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My experience riding a dualsport on the east-coast:
My biggest improvement in motorcycle overlanding was to stop taking the bike. A 4x4 will take you anywhere a bike can legally go with 1/10th the fuss/stress, backpacking will get you actually into the backcountry rather than just dispersed car-sites, and putting the bike on a trailer will let you do dumb shit actually off-road without worrying about how you're getting home when you inevitably break something.
If you're doing 90/10 road/offroad and have a mostly road-oriented bike that you just pull into campsites with to sleep for cheap, you can have a lot of fun, but trying to do true 50/50 and contorting routes to hit as much dirt as you can manage while avoiding highways to justify running the ancient overweight overpriced EPA-neutered folded-1000 times nippon steel-steed you need for the 2 miles of mud (that you had to ride an hour out of the way to even get to) on your 300 mile trip is a fools errand.
My biggest regret is not buying my jeep and backpacking pack sooner, wasted so much time larping as ewan mcgregor
