Carnet or laisser passer for west Africa?
 

Hi my I'm planning a trip to west Africa next winter and hoping to take in the coastal countries as well as the sahara, I'm not planning on going any further than Nigeria, Can anyone tell me which countries I have to have a Carnet for?

Suggest you visit www.duksjourney.com I have taken the information from recent overland tours this way and tried to list the country requirments for this leg. It is about 2 months out of date, sadly things change to quickly to keep up to date with. Go also to the useful info and linke to other overland sites. These guys are at the cutting edge doing it as we "write" so they know best. Hope it helps

BR

DuK

I found the most annoying thing about lazzai-passe the validity of the document.

Its usually around 10 days and then have to get an extention which is a quite lengthy -unclear- process and does involve cost.

Considering all the hassles i rather use my carnet de passage....

Hi there,

We just travelled in West-Africa in Morocco, Mauretania, Senegal and Gambia with a Carnet de passage. For these countries you don't need a carnet de passage.

Indeed the laissez passer is valid for a short periode of time and therefor it's sometimes a hassle to get it extended, but consider the costs of the deposit for the carnet! In Morocco no problems, but from Mauretania down, we still had to pay, despite our Carnet:
- Euro 10,- per motorbike in RIM;
- CFA 1000,- per motorbike in Senegal and Gambia;

In GAmbia they didn't even know (or pretended) what a carnet was...

I don't know about the rest of West-Africa.

Cheers,
corne

hello there,

I am at the moment in Ghana, i came with my bike through maroc, mauretania, mali, burkina, benin, togo and Ghana.

The only country where they require a carnet is Ghana. I didnt had a carnet and after 3 hours discussing with the customs they let me in anyway.

The laissers passers for the other countrys are not to expensive.