my camping life this is, I don't even know what brand it is, I think it's Ozark Trail, but I bought it at a garage sale for 10 bucks and it's a 40 degree bag and, you know, when I was, already You know, spring. camping in my hammock, this was fantastic, you know, if you're sleeping in a tent on the ground and you just need a basic cover to keep you warm, you know, a cheap sleeping bag like this one works great, it absolutely works very good.

I was just starting to venture into camping in colder climates and had personally purchased a mummy bag. I hate mummy bags. I don't like my feet to be cramped so I bought a decent mummy bag from a similar academy and used it for a while. but i hated how confined it was and then i found this one on amazon, it's from a company called teton and it's a 20 degree bag. um no, sorry, it's a zero degree bag. Celsius xl is what this bag is called. Hmm, I'm not going to take this thing out because it's too big, it's a huge sleeping bag I have.

I got so tired of the mummy bag and being all confined and I couldn't, I like to roll over and get on my side and sleep on my side and stuff, so I bought the xl and I loved this sleeping bag to sleep in my hammock because it was very warm and cozy and I could sleep in very cold weather and I loved it. but it is a huge sleeping bag and when you are you know, in something like a Wrangler, which is what I had at the time, space becomes

premium

and as you can see, this is a big sleeping bag and it can be It can compress a little more than that, but not much, but I mean it takes up, you know, if you're on a long trip in the back of a Wrangler, that takes up a lot of space and you have to find a place to stuff it and it's not. exactly, you know, pack it in a friendly package because it's a soft little tootsie roll shape and this is one of those things where I would have never spent the money on this, but now that I have it, I never will.

I'm going to live without it and that's this guy right here this is a quilt it's a down quilt it's a 20 degree quilt and it's a custom quilt and oh my gosh I've shown this in a couple other videos but I love it This, it feels so warm and cozy, the interior is so light, so warm and so comfortable. In fact, when I started getting serious about my YouTube channel, I randomly approached them and asked if they would do it. send me one to review and they said yes of course and since then I fell in love with this and it packs up so small and in the little stuff sack it fits almost anywhere for me it fits in a bag with other things so That's a big deal for me when I pack up and go on a 10-day trip or, you know, multiple trips, these kinds of things matter and now I camp year-round, so I camp when it's time.

I got eight inches of snow on me like I did last year in Kentucky and this thing kept me so warm it was amazing so this ten dollar garage sale sleeping bag this 80 85 from Amazon big bulky but comfortable this amazing custom blanket 380 $380 dollars for this guy and if something happens tomorrow I would spend 380 dollars on this in a heartbeat because I don't want to live without the sleeping bag ever again in my life. It's that amazing and it's so small. and it takes up very little space and is so warm and cozy. um you know I have friends that are hammock campers and you know they swear by things like this for backpacking and that kind of stuff and I after getting one I love it so if I ever have to pay my own money for another illuminated team quilt, you can bet I will because this is worth 380 dollars to me.

Illuminated gear, high dollar but cool, sleeping bag top quilt, um teton 80. dollars from Amazon, I think it's an Ozark Trail 10 garage sale, all of these work, but you just have to figure out what works best for you if You have the space and go ahead with this if you just don't know. if you need to pack it in a really small bag and have something that's super warm and cozy and top of the line like this, do it, no, I don't care what you bring to camp if it's this, this, this. uh or you know your mom is your grandma's crochet blanket no one will care just go with what works best for you and last but not least let's talk about the topic that's been beaten to death and continues to be beaten to death in all the Facebook groups and That's a ground tent versus a rooftop tent and I mean there are so many reasons to choose one or the other that is completely irrelevant to the budget.

Some people, you know, can't stand sleeping on the floor and bugs can do that. They potentially walk into your tent and feel much safer on top of a rooftop tent. There are people who have bad knees, so going up and down a ladder in a rooftop tent is simply not an option for them, so they choose to go to a ground tent. but in every one of those discussions price always comes up, so we don't want to spend 10 times more on a rooftop tent than a ground tent, and there are some valid reasons why I personally hate ground tents, I can't stand them. them I don't like sleeping on the floor I don't like all the extra gear that you have to carry with you um you know the cot or the sleeping pad and you know just carry everything from your platform to the tent, you know, for the trips I take, um, I absolutely hate the idea of ​​a ground tent having to, you know, find nice, level ground to sleep on so many things that make me choose a rooftop tent over a tent on the ground, but I mean, yeah like I mentioned the Colorado videos that are coming out as this video came out, there were six of us on that trip, three of us slept in rooftop tents, three of us slept in tents on the ground, no one cared about the ground, my tent friends didn't care that we were sleeping in a tent on the roof my tent on the roof I met friends you know no one looked down on sleeping on the ground um like they were you know you hear the term ground dwellers that's just stupid it's so stupid I get tired of it but um you know this is a try uh Coleman Coleman has been a trusted brand and intense for years, this is one of the new ones, they are Carlsbad, it is labeled as a fastpitch setup, I'm not convinced about that as I actually have it.

