Budget Friendly Overlanding/Camping Hacks

what's up everyone I'm Matt with Ozark Overland adventures and in this video I want to talk about some budget friendly over Landing camping hacks that I've been using for a number of years and some of them just discovered recently you know this over Landing thing kind of gets a bad rap sometimes with the priciness of the gear and I mean it's it's no lie a lot of the especially the good quality stuff it's not cheap but there are some Alternatives that I've found that I really like so let's get into it all right first I've got a couple things for water storage and Usage Now I I do very much enjoy having my roto packs water jug just here on the outside of my Gladiator the the Roto packs are not cheap but they're they're very handy just for how easily you can mount them now for mine for using it for water the spouts that they come with they're not very handy especially when you need to be kind of hands-free so what I what I do is I take this flip it over and I've got this little water spout that I got off Amazon for 10 bucks I think there is a company that makes an official spout for their Roto packs I want to say it's like 40 bucks um but this is a one-fourth of the price and you just just flip that and boom you have you have water that you don't have to deal with you know pouring things if you need to rinse dishes you can do that all here this you do have to modify it just a little bit so let me show you what I did so this is well this is the the Roto packs cap here I did have to to cut this piece right there just a little bit to for it to to bend a little bit to get it through the hole and you do have to boil these in water for you know maybe 30 seconds or so to get this plastic pliable to fit it down into the Roto packs lid but once you do that it doesn't come out and it seals very well and it works so it's uh I mean for 10 bucks it's awesome also when it comes to water I think everybody is familiar with these Reliance water jugs they they come in the cubes they come in a taller version they're they're not expensive at all uh and they're great quality they also come with these little spouts on the lids which these all by themselves super handy you just you know give that a turn and I mean you got a little water spout similar to the Roto packs but you can't Mount these like you can the Roto packs but sometimes you know you don't want to pull this out and have to turn it on its side and you just want to be able to leave it mounted somewhere or strapped down somewhere well a buddy of mine James he's he's been a lot of my Ozark videos it came up with this idea and I think it's brilliant this is a USB rechargeable water spout for those big five gallon water jugs that have the water dispenser things this actually sits down on top of it um and it's it's used to be rechargeable you can take this just drop it in your your water jug whatever that may be and you know just set that there and boom you got there it goes hot air in the line um but you've got a little on off water faucet right there if you need to you know put it down here it's uh it's really handy now Dometic does make something similar to this it's like a hundred bucks which is ridiculous these can be had off Amazon for under 20 bucks that's how much I got for this one um some I like the ones that come with the stands that way you can you know put them anywhere some just come with the with the end that you have to modify and slip down on top of this but I just think this is a fantastic idea and I love the fact that it's rechargeable do make sure you get the ones with the flip down um nozzles because otherwise they can break off in storage ask me how I know so these are these are just real Handy to have a little water spout at camp and I'll leave links to all this stuff at least from for most of this stuff I'll put links down in the description full disclosure some of them are affiliate links especially to like Amazon some of these are not affiliate links because I don't have affiliate relationships with with some of these companies but all the links will be down there up next let's let's talk about power and lighting because this next one is brand new to the Gladiator if you followed along with the bill of the Gladiator in the very first mod that I did was to bring power from the battery into the back of the Gladiator and I did it right there that little switch panel there it's got USB power it's got 12 volt power and then it's got four switches to control uh lights and things from back well here was the problem I was having um it I I found it to be annoying that I had to turn off all of my Camp lights and then get up into my tent and if I needed to get down in the middle of the night I I had to get down and then turn the lights on and I I just thought there has to be a better way well there is aux beam uh has has this switch panel right here they've got it in a six and an eight it is waterproof which to me was was the big deal it's a waterproof switch panel and so very recently I switched to that before my La before my recent trip to Colorado and now I can control all of my lights from here obviously so my uh my bed lights are there my lights that shine down on the bed of my