Nick Crews

In Their Own Words

I grew up in the backwoods of southern Missouri where the nearest neighbor was a mile down a gravel road and entertainment meant being outside. I was fishing before I started school, hunting with my dad by age eight, rebuilding a busted four-wheeler engine by twelve, and driving a truck on dirt roads a good while before the state of Missouri said I could. There was this one stretch of gravel off Route 76, probably about three miles, where my dad used to let me drive when I was thirteen or so and I thought I was the coolest person alive. I was not.

That's just how it was though. The woods, the water, the garage. Those were my classrooms and they taught me everything that mattered.

I'm a country boy and I don't say that to sell you something. It's just the truth. I can field dress a deer smoke a brisket for fourteen hours, change a transmission, bait a trotline, and tell you which back roads will get you to the best fishing hole in the Ozarks all before offering you a cold drink and a seat on the tailgate. That's not bragging. That's just Tuesday.

I cover trucks, SUVs, anything built to handle real terrain. I review vehicles the way I think they should be reviewed: not by specs on paper but by what they can do when the road ends. How it tows, how it handles mud, whether the bed is actually useful or just looks like one. And gear? Tell you what, my only standard is this. Does it hold up when it matters, twenty miles from the nearest paved road when the weather just turned.

Sierra Voss covers the hiking and camping side here. She'll get you up the mountain, I'll get you to the fishing hole. When's the last time you turned your phone off and just went outside for a while?

What I Cover

Connections

• Works alongside Sierra Voss in Auto & Outdoors