Episode: 4037
Title: HPR4037: What is Overlanding?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4037/hpr4037.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 18:53:45

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This is Hacker Public Radio, episode 4,037 for Tuesday, the 23rd of January 2024.
Today's show is entitled, What is Overlanding?
It is hosted by Covemo, and is about 8 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we talk to George of Southwest Idaho
overlanding about his obsession with overlanding.
Oh, this is Covemo for Hacker Public Radio.
And today I have the pleasure of being with George from Southwest Idaho Overlanding.
He's got a YouTube channel linked below.
I've had some interest in overlanding for quite a few years,
and I see that there's a lot of different ideas of what overlanding is.
So I've got George here.
I'm going to ask him, George, in your opinion, what is overlanding?
Well, overlanding to me is basically what would have been called in the olden days, car camping.
So basically, you're going from point A to point B, and you're basically driving overland.
Obviously, if you're on waterways, you'd be going over the ocean,
but if you're driving across the land, then you're overlanding.
But yeah, it's point A to point B using a vehicle in general.
Some people can use bicycles, or I've even heard of overlanding with scooters.
And then, of course, you've got people that have the full blown rigs,
but that's all unnecessary equipment for somebody that wants to start out with overlanding.
So as I hear you out there, excluding bicycles and motorcycles,
what I've got gathered from being on the internet is that you need at least a $60,000 vehicle
to start off overlanding this.
Yeah, am I right about that?
No, I mean, there's a lot of people out there that like to buy their gear,
but in general, if you're a camper, really, and I have a car,
you can overland with just a camp gear in a car,
because basically, you're just traveling from point A to point B.
Basically, what I like to say is that if you're going camping, you get in your car,
you take a camp gear, you drive somewhere else, and then you set up and you camp for a day or two,
and then you get loader playing up and come back home.
Overlanding is more, you put your camp gear in your car, you drive to point A or point B,
and then you unload, camp overnight, and you load it back up in the morning,
and you go to somewhere else.
That's basically what you're doing.
You're going to place to place usually when you're overlanding.
And it could be anything, you know, it's just a place that you might have to stop
because it's getting late, or it could be a planned location that you want to camp at.
And then, you know, just keep moving.
You know, to me, camping in one spot gets kind of boring after a while.
You know, some people like to fish, I like to overland.
Alright, several times there, you mentioned your camp equipment.
So I'm assuming that means that you've got to have a rooftop tent,
you've got to have a scottle, you've got to have a ginormous, cooler attach to a solar panel
so that you could be out there for that length of time.
Am I understanding that correctly?
No.
I mean, some people might want you to think that, because they want to sell you gear,
but in a lot of actuality, if you just have a sleeping bag, and, you know,
really don't even need anything to cook.
If you take food that you don't need to cook, I mean,
basically, overlanding is going from point A to point B,
and maybe point C and D and E, just using your vehicle,
whatever vehicle that might be, whether it's motorized vehicle or
moped, or whatever, there's a bunch of different takes on overlanding, for sure.
So now, because you're going to be out in the wilderness, away from everybody,
I assume surviving on your own wits, you probably want to have the newest state
of the art equipment with you.
What kind of equipment do you carry with you when you go out on your overland trips?
Well, I mean, I'm not the bare bones person by any means, not say that you can't,
but I'm not spending a lot of money on a vehicle and my camp gear.
I'm basically using an old Coleman stove that was built in early 1960s.
I'm using just a basic sleeping bag that, I mean, was under a hundred bucks.
I built myself a trailer, which might be a little extravagant for somebody else,
but for me, it's perfect.
And see, and the vehicle, I mean, really, you could, like I said, vehicles
is the preference of whoever wants to do the overlanding.
You don't have to have the high dollar vehicle to get you from point A to point B.
The main thing is that you know that it's dependable.
It can get you where you want to go.
If it's not dependable, then I'll probably want to recommend overlanding
unless you just stay on pavement, which is the thing, you know,
you can overland on pavement as well.
And some people think that you have to take dirt roads and stuff to be overlanding,
but you don't have to.
That's just a personal preference of people, so.
All right.
Very interesting.
Tell me, do you have any big projects out ahead of you in your overlanding adventures?
Well, yes.
Well, I've had a channel for a few years now, and we've traveled a lot of terrain,
and I have people that have been asking me where these locations are at,
and often I keep this kind of close to the heart because it places it.
We don't want overland, but you know, I felt that I needed to give the overland
community something to look forward to, you know, and so basically I've been
putting together over the last, well, really in the last few months really hard,
but over the past few years I've always thought that it would be kind of cool
if we could traverse Idaho from the west border to the east border using as little pavement
as possible.
That's something that, personally, is two tracks and, you know, country roads,
forest roads.
So I've been putting together what I call the West East Idaho Overland Route, and this
year I'm kind of putting the final pieces together and making a full run this fall, and then
hopefully if everything goes well, we will be releasing some information throughout the
winter and hopefully we'll see some positive feedback early next, I don't know, the spring
of 2025, so yeah, that sounds really exciting.
If the subscribers to HPR were interested in learning more about overlanding, where would
you set them?
Well, I mean, you can type in overlanding on YouTube, and I don't bring up a lot of
different overlanding channels, basically you can have to pick through them, find ones
that you like, some of them are more gear-related and some of them more trip-related, and, you
know, then most of them will have newer vehicles than I have, so my vehicle is 40 years old,
so I might even be more than that, say, it'd be, well, it's pushing 50 years old now.
Wow, so, I mean, but that just proves that you don't have to have that fancy new vehicle
out on the rip on the trail, you know, a lot of people ask me, how do I drive an old
vehicle out on the trail, and I was like, well, you know, if it's dependable, and I know
it's going to give me a point A to B, why not?
So, exactly.
Well, thank you, George, I appreciate you coming on the show today, and I would like to
recommend that anybody who wants to keep this channel up and running, please put out an episode.
Thank you very much, this is Kuvmo, out.
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