What is Overlanding

Google defines Overlanding as, self-reliant, vehicle-based adventure travel to remote destinations where the journey is the primary goal. Combining off-road driving with camping, it emphasizes exploring nature, experiencing new cultures, and long-distance travel over multiple days or weeks, often using 4x4 vehicles, SUVs, or motorcycles. We had to make a few modifications to the grand idea of Overlanding, mainly because William has a hard enough time on a bicycle, so a motorcycle was out of the question. And while, I think Jamie and I may not kill each other living in tight quarters like the back of a Highlander, throw a budding teen in the mix and we needed something bigger than a 4×4.

Thanks to Facebook and reels, Jamie began her research as to where and what land we were going to go ‘over’. Enter the Pan-American Highway. A 30,000km (~16,000 mile) roadway that spans from Alaska in the north, to Argentina in the south. It spans 14 countries and other than a 60-mile gap between Panama and Columbia, is the longest motorway in the world. That 60-mile gap, know as the Darian Gap, will be the determining factor on what we can travel this roadway in. We’re gonna need something bigger than the Highlander and some tents (even though it is frequently done that way), I personally need some creature comforts that doesn’t always require me to hang food in a tree and dig a hole to dispose of such digested food. And as much as I wanted to pull a trailer, or a fifth-wheel, a compromise had to be made.

For us to say Weirback On Track, we decided we were to Overland in a truck camper. Not a fifth-wheeler and not just a shell on the back of a truck. The compromise had been made … or so we thought.