$20,000, cash on the barrel to keep our backcountry trails open for all.

If finding a clean Defender 130 for under $100,000 in the United States is difficult, finding one with a professionally installed V8 and matching drivetrain is nearly impossible. Yet they do show up every now and then, and we recently stumbled upon this great example in the for sale section of our forums. It’s a 1985 high-capacity pickup imported from…

Deep into the Colombian savanna, a ragtag team of adventurers get caught in a quagmire of mud, sand, piranha, and gunboats.

The Expeditions 7 team traverses 20,000 kilometers from Nordkapp, Norway, to Magadan, Russia, on the world’s most northern roads.

In the pantheon of off-road legends it could be argued only three vehicles vie for the title of most revered. That list includes the American Jeep, British Land Rover, and of course, the Japanese Land Cruiser. In its many forms, the Cruiser has proven a formidable tool, but the 40 Series introduced in 1960 represents the family of vehicles which…

The last few months of meticulous preparation had led us up to this point. It was a trip of over 4 years in the making for us, as we could never find the right time to go until now. Our route would take us along most of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon almost entirely on dirt, dipping into…

As Expedition Portal has grown in size and coverage, we’ve seen more big expedition trucks built, reported on, and periodically sold through the Portal. But as with any overlanding vehicle, there are pros and cons, and compromises must be made.  Still, for a sizable minority of the Expo inmates, there’ll be a time when these big trucks are worth considering….

The Expeditions 7 team crosses the Icelandic desert and Europe’s largest glacier.

Prudhoe Bay to Cape Spear—The Expeditions 7 team transects North America on a trek around the world.

It had been raining for days, maybe weeks. We were in Seattle where I grew up, where my father still resides. We were parked in front of his apartment on a narrow street, lined with cars on one side and apartments overlooking Lake Union on the other. Our van, a 2008 Ford Econoline E-150, was sandwiched between an orange VW…

Before we left, we were repeatedly discouraged by others and by the media.  Everyone said these were not safe countries for women to travel in, that a trip like this would be too physically demanding for women, one person even said we would come home in pine boxes. Despite these messages, we overcame our fears and got on the road. The…

Overland Journal reviews the best “Big Bike” options for exploring the globe on two wheels.

Snow whirled out of the darkness, disappearing into the night as quickly as it came. My weary headlights were hardly up to the task, and the mountain roads seemed to curve sharper and harder as the weather raged on. We were in Colorado, and just a few hours ago I had asked my girlfriend, now fiancé, to marry me. Still…

In my early 20s I snagged an awesome gig as a bicycle tour guide in the wine regions of France. That led to managing other companies, including one of the largest adventure travel outfits in Alaska. As a result I always considered myself a leader—never a follower. Not to say I looked down on paying clients, but I discounted their…

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal, Gear Guide 2009. Modifying a vehicle is nearly always a compromise. Adding horsepower typically comes at the cost of efficiency. Lifting a vehicle often comes at the cost of high-speed stability, and each new modification usually adds more weight and complexity to a platform that the factory engineers spent thousands…

In the mid-1990s, while living in France, I had a local friend named Georges. Twice my age, he spent his days toiling in the vineyards near my home. Every now and then, I’d volunteer to help him trim vines, burn brush, or some days we’d just sit around and chat. The one thing I remember most about George, aside from…

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal, Fall 2008. I still remember the article about the 1991 Camel Trophy. The words and images are as visible in my mind today as the first time I saw them. I had casually picked up a 4WD publication from a newsstand. Thumbing through its pages, I stopped short at a…

How many times have you wished you could sell everything that wasn’t bolted down, or put it all in storage, and hit the open road? For most people those daydreams are just that—dreams. There are those with just that little bit of extra courage who take it to the next level and push beyond the doorway. Heather and Dave are…

On our arrival in Japan, on the southern island of Kyushu, we needed to plot a general route for the coming months. We skimmed our two guidebooks and marked the possible-of-interest places on our Reise Know-How roadmap. Local information is always a welcome addition and Japan, we quickly learned, has a super-organized system of tourist information centers. You will find…

I must have a thing for symmetry. As I wiggled and twisted down the road, the Ural beneath me seemed determined to thwart my best efforts to ride a straight line. I started to mentally catalog all the asymmetrical things in the world, most of them annoying to me. There’s the fiddler crab with his one large claw; the scalene…