This looks like a nice experience, but I'm realizing that I don't want to do anything like this. I thought I did, but I guess not. That includes driving an RV around America or New Zealand, hiking the Appalachian trail, or any other kind of journey where you travel from A to B and see a few things along the way. I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me. I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.
I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.
The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".
I also quit my Software Engineering job, and I'm driving around Africa right now!
I decided I didn't want to sit at a desk for 30 years to pay off a mortgage, so I'm not going to. Dumping my life savings into this likely means I'll never have a new car, big screen TV or new iPhone, but I'd rather have this experience than those things.
In 2009 I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina too.
I remember your reddit thread, nearly everyone was convinced you'd be murdered and robbed by the end of the first day. Seems like you're doing alright so far, but have you run into any substantial trouble along those lines?
Are you in communication with the local governemnts about your travel.
How do you know what areas are ok to travel to?
Do you have to register your vehicle in these countries?
Who do you ask for permission to park your car.
How are you on the internet right now?
How do you communicate with locals, do they know English or do you speak what ever local language there is?
Have you hooked up with any other travelers?
How about any of these tribal women?
How do you pay from stuff. Do they take U.S. Dollars or Euros or do you have to get a billion Zimbabwe dollars for candy.
What are you eating.
When you get sick from eating local food what do you do?
Are you armed?
If so did you have a license for your weapons?
How do you cross the Sahara. Do those sand dunes move around and block roads or do they just stay in one spot. Or are these trucks able to ride over them without sinking into the sand.
If you are in Sahara and water runs out what do you do?
When you make it as far as Cape Town I'd like to meet up with you and briefly chat, if you don't mind. I've followed your blog so far and I'm very interested in following your process as you're making your way down south. It's definitely going to be a challenge.
installing diesel instead of perfectly fine gas engine looked like typical mistake of a software engineer - we don't really need it, but it would be sooo cool to try!:)
This is reminds of a story of friends of mine from South Africa. They took the kids out of school to travel all the way up Africa and into Europ and back down for a year. They got robbed three times. Two times in France and once in Spain...
I have spent the past 10 years doing this with Engineers Without Borders and conducting independent research. My experience is similar to yours but I didn't buy a vehicle - I used busses and trains.
My research in Africa was around Energy and the many forms it presents itself. I only encountered a handful of negative experiences:
[1] Getting jailed at the border in Mozambique for refusing to pay a bribe.
[2] Nearly getting kidnapped in Musoma, Tanzania by the biggest Tanzania I have ever seen in my life. He proceeded to grab my arm and pull be down and ally proclaiming I was to come with him and play the drums.
[3] In Nairobi during one of the worst storms in the past 25 years.
I just spent that past 11 months backpacking South America. This time, my research was focused on Drones and Last Mile Distribution.
In 2007-08 I did a three week trip in a banger (£155 Skoda Felicia), taking in some of the areas covered here - Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finally The Gambia. Cars were donated to raise money for Gambian causes, and it was an incredible experience. We got to Senegal just when the route recce crews came through for the (eventually cancelled) 2008 Dakar Rally - cancelled because of the murder of french tourists [1], which we were unaware of as we'd set off before it happened. It was part of the rise of Al Qaeda in Africa, and indeed I wouldn't do the same trip again today because of the security problems that are far worse now than they were then. Drove for days in the Sahara, did 100km along the beach in Mauritania, 4400 miles in total in a tired old thing that never said die. I can totally believe it about the roads in places - some of the 'proper' roads we drove on were unbelievably hard going (and I say that as someone whose hobby was gravel rallying in the UK) - one was a 100km stretch of washboarded road to the Senegalese border that put paid to many of the rear dampers in the group due to overheating and eventual expiry.
Africa is a magical place - I've been fortunate enough to go for a reasonable period twice - also worked in Tanzania for three weeks in 2004 - but it's certainly not for the faint hearted; I'd not want to go there without serious mechanical skills as there isn't the level of support that you get in Europe, and the fuel supply is hugely variable; indeed some stations have a reputation for deliberately supplying poor fuel to travellers to allow them to try to buy the vehicle for a low price (this actually happened - dodgy diesel from a barrel, and then 5 minutes later the vendor was saying he'd buy the car off the guys we were with. Needless to say we fixed it). Anyway, the memories will last a lifetime, and perhaps more importantly the lessons learnt there (such as how fortunate I am to have been born by chance into a wealth, stable democracy) have shaped my life ever since.
