About Erik

Erik Lundgren started overlanding in 2014 with a stock Tacoma and a ground tent. He spent the next three years figuring out what gear actually works in cold, wet Upper Midwest conditions versus what looks good in brand photography. The answer shaped how he evaluates everything since.

By 2017 he had switched to a rooftop tent. By 2020 his 4Runner TRD build was complete: Sherpa roof rack, iKamper Skycamp 2.0, Decked drawer system, ARB front bumper, dual battery setup, 33" BFGoodrich KO2s. He runs roughly 30 nights per year — mostly BWCAW and the Upper Peninsula, with annual longer trips to Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

The day job is senior GIS analyst for a regional planning agency in Duluth, three days remote, which means midweek trips are possible. The writing is the other half of how he thinks about gear: he researches obsessively, keeps notes from every trip, and has learned to distrust anything that hasn't been tested in below-freezing temperatures with wind.

Northwoods Overland is where that thinking lives in public. Honest takes, real conditions, no claim of personal testing unless he's actually done it.