Overlanding can be a reconnection with our surroundings for the soul

Eight years ago, though it seems a lifetime past, my life was an adventure. I was living and traveling with my husband Joe and our black Labrador, Bella, in our Vanagon Syncro Westfalia. We had no agenda. Each day was a new day of travel, discovery and building new connections with people we hadn’t known the day before. We were overlanders. We felt pretty proud of ourselves.

Now we read blogs and articles and Facebook posts from other overlanders and feel a tinge of inadequacy. Since we haven’t sold everything we own and moved into our van, Jeep, Toyota, whatever… to explore the world, the thought arises that somehow we have not fully grasped the overland dream.

I struck up a conversation with a customer recently by asking if he got out on trips very often. His answer was, “I get out on weekends a lot… but weekends don’t really count.” 

Weekends don’t count? What have I been living for all these years?!

How far do I have to go, what gear I need to have, and how long do I have to be gone before I’m officially an “overlander?”

 In the broadest sense, there really can’t be any qualifications here. By the broadest definition allowable, whether it be weekend getaways, week-long trips, or months or year-long journeys, I’ll be an overlander until I’m an underlander. I live above ground so whether I like it or not, I’ll be an “overlander” until I die. Then I’ll be an underlander. And I can’t assume or imagine what adventures that might entail.

But for the overland passion that has taken hold of so many of us, the real determining factor comes down to where we recharge our batteries and find our “groundedness.”

From my educational and training background, I have always been intrigued by the human / soil connection. Regardless which creation or evolutionary beginnings one adheres to, we are born out of the earth. In creation accounts life is breathed into us after being formed from the soil. In evolutionary accounts we evolve from the primordial stuff of the planet. And in either case, we return to the earth, the soil, upon our deaths.

The inherent connection between humanity and the earth is inarguable. Some of us are able to liquidate our first world belongings and live a life of continuous travel. Others of us take each chance we get to head out for a hike, steal away for a stroll in the woods with the pups, embark on a weekend driving adventure into woods to camp and hike, or even set out on month-long adventures into other states, countries and cultures.

When it comes right down to the nitty-gritty details, perhaps it is not so much the gear we have, the vehicle we drive, or the duration of our travel that makes us overlanders. If we are the sort of folk who find our energy and groundedness restored in the woods, if we find cultural experiences enrich us and enliven us, if we appreciate the challenge of being self-sufficient in our travels, then we are overlanders. Because being an overlander is a mindset and a way of life — where weekends count. And we are overlanders until we are underlanders.

OutdoorX4 Magazine – Promoting responsible vehicle-based adventure travel and outdoors adventure