Overland Expo West 2025: Adventure, Community, and New Gear

The Biggest Overland Party in the West Finishes Another Successful Year

2025 has been a major year for the Overland Expo Group. Following the smashing success of the 1st annual Overland Expo SoCal in Costa Mesa, thousands of off-roaders, overlanders, and van-lifers made their way down to Flagstaff, Arizona, to join in on yet another weekend of good food, great community, and some awesome rigs. The original Expo West has been the largest and most popular up until this year, with a four-event schedule that stretched across the country from north to south and east to west. While some skepticism on the potential turnout existed (due to the possibility that the 2025 addition of the new California Expo would cannibalize interest in the Flagstaff event), the overall attendance certainly held up to West’s legacy. 2025 proved to be a big year for both new and familiar brands alike in the off-road space, with new faces popping up across the vendor village, combined with launches of new products from established legacy brands.

So…Overland Expo West 2025… Let’s get into it!

An Event with an Almost Cult-Like Following If you grew up like I did, then you might remember spending a week or two every year at summer camp. Each year’s return meant reuniting with old camp friends, making new memories, and likely finding some new friends along the way. Once the time came to pack your duffle bag, strip the bed in your cabin, and head back to society, odds are you even tried your best to stay in touch with those camp friends until the next time you all reunited.

 This is what Overland Expo West is like…

One of the biggest pros of attending an event like the Overland Expo is the opportunity to meet amazing people from all over the world. In the last two years, I have personally gained multiple brand relationships and friendships that I can trace back to a casual conversation around a propane fire pit on a Saturday night after an Expo event. That’s where the beauty lies—everybody is doing their own thing, in their own space. It becomes a comfort zone. In addition, the individuality of each rig that you see can provide some great ideas for your own build, and you often get the benefit of hearing the “how” or “why” from the very person that made or did what you are looking at. If there is something that you are trying to figure out on a project, odds are that you could find someone at this event that is either struggling with the same problem (power in numbers!) or has found a solution that you can take inspiration from.

While talking with some of the attendees over the weekend, the general consensus was that “everybody goes to West”—regardless of how far the drive might be. I spoke with one couple that has attended the event five years in a row, every year making the drive down from Vancouver, BC, in Canada all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona. Having now made the trip down from my home base of Boise, Idaho, two years in a row, I can confirm that this event is worth the drive. In the official Overland Expo West recap, the expo reported a staggering 28,000+ attendees from all 50 states, with 41% of attendees being new to the Overland Expo. This year marked the highest international attendance for the event, with enthusiasts and vendors traveling in from Australia, Canada, China, Great Britain, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Germany, Israel, Indonesia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, and even Iceland.

One of the “Brightest” New Products Debuted

Overland Expo events are a great venue to find the newest accessories and gear the industry has to offer, as just about every accessory you could think of has representation from at least one company at these events. There is truly something for everyone, from full-blown custom rig manufacturers to retailers for small camping accessories. Among the litany of new products to roll out this year, however, one seemed to literally shine brighter than any other, appropriately coming from renowned lighting company KC HiLiTES.

KC came ready to party with the release of their new Platform One roof rack system—with, you guessed it, integrated lighting and power chases. Claiming to be “The Do-It-All Roof Rack,” Platform One is the lighting company’s first commercial venture into the roof rack market, with models currently ready to mount up to the top vehicles from Ford, Toyota, and Lexus, with more to come.

Since KC’s corporate headquarters are located in Flagstaff, it’s only natural that they would also put together one of the largest “booths” at the event—the KC Adventure Camp. It was here that not only could you get some killer barbeque (from KC’s CEO no less), but also see an array of great builds on display, all sporting the new Platform One system. Will this move prompt more lighting companies to consider releasing their own proprietary roof rack systems with integrated lighting? Only time will tell, but it’s fun to know where (and when) it started!

A Classic Platform with a New Look: The Toyota 250 Series Land Cruiser

It is always exciting to see an automotive manufacturer roll out a new vehicle, and for those of us who enjoy upgrading our cars, it’s equally exciting to have aftermarket support for the latest and greatest. This year seems to be a pretty big one for the 250 Series Toyota Land Cruiser when it comes to aftermarket rollouts. Walking through the aisles of the Expo, I saw over 20 differently built Land Cruisers. As one of the hottest new vehicles in the off-road market, there was a broad range of roof racks, lift kits, bumpers, internal storage solutions, and more to discover and see on this new platform.

My personal favorite of this grouping? Showing un-ironically that you can find cool rigs in any booth, it was a display rig for PEAK Refuel, a freeze-dried food company (whose chicken alfredo rocks, by the way). It was a black LC250 with 3.5+ inches of long travel from Locked Offroad and Wicked Creations—purportedly the first 250 LC to be fitted with a production long travel kit. That’s right, folks—you saw it first—at Expo West.

Closing Thoughts

Circling back for my second year at Overland Expo West, it is safe to say that I will be returning to my adult overlanding summer camp again in 2026! The perfect combination of the beautiful Flagstaff weather and spending the weekend surrounded by tall pines, sweet rigs, and great people was a recharge to my soul and fuel for my journey. I was left with a stronger desire to get out into nature, to explore more, and to engage deeper with those around me. So, if you’re reading this far and haven’t already marked your calendar for next May, now is the time to do it. Make the trip. Get in on the fun, and look me up once you arrive. You know where I’ll be.See you out there!

I hope to see you out there,

Dillon Houck