Seeking Adventurous Friends? Try These Overlanding Clubs

By this point, you probably know a little bit about the world of overlanding. (Heck, you might know a lot.) What you might not know, however is how to find some like-minded people that share your passion for this burgeoning scene. Luckily, you do know how to find us. And we’ve compiled a helpful list of overlanding clubs to get you started on this newfound adventure.

Whether online or in person, the groups on this list are dedicated to connecting you with the right people, places, and information to put your rig to its intended use. So before you pack up the gear and back ‘er down the driveway, you can get a pretty good idea of which way you’re headed and who you might run into along the way.

Overland Bound (OB)

This online community can prove to be an invaluable resource, especially for newbies or anyone still trying to navigate their way through the overlanding scene. While experts and old heads may find it to be beneath their skill set, OB serves as a useful primer to the lifestyle, and can offer some first-hand information that you simply could not find from local overlanding clubs alone.

Technically speaking, OB is exclusively an online overlanding club run by a travel organization, that, according to the group’s website, “provides resources, online community software and outdoor gear to encourage and facilitate the preservation and exploration of the Great Outdoors.”

A one-time membership fee unlocks online tools and other resources to help connect with other overlanders, both in the area or wherever you may be headed. And online forums make it easier to plan meet ups, trail runs, and clean ups, as well as just share generally helpful information about traveling and destinations. Members also receive discounts on premium gear and equipment from the Overland Bound store.

One of the tools offered by OB, called Rally Point, can prove incredibly useful when it’s time to summon your overlanding compadres for a backroad fiesta. Rally Point allows users to create events, from full trips to quick runs, with details specific to other overlanders. Just fill in the event details, and Rally Point automatically creates a summary announcement page that can be shared, and even get the ball rolling with a forum announcement. (No more mass emails lost to the spam folder.)

To the haters:

Detractors would say that OB is Overlanding Clubs 101, sanitized and corporatized and a little dumbed down for the experts’ taste. But hey pal, this one ain’t for the experts. We all have to start somewhere, and Overlanding Clubs 101 sounds like a great place to get it in gear. Plus, OB has a reputation for giving back in earnest to the overlanding community, and genuinely seem to care about the movement. It also puts members in contact with full-time overlanders who are currently roaming the globe, offering tricks and tips that you simply are not gonna find at the average local meet up.

(For those of you still grumbling, here are some more “regional” ambassadors.)

Northwest Overland Society (NWOL)

Another overlanding club that is anchored primarily online, the Northwest Overland Society (NWOL) is “dedicated to promoting adventure travel, vehicle-dependent overland style expeditions, outdoor enthusiast participation-based activities, and environmentally responsible exploration and education.”

Forged in 2006, NWOL is a member-based community that provides self-guided and escorted overland adventures throughout the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, the group hosts member-led clinics to share tips and tricks, and to practice building overland skills. And with an annual membership fee of only $25—that includes discounted gear and invitations to special club events and giveaways—it’s a steal as far as overlanding clubs are concerned.

Don’t live in the Pacific Northwest? No problem! There’s a similar chapter in whatever corner of the country you call home. Check out Northeast Overland, Midwest Overland Society, and Overland Southwest for more information.

Overlanding Association.org

Let’s say you’re happy with your local club. It’s a great bunch of people and you have fun in your area, but you want to branch out and connect your club with some other like-minded overlanding groups nearby. Or maybe your group is planning a long voyage, and would like to connect with a local club once you get to where you’re going. Need help with any of that? Then OverlandingAssociation.org is where you need to be.

“The Overlanding Association is a not-for-profit overlanding community, providing inspiration, help, and advice to Overland Travelers. As a collaborative and open organization, we wish to work with as many other communities as we can,” says the group. Though a bit cluttered, the website is indeed smothered in contact information from overlanding groups across the globe. Facebook groups for Overland North America, Overland Europe, Overland Africa, and countless others, are listed—along with the groups’ enrollment numbers, whether they are public or private, and even the rate at which they’are growing.

The group’s other website, Overland Sphere, shares blog posts, overlanding news, tips, and stories from members the world over. And the information on this particular site that can be put to practical use is, frankly, second to none. There’s an entire section dedicated to visa requirements in various countries. Another tells you what sort of snags you may run into if traveling with a pet. There’s even an interactive map detailing Malaria risk, based on hard data from a host of reputable health organizations. AAAAANNNDNDD, to top it all off, it would all appear to be entirely free.

Expedition Portal (ExPo)

Back in the wild west days of the overlanding world, circa 2005, Expedition Portal was founded by Overland International CEO Scott Brady (the parent company for both Overland Journal magazine and the popular Overland Rally event series). ExPo is run by an experienced team of adventurers who have seen action on all seven continents. With the popularity of overland clubs exploding, Expedition Portal has grown as well, and is currently the single-largest repository of overland resources on the internet. Period.

The pages of Expedition Portal contain a treasure trove of information that overlanders of all stripes and skill levels can find useful. The site’s volumes contain over 3,000 feature editorials, 175,000 community members, and over 2.3 million forum posts.

“ExPo brings you the latest news, the hidden insights, and the human faces behind past, current and future expeditions around the globe. If you love adventure, want to explore on your own, with a group, or with your loved ones, the ExPo community’s resources can help.”

ExPo offers regional rallies, regular meetups, and occasional prize giveaways. It functions as an ideal place to post local trips, form meet and greets, get some local help with your projects, etc. And better still, an entire section of their site is dedicated to regional ExPo chapters (Northeast, Central States, and Midwest).

Honorable Mention

Look, we know that overlanding clubs are a world of their own. But to be even more selective, Jeep-specific overlanding is a world-of-its-own within a world-of-its-own. So for all the Jeepers out there who prefer to stick with their seven-slot kind, here’s a couple extras just for you:

JeepForum.com can no doubt be more about off-roading than overlanding most of the time. But this is THE place to meet fellow Jeep peeps in your area, and you know there’s gotta be SOMEBODY there who can plug you into your local overlanding loop.

Additionally, JeepExpeditions.org is a non-profit overlanding club for—you guessed it—Jeeps only, with a particular focus in the Southwestern United States. “Jeep Expeditions members enjoy adventures that vary in length from one day, a weekend, long weekend, week long, two weeks, and like our Arctic Expedition in 2011, a full month.” Most trips are usually a day or two, though, and are family and pet friendly.

Now GO.

Drive. Ride. Camp. Sleep in a tent on your roof. Cook breakfast in the passenger seat. Stop wherever you get tired, and go a few hundred more miles tomorrow. And use these tools to find some people to share it with. Because after all, isn’t that the whole point?