I live in Africa and I am pretty envious of this trip. I plan for something close when my son gets 16 if he agree to that is. It would be wonderful! I think you will agree with me that what the western world reports of Africa is largely skewed and not representative of such a diverse continent, culture and landscape! Kenya is amazingly beautiful!
Perhaps I should do a Ask HN, but are there any fellow geeks that would want to do the Mongol Rally in 2017/2018? Would love to do it, but none of my friend are that type of person (or cannot quit their job).
I envy this sense of adventure, but a lot of Africa is such a volatile place. The countries there are consistently in the top 20 most dangerous places to visit, and placed on do not go lists. Definitely takes a special person to deal with all of that, on top of all of the obstacles they ran into. Looks like they could have avoided most of the transportation issues, by investing in a true land rover type vehicle, instead of a heavy behemoth.
> I envy this sense of adventure, but a lot of Africa is such a volatile place.
This generalization is so broad as to be useless (akin to "America is a racist, xenophobic place"). Africa is 54 countries and 1 billion people and countless cities and neighorhoods, painting with a broad brush is unhelpful. Only a handful of countries have active conflicts or instability, it is easy to avoid them on a trip such as this one.
[Edit] Here's a fun game that was featured on the Daily Show: see if you can you tell if a photograph was taken in Africa or the US[1]
A much safer alternative would be circumnavigating Australia. By land via Highway 1 (the world's longest continuous road at 15,000 km). Or by sea in a luxury super yacht ;)
As someone who spent a lot of time in Congo -- you also don't get the full picture from the media or even State Department statuses. In the example of Congo, the problem area is limited to a couple towns versus a country that's the size of Western Europe combined, and even there it's pretty infrequent. To go by what you read, the whole country is in constant chaos.
An old truck is a vastly more practical vehicle in Africa than a landrover - LRs need a lot of maintenance, whereas trucks generally just keep going.
The only major mechanical issue they had was caused by dirty diesel, and if they'd had some sort of pre-filtration setup they could have probably avoided this.
Their major issues were simply down to the weight of the vehicle and poor route selection.
With Africa and I guess a number of other places around the world, being white helps. You can feel a difference of how they'll treat a white person. It can be the opposite too, being overcharged. I know I'll probably get bashed with comments.
You seem to have missed the point here. A Landrover does not a mobile home make. How are they supposed to live in a Landrover comfortably for 19 months?
There have been so many of these self-congratulatory I-quit-my-job-to-travel-the-world posts that the New Yorker published a satirical piece on it: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/why-i-quit-my-jo.... TFA doesn't even have any geek discussion of build details, design trade-offs, problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc.
> problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc.
The solutions seem to be "someone else fixed it".
>> Our truck weighed over 10 tonnes fully laden, and whilst driving through some marshland just before we got to Senegal we broke through the hard crust into boggy clay below.
>> We were very lucky to be just ahead of the Amsterdam Dakar Rally, and they helped pull us out. It took about 4 hours of digging, and 3 trucks to get us out - 2 pulling forwards, 1 sideways to make sure we didn't topple over!
[...]
>> We ran out of diesel, and all the crap that had been floating on top clogged up the entire system.
>> For 3 days we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, unable to fix it ourselves. We were travelling in convoy with another couple and they were able to drive to a small village a few hours away where they found someone who knew a guy in Congo who could help us! So he took our friends to a spot where he could illegally cross the border and smuggle his mechanic friend across.
[...]
>> Turns out the dry river beds weren't so dry after all, and the weight of this truck made it sink right through to the mud below.
>> It took 2 days and the help of a nearby village to dig us out.
I'm kind of surprised there isn't a buddy comedy movie about something similar. (I guess Into the Wild, although very much not a comedy, is similar.)
Hit the nail on the head. It's all quite amazing and awe-inspiring as well; I don't want to take away their achievement. However I can't deny how self-congratulatory it feels.
My first few months roaming the world were life-changing. Every day, I updated my Instagram with photos of my favorite sights: cones filled with scoops of glistening gelato; my hand lightly resting on a café table, near an early edition of “On the Road”; selfies of me hugging depressed tigers too stoned on sedatives to drown themselves.
i hate to admit this but im a photographer and have been dreaming about quitting and traveling just for opportunities to take photos. not sure i'd ever put photos of food/sedated tigers though.. but still hits close to home
As someone who has a very hard time feeling unqualifiedly good about anything, I find the naive sincerity refreshing, and welcome it to a degree. I mean, is there really something wrong with taking pride in something interesting you did, and sharing it with people? Note that the original trip takers are not necessarily responsible for their wide audience (nor did they necessarily want it).
