Carrying enough water and fuel for the distance, in cans that survive the trail.
Overland travel is a logistics problem: enough water and fuel to reach the next resupply, carried in containers that take a beating and mount to the vehicle.
Fuel range is your tank plus what you carry, so extra fuel cans extend how far you go between stations. Water is a daily figure: plan a per-person, per-day volume for the days between resupply, as in emergency water storage. Use the sizing calculator to turn days and people into a container count. Then add a return-leg reserve on top. The stretch that strands people is the ground past the last fuel stop, where a headwind, soft sand or a wrong turn burns more than the map predicts. Carry enough to get back to that station, not only out to the turnaround.
The arithmetic is worth doing on paper before it is done on a rack. Twenty litres of diesel weighs about 17 kg and 20 litres of water a flat 20, and a steel can adds roughly 4 on top. Four fuel cans and two water cans is therefore around 130 kg of liquid and container before a single item of camping equipment, a fridge, a second battery or a passenger. Against a typical mid-size 4x4 payload of 600 to 900 kg, the liquids alone claim a fifth of it.
Which reframes the range question. Extra fuel does not extend range for free; it spends payload that recovery gear, water and spares are also competing for, and an overloaded vehicle uses more fuel to carry the fuel. The honest planning order is to fix the water first because it is non-negotiable, then fuel to the return-leg reserve, then decide what the remaining payload supports.
Keep water and fuel in separate, clearly different cans, and never swap them. Water wants food-grade stainless or HDPE; fuel wants steel or a fuel-grade plastic. Colour-code and label so there is no confusion in the dark. Hold that discipline for the whole trip. A can that once held diesel never carries drinking water again, whatever you scrub it with, so the colour and the label have to stay honest.
Honest labelling means marking the can rather than the cap, because caps get swapped at the first spill and a swapped cap moves the label with it. A mark on the body, ideally moulded or etched rather than stuck on, survives a season of dust, fuel and sun in a way a sticker does not. Where a fleet runs several vehicles, use the same colour convention across all of them: a crew that learns one system and meets another at night is the case the convention exists to prevent.
Fuel is sized on distance and consumption, which is arithmetic. Water is sized on people and days, which is a different calculation with a different failure mode: running low on fuel strands a vehicle, running low on water endangers the occupants, and the two should never share a contingency margin.
The planning figure most expedition guidance settles on is a minimum of three to four litres per person per day in heat for drinking alone, before cooking or washing. Against the Sphere standard of 15 litres for full domestic use, that gap is the compromise overland travel makes, and it is why a separate hygiene supply is usually planned around available resupply rather than carried.
The consequence for containers is that water and fuel end up in different formats for good reasons. Water benefits from stainless or food-grade HDPE that cleans and reuses across trips; fuel needs a coated or barrier container it will never share. Two liquids, two materials, permanently separate cans.
Water and fuel are heavy, and payload is finite on a loaded vehicle. Aluminium saves weight where every kilogram counts; steel gives durability at lower cost. Read aluminium vs steel. Placement matters as much as total mass. A full can on the roof raises the centre of gravity and makes the vehicle roll into corners and lean on side slopes. A can hung off the rear bumper sits behind the axle, so its weight swings on rough ground and lightens the steering. Carry the heavy liquids low and between the axles, and treat the roof and the rear overhang as last resort.
The roof has a published limit that most people never look up, and it is lower than the rack suggests. Vehicle manufacturers typically rate a roof for a dynamic load in the region of 75 to 100 kg, meaning while the vehicle is moving, and the static limit for a parked vehicle with a roof tent is a separate and much larger figure. A rack of its own can weigh 40 to 50 kg. Two full 20-litre cans add nearly 50. That is the dynamic rating consumed by the rack and two cans, with nothing else on the roof.
The rear overhang fails differently and it is a lever rather than a limit. Weight hung behind the rear axle presses the rear down and lifts the front, taking load off the steering axle exactly when you need it, and it swings through a larger arc than anything between the axles when the vehicle yaws. A swing-out carrier that feels solid in a car park behaves like a pendulum on corrugations. Neither position is forbidden; both are worse than low and central, and both should be a decision rather than a default.
