Overland Journal Fall 2014

40 Years of Pudding It was 1969. I was on my way back from an overland trek to Afghanistan by thumb, bus, and train. Like many fellow travelers of that era following the “Hippie Trail,” also known as the “Hashish Trail,” I found myself sitting in the Pudding Shop in the magical city of Istanbul. My backpack leaning against my chair, I sipped a cup of sweet Turkish coffee and pondered how I could avoid the public transportation rut. It was at that moment a couple pulled up across the street and popped up the top on their Land Rover Dormobile. There it was, the answer! It took a couple of years for the seed to germinate, but I did eventually find my Land Rover, La Tortuga Azul, a.k.a. The Turtle…

Sophie Ibbotson Sophie Ibbotson and Max Lovell-Hoare run Maximum Exposure Productions, an investment promotion agency that specializes in emerging markets and post-conflict zones. They take a particular interest in exploring places far beyond the tourist trail and see tourism as a positive contributor to economic development. So far in 2014 they have sailed across the Atlantic, crossed Russia three times by train, and led a trekking expedition in Afghanistan. Sophie and Max are the proud owners of a Unimog, two Land Rovers, two auto rickshaws, and a Ford F250. They have authored nearly a dozen travel guides to destinations as diverse as Kashmir and South Sudan. Michael van Vliet It’s a dead-end road if you stop where the pavement ends. That was the mindset Michael van Vliet had when the independent film company…

Mark’s was a life worth living. One that I’m pretty sure left little room for regrets. He was an inspiration to millions and mentor to many. This summer we lost one of the world’s most adventurous spirits, Mark A. Smith. I had the honor of knowing Mark, worked and traveled with him, and considered him a friend. Though most recognized Mark as one of the founders of the Jeepers Jamboree, Jeep Jamboree USA, and leader of Expedición de las Américas through the Darien Gap, there is a lot you may not know about the Father of Jeeping. A few years ago I spent a couple of afternoons with Mark. We had lunch and chatted about life, family, adventure, and Jeeping; he loved each with passion and conviction. Mark passed away following a…

The Heidenau K60 Scout manages to score well on off-pavement traction, noise and tread vibration, and wear, striking a perfect balance for adventure riders. While most adventure bike tires focus on one end of the dirt/street spectrum, effectively splitting the difference between on- and off-pavement performance is less common and more difficult. Heidenau’s K60 Scout series fills this void with tires that provide extra grip off-highway, but are not shredded after a few thousand miles of pavement. Though the design varies slightly with size, all K60s are legitimate 50/50 dual-sport tires. My first 30 miles on the K60s included twisty mountain blacktop where I kept my speed low to allow the tires to scrub in. The following day I logged 160 miles, divided evenly between smooth and wide dirt roads, narrower and…

In the past few years, point-of-view (POV) video cameras have become all the rage—and for good reason. They are compact, lightweight and provide footage unimaginable a decade ago. In short, they’re really cool, and there are as many contenders reaching for market share as there are camera companies. Prior to Overland Journal’ exodus to Baja after Overland Expo, we sourced one of Polaroid’s new XS100i action cameras. We used their sturdy clamp mounts to attach it to a roof-mounted load bar, turned it on, and rattled the heck out of it through several hundred miles of Baja’s back roads. The XS100i has features common to current offerings. The 170-degree wide-angle lens is perfect for capturing the big picture, and the audio, considering it was subject to road noise and such, is…

Last year, when we bestowed our Value Award on Zamberlan’s $460 boots, many people thought it had to have been either an egregious typo, or at the very least a wrong-headed application of the honor. It is an understandable assessment given these boots cost more than double the price of other boots in the review. Value, however, is an ambiguous metric and difficult to pin down. More than a year after plucking our Tofane boots from the box, they appear barely broken in, unfazed by countless miles of hard use. Founded by Giuseppe Zamberlan more than 80 years ago, and now managed by his grandson Giuseppe, the Zamberlan boot company continues to produce footwear with old-world heritage. The Tofane is made of the industry’s most sophisticated natural and synthetic materials and…