Being prepared off road seems to have become a fairly hot topic these days. What used to be a fairly simple and straight forward is now a multi-million dollar business that provides numerous products to prepare you and your Land Rover for off road duty. But the task remains the same as it always has been. Some of the products on the market can indeed make your life easier in certain situations, but at the same time, those same products in a different situation can turn out to be a thorn on your side.

For instance. A lot of vendors sell drop kits now. You can't pick up an off road magazine these days without seeing somewhere in it a truck of some sorts with a wheel hanging a few feet below the body, the opposing wheel perched up on a rock. Now, that looks really cool but what happens when that same truck is in a mud hole somewhere and you need to high lift it?? I tell you what happens, a lot of cursing. You jack the body up with your high lift and the wheels do just what you bought the fancy drop kit for, they stay on the ground, or in this case, in the rut making it more difficult to get something under the tires or to walk the truck sideways out of the ruts.

My point here is that being prepared is relevant to the environment you are in. Another fine example would be a means of communication with the outside world. In some areas communication would mean carrying a cell phone while in others you might be reduced to more basic methods such as a flare gun or a beacon to get someone's attention.

With that said, you can see that the thought put into preparing is by far the most important part of your trip. I like to emphasize that more so then recommend individual items that you should take with you. There are hundreds of articles just like this one out there on the internet recommending hundreds of products to take with you but the fact remains. You must prepare for each situation, something useful on one trip could be just dead weight on another. I suppose you could buy one of every product out there and a spare Land Rover to drag it all along on, then you would be prepared for anything all the time but its not very practical. If you are new to the sport and are not sure what items are best in what situations, you should research these items, I will add articles periodically to this section that should help you out with this.

I realize this article has been fairly vague but this topic is endless, there is literally no end to the things that would be nice to have with you when you are out on a trip. The key is balance and efficiency, continually ask yourself if what you are taking will get it done. Know your equipment, test it, find out what it will and won't do, see how it reacts to the situations you think you might encounter before you actually have to rely on it one day. There seems to be quite a lot of thought and money spent on getting out to the middle of nowhere. How much importance do you put on getting back home??