Hi Georgia Overlanders,
February 2020 marks the ten year anniversary of the first Georgia Overland blog post and I thought I would celebrate a decade of Georgia Overland with a few observations. 

​Observation 1: A factory stock 4WD or AWD car, truck or SUV with reasonable ground clearance is sufficient to negotiate 99% of the legal, off-pavement and mostly well-maintained graded gravel roads found along The Georgia Traverse. As many have mentioned on forums and in conversation, you can drive a common, everyday front wheel drive sedan on 90% of the roads, provided the weather is dry and conditions are favorable. The point is this, don't worry about building the 'perfect' rig, get out there and explore with whatever you happen to be driving or riding. 

Observation 2: There is no right or wrong way to 'overland'. What was once known as packing up the car and going camping has become a massive industry selling us clever and robust solutions for problems we have yet to, and may never, encounter. Here's one take on travel today and be sure to read Ted Simon's thoughts on this topic. 

Observation 3: GeorgiaOverland.com has had far more visitors than I could have imagined when I began developing the route (later to become 'The Georgia Traverse') across North Georgia over ten years ago. In the last ten years this site has had more than fifty thousand visitors and nearly 900k page views. I know it's not going to break any records related to 'daily active users' and that's not that point of the site. You can drop by once, download a few files, and go about your day. It's not meant to function as a means to generate advertising revenue and it's not meant to sell you on a lifestyle or image of what 'travel' is or should be. You may have also noticed that the site does not focus on photos or detailed descriptions of the route and this is entirely intentional. The act of travelling somewhere you have yet to visit and know little about is exciting and it doesn't matter if it's around the corner or around the world. I derived a great deal of enjoyment exploring the backroads of North Georgia and I wish the same for you! 

Georgia Overland is, and will always be, offered to the community completely free and without any paid advertising. In an age where everything seems to be monetized, I'm happy to offer this to the community as a free service. I hope you find the information useful and I owe the community a tremendous debt for making The Georgia Traverse into the what it is today. I see the Instagram pics of your incredible rigs, I read your Facebook posts and forum comments mentioning the route as a destination you visited, or plan to visit, and I find this all quite remarkable. Thank you!

Lastly, I always feel an obligation to remind others to be careful out there. Plan on much slower travel speeds (10-20mph) when driving on dirt and gravel roads. Like any trip into the outdoors, please use common sense and let someone know where you are going and when you plan to return. Trail conditions can change from day to day and some sections may be very remote with no traffic and no services (no fuel, food or cell phone service). With limited or nonexistent services, you must plan accordingly when it comes to food, fuel and the possibility of an unplanned overnight. Pack and know how to properly use a First Aid kit. Please practice responsible use and pack out what you pack in. Stay on the trail. Visit Tread Lightly! for tips on reducing the impact on the land by you and your vehicle.

Safe travels,
David Giguere
Founder of Georgia Overland
Creator of The Georgia Traverse

In April 2018, I received an email from Josh Loveland asking a few questions about the Georgia Overland website and my experience mapping and publishing The Georgia Traverse. The message went on to say that Josh had spent the last year developing an incredible, 2,400 mile East Coast overland route that connected to The Georgia Traverse in Dillard, Georgia. Knowing the amount of effort it takes to carefully map a local route, I was intrigued to hear more about his unbelievable, multi-state 2,400 mile route. We exchanged emails and phone calls over the months that followed as he finalized the route and built his Appalachian Byway website.

The Appalachian Byway is a monumental effort. The route Josh developed includes "...over 2,400 miles of back roads, dirt roads, and scenic mountain passes. It follows the Appalachian trail all the way from the southern terminus in Georgia to the northern terminus in Maine."  Josh offers seven .gpx files including Maine, Vermont/New Hampshire, New York/Connecticut/Massachusetts, Pennsylvania/New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Southern Virginia, North Carolina/Tennessee. Together, the seven .gpx files cover the entire 2,400 miles of the Appalachian Byway route.

If you enjoy long distance, scenic or overland travel you really need to visit The Appalachian Byway. Also, be sure check out his Build Your Own Adventure page that provides additional information and mapping resources for overland travel along the East Coast. 