Gladiator are there this controls the lighting I don't know if you can see it on up there at the top of my tent and then this controls if I had them plugged in controls the lighting on my awning so all of this is controllable from here but it is also controlled from my phone so from my phone I can turn the lights on there you go I can control all the lights on that switch panel from my phone which on my recent trip to Colorado was absolutely fantastic because I could leave the lights on get up into my tent then turn them off and if I need to get down in the middle of the night for some reason I could turn the lights on so I could see if I heard you know some commotion out here around Camp maybe a raccoon or some animal or something that I needed to to look and see what it is I could turn the lights on from my tent and to be able to look out and see or Scare it off or whatever so super handy to be able to you know control my lights here from a waterproof switch but control them from my phone which that is awesome now speaking of Lights the next hack is you know if you need lights if you have uh you know a truck like I do and a rooftop tent or camper shell or something and you need Lighting on the inside here Rock lights just cheap Rock lights from Amazon make excellent bed lights so I've got four Rock lights this is actually this is another kit from aux beam there's actually I think eight lights in this kit I'm only using four of them I could easily if I needed it brighter in here I could easily fire up you know two two four more but that is a very inexpensive way to add lighting under you know in the bed of your truck or maybe you have a you know a trailer with the tent on top and you need lighting under that for for the storage or whatever um super handy way is to use Rock light now like I said these are from oxbeam these also have an app that you can control the color of the lights they're RGB lights so if the white light is attracting bugs I can change them to Amber I can change one to Red I can change the blue green you know whatever um so I I like the white unless there's it's buggy then I change the Amber so super handy to to just use just use Rock lights for for your for your lighting either in the back of your truck or trailer or wherever but they're super cheap and they work really well my new favorite light um to have it camp and this is pretty much applicable to to wedge style tents I think you can do it with with any hard shell tip I think you could do it especially if it has the t-track type type kind of stuff around the edges of it um but as you can see I've got the the little flood light up here at the top so right there that is awesome for lighting up camps and once that's raised I can turn the switch on and my ladder this whole area right here where I get in and out of my tent is all nice and lit up it's lit up on the other side too because I have one on each side and that's like a like a 15 light off off Amazon so it's not yeah I didn't want to put an expensive light up there because I mean the odds of that getting hit like maybe on a tree or something you know pretty high so I just got a little cheap light from Amazon to sacrifice and it works really well I have been so happy with that lighting Edition to my to my tent and putting it up high like that it works great up next is another app controlled Bluetooth device that I love you know when when you're camping especially in colder weather um you know if when you get up in the morning a lot of times your tents nice and warm and cozy especially if you're using a diesel heater in the winter time well I didn't have any good way of checking the temperature outside the tip to know just how bundled up I need to be am I going to freeze and I have to get down that sort of thing so I found this little guy um that is a I don't know if you can see it there there it is that little white little white rectangular thing up there I've got it just double-sided sticky taped to the bottom of the the tent and that is a Bluetooth thermometer so when I put them up in my tent I can open up the app and it's a currently 88 degrees and luckily it's a lot cooler than it has been here at home I'm still sweating but it is it's currently 88 degrees and it even tells me the humidity which is only 56 percent we did have some rain this morning so it's a lot lower than it has been so it's 88 degrees 56 humidity it's not bad at all um so a little it's it's called it's by Govi Govi again Link in the description but they're they're 20 bucks I think I may be wrong 25 bucks something like that they're not expensive at all but just super handy just double-sided take you know double-sided sticky tape it to the the bottom of your tent or whatever you can get multiple ones and read all of them from your you know from your from the phone app and it's just super handy so I have a little Bluetooth thermometer you can check it from your tent and and know how much you need to bundle up or you know whatever it's handy up next on my list is power up in your tent I you know I'm a big proponent of power stations um I I review a lot of them I use a lot of them but I got tired of lugging a power station up into my tent to charge my phone at night to power my