Overlanding is a popular term, but what does it mean? Like many things, I guess it depends on who you ask, but to me it means to take-in or experience a large geographic area by traveling through it, over an extended period of time. Indeed, the journey itself becomes a significant part of the overall experience. I am more partial to the term “adventure travel” because my wanderings are mostly off-road, or incorporate off-roading side excursions, but I am sure that for many the two terms are interchangeable. My sister and her husband are on a multi-year sailboat excursion, currently somewhere off the coast of Mexico, which I guess could be called “overwatering,” but also in their case I think “adventure travel” is a good description of their life. Is van life, another popular pastime, overlanding? I think it fits the bill of experiencing places by traveling through them. Where adventure travel differs is in experiencing places that few people get to see. In my homebase of Oregon, most people only experience the Interstate 5 corridor which bisects the state between the Coast Range and Cascade Mountains. With apologies to Bend (population 100,000) on the eastern side of the Cascades (on Highway 97 which predates Interstate 5), all of Oregon’s major population centers reside along this corridor; Ashland-Medford, Eugene-Springfield, Salem-Keiser, and the Portland metropolis of Portland-Beaverton-Hillsboro (and many would say Vancouver, Washington). Oregon and the other western states have so much more to offer than their interstate corridors, and this is what drives me to take the road (or trail) less traveled and experience a west that has changed little over the past century.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.— Robert Frost
If overlanding is about the experience of the journey, then it makes sense that these journeys take place off the beaten path, if not necessarily on unpaved tracks. I am reminded of traveling across Arizona and coming out of the Coconino National Forest at the tiny town of Winona. It lies on what is now Interstate 40, but it was once Route 66 and pieces of the old road and a bridge still remain, in Winona. Who knew that one of the great experiences of the journey would occur along a major interstate highway? Not me. Overlanding is a journey of discovery; discovery of little-known places, discovery of forgotten history, discovery of one’s own abilities.