Which 4×4 to buy for travelling?
All our tips for choosing the best 4×4 for travelling

Hello! We're Olivia & Victor, authors of the OunTravela guides.
Over the years, our passion for adventure has led us to create original travel guides sold in over 70 countries worldwide. Our mission is to spread a travel philosophy based on adventure, freedom, improvisation and exploration. Our guides inspire travellers to explore the world's forgotten paths, encountering wilderness and civilization.
We hope you find this article, based on our own experience, useful.
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Choosing the right travel companion! Your car will become your companion on the road. It takes you to the most beautiful places in the world and gets you out of the worst situations. Don’t be surprised if you give it a personality, feelings or a name. It may be material, but you get attached to it! So take the time to choose your 4×4, as it’s the most important purchase of your trip. Above all, don’t rush! Here’s some advice on which 4×4 to buy for your travels.
4×4 off-road travel features
- A 4×4 vehicle, as its name suggests, is necessarily equipped with four-wheel drive. Avoid AWD (all-wheel drive) cars, and forget SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles), which have only two wheels.
- A 4×4 also has a differential lock. The differential is a device that distributes power evenly over the wheels. For example, in a bend, the wheels on the outside of the curve must turn faster than those on the inside. On the other hand, if your 4×4 gets bogged down, locking the differential ensures that the same power is sent to all the axles. As a result, dry tires grip better and locked tires spin less (and therefore sink less). Of course, you should never use the differential lock on the road, or you risk going straight around the first bend. Make sure you have at least one rear differential lock. If you’re an inveterate off-roader, you can always fit an ARB Air Locker front differential lock, but this will be an additional expense.
- Your 4×4 must be fitted with a short or long gearbox. The short gearbox increases torque rpm. This is useful off-road, for quicker upshifts and greater speed over short distances.
- Last but not least, a 4×4 under the chassis is characterized by its axles. The rear axle guides the wheel axles independently of the front axle. This feature ensures that the 4×4 always keeps at least one or two tires on the ground, even in the most intractable situations, and thus maintains grip.
Choosing the brand of your future 4×4
Maintenance
Make sure you choose a vehicle that is frequently seen in the areas you’ll be visiting; one that is well known to local mechanics, with relatively easy access to spare parts.
For example, if you’re crossing Africa or Central Asia in a Jeep Wrangler, it’s too typical of the American market. Although Jeep Wranglers are sometimes imported as “exotic cars” or “luxury cars”, there’s no real technical support for them, and too few mechanics are familiar with them. Spare parts are often hard to find.
The reputation
And yes, don’t think you’re smarter than everyone else. If a vehicle has a good reputation, it’s certainly not usurped. And if you’ve only heard unfortunate stories about a vehicle, there’s usually no smoke without fire.
4×4 petrol or diesel?
Simplicity or electronics?
A modern car is fantastic… when it works. When it breaks down, in the bush, the savannah, the desert or in the mountains, it’s a real nightmare and almost irreparable.
We need to go for simplicity. Even if you’re not a mechanic, you’ll always find a small village garage. And even if repairing it looks more like DIY than anything else, it will at least get you to a major city.
So choose simple cars that are easy to repair and maintain. They will break down less often.
4×4 manual or automatic?
While automatic gearboxes have made inroads into the 4×4 world for their efficiency, overlanders are abandoning them for their lack of reliability. Things are changing, but a manual gearbox will always be safer for a long journey.
The new automatic gearboxes on some 4x4s let you select your own speed, making them a kind of hybrid between manual and automatic gearboxes.
Solid Front Axles or IFS?
IFS, or Independent Front Suspension, is in a way the “new” technology, the road to modernity. While it offers a number of advantages, such as greater comfort and manoeuvrability, it is also more complex and made up of a greater number of smaller, more fragile parts. Most of the latest-generation vehicles are equipped with them, such as the Toyota Hilux, the Toyota Landcruiser 100 and 200 or the Ford Ranger.
Another advantage is that you can add a bash plate at the front under the engine, followed by a skid plate just after the bash plate. The “bash plate” takes the knocks and the “skip plate” takes over to continue sliding over the obstacle. This system is very interesting and efficient, especially in mud. Equipped with an IFS, you’ll need to pay particular attention to the drive shaft heads when driving over branches and other debris. In fact, these are protected by bellows that could easily be damaged. What’s more, the gimbal heads are articulated in two axes of rotation, making them more fragile.
Solid Front Axles or Live Axles or Beam Axles are said to be more robust. For example, universal joint heads are articulated on only one axis. The second axis of articulation is the articulation of the axis itself. Less comfortable and less manoeuvrable, we prefer a Solid Front Axle, especially on a heavy, heavily-loaded vehicle. Often, only a bash plate is used with this type of axle, as the axle does not provide continuity between the bash plate and the skid plate. However, larger tires can be fitted to compensate for this disadvantage. Solid Front Axles can be found on vehicles renowned for their robustness: Toyota Landcruiser series 70, 80.
The switch from the Solid Front Axle-equipped Landcruiser to the IFS from the 100 series onwards will have many off-roaders saying that the Landcruiser has become a city vehicle, that it has become gentrified. Rightly or wrongly.
Modifications to avoid
- No spacers to widen your axle. Spacers are plates added to the back of the rim to let the tires out. Apart from the fact that spacers are certainly illegal in your country, they prematurely wear out your wheel bearings.
- No lift kit over 4 or 5 cm. They increase the risk of roll-over and require major modifications, especially if you have IFS front suspension.
- No off-set on the rims, for the same reason we don’t use spacers. Although not as dangerous as spacers, they will also prematurely wear out your wheel bearings. A rim with an off-set will not be centered. It will have an off-set, a positive or negative offset. This offset will lead to premature bearing wear.
Pick up 4×4, a good choice?
Pickups are generally longer. Which means a little less good at crossing, but with more room for cargo.
If you choose a pickup truck, you’ll have to invest in a hardtop (or canopy) for the bed, but this hardtop – if you choose the right one – will have several advantages: a windowless compartment, sheltered from prying eyes, better protected from thieves and more impervious to dust and water when fording.
Final checks before choosing a 4×4 model
Congratulations on choosing the vehicle of your dreams. But before you buy it, you need to make sure you can equip it to transform this city 4×4 into a real 4×4 for overlanding. It’s very easy. Go to the ARB website or Euro4x4Parts, and check whether your 4×4 model has a complete list of equipment in the catalog.
You’ll be able to see whether the vehicle is “fit for purpose” for overlanding.
Our pick: Toyota Land Cruiser Serie 80
We purchased a 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser series 80 (HZJ 80 VX 4.5) in June 2019. It’s a 205-hp petrol model. This model has a very good reputation, which greatly influenced our choice. Many overlanders even describe it as indestructible. We chose the petrol model for these reasons: we write adventure guides in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ladakh, etc.) and petrol is better than diesel in these regions. Also, since we’re often in mountainous areas, the petrol model is more powerful at higher altitudes, and petrol doesn’t freeze!
There are few electronics in this model, and the engine is easy to repair at low cost (the Toyota brand is widespread in Central Asia, known to garages, and parts are available at very attractive prices).
Its double tank, with a capacity of 150L, ensures long autonomy. We fitted it with M/T Dunlop wheels (285/75R16) and 16-inch aluminum rims. It has a roof rack and metal brackets for attaching two wheels to the trunk. The car is raised by 5cm with a suspension kit. The car is also equipped with a factory Snorkel, a bull bar and a ramp with two LEDs. We also have a roof tent, a solar panel and a second battery to power a small fridge and our computers.
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