Long-time readers of RideApart will know how much I advocate for folks to have a Garmin inReach device with them whenever they strike out into the unknown. That when you're out hunting, hiking, riding dirt bikes, overlanding in UTVs or ATVs, or even on the water with a jet ski, having something to contact the outside world when service ain't a thing is tantamount to your continued health and survival.
Why? Because it's gone nearly very wrong for me a few times in recent years, and my own inReach Mini 2 literally saved my bacon when the radiator on a prototype snowmobile blew sky high. A short text through my inReach to my wife, some fast Search and Rescue responders who happen to be my neighbors, and a delicious Uncrustable later, and I was all right, all right, all right.
And that's why since that article, Garmin's been gracious enough to send me other inReach devices to test as they become available, including the new inReach Messenger Plus that I put through the wringer—a quick aside, but someone was asking me about the durability of my inReach the other day, and I literally threw it six feet onto some rocks for shits and giggles, then texted them to prove it was fine.
