We have all been waiting impatiently for Expedition Overland (aka X Overland) to release their latest offering, The Nordic Series. As we have come to expect from Clay Croft and his team, the series offers a compelling combination of top-tier cinematography, storytelling, and a profound sense of wonder and adventure. Clay Croft, CEO of X…
George Rodger :: Explorer, Adventurer, and Photojournalist
Photography by George Rodger “George Rodger belongs to the great tradition of explorers and adventurers. His work is a moving testimony through time and space.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson One photograph from the 1957 Trans-Sahara Expedition stands out from the rest. It isn’t of George Rodger standing on the hood of his 107-inch Land Rover Series…
The Snowball Effect :: The Progression of Over-the-Snow Transportation
Lead photograph courtesy of Tucker Sno-Cat Archives. Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal’s Winter 2022 Issue. After decades of deliberation, I bought a snowcat a couple of years ago—a Kristi, manufactured in Denver about 1963. Powered by a 36-horsepower VW air-cooled motor, it had sat idle outdoors for over a decade. Perhaps the…
BMW International GS Trophy 2024
Trophy Time in Africa BMW Motorrad returns the GS Trophy competition to its African roots for 2024, this time in rugged Namibia. It will be the 9th running of the biennial event, which was last held in Albania, as reported by Heather Lea. There will be 22 teams from across the planet, with a total…
Crossing Kyrgyzstan’s Terek Pass
The second we drove into the Besh-Tash Valley, part of a vast national reserve in the northwest of Kyrgyzstan, I fell in love. On our right, a river cut through the valley, winding past a handful of yurts, the two sides alternating between rocky walls and slopes with grassy fields and patches of vegetation in…
Video of the Week :: 10 days in the Norwegian highlands
Kasper Hoglund, a professional photographer and minimalist overlander from Norway, has a deep-rooted love for all things travel-related as he explores Scandinavia in his Land Rover. Kasper lives out of his impeccable 2014 Land Rover Discovery SD V6 HSE (high specification equipment) on a full-time basis, through sunshine, rain shower, or blizzard. The Discovery is…
Overland Journal Senior Photographer Bruce Dorn Named Canon Legend
It’s safe to say that Overland Journal’s Senior Photographer Bruce Dorn has seen it all through his viewfinder over the last 4o years as a professional lensman in couture fashion, advertising, editorial, and adventure photography. As an award-winning director and filmmaker, Bruce is also the Creative Director for the pioneering visual and digital effects powerhouse…
One Woman’s Journey to Peace through Overlanding
A traumatic experience such as the death of a loved one can be a catalyst that motivates us to look at our life choices and consider significant changes. My family and I have first-hand experience of this. When we were in the initial planning phase of our global travels, my father abruptly passed away a…
Feature Vehicle – Land Rover Defender 110 Pickup – The Monster
Johan de Villiers is a man who lives for adventure, and he designed his Defender 110 to take on the toughest environments. Johan has explored extensively in several South, Central, and East African countries with KTM and Triumph Tiger motorcycles and by Land Rover. He enjoys traveling Southeast and Central Asia, including hiking Nepal and…
BMW Partners with BDR on Oregon Route
BMW Motorrad USA is collaborating with Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR) on their newest project in the west, Oregon. The ORBDR brings the total routes created by the non-profit BDR organization to an even dozen. It is the second with BMW as a partner, the first being the Wyoming BDR. ORBDR Film Premier Save the date:…
Feature Vehicle 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser Troopy
Markus Fuchs was born in the late 1980s in a beautiful German town beside Lake Bodensee. His father was a Mercedes G-Class, Unimog, and VW T-3 Vanagon enthusiast, and teenage Markus wasted no time getting started on his own projects. His first car was a 1990 T3 Syncro Vanagon, which he bought for a song…
Are You Rescue Ready?
You’re out in the backcountry, enjoying your time in the back of beyond. Suddenly, there’s an emergency, and you need to use your two-way communications device to call for help. What do you say? Most travelers and outdoor enthusiasts know the importance of being able to communicate at all times—even in the backcountry. A two-way…
Motorcycle Tire Inflators :: Best of Breed
A flat motorcycle tire can stop a journey in its tracks. Having experienced plenty of them, I ride prepared for a roadside repair. Besides a spare tube, patch kit, and tire tools, my kit includes two items for inflating tires. One is an electric inflator, the other one is a bicycle hand pump. This redundancy…
Judged by Its Cover :: Coming to Terms With Passport Inequity
The centuries-old mansion on Puebla, Mexico’s central plaza had been converted into a restaurant on the bottom floor with new apartments above. We sit in the living room of one of those apartments on the second story. With its towering ceiling and decorative tile floors, it surely used to be the salon of high society….
Georgia, the Road Leads Back to You
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal’s Winter 2022 Issue. Georgia—not the American state Ray Charles and Martin Luther King hailed from, but the little-known country located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe—is a mountainous place of wild and astonishing beauty. Monasteries, watchtowers, and fortresses dating to the Middle Ages stand…
Destinations :: Kyrgyzstan’s Karakol Region
Karakol is a convenient hub to explore the magical surroundings of its mountains and the immense Lake Issyk-Kul. It’s a great home base in Eastern Kyrgyzstan to stock up on food, water, and fuel; get your laundry done; take a rest (Riverside Guesthouse lets overlanders camp in the parking lot for a small fee); and…
Die Raat vir Elke Kwaal: A CJ-3B Jeep Sluks its Way Through Botswana
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal’s Winter 2022 Issue. At a crossing in the wild country of the Limpopo River may be found Gatvanolfant, the elephants’ hole. Here is also Oerwoud Store with the Wiltshire, a pub established in past times by a British Army unit that once guarded the drift…
Overland Inspiration in 2022 :: Expedition Portal’s Top Ten Posts
Overland life evolved in exciting ways in 2022. As the global pandemic slowed or was increasingly ignored (depending on your perspective and general location), life gradually found a new normal. Schools re-opened, employees returned to their cubicles, and time spent on Zoom calls declined. Many predicted the unprecedented boom we saw in 2020-2021 in outdoor…
Five Reasons Japan Should Be on Your Overland Bucket List
It was with great joy this October that I read Japan was lifting its last Covid-19 travel restrictions and that the country would be open again to individual travelers. As of yet, Japan has been little visited by overlanders who bring their own vehicle, probably because it’s a long way from any of the main…
Overlanding in the Underserved Communities : Interview with Kirk Williams
Kirk Williams, a Coloradan, is an active outdoorsman, storyteller, and adventurer who courageously travels overland despite a physical mobility impairment. When Kirk was in his early twenties, he had an unfortunate mountain biking accident, broke his neck, and was relegated to a wheelchair. That, however, has not hindered his drive and zest for life. Kirk…