Round the world overland
Overland travel or overlanding refers to a journey performed without the use of flights. This may include:
- Travel to relatively distant or inaccessible points (such as the Australian outback) with vehicles designed to be capable of off-road use.
- Cross-continental travel without flights or boats – a famous historical example being Marco Polo's first overland expedition in the 13th century from Venice to the Chinese court of Kublai Khan.
- Round-the-world travel using sea travel between continents and road or rail travel ashore, in the Around the world in 80 days tradition.
Since the 1960s overlanding has been a popular means of travel between destinations across Africa, Europe, Asia (particularly India), the Americas and Australia. In the 1960s and 70s, thousands of young Westerners travelled the "Hippie Trail" through the Middle East to India and Nepal. See Istanbul to New Delhi over land.
UnderstandTravelling around the world has been a goal for many intrepid explorers ever since humans suspected that the world was round.
ItinerariesThere are a limited number of arranged overland trips around the world. In practice these trips are cruises circumnavigating the globe from port to port, therefore a more describing name for them would be "over seas".
Get aroundIn 1907, a car race from Beijing to Paris was arranged, and in 1936 two drivers from Prague drove around the world in 97 days .
Individual legsNorthern Africa can be easily visited from Europe. However, if you want to travel further south overland you need to cross the Sahara desert, which is a challenging task.
SummaryThese days, overland journeys explore most continents; the only one not yet regularly travelled is Antarctica.
See also
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Round the world overland" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0