Overlanding

Overlanding is self-reliant overland travel to remote destinations where the journey is the principal goal. Typically, but not exclusively, it is accomplished with mechanized off-road capable transport (from bicycles to trucks) where the principal form of lodging is camping, often lasting for extended lengths of time (months to years) and spanning international boundaries.

Historically, "overlanding" is an Australian term to denote the droving of over very long distances to open up new country or to take livestock to market far from grazing grounds. Between 1906 and 1910 Alfred Canning opened up the . In Australia overlanding was inspired to a large degree by Len Beadell who, in the 1940s and 1950s, constructed many of the roads that opened up the Australian Outback. Those roads are still used today by Australian overlanders and still hold the names Len gave them; the Gunbarrel Highway, the Connie Sue Highway (named after his daughter), and the Anne Beadell Highway (named after his wife).

Overlanding in its most modern form with the use of mechanized transport began in the middle of the last century with the advent of commercially available four-wheel-drive trucks (Mercedes-Benz G-Class's, Unimog, Jeeps and Land Rovers). Nonetheless, there were a few earlier pioneers travelling in remarkably unsophisticated vehicles.

In the early 1920s, John Weston and family travelled from Britain to Greece and back in a converted US built Commerce one ton truck with a Continental N engine. At the time, the Weston family was based in Europe but returned to South Africa, their homeland, in 1924, taking the vehicle with them. In 1931, the family set out in the same truck from the south-western tip of Africa and drove to Cairo and on to Britain. Not only is this story well-documented but remarkably the vehicle is still extant. In 1975, following renovation, it featured in the International Veteran and Vintage Car Rally from Durban to Cape Town and was then donated to the Winterton Museum, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, where it can be seen today.

In 1949, with the Land Rover brand less than a year old, Colonel Leblanc drove his brand new 80-inch Series I Land Rover from the United Kingdom to Abyssinia.

...
Wikipedia