Adventure Resources For Your Dirt Road Experience
We love to go on adventures. In order to make these fun adventures come to life there is a good deal of planning involved. We want to share with you the resources that we use.
Our Top 5 Adventure Resources that you need to follow
How many of these adventure resources do you already use? How many of these incredible people do you follow? I’m going to share with you the top resources we use on our dirt road adventures. they have helped us so much finding dirt roads to explore.
And by the end of the article, you will discover what books we use to find trails, what maps we use, what blogs we use and what we look for when we are exploring You-Tube for information.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
“The Book” FunTreks Trail Books
The FunTreks Guide books are our #1 go to source for finding Jeep trails for many reasons. They contain almost everything you need to get out and explore the forest roads in Colorado (and other states).
For every trail in the book, the authors include a brief overview, a rating, stats on the trail (length, time it takes, elevation, etc.) and how to get there. They also include the National Forest or BLM district contact information, which can be a great source for you to verify trail conditions or even pick up your own MVUM (Motor Vehicle Use Map) map. Additionally, they include a well documented trip log that details down to the tenth mile as well as a small map.
Although this is still a book, they have expanded into the digital world so I would definitely recommend checking them out!
You can learn more about them here at funtreks.com
GAIA GPS- Layered map
Gaia GPS’s map offering is flat out amazing! We primarily use it for Jeeping and finding Forest Service roads on the MVUM (Motor Vehicle Use Map) layer but it’s capabilities are vast. With a paid membership, you get access to 100s of maps, aka layers. These layers range from MVUM maps to cell phone carrier coverages to satellite and weather imagery maps. The way it works is you can build YOUR map with the different layers. For example, my primary map is made up of Gaia’s topo, as my base layer, then I layer the MVUM map on top of it and sometimes I include the NatGeo Trails layer as well. For us, this gives us what we need in order to find Forest Service roads, that may not be in “the book”, and we can create our own routes based on that.
In addition to the map, you have the capability to create routes that your mobile device can follow as you drive. For us, our Jeep has Apple CarPlay so we are able to connect our iPhone and follow along and view on the Jeep’s much larger screen. Gaia is also great for other adventures especially hiking, biking and overlanding. Give them a look!
You can learn more about Gaia here gaiagps.com
Midwest Nomad Family & Crazy about Colorado
I added 2 blogs here because they are both about hiking. One blog is here in the Missouri and the other is in Colorado.
Midwest Nomad Family are located in Missouri. They are a family of 4 that hikes all over Missouri and Illinois. All their hikes are kid friendly. They write about the kid bonuses on the trails, they take lots and lots of pictures to highlight the trails too. They also write about playgrounds and restaurants that are good for kids too. I love their blog!!
You can learn more about this family at Midwestnomads.com
Crazy about Colorado is located in Colorado. She hikes all over the state. She doesn’t gear her blog toward kids but does make note if the trail would be suitable for them. Colorado is our favorite place. Whenever I am planning our adventures I always go to her blog to look for hiking trails near where we’ll be or near any Jeep trails that we’ll be exploring.
You can learn more about this person at CrazyaboutColorado.com
Take Them Outside
She is the camping expert. She has awesome games you can play at camp. Scavenger hunts for all kinds of camping trips, tents or rv. Lots of fun activities for all ages. There is also a book list that will get your kiddos excited about camping.
Her website is geared toward camping with kids. She has safety tips to keep everyone safe. She’ll give you tips on how to find good camping spots and what gear you’ll need. There are many kid friendly camping recipes as well.
Take a look around her site. There is so much useful information. You can learn more about them here Takethemoutside.com
YouTube
YouTube is also one of our top resources. We use YouTube to try and get a look at the trails before deciding to commit to taking them on while on a trip. This isn’t always a home run, though, it can be hit or miss. Sometimes I either cannot find footage, the footage isn’t great quality or the footage is from too long ago to really have much value. One of the most helpful YouTube channels, however, has been trailsoffroad.com. They document well, their video is usually in 4k and they have a pretty good list of trails.
Conclusion
As you can see from these adventure resources, they aren’t just blogs that we visit. We use “the Book” to find the trails. We use Gaia to find more trails that aren’t in “The Book.” We also use Gaia to download the routes that we make up. You-Tube also helps us find people that have gone on the trails and took video. The blogs we visit for hiking are critical to making the hikes fun for the kids. And if we are camping we need tips and checklists, because we are always forgetting something!
What adventure resources do you use? We’d love to hear from you.