Set this up, it's a quick launch setup and we'll see, but you know, I'm going to set a timer, set this up as fast as I can and then I'll go, you know, set up my tent on the rooftop and I'll tell you why I think a rooftop tent is worth 10 times more or actually I guess 20 or 20 times more than something like this. This is a hundred and forty dollar tent from Walmart, which is about halfway there, I think, for a decent price. ground tent, you know, something like gazelle tents likefour hundred dollars three four hundred dollars for a gazelle tent, which, by the way, is excellent.

If I were to sleep in a dirt tent, I'd most likely be a gazelle, um, but um, twenty. Twenty-four hundred dollars for my rooftop tent, so let's set this up, here we go, let me grab my phone, pull up the timer, reset it, it's at zero. Someone's going to put it in the trunk. my daughter's car here because I'm a timeline I'm going to speed up like this so you don't have to watch me set this up in real time because that would be painful so here let's start and put this here look maybe you know , I'll keep an eye on it hopefully, but I'm not going to touch it and here we go six minutes 38 seconds obviously I'm not done I haven't bet it I haven't put the cot or air mattress or anything inside it so probably another good four minutes to finish this, so let's say we're going to say 11 minutes for the ground temperature, now imagine you arrive at camp. it's raining, it's been 11 minutes setting this up in the rain and dealing with all that, let me show you my rooftop tent, okay, starting the timer again here we go, put that in there two minutes 38 seconds and I'm ready to go in. there and I go to sleep because all my bedding is up there, my pillows are up there, it's ready to go and so much time, so imagine being on a 10 day trip and every day you get to camp you spend 11 minutes plus the configuration. setting up the tent on the ground or you spend two and a half minutes setting up camp 10 p.m. late you're just tired and ready to go to bed two and a half minutes boom I'm up there and I'm going to sleep 11 minutes I'm dealing with that and then I add on top of that imagine if it's raining so I implement it super fast .

Some of it, I'm actually undercover while I'm dealing with it, compared to just 11 minutes of getting it. soaked in the rain before going to bed, so that's the difference between a $140 ground tent and a $2,400 rooftop tent. I want to drive this house again because I want to make this very clear to everyone watching this video, it doesn't matter. if you show up to camp with a 140 dollar tent or you show up to camp with a two thousand four hundred dollar rooftop tent or, like my wife's camper, a thirty four hundred dollar rooftop tent or even five grand rooftop tennis, it doesn't matter what matters is that you go out and have fun, so if you only go out a few weekends a year and set up base camp with a 140 degree tent, It makes sense that you wouldn't do it.

I'll care if it takes you 11 minutes to set up the tent and longer to pack it up because I mean putting the tent back into the bag they give you to put it in, I mean, that takes some engineering feet. I'm not even going to put that on camera because I don't want you to see that mess, but if you go out for long periods of time a week, two weeks, several times a year and you're setting up and breaking down camp night. After the night, morning after morning, before you know it, hit the road, that's where two minutes and thirty seconds set in, two minutes to kill it, three minutes to kill it, each day starts to add up and starts to matter and you start to have You know you appreciate the fact that you know that $2,500 is saving me a lot of headaches and a lot of effort and a lot of you know how to just deal with the trash without having to pitch a tent on the ground every time you show up. to camp with me I won't care one bit if you get out of your gear and open your 380 lighted gear quilt that you purchased with my affiliate link that's in the description, you'll know if you click that link and Buy it, I pretend I didn't know it, a four or five percent discount on that sale.

I won't care if you walk out with that light-up kit quilt you bought from my affiliate link or if you walk out with that sleeping bag you know. that you bought at a garage sale for 10 bucks no one will care one bit, so, uh, come on, let's try to get it over with, give it a whirl, what equipment is someone else using, if you know, just use cheap stuff what did you guys buy. at Walmart great they are going out if they have all the money in the world and they have rooftop tents maximum slopes and high end kitchen equipment and they never go out they just like how it looks on their equipment yeah for them, your team! looks amazing or you're like me and you're going out, you know, sometimes weekly overnight, so you go on multiple multi-day overnight trips several times a year, so there's value in you know, quick setup, savings of space, weight savings, higher quality to last all the time. abuse you know if that describes you awesome you're going out there man you're living the dream so who cares what people do is there's a land tax I really don't think so um i think there's a case for equipment to have a price taller than the other team um so anyway I would love to know what you think put them in the comments good bad indifferent I would love to know what you think about this topic what you think about the team I have demonstrated here something Of that, there are links in the description, some of that there isn't, so if you choose to use it, great if not, I don't care, but I appreciate you seeing me, thank you very much for taking it.

Time to watch this video and hopefully learn a few things, at least listen to me rant about you, you know, the idiots on social media, you know, you care about how other people spend their money, but if you would give a video like Help YouTube know. that this was a good video and spread the word subscribe I mentioned we already have a goal 75,000 subscribers help us if you like what we are doing you want to support us you like the content we are creating, you want to get access to the special content we publish, events we host and access to our GPS data, check out our patreon, that link is in the description, check out our patreon and consider supporting us in that way and to oversee overland adventures. merchandise preferably not pre-sweated um no, you know, tent, sweat facility, you know, shirts, but good, good, new clean shirts, uh, go buy overland Apparel.com.

I appreciate seeing you next time, bye.