Overland vacations

Our overland vacations from Cape Town to Victoria Falls tread a classic route. Join a tour in the South African city. Three weeks and 5,000km later you’ll find yourself shouting farewell to your traveling companions over the thundering of Victoria Falls, after a trip that has taken you from South Africa to Zimbabwe, via Botswana and Namibia – and through all the amazing scenery that goes along with it.

In Asia, our overland routes include going through the Stans – swapping a camel train for motorised transport, but keeping the sense of adventure, or taking a bullet train across Honshu, Japan. Alternatively, look to Indochina for inspiration, following an inexpensive and easy route around Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and exploring everything from Angkor Wat to Halong Bay and Bangkok.

In the Americas, our overland vacations might take you all the way from the top of South America to the wilds of Patagonia, or across North America. Perhaps you’ll consider something in between: overlanding by truck or coach it’s easy to country hop down Central America’s skinny isthmus, visiting six countries over 24 days, and it’s one of our most popular routes.

Buffet cars and bunk beds, timetables and tickets – where they work well, railways can turn traveling into an idiosyncratic pleasure, and make a worthy replacement to internal flights – as well as being a less carbon-intensive mode of travel. Countries like India, Japan and Scotland are a joy to experience from a train carriage and continents like Europe have frequent, reliable services that make short work of the distances and cross borders with ease. Make tracks on our rail overland adventures and you can even go as far as half way across the globe: travel between Singapore and London by train – a distance of nearly 20,000km that takes two months to see 16 countries.

Some might be short and sweet, but for the most part, the overland trips on our site are some of the longest vacations that we offer – and they’re also immensely popular. Why? Because they can be fantastic bonding experiences in which you and a group of strangers embark on a literal voyage of discovery for several weeks. Expect to travel in a small group of perhaps 12 to 18 people. These are adventures where your small group aren’t just traveling companions, they are your team – you’ll be relying on each other as you go. You’ll work together: shopping for dinner together, cooking, washing up. You’ll play together, too: I-spy on long journeys and card games at the campfire. You’ll give each other more than company: inspiration, energy, and motivation, too. Our small group adventures are great for solo travelers if you don’t mind sharing your tent (or bringing your own) – and many people join these trips alone, only to make fantastic friends along the way.

Some of our overland expeditions use purpose-built expedition trucks. These behemoths look like they can tackle anything, and indeed they’re designed for on and off-road adventures, carrying everything you need to spend weeks at a time traveling through a country. They are packed with care, carrying tents and small kitchens, refrigeration and medical supplies. You aren’t spending all day on the road – perhaps averaging four to six hours between sights. When you’re not traveling, you might be sightseeing, but you’ll also be helping at camp. After all, you’re not just a passenger on these trips, you are part of the expedition – pitching the tents, washing dishes, communal cooking – and bonding with an amazing group of travelers. Our overland trips by truck might take you through the Stans along the Silk Road, or through Africa, where you’ll have much more rewarding opportunities to meet with local people than you would by flying in and out of a safari conservancy.