Overland Expo has posted its 2027 schedule, and the season starts in Costa Mesa, California, on March 13-14 with Overland Expo SoCal at the OC Fair & Event Center. Overland Expo West, the biggest in the series, returns to Fort Tuthill County Park in Flagstaff, Arizona, May 14-16, and Overland Expo PNW follows in Redmond, Oregon, June 25-27.
Overland Expo Mountain West moves to Riverdale Regional Park in Brighton, Colorado, for August 20-22; it was in Loveland in 2026. Overland Expo East closes the season at Oak Ridge Estate in Arrington, Virginia, October 22-24. In its 2026 review, Overland Expo said West drew 28,500 people and 420 exhibitors, and SoCal 19,000.
Outside the Overland Expo series, the MOORE Expo moves to the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia for April 16-17. The California Overland Adventure & Power Sports Show runs at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego on February 6-7 and in Santa Rosa on September 25-26, with its Texas show in Austin on May 1-2. The BC Overland Rally moves to Sun Peaks Resort, June 4-6, and the Northwest Overland Rally returns to Plain, Washington, June 17-20. King of the Hammers, the Ultra4 off-road race week in Johnson Valley, California, runs January 21 to February 6.
Our Overland Expos and Rallies calendar has every date, and we'll add the Big Iron Overland Rally, Overland South and The Pilgrimage when they announce 2027 dates.
Toyota's overland-focused Trailhunter trim comes to the 2027 Tundra and Sequoia, Overland Expo's Compass reports from the SEMA Show. Both get Old Man Emu suspension, Michelin LTX tires, extra underbody protection, a locking rear differential, Crawl Control and Multi-Terrain Select, with 437 horsepower and 538 lb-ft of torque. The Tundra tows up to 12,000 pounds and the Sequoia 9,520. The Tacoma and 4Runner already offer the trim. Pricing wasn't given.
Overland Expo East runs October 23 to 25 at Oak Ridge Estate in Arrington, Virginia, the series' only East Coast show and its last of the year. Gates are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
The organizers list more than 200 exhibitors of overland, adventure travel, camping and motorcycle gear, and more than 175 classes, slideshows and demonstrations. There is rustic on-site camping in an open field, an evening film festival, and a charity dinner for the Overland Expo Foundation that is open only to campers and exhibitors. Tickets are sold through the event site.
If you are planning next year already, the 2027 schedule is posted: SoCal in Costa Mesa March 13 and 14, West in Flagstaff May 14 to 16, Pacific Northwest in Redmond, Oregon, June 25 to 27, and Mountain West in Brighton, Colorado, August 20 to 22.
The 11th Rebelle Rally begins Wednesday. The women-only off-road navigation competition runs October 7 through 17 across California, Nevada and, for the first time, Utah, covering roughly 1,500 miles. There is no GPS and no phones; teams of two navigate by paper map and compass, and the rally is scored on finding checkpoints, not on speed.
Wednesday's welcome and technical inspection, at the Westin Lake Las Vegas in Henderson from 10 a.m., is open to the public and is the one chance to see the vehicles up close. The official start is Thursday morning on Pit Road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a first for the event, but that is limited to team guests, rally guests and invited media. After that the rally goes off grid, and the organizers post live tracking and updates from October 9 through 16 rather than offering spectator access.
Several manufacturers are fielding or backing teams. Jeep is back for an 11th straight year with Team 129, Rebelle champion Nena Barlow and newcomer Hannah Felton, in a factory-stock Gladiator Mojave entered in the Bone Stock category. Toyota is again running a team from its production engineering group.
The Bone Stock class, for vehicles as they leave the dealer, is the part of the results most useful to anyone weighing a truck for desert travel.
The California Overland Adventure and Power Sports Show returns to the Fairplex in Pomona on October 24 and 25, running 10am to 5pm both days. Organisers describe it as the biggest edition yet and expect 15,000 to 18,000 people across the weekend. Children under twelve get in free, and there is an early-bird price on the show's own site.
The floor is broad. Overland rigs, slide-in and towable campers, roof tents, recovery and storage gear, e-bikes, and a substantial power sports presence covering ATVs, UTVs and adventure motorcycles. Falken, Forest River, Triumph, BMW, Westin, Harley-Davidson and Polaris have exhibited alongside the overland builders, and the Cal 4x4 Association, CORVA and the state and national park services have taken stands as well.
For anyone in Southern California weighing a camper or a rooftop tent, this is the most efficient weekend of the year. Sitting in forty campers in an afternoon and talking to the people who built them settles questions that no amount of specification reading will, particularly around headroom, door placement and how a pop-up actually behaves when you are tired and it is dark.
It is a trade floor rather than a teaching event. There are no driving courses and no classroom track, so go for the hardware and the conversations rather than for instruction. Bring the measurements of your truck bed and your payload figure; both come up constantly and neither is something you can look up on the stand.
The same organiser runs shows in Sonoma and San Diego on other weekends, so check you are buying tickets for Pomona specifically.
