Overland crossing

Overlanding is the adventure of distance. The country between the famous places is the trip: the altiplano climbing from San Pedro to the Salar de Uyuni, the gravel from Windhoek to the dunes, the ten hours of sand from Morondava to the Tsingy, the road over the Khardung La. The vehicle is a home and a risk at once, and the plan that works treats the driving as the activity rather than the transfer.

What it asks of the body

Less than any other adventure and more than it looks. Ten hours on a rough road is tiring in a way that a walk is not, and the altitude on the Andean and Himalayan crossings does its work through the window. Rest days are part of the route, not a luxury.

What it asks of the calendar

Roads open and close with the seasons. The Tsingy road is impassable from November to April, the Ladakh roads from November to May, the Bolivian salt floods in the mirror season and Tanna’s track becomes a river in the cyclone months. The Monte Carlo run models delays here better than weather: convoys, ferries and breakdowns are the variables.

What it costs

Shared four ways, a vehicle and a driver is the cheapest way to reach the hardest places on this site. The operator’s vehicles and drivers are the thing to spend on; the crashes that make the news share a cause and it is never the road.