What's new

"Overlanding" and what not

Priest

New member
Joined
Aug 15, 2022
Member Number
5454
Messages
1
After years of not spending time in the woods I've been getting back into camping. I belong to several groups on FB and it appears that some things have been redefined.

What I thought -
Off Roading:
Getting out there where stock rigs couldn't make it unless one is strong and dumb. May involve overnight stays on the trail. May involve towing a highly modified rig to the trailhead.

Camping: Driving some place and sleeping in a tent. May involve gravel roads and exploring. Aka....spending a bit of money to pretend you're homeless.

RV'ing: Driving or towing some kind of portable living structure...parking it and living out of it for a bit. Aka...paying a lot of money to live like you're poor.

ATV'ing: 4wheelers and SxS. May be coupled with RV'ing and/or camping.

Backpacking: heading out on foot and spending a time living using only what you can carry.

What I'm learning -
Off Roading:
Towing a rig some place, possibly with an RV. Going places that normal sane people don't go. ATV'ing with a SxS has been adopted as a subset of this.

Car Camping: Driving some place and sleeping. Might sleep in a tent, might sleep in the car. Staying on the pavement. Also search on "vanlife"....that's a thing.

Camping: Driving or towing some kind of portable living structure and parking it somewhere, usually in a campground with hookups so one don't have to live with any discomfort. Also involves a lot of socializing and complaining. In certain areas, camping may involve having the portable living structure permanently parked at a designated location with a deck attached and/or other structures. Use extreme caution in these situations as the drama is high as is the chance of adultery. These individuals do not like it when you ask them if they are "spending the weekend at the trailer park".

Boondocking: Same as camping but without hookups for your drivable/towable house. Boondockers run the risk of having to use the pit toilet at the primitive campground and not showering for a day or two.

Overlanding: Similar to car camping but the vehicle tires touch dirt. Very frequently involves a significant quantity of expensive gear attached to the vehicle. Achieving the highest level of success involves sleeping on your roof. Peak Overlanding involves YouTube and "Influencers". If the road gets too rough, there is a risk bridging into off-roading without the security of a tow rig...proceed with caution. The worst offense you can commit is starting a campfire with matches or a lighter.

ATV'ing: Pretty sure this is dead.

Bushcrafting: Pretending you're Rambo or Tom Hanks from Castaway. Often involves weird references to military training and/or apocalypse scenarios. Minimal gear involved, drinking questionable water is highly likely and if any form of comfort is involved the bushcrafting is invalid.

Backpacking: A bunch of dirty hippies walking all over the place, eating expensive dehydrated food and sleeping in hammocks. High probability that a Subaru was parked at the beginning of the walk.


Feel free to chime in with your own experiences and commentary.
 
Last edited:
You're a little late to the party there Rich, we've been discussing/bitching/laughing about this for quite some time. It's all about the youtubes/gram, so they can get their little pat on the back. Better than staying home and playing video games, but barely. The ones that kill me are the ones that want that super booster cell antenna so they can stay connected, that was the best part of the early KOH, no cell phones for a week.
 
You're a little late to the party there Rich, we've been discussing/bitching/laughing about this for quite some time. It's all about the youtubes/gram, so they can get their little pat on the back. Better than staying home and playing video games, but barely. The ones that kill me are the ones that want that super booster cell antenna so they can stay connected, that was the best part of the early KOH, no cell phones for a week.
I'm usually late to the party and I figured this is the place where people have been going "WTF". I'm on this Ohio State Parks group on FB and the posts are hilarious. It's like camping with an HOA.
 
You forgot-
Roughing it- Staying at an airbnb in a town that used to be super fun to go to at a remote town/ village at some desirable location typically in the mountains. The airbnb is typically fully furnished, there may only be one tv in the house and has none of your streaming presets and typically only has netflix with the user account being some old person and 2 young kids that watch the same shit. All so you can do some group van ride up to the top of a local summit to get that perfect gram pic!
 
