Overland Route Lab

Custom drawer systems look great online, but most car campers can get the same result with a few plastic bins and a plan. A good system means you can find anything in under a minute , pack up in five, and keep the car tidy enough to sleep in. The 4-Bin System Bin What goes in it Where it rides 1. Kitchen Stove, fuel, pot, pan, utensils, plates, lighter, soap, sponge, paper towels, trash bags Near the hatch 2. Dry food Shelf-stable food, coffee, spices, snacks Next to the kitchen bin 3. Camp tools Headlamps, lantern, first aid kit, multi-tool, duct tape, rope, tarp, stakes, gloves Behind a seat or on the side 4. Car and safety Tire gauge, air compressor, jumper cables or jump starter, tow strap, spare fuses Under the cargo floor or lowest layer Plus soft items that pack around the bins: sleeping bags, pillows, clothes duffels, and the cooler. Step 1: Measure Before You Buy Bins Cargo height under the cargo cover or below the rear window line....

Many campgrounds have potable water taps, but plenty don't, and dispersed sites never do. Running out of water is one of the fastest ways to end a trip early. This guide shows you how to calculate how much water to bring , what to carry it in, and what to do if you need to treat water at camp. How this guide was made: Amounts here are planning estimates based on common public-land guidance. Hot weather, hiking, and altitude increase your needs, so always add extra. The Simple Rule A common planning number is about 1 gallon per person per day for drinking and basic cooking. In hot or dry places such as the desert, plan on more. For dishes and washing up, add more on top. Water Calculator Use Per person, per day Drinking (mild weather) ~0.5–0.75 gal Drinking (hot weather or hiking) ~1 gal or more Cooking and coffee ~0.25 gal Dishes ~0.25 gal Washing hands, face, teeth ~0.25 gal Total (mild weather) ~1.25–1.5 gal Total (hot weather...

Headlamp boxes advertise bigger and bigger lumen numbers, but more isn't always better at camp. Too bright, and you blind everyone at the picnic table and drain your battery. This guide explains how many lumens you actually need for different camp tasks, and how to read the ratings on the packaging. Quick Answer Task Brightness that's usually enough Reading in the tent, finding things in the car 5–50 lumens Cooking, setting up camp, walking around the campground 50–200 lumens Night hiking on trails 200–400 lumens Searching, route-finding, emergencies 400+ lumens (short bursts) Lighting a picnic table or tent (lantern) 100–300 lumens General guidance. Beam shape and color matter as much as the lumen number. For most car campers, a headlamp with a low mode around 5–50 lumens and a high mode around 300+ lumens covers everything. How to Read the Box: ANSI/PLATO FL1 Many headlamps list ratings under the ANSI/PLATO FL1 standard, which...

Your first car camping trip doesn't need to be complicated. Most first-trip problems come from doing everything the night before: a missing tent pole, a dead headlamp, a campsite you can't find in the dark. This plan spreads the work over two weeks so nothing important gets missed. Each step links to a more detailed guide if you want to go deeper. The Timeline at a Glance When What to do 2 weeks out Pick a destination, book a campsite, check the rules 10 days out Gather and test gear 1 week out Plan meals, check the long-range forecast 3 days out Shop, charge batteries, download offline maps 1 day out Prep food, pre-chill the cooler, pack the car Day one Arrive with daylight, set up in the right order 2 Weeks Out: Choose Where and Book Stay within about 2 hours of home for a first trip. If something's missing, you can go home or to a store. Pick a developed campground with toilets and water. Dispersed camping is gr...

A rainy forecast doesn't have to cancel your trip. Car campers actually have an advantage: your vehicle is a dry place to sleep, change, and wait out a storm. The keys are picking the right site, setting up cover before you need it, and managing moisture so your gear isn't soaked by morning. My own stormy night: during four days at Canyon Campground in Yellowstone, heavy hail came down in short bursts like a rain shower. My 3–4 person ALPS Mountaineering tent got completely soaked. I'd pitched it without thinking about where the water would run, so it flowed straight under the tent, and when I checked the floor from inside, it was damp underneath. The lesson wasn't "buy a better tent." It was "look at the ground before you pitch." A note on digging: my first thought afterward was that I should have dug a channel around the tent. Don't. Trenching damages campsites and isn't allowed at many campgrounds, including in national parks. Choo...

Good camp food doesn't need fancy recipes. It needs a plan that uses one cooler, one two-burner stove, and as few dishes as possible . This meal plan feeds two people for three days (Friday dinner through Sunday lunch) and is built so the most perishable food gets eaten first. What I cook with: my own camp kitchen is a Bellrock cookware set (three pots and a frying pan) and a SOTO Regulator Stove TriTrail (ST-US350) I bought at REI. On one of my one-night trips, food (mostly meat and rice) came to about $100 for two, more than the campsite itself. Planning meals ahead, like the plan below, is the easiest way to keep that number down. The 3-Day Menu Breakfast Lunch Dinner Day 1 — — Chicken fajitas (pre-sliced, pre-marinated at home) Day 2 Eggs, bacon, and toast Turkey and cheese wraps, apples One-pot pasta with sausage and jarred sauce Day 3 Oatmeal with peanut butter and banana Leftover wraps or tuna packets with crackers — (head home) Why this...

