You Know You’re An Overlander When…

We all dream of being that guy (or gal). Suntanned, sinewy and wise, a world traveller with a million stories to tell and the scars to prove it. The life of a long-term international overlander is far from glamorous though; in fact, the closest he gets to glamour is drinking wine from a glass. That first year on the road is a massive learning experience, but the rewards are massive as well. Before long your perspectives will begin to shift, and you’ll know you are a long-term overlander when…

• You wear the same pair of shorts five days in a row (and don’t care).
• Customs officials in remote countries ask to take photos of you.
• Young girls in remote little towns ask you if you have met Justin Bieber.
• Your friends think you’re permanently on holiday, but you know they probably wouldn’t last a week doing what you do.
• You forget which day of the week it is.

• You know every single off-road tyre on the market, including its load rating.
• Cooking and pooping indoors is the ultimate luxury.
• You can make a fire out of almost anything.
• Cars pull up next to you on the freeway just to take a look and give you a thumbs-up.
• Random people congratulate you for just being you.
• Shaving is optional, and your feet are always dirty.
• You repair everything you own to make it last forever.

• Running out of duct tape is similar to running out of toilet paper.
• A luxury campsite is defined as having reliable WiFi, electricity, and maybe a toilet seat.
• For Christmas, you give and receive car parts and tools.
• You spend so much time being lost that you forget what the word lost means.

• You have more international friends than hometown friends.
• Your daily conversation revolves around which route to take, visa requirements, the budget, and food.
• You spend two hours each day looking for a campsite (using apps is cheating).
• You find a good campsite and can’t seem to leave.

• You spend so much time covered in mosquito repellent that you suffer from temporary amnesia and uncontrollable muscle tics.
• You forget what it’s like to live in the “real” world.
• Major news events go completely unnoticed.
• The police and military pull you over just to take a look at you and your rig and ask where you are from.
• Your diet consists of fruit juice, beer, pasta, and bbq items.
• Reading about the most dangerous places in the world, you realize you’ve been to, or are going to (time will tell) most of them (not as dangerous as they say).

• Camping at a gas station parking lot is totally normal.
• You’re either usually boiling hot or freezing cold.
• You start looking like a Rastafarian and not by choice.
• Your first language starts sounding like your second language.
• You finally see yourself in a mirror and are totally shocked at what you see.
• Upon entering a supermarket chain you get excited to see bright lights and shiny things.
• Doing things that are extraordinary become your day-to-day routine.

• Someone travelling with a washing machine in their rig makes you envious and gag a little.
• A microwave oven seems like a foreign object.
• Most of your arguments with your spouse are about how you’re driving (and how lost you are).
• You’re disoriented waking up anywhere besides your tent or truck.
• One of your arms is tanned darker than the other.
• You have “I Love” T-shirts from both Mozambique and Peru/
• You have left an array of expensive “great idea at the time” gadgets across continents.
• In a year, you spend 11 months living outdoors.
• Eating Western fast food is a grand treat.

• You consider yourself ever so slightly superior to backpackers and other tourists.
• Meeting other overlanders driving the same brand vehicle become instant family members.
• You make lifelong friends you will probably never see again.
• Your children wash the dishes by hand and the laundry by foot.
• You spend hours dreaming up ways to make money.
• You get to know cities, bus routes, restaurants, and the best supermarkets while looking for vehicle spare parts.
• You won’t know the date, but you will know the exact exchange rate to the dollar of the country you’re in.
• You’ve eaten such strange food that your stomach is now lined with cast iron.
• You never get a cold or flu.

• You lose huge amounts of weight eating the crappiest fatty food (because you hardly ever taste sugar).
• You have a strange relationship with your facial hair.
• You drink almost as much beer as water.
• When driving on tar you miss the dirt, when driving on dirt, you miss the tar.
• Driving on a freeway makes you feel like a NASCAR driver.
• You can change wheel bearings with your eyes closed and have mechanic fingernail.s
• The smell of a bushfire makes you hungry.