2014 Overland & 4x4 Forum Statistics

Four years ago I started collecting overland and 4x4 vehicle-based forum statistics.

Overland Internet Forums & Magazines

I was interesting in tracking the number of registered users, threads and posts on the forums and providing a comparison on the top websites.

The challenge for 2014?  Could the popular forums keep the growth momentum up and were the thread counts increasing?
What about the magazines?  Are they challenging the forums for content or are web users divided between the content creators (forum users) and content consumers (magazine & facebook subscribers)?

Here is an overview of the previous years: 2012 | 2013 | 2014

A few websites stand out in 2014 which include ADV Rider, Expedition Portal, Horizons Unlimited and Prado point.  A detailed list of all the websites (forums & magazines) are at the end of the blog post.

2014 to 2015

Expedition Portal Video Contest

The Expedition Portal website has been hosting an overland video contest for amateur and professional film makers.  The entries were open to anyone who felt they had a good video story to tell... I thoroughly enjoyed most of the videos and loved the enthusiasm people have for the overland travel. 

Watch and vote via the Expedition Portal forum.  My two choices are listed below...

Internet Forums - Love 'em or hate 'em

The overland and 4x4 world is full of them... love them or hate them, internet forums are here to stay.  Regardless if you are an overland enthusiast, a Land Rover or Toyota Fan, there are more forums for you to join and threads to read than time allows. Some are very active, some are dormant so here's the top 19 internet forums...

What makes a successful forum?  Timely topics, active users and good moderators.

I took time to actively search out the most popular Overland forums (vehicles & motorbikes), Land Rover specific and Toyota Land Cruiser forums.  Here's the list (details below) I generated and the number of registered users per forum, number of threads and posts per thread.  Congrats to the Toyota Land Cruiser Forum ih8mud for being the only forum to list active users. Two additional forums are worth mentioning: UK GSer and ExplorOz : Both charge a membership fee.

Internet Forums - Registered Users

The Expedition Portal Forum Review

Having reviewed a Southern hemisphere Forum (Overland.co.za) and a UK based Forum, The Hubb. I thought it best to provide an overview of the Expedition Portal website.

This is another huge forum and encourages registrations to submit posts.  At the time of writing this blog, the registered users had exceeded the 15,000 mark.  Very impressive.

Similiar to The Hubb, this forum is purely web based and is categorised according to various topics.  The forum is based in North America, hence the flavour of the site is distinctively American. This is noted in the type of vehicle and equipment discussions that occur.  Don't let this fact put you off... North America is a growing overland community hungry on sharing and receiving information.

Summary
In summary, this North American forum offers interesting insights into a growing overland community and offers alternative insights into vehicle preparation, equipment and general overland travel.  It is worth registering and monitoring the category that you are interested in.

Forum Overview
Advertising: Yes
Spam level: Low
Forum activity: high
Forum Content: Good (excellent for Northern America)
Off Topic Content:
Language: Primarily English
RSS Feed: Yes
Twitter: No