Overlanding / Expedition Driving in May

The Peruvian altiplano between Cusco and Puno, running at 3,800m elevation along the shore of Lake Titicaca, is one of the world's most dramatic high-altitude driving environments. Cross the border at Desaguadero into Bolivia and the routes extend across the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni and south through the Atacama. From Cusco alone, the circuit toward Puno takes in colonial churches, pre-Inca ruins, and altiplano landscapes that are genuinely unlike anything at lower elevation. The remoteness is real; mechanical preparation and spare parts matter here.

The Gobi is where Mongolian overlanding earns its name. There are almost no sealed roads across the south, so a Gobi expedition means days of driving braided tracks between gers and seasonal camps, navigating by land and local knowledge. The route strings together the singing dunes of Khongoryn Els, the ice-filled gorge of Yolyn Am, and the red Flaming Cliffs of Bayanzag, where Roy Chapman Andrews found the first known dinosaur eggs in the 1920s. Nights are in ger camps or under a sky with no light for hundreds of kilometers. This is expedition travel: long distances, self-sufficient vehicles, and camel- and horse-herding families as your only neighbors for days at a time.

Mangystau is one of the strangest landscapes in Central Asia, a desert region on the Caspian coast where tens of millions of years of erosion on the old Tethys sea floor have carved chalk cliffs, tabletop plateaus and whole valleys of odd forms. The headline sights are Boszhira, a valley of white peaks and fangs rising from the plain, the Torysh field of giant spherical stone balls, the Tuzbair salt flat, and underground mosques cut into limestone at pilgrimage sites like Beket-Ata. There are almost no roads and no phone signal across much of it, so this is expedition driving: long days in a four-wheel-drive convoy on unmarked tracks, camping out under very dark skies. Aktau on the coast is the staging city.

Morocco's southern routes offer one of the most accessible genuine desert overland experiences in the world. From Marrakech the route over the High Atlas drops into the Draa Valley, passes the kasbahs at Ait Benhaddou and Ouarzazate, and continues into the Sahara at Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes. The piste roads south of Ouarzazate are graded and manageable in a competent 4x4 with moderate off-road experience. For more serious terrain, Foum Zguid and the Chegaga dunes to the west involve real sand navigation. The whole circuit from Marrakech and back can be done in a week; two weeks gives time to explore properly.

Moab is where the world learns to drive rock, and the White Rim Trail is the graduation: a 100-mile sandstone loop below the Island in the Sky mesa, driven self-supported over two to three days with permit-capped campsites keeping it wild. What no other 4WD destination offers is the pipeline: take a training course from Nena Barlow, an International 4WD Trainer Association master trainer, rent an expedition-prepped Jeep from the same outfit, and run the White Rim yourself the same week. Learn-then-do at this quality exists almost nowhere else in vehicle-based travel, and the slickrock playground around town lets you build skills before committing to the canyon.

Namibia is the country the self-drive safari was built for. Good gravel roads, low traffic, a stable climate and safe towns let you cover the whole story on your own: dunes at Sossusvlei, the coast at Swakopmund, rhino country in Damaraland, the waterholes of Etosha, all on a single loop from Windhoek in a kitted 4x4 with a roof tent and a fridge. The distances are long and the fuel stops far apart, so the discipline is planning, not bravery. Bushlore hands over fully equipped 4x4s with a proper pre-departure briefing, and Secret Namibia will plan the route, book the camps and put a local guide on the ground if you want a hand.

The Sani Pass is the classic overland drive into Lesotho, a rough gravel road that hauls itself up the Drakensberg escarpment in a series of steep hairpins to a border post at 2,874 meters. It is the only road link between KwaZulu-Natal and the eastern highlands of the Mountain Kingdom, and the last stretch is 4x4-only, low-range work with sheer drops and no barriers, which is exactly why the climb has become a bucket-list drive rather than just a border crossing. The reward at the summit is the plateau of Lesotho itself, treeless and enormous, plus the Sani Mountain Lodge bar, billed as the highest pub in Africa. Weather makes every trip different: cloud can swallow the pass in minutes, and in winter snow closes it altogether. Most travelers go up with a guided 4x4 operator from the South African side, stopping at a Basotho homestead and the little Sani Top church, though experienced drivers with the right vehicle and paperwork can tackle it themselves. Either way it is one of the great mountain roads of Africa.

This is arguably South America's definitive 4x4 traverse, and it is an A-to-B expedition rather than a loop: three to four days entirely off pavement from the salt flat across the high altiplano to the Chilean border, sleeping in remote refugios with no connectivity. The route stacks Laguna Colorada red with three breeding flamingo species, the Sol de Manana geothermal field near 4,900 meters, the Salvador Dali Desert, the Polques hot springs, and Laguna Verde under the cone of Licancabur, before dropping you in San Pedro de Atacama. Few road journeys left on the continent are this far off the grid.

The Darvaza gas crater is the reason most travelers come to Turkmenistan, and the way to reach it is a 4x4 expedition into the Karakum, the desert that covers most of the country. The crater is a wide pit of natural gas that has burned without pause since Soviet geologists set it alight in 1971, roaring loudest and glowing brightest after dark. The classic trip drives out from Ashgabat, crosses open sand to the rim, and camps for the night so you see the fire against a black desert sky and a full field of stars. Along the way you pass the smaller water and mud craters near Darvaza and cross a landscape of dunes, saxaul scrub and near-total silence. It is expedition travel, remote and self-contained, run by a local crew who carry fuel, water and camping kit, and outside the crater itself you are unlikely to see anyone else.

The Argentine Puna is expedition driving in the strict sense: a 4,000-meter desert plateau where you carry your fuel and water, camp wild or sleep in high-altitude hosterias, and can go days without passing another vehicle. The reward is a catalog of landscapes that look rendered rather than real: the Campo de Piedra Pomez pumice field, the perfect pyramid of the Cono de Arita rising off the Salar de Arizaro, flamingo lagoons at altitudes where nothing should be pink, all rimmed by giants like Ojos del Salado and Llullaillaco. Entry and exit run through the UNESCO-listed Quebrada de Humahuaca and the high vineyards of the Calchaqui valleys, so even the transit days earn their place.

Dirt tracks climb from the plateau into the Dikti range and drop toward the south coast, on ground that needs clearance rather than skill.