I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
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Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#2wow - 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!
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#3I 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.
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#4wow - 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!
He said [1] upfront costs were ~$100k, though recouped ~$30k by selling the truck at the end.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_...
Reddit thread has NSFW tag for source pictures
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#5Straight from Mali to Benin. What about Ouagadougou! ):
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#6I 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, inst…
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.
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#7I 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, inst…
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.
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#8It pains me that so many beautiful sights on our planet are in what is reasonably dangerous territory or at least perceived as such.
I would love to see all of Africa, but have only been to Morocco, which seemed very safe at least.
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#9wow - 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!
He said [1] upfront costs were ~$100k, though recouped ~$30k by selling the truck at the end. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_... Reddit thread has NSFW tag for source pictures
With this type of adventure, you can get your cost down to maybe 5-10k/year if you travel light (bicycle, motorbike) and camp out a lot. Source: Quit my job and rode a motorbike from Central Europe to Mongolia. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa
#10goddamn am i boring.