One last thing: Josh is a member of HMB Overland, which has the really cool and notable distinction of being one of ten Tepui 'Endless Adventure' teams. Read more about their trip here.

Safe travels,
David

In my first installment of 'Giving Thanks to a Community', I would like to introduce you to my friends Daniel and Paula Palazzolo and their amazing tour company, Moto Patagonia.
Cheers,
David

I met Daniel in 2010, though I knew of him for years prior as we have friends in common.  It was during the lead-up to his inaugural ATL to the Arctic charity motorcycle ride to Deadhorse, Alaska that I finally had the opportunity to talk with him. His event, ATL to the Arctic, was created to raise funds for The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. We discussed his route to Alaska, specifically the Dalton Highway, as I had covered the same ground (by truck, not bike) with a friend in the mid-nineties. Our mutual interest in four wheel drive vehicles (and later motorcycles, he found the very first bike I owned ) and film screenings kept the friendship going.

At the time, Daniel (or Zolo, as some on the forums know him) was co-owner of Decatur Garage and he turned his highly-skilled wrench on every motorized (and at times, non-motorized) vehicle imaginable. Rolls-Royce to Porsche, Toyota to Ford, from modifying four wheel drives to building race cars to prepping motorcycles, if it had wheels he probably worked on it. He even repaired the frame on my ancient Fantic Broncco kart that prepared as a rather foolish downhill gravity racer.  He is a very talented mechanic, fabricator and tinkerer as well as a great friend, offroad zen master and world traveler.

After returning from Alaska, Daniel meets (and later marries) a wonderful Chilean woman named Paula. You may have read an early story of their travels in the blog back in 2012, Traversing the Atacama Desert in a rented Toyota Hilux 4x4. They remained in Atlanta for a number of years before moving to Paula's homeland, Chile, in 2015. 

Today, Daniel and Paula are leveraging their years of international travel and on-the-ground knowledge to offer an unparalleled travel experience in southern Chile. Moto Patagonia offers single and multi-day guided tours, as well as self-guided motorcycle rentals, for the adventurous among us. Headquartered in stunning Puerto Varas, they are a short drive away from the Puerto Montt Airport (Note: the quick flight from Santiago to Puerto Montt is quite inexpensive). My fiancée, Audrey, and I recently visited Daniel and Paula at their home. We spent a few days touring the area together and I can say, without hyperbole, that they live in one of the most beautiful, friendly and inspiring parts of the world I've had the good fortune to visit. Don't take my word for it, go and see for yourself...

Dear Georgia Overlanders, 

On February 1st 2010, nearly nine years ago, I launched the Georgia Overland site with my first post. Fifty thousand visitors later and I'm heartened that building something for (what I could only assume was) an audience of one resonated with so many others. It's quite humbling to see 'The Georgia Traverse' mentioned across all manner of travel and adventure forums, your Instagram posts with a fantastic diversity of vehicles and people having a great time exploring our beautiful state and the expertly-crafted YouTube videos that so many of you invested the time to shoot, edit and publish so that others could have a sense of the North Georgia experience.  

I would like to express my gratitude to the community. I built a site and YOU created a community. That's awesome to witness. Thank you.
 
Over the coming months, on this blog and the Georgia Overland Facebook page, I will introduce you to several friends, contributors, supporters and allies. I hope you find their stories and companies as interesting as I have.

Safe travels,
David Giguere

The 60+ posts found on the original Georgia Overland Blogspot site are now available here. Take a look in the archives and enjoy the origins of Georgia Overland. Sidenote: The blog migration requires the user (me!) to manually move blog content. It's fairly ridiculous that Weebly does not have an automated system for blog migration. 
​
-David

Hi Friends of Georgia Overland,
I have great news for those asking when we will see new updates to The Georgia Traverse and the Georgia Overland site. 2018 is the year! The first phase will be the migration of the blog content from the original site I began in 2010, to this site. The original site will remain, for now, as a way to preserve the user comments as (unfortunately) the comments are not easily migrated. The second phase will be an update to The Georgia Traverse point and linework coming sometime in Q4 2018. Many thanks to the community for the support, community updates and 'Thank You' messages I've received. It is greatly appreciated!
All the best,
David

P.S. If you're interested to see where it all began you may access all (60+) posts from my original Georgia Overland blog here.