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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

#141

Post by cylinder »

fitzwatermellow wrote: post #12
overcast wrote: post #3

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, inst…

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 ;) https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/21421/circumna...

Yeah I don't understand doing it for scenery. I saw this on /r/overlanding and it's not appealing. The scenic density seems low and all the problems as well as the uncomfortable truck make it seem really stressful... Doing it for 19 months? I'd be bored after two weeks.

If I really wanted to understand Africa I'd pick a city and go work and live in it... Not drive through it in an army truck.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#142

Post by MarkMc »

sangnoir wrote: post #99
overcast wrote: post #3

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, inst…

> 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 o…

When you are talking about a road trip around an entire continent, broad generalisations can be very useful. If two friends want to drive a truck to 20 countries, they will likely be much safer doing it in Europe than Africa - even with careful planning.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#143

Post by scalesolved »

sumang wrote: post #49
colmvp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I've travelled to remote parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and the only times I ever experienced getting robbed or deeply fearing for my safety was in Barcelona and Philly.

Barcelona really? I am from Barcelona but never thought people are scared to be in Barcelona. I heard people get robbed in Las Ramblas years back but now its quite safe. You will never get mugged in Barcelona according to my experience.

I'm a foreigner living in Barcelona for four years, only once has someone tried to pickpocket me and I noticed them easily. I agree with your sentiment though, Barcelona feels like an incredibly safe city (at least in the center/Eixample) and I've never felt worried at night. Having lived/visited in Leeds/London and NYC in my experiences they are vastly more worrying/dangerous at night.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#144

Post by acchow »

RogtamBar wrote: post #118
MrDosu wrote: post #18

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...

Yes, it's puzzling. 70% of French criminals are of Arab origin. Maybe Arabs are better behaved in the Arab world than they are in France? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1135... Maybe it's because the French are really soft on prisoners. That Coulibaly guy was furious they confiscated his playstation. I doubt Morocco or Algeria would have ever allowed him one..

Or maybe the french are racist?

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#145

Post by DanBC »

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #127
DanBC wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 diggi…

You forget the timeline involved. There is nothing surprising about getting stuck 3-4 times on dirt roads over the course of 19 months.

Sure. Wouldn't most people dig themselves out?

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#147

Post by sangnoir »

MarkMc wrote: post #142
sangnoir wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

When you are talking about a road trip around an entire continent, broad generalisations can be very useful. If two friends want to drive a truck to 20 countries, they will likely be much safer doing it in Europe than Africa - even with careful planning.

> they will likely be much safer doing it in Europe than Africa - even with careful planning.

Can you enumerate the dangers that the two friends will face in Africa - sudden malnutrition? If you are referring to armed conflict or the danger of being abducted by the local African warlord[1], then you might be happy to know that such dangers are highly localized and the high-risk areas easily avoided; after all, Africa is a large place (larger than the US, China and most of Europe. Combined[2].

1. Common trope

2. http://io9.gizmodo.com/africas-true-size-will-blow-you-away-...

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#148

Post by wrigby »

softawre wrote: post #139
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing. I highly advise against this. There is no shortage of unqualified labor in underdeveloped countries. Most of these projects are just 'feel good charity tourism'. If you want to make a difference you are much better of donating 20% of a US salary which will employ many more und…

Interesting. What about the US local he is displacing by taking the job here?

I think the assumption is that he has in-demand skills that would be used in a job at home, while the work he would be doing overseas could be done by unskilled labor. Put another way, for a highly skilled technology worker, it is better to help fill a labor shortage in their field of expertise than displace a worker that is in a region with a labor surplus. Even without charitable contributions, the economics work out better for everyone involved.

Admittedly, this assumes both a labor shortage in the technologists field and a labor surplus for unskilled workers in the foreign country, but I think both of those assumptions are supportable.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#149

Post by jknoepfler »

jonstewart wrote: post #70

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.

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).

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#150

Post by tombrossman »

sumang wrote: post #49
colmvp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I've travelled to remote parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and the only times I ever experienced getting robbed or deeply fearing for my safety was in Barcelona and Philly.

Barcelona really? I am from Barcelona but never thought people are scared to be in Barcelona. I heard people get robbed in Las Ramblas years back but now its quite safe. You will never get mugged in Barcelona according to my experience.

You can sit on one of the benches in the busier areas and easily spot the pickpockets and see them going in people's bags and backpacks and taking stuff. This isn't a rare occurrence and it does not take a practised eye to see. The pickpockets are always well dressed (usually very similar to the tourists). I like visiting BCN and I think it's a wonderful city, but it is completely infested with thieves targeting tourists to a degree that I have not seen in other European cities.

I'm surprised this is not common knowledge among people from there, maybe try 15-20 minutes people watching anywhere along Las Ramblas and see for yourself. Busy, sunny days with lots of people and police around are the best times to spot the thieves. You'll also frequently see tourist couples speaking to police reporting the robberies. You can watch the body language and gestures from a distance and it is very obvious.

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