Perhaps one way of re-injecting some excitement would be to pick a destination where you don't speak a word of the lingo, to consciously not take a GPS or mobile (except maybe of a Nokia 105: phone and text max for emergencies), to only take a paper map, and only stay at places you can find on arrival etc.

All that will already increase the 'think-on-your-feet-olity" of it all.

__________________
Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

That's how I travelled for the first 30+ years of my overlanding life (such as it is) and I travelled like that because that's how everybody travelled. Here's a picture of me in Morocco in 1970 keeping in touch with my family by 'hippy zoom' - I'm writing a postcard.



I beat the postcard back by nearly three weeks.

Whether instant communications or better infrastructure or any of the other things that can now get you out of the sh*t when things go wrong have lowered the bar such that more people are now willing to 'risk it' I have no idea but I suspect there's an element of that going on. People though have always travelled. That picture above has a history that goes something like 'I'm there because the person with me (who took the picture) did a trip the previous year with somebody who ran a business 'overlanding' the hippy trail to India through the 60's'. And he had a lot of customers. There used to be a whole load of overlanding truck businesses giving people an introduction to life on the road back in the 90's - are they still going?

I do wonder though if you cut all the technology that has come along since the millennium out of your life whether overlanding would seem just as niche as it did when I started. So no social media, no web sources (such as this) no DIY published books etc, not even phones. How would you then know if anyone was travelling unless you met them on the road. Just about every trip I do I meet someone or other who's travelling but it's not many - even doing something as touristy as Route 66 some years back I probably only met half a dozen non US travellers.

I can't say I've ever travelled for 'bragging rights down the pub' but maybe that's a personal (or family at least) characteristic. Even after 50yrs I still feel I've just scratched the surface in what I get from it. So you'll rarely find me talking about it (posts here and writing books on a "I don't know what I think until I read what I wrote' basis notwithstanding). It's my version of visiting old ruins with a tour party and a guide book. When I look at what other people are doing with their trips I wouldn't deny some of them look very impressive, all multi media and 'derring-do'. They sell a good adventure. Because it now seems to be 'common as muck' (in both senses) and commercialised to a level unimaginable when I sat writing that postcard, whether that should influence what I want to do now is something we all have to decide for ourselves. It doesn't personally bother me. I note it as I've noted it happening in other areas of life I'm interested in. That's the problem if you're an 'early adopter', others eventually catch up.

I think in line with the OP that the world has changed. Nobody's sure of the new rules. On Mars I would wear a space suit. On Earth you can really get someone angry by just wearing a face mask.

Waiting for Robert's Rules of Order v2.0

In the meantime, if you are alone and in the wilderness, not much has changed.