There’s something special about a clean, classic Toyota that has been well-cared for by several generations of vehicle lovers. This Sky Blue 1978 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser has been in this owner’s family for nearly 30 years but is aging gracefully. The vintage Washington State license plate is indeed from the same year, as are…
Expedición de las Américas: Crossing the Darién Gap in 1979
Photography by Mark A. Smith Off-Roading Inc. Amidst a steaming, mosquito-filled jungle, Mark Smith wrestles with the steering wheel of his orange Jeep CJ-7, bouncing over rocks, damp earth, and the roots of tall ceiba trees. The skin beneath his white-brimmed hat is drenched with sweat, and several weeks’ worth of unshaven silver beard…
Travelling the Incense Route with Barbara Toy
Photography from Barbara Toy’s A Fool Strikes Oil and Travelling the Incense Route “I travelled for the love of travelling. All too often these days people say they’re going to cross something like the Sahara Desert and all they want to do is get to the other side as fast as they can. That’s…
Jeopardy and a Jeep: Africa Conquered by Two Women Professors
Words By Ashley Giordano, photos from Jeopardy and a Jeep by Dorothy Rogers During the summer of 1954, two American college professors named Dorothy Rogers and Louise Ostberg pulled their Willys Wagon into a mechanic shop in Tripoli, Libya. They had arrived from the North African desert, where they battled endless flats and ruined…
What the Dempster Highway Taught Us About Slow Travel
Words by Ashley Giordano, Photography by Richard Giordano A comedy of errors saw us attempting to fill our empty diesel tank in the parking lot of the Eagle Plains Hotel on a toe-numbing, nose-hair freezing spring evening in the Yukon. I’m shuffling back and forth in my down hut boots while Richard struggles in…
The 1958 Women’s Overland Himalayan Expedition
After traveling 8,000 miles over six weeks through Western Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, overland adventuresses Anne Davies, Eve Sims, and Antonia Deacock found themselves in Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s drawing room, poring over a large-scale map of the Himalayas laid on a soft white carpet. The “Inner Line,” a…
This Daring Duo Drove Afghanistan’s Northern Road in a 1939 Ford
Story by Ashley Giordano, Photos Courtesy of the Swiss Literary Archives Editor’s note: March is Women’s History Month and the Expedition Portal staff would like to acknowledge and celebrate the incredibly brave and courageous women who have come before us and those who will lead the next generation. Whether you adventure far and wide,…
On The Road With VanGar: Interview With The Two Travelling Aunties
Photos Courtesy of Two Travelling Aunties It all started with a Swiss-plated Unimog parked on a dusty street corner in Borobudur, Indonesia. Susie Chua and Norah Soeb spotted the hefty home on wheels during a vacation back in 2018. “We had so many questions!” Norah exclaims. “Which countries did the vehicle need to cross…
Road to Mekong: Interview with Jai Bharathi
On the back cover of her book, Road to Mekong, Jai Bharathi stands in a black motorcycle jacket, one foot propped up on the footpeg of her Bajaj Dominar 400 motorbike. Her look is casual, but Jai is anything but. This woman is a force. From the South Indian city of Hyderabad, Jai’s first experience…
All Things Kenya | Interview With Dos and Wamuyu Kariuki of Throttle Adventures
It’s an emotional time for Dos and Wamuyu of Throttle Adventures. Like many overland travellers, COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into their travel plans. After two years, five continents, 24 countries, four months of quarantine in Managua, Nicaragua, two bikes in a shipping container, and COVID-19 restrictions lifting just enough, the couple is set to…
Interview With Rachelle Croft of Expedition Overland
In 2011, Rachelle Croft was in the midst of an intense period of motherhood. Her youngest of three sons had just turned one. Her husband, Clay, was on the road and traveling frequently. “Honestly, I was definitely a little depressed. I loved our boys but missed adventure. At that time, I didn’t realize that being…
The Art of Volunteering While Overlanding | Interview With Candice of Be Old Later
If you ever come across Candice of Be Old Later, you’ll likely find her in the midst of various art supplies, drawing cartoons, catching up on freelance artwork, or teaching a group of children how to draw. Her enthusiasm for art developed at an early age, eventually leading her to become a professional illustrator and…
Overlanders Share Their Favorite Apps
Mobile apps are designed to improve our lives and provide us with readily available information. This is especially helpful while travelling. Hundreds of new apps are popping up left, right, and centre, so we connected with our fellow overlanders to help narrow down the search. Google Maps, iOverlander, and Maps.me were crowd favorites, and nearly…
International Women’s Day 2020
“Like most people, I have let my dreams lay dormant, finding every excuse not to take the first step, whether it be money, time, or inevitable responsibilities. In pursuing this trek, I want to prove that people have more agency than they think—that they have more power over their path than society may lead them…
Celebrating International Women’s Day
“…as woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” -Virginia Woolf Six months ago I became the “woman behind the phone” managing the Women Overlanding the World Instagram account. On that site, I share tales and photographs sent from women adventuring all over the…
From the Vault: Desk to Glory – Chile
The Carretera Austral (otherwise known as Chile’s Route 7 and translated as “Southern Road”) is a highway that runs from Puerto Montt to Villa O’Higgins over a span of 1,240 kilometres through Northern Patagonia. In 1976, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (What a guy! Check out this Wikipedia article for his messy history) ordered the army to commence construction of…
Desk To Glory: Canadian Drives
Headed North? Here are three drives to put under your tires.
Desk to Glory: Carretera Austral, Chile
We join Desk to Glory as they tackle Chile’s Route 7
Desk to Glory: The Lagunas Route
Hot springs, mountains, Bolivian borders and the Atacama desert