Overlanding is a bunch people with expensive gear they like to show off who would never wheel their stuff. It's glorified car camping while flexing with all your expensive gear. I see them driving around here with 50k worth of new shit bolted to their clean and waxed Toyot's.

I generally camp in my camper in non-improved area's. But I still have heat,ac,and a soft bed :grinpimp:. Sometimes I boondock if we are traveling someplace so I don't have to get a hotel. If I tent camp, the tent's on my back and packed in.
 
I'm usually late to the party and I figured this is the place where people have been going "WTF". I'm on this Ohio State Parks group on FB and the posts are hilarious. It's like camping with an HOA.
I'mma need you to invite me to this so I can laugh as well.
 
The vernacular of "boondocking" is actually a useful one as it delineates between campsites that have hookups/amenities and from basically cleared spaces of dirt you can setup whatever youre bringing if you so wish.

Its useful when planning trips to places you have never scouted out and has saved us big time, in both ways, when we are making the 3 hour drive.

We tend to stay away from places now that arent considered "boondocking" as our dogs annoy everyone if theyre too close.
Um, we called that dry-camping or just camping, I don't know why that needed to change.
 
I'd overland this bad-Jackson, er Joachim.

X_yGFRa&tn=pkYEffh3gPoE_y1C&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.jpg
 
people who get outside regardless of the nonsensical posing we all do, are better off than the people who hunker down on the lounger in front of shows about pawn shops and rich wives.

and people who spend on a bunch of stuff they don't need are awesome for me, they get tired of the slightly old stuff and/or find a new hobby and I can pick up their stuff and repurpose at low cost, god love'em!
 
I transitioned from "off-roading" to more closely what is called "overlanding" these days about 15 years ago. Basically, not off-roading for the sake of off-roading so much as to simply get further the fuck away from people for camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, etc. The overlanding craze and very capable factory rigs the past decade or so makes this a lot damn tougher.
 
I still can't think of a practical use for 3 foot long brightly colored plastic ramps
I just recently watched a video where a winch was being used that had a synthetic rope and was no way to hook with out destroying it on the ledges. So they slid the traction boards under the rope through the center groove. Not all brands have that though.
 
people who get outside regardless of the nonsensical posing we all do, are better off than the people who hunker down on the lounger in front of shows about pawn shops and rich wives.

and people who spend on a bunch of stuff they don't need are awesome for me, they get tired of the slightly old stuff and/or find a new hobby and I can pick up their stuff and repurpose at low cost, god love'em!
Get out of here with your non judgmental and rational stance. That kind of shit isn't tolerated around here.
 
I like to camp, but I also like being comfortable. Blackstone, extensive night scene-lighting, nice chairs, bug deterrents, etc.-- It's all coming. I think the definition of camping has changed from "Los Angeles Unhoused cosplay" to "Bring my living room to the forest", at least for me. Fuck it, I can afford nice things :grinpimp:
 
The overlanders were all over Colorado last month.

I’m guilty of the RTT thing but it makes like easy. My Heep will take me on a lot of forrest roads cars/rv, even Subarus fear to tread. Because of this i can get away from people. Thats the whole point!
 
The family and I went "Boondocking" in our RV with some friends out side of Mammoth, Ca. a week ago. This was less an actual effort to get out in the wilderness and more an effort to not pay exorbitant hotel prices in Mammoth while we rode our bikes there. Shortly after, we drove up 395 to Minden, NV and then over to Soda Springs, Ca. I've heard people talk about the economy taking a dive and people selling off their toys and gas being too expensive for travel, etc. etc. but holy shit apparently that little bubble of the world is not affected by any of that because there were about 5 million RVers, Van Lifers, and overlanders rolling around the whole area.

I used to go to mammoth as a kid with my parents, and way back then you might see the occasional cool jeep, but on our way out of our first campground, I stopped to let probably 30 overland rigs in a group all turn left in front of me. It was one of the most impressive parades of roof top tents, cell phone booster antennas, and Japanese SUVs with actual transfer cases that I have ever seen.