Most campsites in national parks, national forests, and other federal lands are booked through Recreation.gov . Popular campgrounds can sell out within minutes of opening, so knowing when reservations open and how the system works makes a big difference. How this guide was made: This guide summarizes how Recreation.gov commonly works. Booking windows and fees vary by campground , and they can change. Always check the campground's own page before you plan around a date. From my own bookings: I've booked campsites through the Recreation.gov app, at about $20–30 a night, and found it simple and intuitive. The app itself is rarely the hard part. The hard part is timing , which is what the rest of this guide is about. Key Numbers to Know Item Common setting Check Booking window Often 6 months ahead, on a rolling daily basis Some campgrounds use 1-month or other windows Release time Often 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time Convert to your time zone Reservatio...

"Free camping on public land" sounds simple until your first attempt. It's 7 p.m., the light is going, you're on a gravel forest road, and every pullout either has a car in it, a "No Camping" sign, or a slope you can't sleep on. That's the real learning curve of dispersed camping. Finding the land is easy. Finding a good, legal spot before dark is the hard part. This guide is built around that problem: how to scout in advance, how to tell a legal site from a bad one, and what to do when nothing works out. How this guide was made: Rules come from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Leave No Trace guidance (sources at the end). Rules vary by forest and district, so always check the local office. What Dispersed Camping Actually Is Dispersed camping means camping on public land outside a developed campground : no reservations, no fees in most places, and no toilets, water, picnic tables, or trash cans. Most of it happens ...

Should you pitch a tent at the campsite or just fold down the seats and sleep in your car? Both work, and plenty of campers switch between them depending on the trip. This guide compares them side by side so you can pick the one that fits your vehicle, your group, and the weather . I've done both, and each taught me something. Tent, in hail and rain: during four days at Canyon Campground in Yellowstone, in my 3–4 person ALPS Mountaineering dome tent, heavy hail came down in short bursts like a rain shower. The tent got completely soaked, and because I hadn't thought about where water would run, it flowed under the tent and the floor was damp underneath. Exposed, in the wind: on my first trip, at Badlands National Park, the wind was the thing I was least prepared for. Car, two people: I've slept two of us in the back of a 2017 Acura RDX on a self-inflating mat. It was sturdy and never leaked, though packing the mat up afterward is a chore. If those nights...

Most car campers start with a phone power bank and wonder if they need one of those big "solar generators." The answer depends on one number: how many watt-hours (Wh) you use per day. This guide shows you how to add it up in two minutes, then which size fits. How this guide was made: Device power figures are typical estimates; check the label on your own devices. Product specs come from published listings (sources at the end). The Short Answer Phones, headlamps, and a small fan for a weekend: a 20,000 mAh power bank (about 74 Wh) is enough. Laptop, camera batteries, or several people: a ~250–300 Wh power station. 12V fridge, electric blanket, or a week off-grid: 500 Wh or more, ideally with solar or charging while driving. Step 1: Know the Difference Power bank Portable power station Typical capacity 37–111 Wh (10,000–30,000 mAh) ~250 Wh to 1,000+ Wh Outputs USB-A, USB-C USB, 12V car socket, AC wall outlets Weight Under 1.5 lb Ab...

A two-burner propane stove is the heart of a car camping kitchen. You can boil coffee water on one side while cooking eggs on the other, and the green 1-lb propane cylinders are sold almost everywhere. This guide compares popular stoves by heat output (BTU), weight, and size , then does the math most reviews skip: how long your fuel will actually last. How this guide was made: Specs come from manufacturer and retailer listings (sources at the end). We compare published specs and have not tested these stoves ourselves. Fuel estimates are calculations, explained below. Quick Picks Lightest and simplest: Coleman Classic 2-Burner (20,000 BTU total, under 5 lb) Best wind protection on a budget: Coleman Cascade 222 (22,000 BTU total) Most power: Camp Chef Everest 2X (20,000 BTU per burner) Comparison Table Stove Heat output Weight Size Ignition Typical price Coleman Classic 2-Burner 20,000 BTU total 4 lb 14 oz 17 × 8.5 × 3 in Match/lighter Budget Cole...

Your sleeping pad does two jobs: comfort and warmth. For car camping, weight barely matters, so you can choose a thick, warm pad that would be too heavy for backpacking. This guide compares popular pads by the numbers that decide how well you'll sleep: R-value, thickness, width, and price , plus whether they fit inside an SUV. How this guide was made: Specs come from manufacturer and retailer listings (sources at the end). We compare published specs and have not tested these pads ourselves. Prices change often and some sizes sell out, so check the listing before you buy. What I actually sleep on: my own car-camping pad is a self-inflating mat, a Sparrow Grand 50, used in the back of a 2017 Acura RDX with the rear seats folded, two people on it. It has never leaked and has held up well. Its one real weakness is the same one every self-inflating pad has, and spec sheets never mention it: packing it up. More on that below. Quick Picks Best value for warmth: REI Co-op W...

A cold car-camping night rarely goes wrong all at once. It goes wrong in stages. The stove sputters at dinner. The pad feels fine at 10 p.m. and like a slab of ice at 3 a.m. Your phone shows 40% at bedtime and is dead by sunrise. So this guide follows a single cold night from arrival to breakfast, and shows what fails at each point and how to get ahead of it. My own coldest night so far was about 23°F (−5°C). I had a sleeping bag, but what I most wished I'd brought was a handful of hand warmers. Since then they've been a permanent part of my winter car kit. Small, cheap, and easy to forget until you need them. 5:00 p.m. — Arrive Before the Temperature Drops On clear fall and winter evenings, temperatures can fall fast once the sun goes down. Everything is easier in daylight: leveling the car, setting up the bed, finding the bathroom. Aim to have the bed ready before you cook. Once you've eaten and the cold sets in, nobody wants to wrestle with setup. 7:00 p.m. ...