February 7, 2024

Overlanding

What exactly is overlanding? Am I doing overlanding? Am I going to do overlanding? Is camping overlanding?

Maybe overlanding is what I might call "highly polished car camping". Some folks would object to this definition and insist that you are not overlanding unless you are spending months traveling across a continent and in weird countries. I don't ever plan to do this and am willing to say there is a spectrum of activities that "we" can call overlanding. If everyone doesn't agree with me, that is OK.

Given that last definition (polished car camping), yes I am doing overlanding and have been for some time. Lately with my new 4runner and am polishing my game -- and as I am getting older and finding backpacking less attractive, transitioning to enjoying remote areas using my vehicle is very attractive. This being the case, I can learn from people who claim to be overlanders and up my game.

Some definitions of overlanding emphasize that travel is the goal. I suppose this means that going someplace and camping would not be overlanding. Almost certainly this means that sleeping in my truck in my yard is not overlanding (but why not?).

This could turn into a whole page of philosophy and definitions, and maybe it should. We could (perhaps) distinguish the following activities, but it would probably be more accurate (and honest) to point out that they all overlap:

I think the truth of it is as follows. It all involves equipment and how much money you have spent on it. You aren't overlanding unless you own one or more of the following:
Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Auto repair pages / tom@mmto.org