When I was younger I ran a marathon. I bought running shoes, trained for months and prepared in every way for the race. The week of the marathon I picked up my race packet, visited all of the booths at the starting point, fueled properly, hydrated and rested. Early in the race I remember being passed my an old man - he had to be in his 70’s. He was barefoot, has no shirt on and no race number. When the race ended I looked for him to see if he had finished. After being unable to find him I asked a volunteer there if they had seen him. The woman responded, “ yes, he is still running”. Confused because I don’t remember passing him a second time, I inquired where he was on the course. The woman responded with an answer that I’ll never forget, “he isn’t on the course, he is probably ten miles beyond it at this point - he runs this way everyday and goes out for forty, fifty and even a hundred miles at a time”. I learned a valuable lesson that day. At the start of the race I didn’t consider the old man a serious runner, and, at the end of the race and after hearing about the old man, I didn’t consider myself a serious runner. We all have a different perspective on overlanding. There are people here who won’t give you the time of day if you have a clean rig or a Hi-lift jack and shovel that don’t look like they’ve been used, and there are people here who won’t travel with you if it doesn’t look like you take care of your equipment. There are people here who have rigs that take them to and from work each day, and are mostly stock with the exception of baby seats in the back seat, and there are those who have fully modified and dedicated expedition vehicles. For most of us our rig is a vehicle, for others it is a home. Some people here rarely leave their local off-road trails and consider themselves hardcore, while others only use their rig for the most remote of places and don’t consider themselves experienced at all. But despite our differences, we are all brought together because we love to get into a vehicle and explore - no matter what terrain, what environment or what it is called. Later in life I had the honor of meeting the old man that passed me during the marathon. When I introduced myself there was a part of me that feared he wouldn’t take me seriously as a runner - but he did. “I may not run marathons like you, wear a number like you or even share the same perspective on running as you do, but at the end of the day we both leave the house in the morning for the purpose of getting out and putting one foot in front of the other”. My point is this - forget the title overlanding and what it does or does not include. Do what you do and respect others for doing what they do. We are all just here because of our love for putting the rig in drive and setting out.
