The culture may be calling it a trend. At Overland Expo, it looks like something more durable.
In June 2026, The Wall Street Journal published a piece titled “The Expensive Accessory Every Hot Girl Wants: An Old, Loud SUV.” The hook: affluent young women spending north of $100,000 on vintage Broncos and Land Rovers. The framing: fashion-forward, aesthetics-driven, “Instagram-worthy” and a little impulsive.
I was super excited to see this story when it was first shared with me; it made for a compelling read, but as I read through it, thought about it, and talked with a couple friends in the industry, I realized there was another angle.
At Overland Expo, we see what the lifestyle press doesn’t always catch. And what the data shows, across several years and thousands of attendees, is that women aren’t arriving at overlanding as a style moment. They’re rad women, arriving as serious participants, with clear intent, technical curiosity and real rigs to prove it.
This is that story.
The History of Overland Expo
Overland Expo launched in 2009, was founded by Roseann Hanson – that single detail reframes the entire conversation. The current wave of women shaping overlanding isn’t arriving at a space built exclusively by men. They’re extending a legacy that began with a woman, defining what the event would be and who it would serve.
Hanson, a writer, conservationist and lifelong explorer, shaped Overland Expo into the gathering it became: part classroom, part marketplace, part community. Her fingerprints are on the format itself with an education-first approach. The emphasis on real skills over spectacle and the idea that overlanding is something you learn, practice and share.
So, when the data shows women arriving as owners, builders and buyers, it isn’t a departure, it’s a continuation. Women didn’t just find their way into overlanding, they helped write the blueprint.
The Numbers Don’t Suggest a Fad
Female attendance at Overland Expo has grown steadily and without interruption: 19% in 2023, 20% in 2024, 22% in 2025. That’s not a spike driven by a media cycle, it’s a compounding trend, building year over year across multiple events and regions.
The growth matters not just as a demographic footnote but as a signal about how overlanding is evolving. Every percentage point represents real people, showing up with gear questions, build plans and a desire to go further – and farther. The next question wasn’t whether women were attending, it was what they were doing when they got there.
Women at West 2026: The Behavior Behind the Attendance
Overland Expo West 2026 produced some of the clearest behavioral data yet on women attendees.
68% owned an overland vehicle: Of those, 38% described their setup as complete, 30% were still actively building and 15% said they were just starting out. That leaves only 13% who don’t consider their mode of transportation an “overland vehicle”. Together, those numbers paint a specific picture: this is not an audience watching from the sidelines, it’s an audience across every stage of active participation.
67% expressed interest in vehicles and accessories: That’s not passive curiosity, it’s sourcing intent. And 48% attended specifically to outfit their rig, which places women overlanders firmly in the same headspace as any serious expedition builder: show up with a list, leave with answers (& gear).
The old assumption, that overlanding’s technical side skewed heavily male, doesn’t hold up against data like this and it probably never did.
What Classic Overland Is Seeing on the Floor
Nolen Yapp, Brand and Operations Manager at Classic Overland, builds and restores custom Defenders. He works a show floor the way most builders do: read the room, talk to people, figure out who’s serious.
At West 2026, his read was unambiguous.
“Of approximately 30 substantive conversations I had at the show, more than 60% were initiated by women,” Yapp noted. The vehicles drawing the most attention from those buyers? Custom build Defenders and Defender 90 soft tops. And the way women approached the conversation was distinct; not less informed, but differently prioritized.
“Women lead with design philosophy, balance, and home-like design logic,” Yapp observed. “The questions centered on luxury and functionality together: hot showers, organization systems, ease of cleaning, outdoor utility that doesn’t sacrifice livability.”
Classic Overland currently has three cars in production for women buyers.
That’s not a marketing anecdote. That’s a builder responding to demonstrated market demand. The women asking those questions weren’t performing interest in overlanding. They were commissioning vehicles.
“The questions centered on luxury and functionality together: hot showers, organization systems, ease of cleaning, outdoor utility that doesn’t sacrifice livability.”—Nolen Yapp, Classic Overland
Women Who Wander: Programming That Reflects Reality
Overland Expo launched Women Who Wander in 2024 by our very own female Programming Director – and long-time overlander -, Azure O’Neil. Since then, the program has appeared at Overland Expo events across the country: SoCal, West, Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, and East.
While Overland Expo had always held women-specific programming, the goal from the beginning, was straightforward: provide women-oriented education, networking and training within the broader Overland Expo experience. What it became was one of the fastest-growing and most consistently engaged programming tracks at any event it appears at.
At Overland Expo SoCal 2026, Women Who Wander hosted a networking brunch sponsored by MAXXIS Tires, featuring a Q&A with experienced women from across the overlanding community and a presentation by Jess Stone, who is riding around the world with her White Swiss Shepherd on the back of a motorcycle while raising funds for the nonprofit Girl Up. The event drew attendees looking for both connection and craft.
Women Who Wander isn’t a side room. It’s become one of the reasons people come.
That shift matters. Early inclusion programming often operates as an add-on: a gesture toward a demographic, a single panel, an acknowledged absence. Women Who Wander has moved past that. Consistent presence, real programming, industry sponsors treating it as a platform worth investing in.
Building More Than Vehicles
In April 2026, Storyteller Overland announced a partnership with the Jessi Combs Foundation to launch the Trailblazer Tour Van, a fiery red Storyteller Beast MODE van that serves as a mobile platform for outreach, education and inspiration. JCF scholarship recipients are driving it nationwide, connecting communities with hands-on educational experiences and representing the foundation’s work to expand opportunities for women in manufacturing, welding and the skilled trades.
“Jessi is our modern-day ‘Rosie the Riveter,’ proof that grit, skill and determination have no boundaries,” said Dana Wilke, co-founder and executive director of the Jessi Combs Foundation.
The Jessi Combs Foundation was established in 2019 following the death of the Guinness World Record holder and skilled trades icon. Its mission: educate, inspire and empower the next generation of women entering manufacturing, welding and related fields. Storyteller Overland’s partnership puts that mission on the road, literally, through one of the most capable vehicles in the overland category.
It’s a clear signal: the industry’s most respected builders see women not just as buyers, but as the next generation of the trade itself.
This Isn’t a Side Story
The WSJ piece framed women buying old Broncos as a lifestyle quirk. An accessory. Something interesting to write about.
The Overland Expo data tells a different story: these women are not shopping for expensive accessories to match an outfit. They are serious travelers, builders, and explorers who are buying vehicles, investing in gear, and shaping the future of overlanding with intention and authority.
My Final Thoughts
Too many women are shaping this space to name in one story.
Alyssa Ravasio built Hipcamp into the outdoors’ biggest booking platform. Patty Upton logged 56,000 miles around the world, including the first all-land crossing of the Darién Gap by vehicle. The Women Who Wander community grows louder at every Overland Expo.
So, let’s kill the accessory narrative for good. Women aren’t decorating this culture…they’re driving it, in every sense of the word.
The industry can keep calling it a trend, we’ll call it the future.