The Overland Expo Foundation's annual showcase build, now in its sixth year, went to a Nissan Frontier PRO-4X this season rather than a full-size or a purpose-built expedition platform. It carries a Tune Outdoors M1L pop-up topper with a base weight of around 350 pounds, built with AllDogs Offroad Coop.
Choosing a midsize is the statement. The organisers describe a market crowded with oversized, overbuilt rigs and a platform compact enough for technical trails while remaining comfortable for long travel. A 350-pound topper is the practical end of the same argument: on a midsize truck, payload is the constraint that decides everything, and a topper that weighs as much as two passengers leaves room for water, fuel and recovery gear.
The build has been touring events and media drives since May. It goes to auction this autumn on Bring a Trailer, with the proceeds going to the Overland Expo Foundation for education and access work.
Worth watching what it fetches. A showcase build is a marketing object, and the auction price is the closest thing the category has to an honest verdict on whether buyers agree that smaller is the direction.
Take the rig to a certified scale loaded the way you actually travel — water, fuel, fridge, recovery gear, passengers, dog — and compare it to the payload figure on the door jamb. Most people who do this for the first time discover they are over, or close enough that a roof tent settles the question. Do this before the next purchase, not after.
Roof weight is the part that bites hardest because it is the least intuitive. Every pound up there works on the suspension through a long lever and changes how the vehicle behaves in a swerve and on off-camber ground. This is the reasoning behind the shift the trade has been talking about all year: hard-shell roof tents still earn their keep if you move camp every night, and a good ground tent or an awning-centred setup often makes more sense if you base camp or daily-drive the truck.
Design the cargo area around refrigeration from the beginning rather than wedging a fridge in at the end. A dedicated slide, power access and ventilation planned in from the start is the difference between a fridge you use and a fridge you fight. Retrofitting one is where a lot of storage systems get torn out and rebuilt.
Match the recovery loadout to the vehicle, the terrain and the group rather than to a packing list from the internet. A solo desert truck, a forest-trail Jeep and a loaded rig towing a trailer do not need the same kit, and carrying all three versions is just payload you are not using.
The unglamorous item most builds are missing: a tire deflator and an accurate gauge. Airing down does more for traction and ride quality on washboard than most of what gets bolted on, and it costs nothing.
Overland Expo East runs October 23 to 25 at Oak Ridge Estate in Arrington, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge during peak colour. Organisers advertise 300-plus exhibitors and 150-plus classes, with advance pricing that steps up as the date closes in and again at the gate. Premium camping was down to single figures at last check; day, weekend and moto passes were still open. Class sign-ups open about two weeks out through the event app, and walk-ups are allowed. Parking is $10 a day and sold separately.
Overland Expo West drew more than 28,500 people to Flagstaff in May, a slight rise on last year, with 420 vendors and better than 320 classes covering everything from living successfully out of a Subaru to patching a tire on the trail.
The clearest signal from the floor was weight. Compact campers, modular storage that respects payload, and 12-volt climate systems in place of gas generators took the space that towering racks used to occupy. A rig stacked three feet above its rails is no longer the default picture of the hobby.
Rooftop tents still sell and there is real hardware moving: a laser-welded aluminium clamshell wedge with strut-assisted lift and doors on all four sides, continued weight trimming on the established hybrid soft-and-hard-side designs, and a version with a mattress that folds up into a couch. What has changed is the honesty about use case. If you move camp every night, a hardshell earns its keep. If you base camp for several nights or daily-drive the vehicle, a good ground tent or an awning-centred setup may be the better answer.
The other shift is refrigeration. Serious builds now design the cargo area around a fridge slide, power access and ventilation from the start, instead of wedging a unit in at the end and living with the consequences.
Worth knowing: the Off-Road Business Association, now a subsidiary of SEMA, has taken a larger role at the show. Its work is unglamorous — lobbying, coalition-building, economic impact reporting — and it is part of why some of the trails people plan routes around are still open.
Overland Expo Mountain West ran August 21 to 23 at The Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, and pulled around 18,500 people past more than 300 exhibitors. Organisers reckon it may have set a record for the number of new products, rigs and vehicle platforms debuting at a single event in the series.
On the camper side, Supertramp debuted the Paragon for the F-350 platform, VanCraft showed the Strata with a flexible layout, and Four Wheel Campers had the new Outpost 8.0, the larger sibling of the 6.5 that showed up earlier in the summer.
The DIY Showcase remains the most interesting corner of the event, and this year's field included a K3500 with the wheelbase shortened by two feet, a kingpin Dana 60 up front, 40-inch tyres, and an aluminium flatbed and pop-up camper fabricated in-house down to the cabinetry and the poured countertops. Four hundred watts of solar and 300 amp-hours of lithium behind it.
A day pass ran $32. The show moves for 2027: August 20 to 22 at Riverdale Regional Park in Brighton, Colorado, which is a different venue rather than a different weekend.