Now these days I frequently partake in the modern definition of "Off-roading", and it's very easy to make fun of all the youtube influencer, skottle cooking, fire-road airing down, roof sleeping activities of "overlanders", but I have to say that watching them all head for sage brush in the eastern sierras shortly after a summer time rain, 4x4 at the ready, and camping arraignments settled... I felt the urge to join them, since it all seemed very similar to the "off-roading" I used to in high school albeit without the extra bolt-on crap, and less fancy cooking (we brought corndogs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and singles of martinellie's apple juice because neither one would get destroyed in the cooler when you accidentally ended up airborne).

Priest- your descriptions were apt and cracked me up when I read them, but also I realized I fit happily into many of those categories and I figure fuck it, you only live once.
 
Last edited:
Glamper here..

Toy hauler in the campground at local offroad parks. fuckit I like shitting in my own toilet and being able to sit around in my undies drinking coffee in the morning.

Having AC when it's 90*+ and humid as fuck, or dry place to retreat when a thunderstorm rolls in is worth the price of admission.

I don't camp to camp, I go camping to wheel. :flipoff2:
 
I transitioned from "off-roading" to more closely what is called "overlanding" these days about 15 years ago. Basically, not off-roading for the sake of off-roading so much as to simply get further the fuck away from people for camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, etc. The overlanding craze and very capable factory rigs the past decade or so makes this a lot damn tougher.

Pretty much same for me
As a kid, it was basically just go out and beat the crap out of our poor rigs, just for the sake of spinning tires.
In the early days of marriage t was a mildly lifted, big tired 1982 Toyota 4x4 with a canopy that the wife and I would explore all over BC and when the going got rough we just kept going and did very remote camping.
Then kids came and it was all on hold - sold the Toyota (single cab bucket seats doesn't work so well with kids) and sold my 1986 Honda XL350 (much regret on that).
As the kids grew, got back into camping/exploring and built up a Jeep Cherokee with 6" long arms and a bunch of fun mods which also made it very capable. Wheeled it for many years and the fun just wore off.
Kids grew up and moved out, now most of our camping is in the camper on the f350, but still out in the sticks, away from any other people. I never go to developed campgrounds. I sometimes surprise myself where I can take an F350 CC dually longbox with a 10.5 ' camper on it.
Basically the camper is a place to keep our stuff. When we camp we still do everything outside and basically just sleep in the camper.
The DD is a 2000 Grand Cherokee and since we still like to explore rough roads once in a while it has a 4" lift and mildly bigger tires and I snagged varilock axles for it. Very good on the street, but still capable for the occasional expedition.
No regrets (except for selling the Honda), everything in its time and I enjoyed each phase. The Jeep still gives me things to do in the shop, and I have a 1970s Honda Trail bike to rebuild and ride.
 
I still can't think of a practical use for 3 foot long brightly colored plastic ramps
We bought a set to try out for our off-road driving school. We were doing a recovery clinic for a bunch of automotive engineers who tend to get stock vehicles stuck while testing off-road. I was skeptical but surprisingly, they work quite well. That said, we've carried them ever since for all of our other classes "just cuz" and have never needed them. I'm about to do a class for some people going solo in the desert area with loose sand and I intend to show them how to use them for self recovery.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DMG
We bought a set to try out for our off-road driving school. We were doing a recovery clinic for a bunch of automotive engineers who tend to get stock vehicles stuck while testing off-road. I was skeptical but surprisingly, they work quite well. That said, we've carried them ever since for all of our other classes "just cuz" and have never needed them. I'm about to do a class for some people going solo in the desert area with loose sand and I intend to show them how to use them for self recovery.
Your classes sound pretty rad. Too bad you're not closer or I'd sign my wife up.
 
Top Back Refresh