Perhaps they should have added the customary disclaimer at the top, apologizing for every privilege and benefit that they've received in life, as well as displaying their up-to-date Permission to Experience Joy Despite Unfairly Having More Opportunities Than Others certificate?
P.S. The OP is nothing like the satirical post you linked. It's an imgur album with fairly modest captions.
wow - the views of the Western Sahara, Namibia, Kenya, Zanzibar & the water driven mill is simply staggering! I wonder what were his costs overall. That truck surely looked like a petrol/diesel gargling machine!
The both despised the colonialist administrations, and the book frequently mentioned all the injustices done on the native populations. Yet the factual descriptions of Africa at that time make it look a far safer place.
You want crazy? Try going around Africa via public transportation. I would not recommend it. ;) No matter what kind of bus ticket you get promising a luxury bus, it will be anything but that.
Try getting a small group together and do like the author did. I loved Africa.
In addition to all the other issues others have raised, I'll worry about the total gallons of gas I'll be burning in the truck in those 19 months. That'll be one heck of a carbon footprint!
I find it very curious that expense is the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people when they hear about trips like this. I understand it is expensive, but so are a lot of things that don't trigger this question. Is it just because it requires eliminating the safety of a regular income? Replacing my roof cost as much as a year of traveling, but nobody ever asked me how I could possibly afford to replace my roof.
[+] [-] nathan_f77|9 years ago|reply
I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.
The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".
[+] [-] grecy|9 years ago|reply
I decided I didn't want to sit at a desk for 30 years to pay off a mortgage, so I'm not going to. Dumping my life savings into this likely means I'll never have a new car, big screen TV or new iPhone, but I'd rather have this experience than those things.
In 2009 I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina too.
The details on the Jeep I built into my house are here: http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o
I'm filming a YouTube series as I go:
http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme
And you can follow the adventure in real time across social media:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dangrec
And my website: http://theroadchoseme.com
[+] [-] extr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|9 years ago|reply
Are you in communication with the local governemnts about your travel.
How do you know what areas are ok to travel to? Do you have to register your vehicle in these countries?
Who do you ask for permission to park your car.
How are you on the internet right now?
How do you communicate with locals, do they know English or do you speak what ever local language there is?
Have you hooked up with any other travelers?
How about any of these tribal women?
How do you pay from stuff. Do they take U.S. Dollars or Euros or do you have to get a billion Zimbabwe dollars for candy.
What are you eating.
When you get sick from eating local food what do you do?
Are you armed?
If so did you have a license for your weapons?
How do you cross the Sahara. Do those sand dunes move around and block roads or do they just stay in one spot. Or are these trucks able to ride over them without sinking into the sand.
If you are in Sahara and water runs out what do you do?
[+] [-] sgt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shitgoose|9 years ago|reply
installing diesel instead of perfectly fine gas engine looked like typical mistake of a software engineer - we don't really need it, but it would be sooo cool to try!:)
[+] [-] MrDosu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ftrflyr|9 years ago|reply
My research in Africa was around Energy and the many forms it presents itself. I only encountered a handful of negative experiences:
[1] Getting jailed at the border in Mozambique for refusing to pay a bribe.
[2] Nearly getting kidnapped in Musoma, Tanzania by the biggest Tanzania I have ever seen in my life. He proceeded to grab my arm and pull be down and ally proclaiming I was to come with him and play the drums.
[3] In Nairobi during one of the worst storms in the past 25 years.
I just spent that past 11 months backpacking South America. This time, my research was focused on Drones and Last Mile Distribution.
[+] [-] djaychela|9 years ago|reply
Africa is a magical place - I've been fortunate enough to go for a reasonable period twice - also worked in Tanzania for three weeks in 2004 - but it's certainly not for the faint hearted; I'd not want to go there without serious mechanical skills as there isn't the level of support that you get in Europe, and the fuel supply is hugely variable; indeed some stations have a reputation for deliberately supplying poor fuel to travellers to allow them to try to buy the vehicle for a low price (this actually happened - dodgy diesel from a barrel, and then 5 minutes later the vendor was saying he'd buy the car off the guys we were with. Needless to say we fixed it). Anyway, the memories will last a lifetime, and perhaps more importantly the lessons learnt there (such as how fortunate I am to have been born by chance into a wealth, stable democracy) have shaped my life ever since.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourist...