The NATO pattern helps here: cans seat in the racks, carriers and holders already fitted to overland vehicles, so a NATO-pattern can mounts without new hardware. Read the NATO pattern guide. Fit is only half of it. A full can that works loose becomes a projectile in a rollover or a hard stop, so clamp it in a holder and add a strap or tie-down that survives corrugations without chafing through. Check the mounts after the first rough day, because vibration finds every loose bolt. See jerry can holders.
Corrugated road is a fatigue test rather than a rough ride, and it is worth thinking of it that way. A washboard surface drives the suspension at a frequency that gets into everything bolted to the vehicle, and a full can is a heavy mass on the end of a bracket. What fails is rarely the can: it is the bracket, the weld on the carrier, or the bolt that backed off half a turn a day for four days.
Two habits cover most of it. Torque-check the mounts at the end of the first hard day and then on a schedule rather than when something rattles, because by the time a mount rattles the hole has already elongated. And put a compliant layer between the can and the holder, a rubber pad or a strap under tension, so the can is clamped rather than free to move a millimetre and hammer. A can that can move a millimetre will find that millimetre a hundred thousand times.
An upright can does not fit every gap. Along the chassis, under a rack or beside a drawer system, a horizontal or low-profile can uses space an upright wastes and keeps the weight low while it does. Read horizontal and under-seat cans for the shapes that slide into those spots.
A low-profile can also changes how it has to be secured. An upright is held against tipping and a horizontal is held against sliding, which is a different strap direction and a different bracket. Fitting an upright holder on its side is the improvisation to avoid: it grips the wrong faces, and the can works loose over exactly the terrain the low mounting was chosen for.
The cap and the pour spout are the parts you lose or split first, and a can you cannot seal or pour is dead weight on the rack. Pack a spare of each before you leave. A good spout also keeps fuel off the paint and off your hands at a windy roadside fill. Browse caps and closures and pouring spouts.
The wider spares principle is to carry the parts that strand you rather than the parts that fail most. A dented body is ugly and still holds fuel. A split gasket, a lost cap or a cracked spout turns a full can into ballast, and none of the three is findable in a rural town. They also weigh almost nothing and take no space, which makes them the cheapest insurance on the vehicle.
Two errors do most of the damage. The first is mounting fuel high and heavy, which trades handling for convenience and shows up on the first steep descent. The second is planning fuel and water only as far as the turnaround, then finding the last station shut on the way home. Load low, and plan the leg past the last resupply.
Both errors share a cause, which is planning the trip rather than the return. Fuel and water get sized against the distance out, mounting gets decided by what is convenient while the vehicle is being packed, and neither decision is tested until the vehicle is loaded, hot and a long way from anywhere. Working the return leg first, with a headwind and a closed station in it, produces different answers to both questions.
Our NATO-pattern steel, stainless and aluminium cans mount in standard carriers and suit expedition use. See the fuel and water ranges.
Mount it low, keep the liquids apart. Here is the expedition kit from our line.
| Your use case | Recommended can | Why this one |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel, where every kilogram counts |  20L Aluminium NATO Can |
The lightest body, for a weight-critical build. |
| Fuel, durability over weight |  20L NATO Steel Fuel Can |
Tough NATO steel, seats in standard carriers. |
| Drinking water on the trail |  20L Stainless Steel Water Can |
Food-grade stainless, cleans and reuses for years. |
| Fuel in a tight chassis spot |  Horizontal Galvanised Can — 5L / 10L / 20L |
Low-profile, carries the weight down low. |
| Mounting and retention |  Jerry Can Holders & Mounts |
Holds the can so it cannot work loose on corrugations. |
Size on the longest gap between confirmed refuelling points, not the average, then add a margin for detours and for the extra consumption that sand, altitude and a loaded roof rack cause. A stage plan built on optimistic fuel economy is the usual reason vehicles run dry.
Low and central where possible, because full cans high on a roof rack raise the centre of gravity and hurt handling badly. Rear-door and swing-away carriers keep the weight low and the cans accessible. Fuel and water should be mounted apart to reduce the chance of the wrong can being used.
Stainless for the long-term store, because it blocks light, resists taint and cleans reliably between trips. Food-grade HDPE for the working can that gets refilled and emptied often, where weight and cost matter more than storage life.
The standards and regulations this page relies on, at their issuing body. Where a market rule is named here, check the current revision before you specify against it.
Last reviewed .
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