It's one of the questions we get asked most often by guests booking a 4WD camper: "Are recovery boards included?"
The short answer is no. And that's not an oversight, or us being stingy with the kit list. It's a deliberate decision we've made after more than ten years on the road, thousands of guests, and over 25,000,000 kilometres of outback travel across our fleet. Here's the thinking behind it.
Recovery boards fix a problem you shouldn't have
Recovery boards, best known by the Australian brand name MAXTRAX, are moulded plastic boards you wedge under your tyres when you're bogged. In the right hands they're a genuinely good piece of gear, and we take nothing away from the product itself.
The problem isn't the boards, but what they do to decision making.
When there's a set of recovery boards strapped to the vehicle, it's tempting to treat them as a free pass: point the 4WD down that soft, chopped-up track, because if it all goes wrong, the boards will sort it out. We've seen this thinking play out again and again, and the reality is very different. Recovery boards are a last resort, not a safety net. Used incorrectly, and they very often are, a spinning wheel generates enough heat to melt the board's teeth clean off while digging the vehicle in even deeper. What looked like a get-out-of-jail card turns a small problem into a big one, a long way from help.
We'd rather our guests never get into that situation in the first place. So instead of packing a cure, we set every guest up with the prevention.
With the tyre pressure gauge, you can easily see the tyre pressure of each tyre.
The best recovery gear is air, and knowing when to let it out
Ask anyone who has spent serious time on sand, and they'll tell you the same thing: tyre pressure is the single biggest factor in whether you get bogged or glide through.
When you drop your tyres from highway pressure down into the high teens, the tyre's footprint lengthens dramatically. Instead of four narrow patches of rubber pushing down into the sand, you've got four long, soft pads spreading the vehicle's weight across the surface. The 4WD floats over sand it would otherwise dig into. It's not a trick, it's physics, and it works every time.
That's why we've built our whole approach around it:
Education at pickup. When you collect your RedSands 4WD camper, we don't just hand over the keys. Our team walks you through a full demonstration, taking as long as is needed, including exactly how and when to let your tyres down, what pressures to run on different surfaces (also available in our helpful in-vehicle Client Services Guide!), and how to read the track ahead. It takes a few extra minutes and it's the most valuable piece of ‘equipment' you'll carry.
An on-board air compressor. Every RedSands 4WD camper is fitted with an under-body air compressor. That means you can drop pressures for soft sand and pump straight back up when you hit the bitumen, as many times a day as the country demands. No servo required (that’s Aussie for petrol station) no excuses, not to do it properly.
The result: our guests drive into soft sand prepared, rather than driving in blind and hoping a plastic board will undo the mistake. And on the rare occasion someone does start to bog down, the answer is almost always the same: stop early, let more air out, and drive gently on. It gets you moving again in nearly every situation a recovery board would, without the drama.
Thanks to the under-bonnet air compressor, adjusting tyre pressures is super easy!
Leave no trace: the environmental case
There's another reason we're firm on this, and it matters to us as a business built on a love of wild places.
A bogged vehicle spinning its wheels, and the digging, ramping and repeated attempts that follow, tears up the very country we all come to see. Dunes and beach systems are fragile: churned sand, deep ruts and broken dune vegetation disrupt the natural movement of sand, accelerate erosion, and destroy the habitat of birds, reptiles, marsupials and turtles in these coastal environments.
A 4WD on properly deflated tyres, driven smoothly, leaves almost nothing behind. Shallow tracks, no craters, no scarred dunes. That's the way we believe Australia should be travelled: leave no trace, take only photos, and let the next traveller find the beach the way you did.
Soft tyres aren't just the best way to avoid getting stuck. They're the lightest possible touch on the landscape. One thing our co-founder Lucy Sands is super passionate about, seeing her main job is that of an Environmental Scientist, specialising in Marine ecosystems!
Experience you can lean on
We're not making this call from behind a desk. RedSands has been running 4WDs across Australia since 2015. Our vehicles have covered more than 25,000,000 kilometres, from the Gibb River Road to Tasmania (and everything in between), and we've prepared thousands of guests for those same journeys, many of them tackling sand driving for the very first time.
That experience keeps pointing to the same conclusion: guests who are taught to prevent a bogging have a better, safer trip than guests who are equipped to recover from one.
Still want a set? No worries at all
If you'd feel more comfortable travelling with recovery boards, you're absolutely welcome to pick up a set from a local camping or 4WD store before your trip, and to use them if you ever feel the need. Plenty of stores stock them in every capital city and major town.
But after 25,000,000 kilometres, we'll give you our honest opinion: with the right tyre pressures, the right knowledge and the compressor that's already fitted to your camper, you won't need them.
See you on the sand!