Remote travel by Jeep, Land Rover, BMW Adventure motorcycles and other mechanized off-road vehicles has captured the spirit, stamina and pocketbooks of a million outdoor and four-wheel drive enthusiasts all over the globe, and catapulted Prescott’s Overland Journal to an industry beacon of expertise and how-to.
Although Aussie drivers coined the term “overlanding” for moving livestock to stockyards over miles of Australian Outback and opening new territory for exploration in the 1900s, Prescottonian Scott Brady, his wife, Stephanie, eight local employees and an international cadre of freelancers and consultants have perfected the concept for today’s intrepid explorer.
Their multimedia group, Overland International, LLC, operates Overland Journal, the Expedition Portal (ExPo) website, an Overland Rally event series and HD video content production for web and TV. Staff and contributor bios comprise a who’s who of travel aficionados, journalists, technical and logistics experts with mountains of practical overland wisdom they are eager to share.
Equipment field tests, product reviews, information about conservation and alternative fuels, word pictures and stunning visuals of adventure travel come alive across the magazine’s graphically enticing pages. The current issue’s cover, almost a modern day Norman Rockwell, captures writer Michael van Vliet seeking shade “in the lee side of his BMW GS motorcycle, jotting down thoughts for this issue’s feature.”
Co-founders Brady and Jonathan Hanson describe on Overland Journal’s website their dream “of producing a high-quality magazine devoted as much to the journey as to the vehicle and the equipment, a magazine that would inspire readers to explore their own world, whether on a weekend trip 100 miles from home or a cross-continental expedition in another hemisphere.”
For the entire team at Overland International, the journey is all about the firm’s print and digital presence, syndicated article sales, and multi-media adventure travel documentaries. The first issue of the magazine debuted in Spring 2007. Each year since, four seasonal and a special gear issue go to press in high gloss full color in a product reminiscent of a coffee table book.
“We started the magazine here in Prescott,” Brady explained. “We had two LLCs at the time. One had been started in the Phoenix area. Overland, LLC started here in Prescott. A few years ago, we combined all the smaller companies into one corporation. Overland International, Inc. was formed here in Prescott. It’s a Prescott-based corporation.”
With a circulation of 14,000 in subscription, digital and newsstand sales, the magazine is distributed at international airports and major booksellers. Now up to 136 pages, it is priced for retail sale at $12 a copy. Back issues, often requested because of specific trip or equipment content, are warehoused and available for $15 each.
Scott Brady serves as publisher and chairman, Stephanie Brady as president and director of design, Chris Collard as editor-in-chief and Christophe Noel as executive editor for digital services.
One web enterprise, Expedition Portal, includes more than 3,000 feature stories, 100,000 community members and more than 1.5 million forum posts. ExPo, as the digital community of adventure travelers is known, draws 650,000 to 800,000 unique visitors a month to the site and functions as a global resource for travelers worldwide, Brady said. If someone wanted to drive down to Panama, for example, the site would provide information about border crossings, road conditions and enable interaction with others who had traveled that route recently.
Overland International’s projects have been featured on the History Channel, Speed Channel and Top Gear, where some of the work was filmed in Arizona. The firm has been featured in Forbes magazine and provides syndicated content for publications around the world after it has run in Overland Journal. Publications in other languages, such as Italian and German, often contract for and translate the copy.
“The Germans are prolific travelers, certainly the highest per capita of what is considered the overland traveler,” Brady said, estimating the U.S. portion of the one million overlanding market at 400,000 to 500,000, with his primary subscribers residing in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.
“I love Prescott,” he said. “I call it my base camp. I love the fact that there is very little traffic. It’s unusual if you have to sit through a light twice at an intersection. It’s easy to get around on a motorcycle. There are a surprising number of international drivers I know here in town.”
He and Stephanie were living in the Phoenix area when they decided that their line of business could be operated from virtually anywhere, as long as it was close to an airport. They checked out Bend, Ore., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Durango, Colo., but Prescott won them over.
“The geography is ideal,” Brady said. “It allows us easy access to be driving or riding motorcycles” into Mexico, Utah and California. A seven-hour drive or a flight from Prescott directly to LAX “is a huge benefit for us.”
For anyone wanting to try overlanding, popular journeys from Prescott include a long weekend in Utah, three to four weeks to the tip of Baja, or six to eight weeks in Alaska, priced approximately at $400 to $4,000 to $10,000, respectively.
Brady himself just finished a seven-continent venture that spanned three years. The group shipped gear across oceans from continent to continent for about 40 percent of that time and overlanded the remaining 60 percent. Highlights included the South Pole and Norway’s Nordkapp, the northern-most drive in the world. While the gear was traveling over oceans, Brady headed home to work out of his Prescott office.
The seven-continent overland journey was conducted under the name Expeditions 7 in collaboration with Greg Miller, CEO of the Larry H. Miller Group (with a portfolio including professional sports teams, a race track, a movie theatre chain and an auto dealership). Expeditions 7 established overlanding records: first Americans to cross Antarctica by four-wheel drive (twice, in fact) and first group to take the same vehicle to all seven continents.
Brady characterized overlanding as “a seven-course meal” encompassing physical beauty, challenging terrain, planning and logistics, cultural interaction, photography, sights and sounds, and food: “all of those things that really add a richness to the experience. The key thing is to explore your version of adventure. Everybody needs to do that. It’s common for business owners or employees to get caught up [with life and work]… It’s really important to get out there and see the world. Just taking a trip to southern Utah could be a spiritual experience.” QCBN
Written by Sue Marceau
Quad Cities Business News
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