laptop to charge my watch at night I just got I just got tired of that because it's just something else I have to take something else I gotta look up there something else I got to deal with my feet kicking um so since this this only works if you have an auxiliary power setup in your vehicle so I have two 100 amp hour batteries in the back of my Gladiator they power all of this auxiliary stuff including my fridge and all the lights and my air compressor and all that sort of stuff well what I did and you do have to modify your tint and either drill a little hole or cut a little hole or something to run the wire but I got a 12 volt USB hub off Amazon it has to be 12 volt can't be one of the AC ones and so this little guy runs down to my batteries and as you can see I keep my watch charger just up here full time I keep a phone charger up here plugged in full time and so I don't ever have to worry about forgetting my phone charger or needing power up in the tent because I've got three USB a ports I've got two USBC ports one of them is a 65 watt to charge my laptop so um yeah just a 12 volt USB port that I ran on my aux batteries and it lives up here in the tent and I don't ever have to worry about power in mate which is fantastic and again I mean those things are what 20 bucks off Amazon again I can't remember Link in the description but 20 25 15 bucks they're not expensive at all but you have to have auxiliary power to be able to run it off of don't run it to your starter battery or anything but if you've got that and you got a rooftop tent then run run power up there just and just have it it's awesome and finally if you've got an awning or anything that you need to you know stake down to the ground like this I think we're all familiar with these uh type of of awning ropes that have the little plastic um I don't even know what these things are called adjusters that you can you know put this in on your your stake and then pull that through and it will yeah it will not move but these things are big and once you get them tied down they're hard to you know to pull this through the Rope to really get it really tight so at Expo Pacific Northwest just uh what about a month ago I I found these guys this is a much better option this is called a rope roller and it's by a company called roller cam and you can get a six pack of these for 30 bucks but what it is is you you get the you know the the rope with it I just tied a tied a loop into the end and so I can it's got a little Carabiner e kind of thing on it so you can just put that on your awning put your loop on your stake and then instead of having to deal with you know the little thing that slides through the Rope you just boom you just you just pull that and that is not coming out and then when you want to release it you just push the little the little lever and it releases so I mean this this isn't just for Onyx anything that you need to lash down anything you need to tighten with with with ropes the Rope rollers I just think it's brilliant absolutely brilliant and so this this has replaced every awning every tie down on all of our awnings we're using the Rope rollers and I keep a couple extra handy in case I need to you know tie something up and then use this to cinch it down uh it just it works very well so rope roller by roller cam these these things are brilliant well that's it that's eight over Landing camping hacks that I absolutely love in my setup so I'm curious if if you know of some things that I've left out I'm sure there's a ton so uh share those with me in the comments please because I'm all about you know that saving money and you know just using budget friendly stuff where where you can especially when it does as good and sometimes better than you know the the higher end stuff so let me know in the comments I'm just curious what else is out there and maybe I'll make a a part two video based on what you guys share with me so uh hopefully this was helpful if you would give the video a like And subscribe to the channel if you are not already help us reach that goal of a hundred thousand subscribers by the end of 2023 and if you like what we're doing you like the content we're putting out you find stuff like this helpful and you want to you know give back to the channel check out the patreon link our Patron supporters get access to special content special events we've got a big event coming up at Marist Adventure Park in December for our patrons uh very much looking forward to that and you get access to all of our GPS data from from all of our trips and if you are interested in Ozark Overland Adventures merchandise go to shopoverlandapparel.com thanks for watching see you next time bye

Channel: Ozark Overland Adventures

Views: 35,644

Keywords: camping gear, camping tips, camping hacks, overlanding gear for beginners, camping gear you must own, camping gear 2023, car camping, camping gear essentials, best camping gear, best overlanding gear, how to start overlanding, Overlanding hacks, budget overland gear, budget overland setup, budget overlanding gear, budget overlanding setup, best camping gear 2023, camping gear review, camping gear for beginners

Id: xtKw67SfZL8

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023