Long time lurkers. We joined to participate in this discussion FWIW. Anyway, we don't think the labels are useful. We came to overlanding / offroading after decades of hiking/climbing/backpacking. In that world the same debates rage about who's "really" doing the sport. Weekend backpackers vs technical climbers vs "through-hikers" who spend weeks or months on the trials at a time. Who cares? As long as you're doing what you enjoy and being a steward of the trails do whatever your budget and work/family responsibilities allow.
We've found it extremely similar with the overlanding/offroading culture. The "off-roading/wheeling" crowd, like the technical climbing crowd, are equipment and skill focused. The outdoors part is typically a secondary means to and end. The through-hikers are like the purist overlanders, the journey is the destination.
But the truth is, in both worlds, the vast majority of us are doing something in the middle and very much enjoying it.
The idea for us, transitioning from weekend/expedition backpacking to overlanding when our knees started to warn us, is always just to get outside and rustic camp in places not all can go, be self-sufficient and somewhat minimalist. Sometimes that means simply randomly driving out to where the cell phone stops working, base camping and spending the days driving and hiking various difficulty trails (eg Class IV or VI roads in NH or VT). Other times it means long drives on a mix of pavement, gravel and not too challenging forest or firetrail road and getting out to hike a waterfall or see a point of interest like an old forge or mill, a battlefield, or an abandoned ski lodge (the BDRs are great for that highly recommend).
As long as the constant is being together, being outside and relying on ourselves as much as possible, we don't care what it's called.