[+] [-] georgeg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donretag|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hexadec0079|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overcast|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sangnoir|9 years ago|reply
This generalization is so broad as to be useless (akin to "America is a racist, xenophobic place"). Africa is 54 countries and 1 billion people and countless cities and neighorhoods, painting with a broad brush is unhelpful. Only a handful of countries have active conflicts or instability, it is easy to avoid them on a trip such as this one.
[Edit] Here's a fun game that was featured on the Daily Show: see if you can you tell if a photograph was taken in Africa or the US[1]
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHO1a1kvZGo
[+] [-] fitzwatermellow|9 years ago|reply
https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/21421/circumna...
[+] [-] jrcii|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeduck|9 years ago|reply
The only major mechanical issue they had was caused by dirty diesel, and if they'd had some sort of pre-filtration setup they could have probably avoided this.
Their major issues were simply down to the weight of the vehicle and poor route selection.
[+] [-] nojvek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robeastham|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonstewart|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
The solutions seem to be "someone else fixed it".
>> Our truck weighed over 10 tonnes fully laden, and whilst driving through some marshland just before we got to Senegal we broke through the hard crust into boggy clay below.
>> We were very lucky to be just ahead of the Amsterdam Dakar Rally, and they helped pull us out. It took about 4 hours of digging, and 3 trucks to get us out - 2 pulling forwards, 1 sideways to make sure we didn't topple over!
[...]
>> We ran out of diesel, and all the crap that had been floating on top clogged up the entire system.
>> For 3 days we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, unable to fix it ourselves. We were travelling in convoy with another couple and they were able to drive to a small village a few hours away where they found someone who knew a guy in Congo who could help us! So he took our friends to a spot where he could illegally cross the border and smuggle his mechanic friend across.
[...]
>> Turns out the dry river beds weren't so dry after all, and the weight of this truck made it sink right through to the mud below.
>> It took 2 days and the help of a nearby village to dig us out.
I'm kind of surprised there isn't a buddy comedy movie about something similar. (I guess Into the Wild, although very much not a comedy, is similar.)
[+] [-] someone7x|9 years ago|reply
Hit the nail on the head. It's all quite amazing and awe-inspiring as well; I don't want to take away their achievement. However I can't deny how self-congratulatory it feels.
[+] [-] SonicSoul|9 years ago|reply
My first few months roaming the world were life-changing. Every day, I updated my Instagram with photos of my favorite sights: cones filled with scoops of glistening gelato; my hand lightly resting on a café table, near an early edition of “On the Road”; selfies of me hugging depressed tigers too stoned on sedatives to drown themselves.
i hate to admit this but im a photographer and have been dreaming about quitting and traveling just for opportunities to take photos. not sure i'd ever put photos of food/sedated tigers though.. but still hits close to home
[+] [-] jknoepfler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwaltrip|9 years ago|reply
P.S. The OP is nothing like the satirical post you linked. It's an imgur album with fairly modest captions.
[+] [-] ryandrake|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jharohit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenmountin|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_...
Reddit thread has NSFW tag for source pictures
[+] [-] prawn|9 years ago|reply
I would love to see all of Africa, but have only been to Morocco, which seemed very safe at least.
[+] [-] tim333|9 years ago|reply
or https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-afric...
which does much the same route as in the article for approx £8k
[+] [-] RogtamBar|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanzelka_and_Zikmund .. these guys travelled the world widely in late 1940's. I've read the African book, and it's very funny reading these days.
The both despised the colonialist administrations, and the book frequently mentioned all the injustices done on the native populations. Yet the factual descriptions of Africa at that time make it look a far safer place.
[+] [-] ep103|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aiyodev|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfuller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donretag|9 years ago|reply
Try getting a small group together and do like the author did. I loved Africa.
[+] [-] clydethefrog|9 years ago|reply
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-lunatic-express
[+] [-] nxzero|9 years ago|reply
https://m.reddit.com/u/skebanga/activity
[+] [-] sinatra|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Marthyn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tspike|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdubzzz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] resmote|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genericacct|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tunichtgut|9 years ago|reply