The Final Information to Overland Occasions in North America

Whereas its roots may be traced again to Prescott, Ariz., and the primary Overland Expo in 2009, the North American overland occasions panorama has drastically modified, particularly within the final half-decade.

In addition to the Overland Expo in Arizona, the early years additionally noticed a handful of Overland Rally occasions, most backed by Overland Worldwide, sprout up throughout the nation. These regional occasions helped introduce hundreds to overland journey and had been extra community-driven than industry-focused.

Whereas the identical ethos exists between the smaller native occasions and large Overland Expos as we speak, there’s much more of all the above.

Overland Expos

Overland Expo has expanded to 4 occasions every year and change into much more gear- and industry-focused. The biggest occasion remains to be the unique in Arizona, now known as Overland Expo West. In 2024, it noticed upward of 29,500 attendees and 415 distributors.

The Overland Expo occasion collection is now on its third proprietor, at present Emerald Expositions (a trade-show occasion firm). It continues to veer away from training and neighborhood and focus an increasing number of on gear.

Whereas hands-on demonstrations and shifting car coaching have been significantly lowered, vendor spots and promoting alternatives have been maximized.

Completely happy hours and events have additionally significantly gone down, leaving simply those that pays the excessive charges for ID checks/safety, licensed bartenders, and alcohol from authorised distributors.

The Overland Expo occasions are nonetheless the place to get a primary take a look at the most recent and best gear on supply from the {industry}, in addition to the most recent car builds. These occasions are additionally the place you’ll probably meet worldwide vacationers — although it looks as if fewer attend every year.

Overland Rallies & Rendezvous

Lots of the early Overland Rally occasions disappeared, however a couple of nonetheless stay, particularly NW Overland Rally and Mid Atlantic Overland Festival. Nevertheless, a plethora of small overland rally occasions sprouted up everywhere in the continent lately.

Whereas most of those occasions essentially have the identical construction/items because the Expos — distributors, seminars, hands-on instruction, communal food and drinks, on-site tenting — they have a tendency to attract a extra localized crowd, and focus much less on the gear and extra on neighborhood constructing.

There are additionally a handful of rendezvous-type occasions, which focus extra on communal tenting and path driving. These occasions are normally placed on by native golf equipment/teams fairly than companies making an attempt to make a revenue.

The overland rally and rendezvous occasions have a tendency to draw a couple of hundred to some thousand folks. Even the most important of them stays orders of magnitude smaller than any of the 4 Overland Expo occasions held every year, which may draw 30,000+ attendees.

Defining an Overland Occasion

There are such a lot of overland occasions now that protecting monitor of all of them may be very arduous. And lots of occasions have massive overland {industry} parts, however aren’t essentially centered on overlanding. Additionally, some argue that automobile tenting festivals and RV meetups are simply as “overland” as different similar-style occasions listed right here.

That’s to say, this listing presents a stable start line however is on no account complete of each overland occasion you could possibly attend in North America. I purposefully excluded RV-focused occasions from this listing.

2024/2025 Overland Occasions Calendar

Overland Occasions

All of those occasions have their place within the {industry}, however the overland occasion house has change into saturated. Previously 12 years on this {industry}, I’ve personally been to over 10 totally different overland-specific occasions and north of 34 whole occasions. Occasion fatigue is actual!

For me, overlanding is about self-reliant, vehicle-based journey journey. Whereas one can outline that in numerous methods and imply very various things to totally different folks, all of it comes right down to touring by car — the place the journey itself is the purpose, not the vacation spot.

Overland occasions are nice locations to construct neighborhood, get journey suggestions, learn to use important gear, discover offers on gear, and customarily have a good time with like-minded folks.

Nevertheless, in my view, attending overland occasions is not overlanding. Admittedly, my opinion may fall within the minority in as we speak’s North American overland neighborhood. The quantity of people that ask overland firms without cost merchandise to help their “expedition” to overland occasions is laughable. Don’t be that individual.

Go Journey!

Whereas I actually cherish many recollections I’ve from these occasions, together with friendships made and abilities realized, the experiences I wish to share round a campfire or pint on the pub are people who I made touring to new locations and experiencing native cultures.

Attend some overland occasions, however keep in mind that it’s possible extra helpful to make use of your restricted journey time and funds to truly get out and discover.

One ultimate factor to notice: I lived on the highway, largely in North America, for almost 8 years and by no means ran out of cool locations to see and fascinating folks to fulfill. You don’t must journey all that far to benefit from the spirit of overland journey.

With that mentioned, most of my most vivid recollections are these created in far-off lands, with individuals who spoke a distinct language, and after I was uncomfortable in a technique or one other. Hopefully, I’ll see you at an overland occasion quickly. Or, higher but, I’ll stumble upon you on the highway much less traveled.