How I plan my 4WD adventures.

Epic Drives WA

Epic Drives WA

Active Member
My personal tips for organising four wheel drive trips.
This episode of Epic Drives Western Australia will hopefully help some of you prepare for your next coastal or outback 4WD road trip.
Each 4x4 trip is obviously different and having a pre-trip checklist set up with all your essential equipment along with both digital & paper maps (Hema, Google earth, 4WD days/weekends out of Perth) as well as a well maintained vehicle that you have inspected before departure, will not only ensure you have the safest trip but also an enjoyable time travelling and camping.
 
Bomber2012

Bomber2012

Well-Known Member
Some good info there , I reckon sitting down and checking maps (paper) before leaving on a trip to a new area is the best way to familiarise with where you are going . To many these days drive by an electronic screen with no idea whats around them .
 
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boobook

Well-Known Member
A great topic and some really good advice.
I do the same thing with tracks and kilometre traces but use Memory Map PC edition which does most of what you do Google Earth, Hema, and paper maps combined.

On memory map I have lots of maps, including the latest Hema and ones I scanned myself. They all work on PC, android, IOS and Mac.

You can make waypoints or draw tracks with km distances shown. I start with quickly drawn scribbles of the tracks on the whole trip to give a quick idea of the whole trip distance then improve the accuracy of my line drawing as I tighten the trip agenda. The tracks are geo referenced and then I transfer them to my tablet. I can also import peoples tracks from hema, exploreoz and here (lol). Many imported tracks include time, speed and altitude. These are brilliant to plan days of travel. E.g. the ABH averages 30kmph in the east and speeds up to an average in the east. You can see for example that people took 5 or 6 days to travel that section at low speed.

I also print out A3 pages with the tracks on them. I print an over view page and then pages that cover a day or 2 of travel. I bought an A3 capable printer. These are more convenient than full maps which I pack away as back up on the trip. A3 is a perfect size for the navigator and the paper maps are exactly the same as the tablet gps screen. I can print out large sizes at officeworks for not much too.

Try it, you can try for free. It will save you tons of time.
 
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Epic Drives WA

Epic Drives WA

Active Member
Wow, sounds like you’ve got your trip planning sorted on a level far more advanced than my basic ad hoc approach. I’ll definitely look into memory map. Cheers mate
 
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boobook

Well-Known Member
Another great idea for group travel Is to make a private wiki for the trip. Its a website that works just like wikipedia.

You can post some pages that anyone can edit or some that only individual members can edit. You can even have a splash page with terms and conditions of a trip.

It's great for things like shared equipment lists. I make a table of things to bring, people can put their name against it so you don't end up with 6 camp ovens, 4 high lift jacks and no cooking utensils.

People can add or delete and it keeps a history of who made what changes.

Pages like itinery, things to see, family contacts etc can all be used. The trip itinerary could be made so only certain people can change it, or anyone.

There are lots of free wiki sites available for personal.use.
 
Epic Drives WA

Epic Drives WA

Active Member
boobook said:
Another great idea for group travel Is to make a private wiki for the trip. Its a website that works just like wikipedia.

You can post some pages that anyone can edit or some that only individual members can edit. You can even have a splash page with terms and conditions of a trip.

It's great for things like shared equipment lists. I make a table of things to bring, people can put their name against it so you don't end up with 6 camp ovens, 4 high lift jacks and no cooking utensils.

People can add or delete and it keeps a history of who made what changes.

Pages like itinery, things to see, family contacts etc can all be used. The trip itinerary could be made so only certain people can change it, or anyone.

There are lots of free wiki sites available for personal.use.
Click to expand...
Thanks Boobook, geez you’ve got some great suggestions. That sounds like a very useful idea.
 
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