We join a well organised off-road tour taking a Toyota Land Cruiser through Georgia, the fascinating former Soviet country – not the one in the US of A!

Words and photography: Toby Savage

A quick straw poll of mates in the pub revealed that none of us, among a fairly well travelled group of about a dozen, had ever been, or knew of anyone who had ever been, to Georgia. Once we’d got the predictable ‘Taking The Midnight Train To Georgia’ and ‘Rainy Night In Georgia’ comments out of the way, we all realised just how little we knew about the former USSR country that sits precariously between Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. One of our better-informed mates seemed to remember there was a war there quite recently.  It transpires it was with Russia, and as recent as 2008!

The second part of an amazing 4×4 tour through the Balkan state of Montenegro that is home to brown bears, the second deepest canyon in the world and scary homemade ‘brandy’, finds our Editor at Large driving tight forest tracks, desolate, high, mountain rocky roads and visiting the spectacular Adriatic Coast

Words and photography: Hils Everitt

On the first two days of our tour of Montenegro with adventure company Medraft we looked down upon the stunning Sushica Canyon and wound our way through the deeply-rutted, muddy trails of the Crno Jsil forest; then climbed to the snowy peaks of the Dinaric mountains to the north of the country, revelling in its rugged beauty.

On day three of our tour we woke up in the superb Hotel Lipka in the ski resort of Kolasin and were told by our guide, the seven-feet-tall Gilad, that the day would start with a short hike around another beautiful lake. Medraft tours not only offer you the chance to jump into a 4×4 and explore new countries and landscapes; the Israel-based operation is also keen to promote nature and conservation and so takes every opportunity to encourage its clients out of its fleet of 4x4s and enjoy their new surroundings on foot, as well as meet local people. “We have three main areas that our tours are focused on,” explained Medraft CEO Omer Flum. “First is nature, then comes culture and finally adventure, which as well as 4×4 driving, includes cycling, riding, walking and rafting. We like to give our clients the full experience, with guides providing all the local knowledge and entertaining stories!”

One of the least-known Balkan states, Montenegro is a secret paradise of stunning mountains and glorious coastline. It offers excellent off-roading on self-drive adventures courtesy of nature and adventure company Medraft

Words and photography: Hils Everitt

Whenever I mentioned to anyone that I was going to Montenegro, they looked puzzled and, to a man/woman said: ‘where on earth is that?’

Most people are dimly aware that it’s a Balkan state, but few are certain exactly where it fits into the geography of a region that was so prominent on our TV screens in the early 1990s when what used to be Yugoslavia was being torn apart by civil war. As it happened, there was a rather spooky reminder of those days when, not long after I returned, General Ratko Mladic was finally arrested for war crimes in Bosnia, putting the region back on the news agenda and lending it fresh significance.

Sadly, recent world events may make adventures like this even more difficult. Here we follow the story of some intrepid Scottish 4×4 adventurers through the magnificent mountains of Algeria

Words and photography: Chris Scott of Sahara Overland

I flew in to Adrar in the west of Algeria a few days late and caught up with my tour group. They were not happy bunnies. Their 1000-mile drive down from Oran on the Mediterranean had been marred by bad weather, grotty accommodation and a tedious relay of police escorts, possibly exacerbated by fears about what’s now become known as the ‘Arab Spring’.

And then there was the bad news. That morning we heard about an Italian tourist kidnapped a few days ago on the other side of the country, south of Djanet. While such events have occurred lately in neighbouring north African countries, this was the first in Algeria since 32 tourists were grabbed back in 2003; an event well remembered, since I had narrowly avoided being included.

Proving you don’t need a fleet of Land Rovers to enjoy adventure driving, this month we have a Suzuki Jimny on an old smugglers’ route through the Pyrenees. Small car with a big heart, ideal for the rough tracks of Andorra 

 Words and photography: Scott Brady

Smuggling weapons from France into Spain was a risky proposition during the late 1700s. The Napoleonic wars had thrown the region into turmoil as France and Spain struggled for power, the Pyrenees serving as a limited buffer to the rapid advancement of troops. Although Andorra was officially neutral in the war, its borders proved an efficient means of transporting illegal goods between the two warring countries. This led to a creation of a network of roads and tracks suitable to those most rugged of travelers, also supporting small villages and enclaves throughout the valleys and mountains that comprise this contiguous range.

The colourful landscape and language of the Australian Outback is like nothing else on earth. Nick Redmayne hired a Mitsubishi Pajero to tackle the remote and challenging Gibb River Road and survived, with most of his Pommy pride intact…

I shouted: “Neville…Neville…er… Neville..?” Where was he? It was dark, a dazzling absence of ambient light in which eyes strained wide, aching for a clear view of nothing. Eschewing the European badge of shame that is a Petzel headtorch, I stumbled warily through unseen undergrowth – the Outback does not suffer Pommy nerds gladly and I needed empathy, and, more specifically, one of Neville’s spanners.

An expedition with World 4×4 Adventures into Arctic Russia has Steve White mesmerised by the sheer beauty of its remoteness and the tough off-roading, as Land Rovers share the trails with a Soviet Gaz 66. 

 Photos: Robb Pritchard

In any other country the old guy would be eligible for some sort of social help. He lives in a wooden shack miles away from the nearest other wooden shack, drinks water from a well and eats fish he catches from the sea behind his ramshackle house, but the fact that the Arctic Circle passes through his backyard means that his garden has become a bit of a tourist attraction.

Just how far have things moved on? We take two similar-sized 4x4s, a 1943 Ford Jeep and 10-reg Suzuki Jimny, separated by 67 years of motoring evolution and pit them against each other on the glorious greenlanes of Snowdonia

Words: Toby Savage; photos: Wayne Mitchelson, Toby Savage

Our choice of vehicles for a true comparison of ancient and modern 4×4 was easy. Representing the formative years was my 1943 Ford Jeep, Grandfather of the whole leisure 4×4 market and designed purely to help achieve victory in the Second World War. The Jeep has always enjoyed a great reputation for off-road ability and this particular one is in excellent condition and shod with a new set of Michelin XZYs.

We take to the greenlanes snaking around the misty hills of Shropshire in a pair of capable pick-up trucks – our long-term Isuzu Rodeo and a Mitsubishi L200 – for an off-roading treat

Word: Toby Savage; photos: Wayne Mitchelson, additional photos: Toby Savage

Phone calls and emails throughout the summer, trying to find a day when the three of us were free, resulted in just one weekend at the tailend of summer when we could all be in the same place, at the same time and take the longterm test Isuzu Rodeo Denver Max LE, long overdue for some more off-roading fun since our camping trip in midsummer, out for a run with a Mitsubishi L200 Barbarian. These are two popular trucks for different reasons, but both capable of fulfi lling the needs of many trades. The question was, how would they fare on the lanes and trails that reach out to the less accessible parts of Shropshire?

A UN delegation to Tajikistan to assess the prospect of pioneering adventure tourism, found a convoy of Land Cruisers, plus a lone Mitsubishi Pajero, coping with strange customs and some interesting off-roading tests.

If creationist zealots ever mount an expedition to find where God hid his shovel after six days of hard yakka, Tajikistan’s Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, with 93 per cent of it mountains and the remotest extent of the former USSR’s most distant republic, is likely to feature high on the list of potential sites. Cut adrift when lines of centralised control were severed and generally described as being on the losing side in a miserable post soviet civil war, the GBAO’s population has suffered years of hardship.