Feel The Land

To feel the land you need to be a person with good observation. You may feel the land when you touch it, smell it, listen to it and look at it. You cannot taste it, but definitely you need to use your sixth sense as well.

We advise you feel the land you want to drive before you start and every time you notice a change in it. You may notice a change in a the color of sand/rocks, having a new terrain (ie. from sand to rocks, from dryness to pools, etc), number of surrounding plants, and so on.

You may also need to feel the land when the timing changes! ie. The sand may be wet early in the morning but will be very dry and soft around 13:00. Or it might rain in a valley although it was a sunny morning.

By feeling the land, you get a lot of data which you process to useful information to help you enjoy your trip SAFELY!

Touch The Ground

By touching the ground and stepping on it, you can notice:

• How rough/soft is the sand. The softer the sand, the less pressure you need to adjust for the tires

• Whether the ground is dry, wet, muddy

• The surprises that you may see, specially if it is a version land.

• How much plants will be able to go

Catch some sand and let them go slowly to notice the wind direction on this day. This is useful to know which direction your setup your tent, campfire and the full camp.

Look Around

Get onto a high dune, rock, or sometimes the roof of your car and look around to notice the following:

• What type of ground you are going through

• Number of plants or obstacles in this area

• Foot prints of camel, snake, scorpion or any other creatures

• Draw a path to your next destination which might be 100 meters away or just next dune.

• If on desert, the way the dunes are formed: Crescent wavy, lots of bowls, steep slopes, etc.

• If in valley, the size of stones/rocks you drive on, narrow roads, water areas and ground deepness beneath it, etc

• Small round stones in valleys work as little wheels. If you drive fast and you stop or if you stop on a slope, they will continue rolling.

• Wavy ground in desert can let your car jump and hit its bumper on the next wave.

There are many other things to observe when you look around which are missed in here. To add any thing, insert them here and they'll be copied to this website.

Listen

While offroading, you need to keep listening to every thing. Here are some examples:

• Listen to the nature around you. In one of the places we could find the waterfall only when we followed its sound. It's also good sometimes to listen to the calmness and echo in some silent places.

• Listen to your car, while it's stuck or when you stop it and get out of it.

• You also need to listen to the majority of the group and don't try to control the whole trip yourself  :)