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Where/how often do you camp? Where/how often do you camp?
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North Africa Topics specific to North Africa and the Sahara down to the 17th parallel (excludes Morocco)
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  #1  
Old 22 Aug 2007
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Where/how often do you camp?
Hi All

I'm trying to put a budget together for our trip next year, but one of the things that I find quite difficult is to estimate is the % time we will spend camping whether this is free camping in the bush somewhere or in designated camping areas compared to staying in 'normal' budget accomodation. FYI, we will be travelling in a 4x4 which we'll be using to sleep in most of the time. We want to try and limit staying in hostel/hotels etc, except for the odd one or two in bigger cities, as much as we can to make our money last a bit longer.

This relates to the eastern route through Africa. (We will also be travelling through Russia and the Stans, but I will ask this question again in the Northern Asia section - sorry to duplicate!!)

I was thinking that out of a possible 6 months from London to Cape Town, about 4 months can be spent camping...?!?!:confused1: :confused1:

Speaking in very general terms, has anybody had problems when free camping with authorities or maybe crime related or in the case with Africa, have you always tried to camp in a designated site?

Thanks for your feedback in advance!!!!

Pumbaa
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Old 22 Aug 2007
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Free camping is possible and often desirable in most of the dry countries. In wetter areas it is more difficult because the population is much higher and the land is normally assigned to someone. Take 250 mm of annual rain as a rough guide of wet Vs dry. On a trip from Cape Town to Ethiopia, for example, we camped in the wild only a half a dozen times or so and less than 5% of the time. In North African deserts, the ratio is reversed. The exception is obviously bigger cities/towns.
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Old 22 Aug 2007
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I would definitely budget on spending (much) more than 50% of your nights in either campsite or hotel. It just tends to work out that way.

Earlier post about dry/wet environments is spot on as well.

Other advantage of budgetting 'bad' is that if you are wrong, you'll have cash spare not a shortfall.

Sam.
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Old 22 Aug 2007
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My last trip was 9 months via western route. From this I spent about 2 months in paid places (campsites, hotels), mostly in towns. Whenever possible, I bush camped in my roof tent.
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Old 26 Aug 2007
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So far, in about 11 weeks of camping in our Unimog camper in western Europe, Morocco, Baja, western USA, Canada to home in Alaska we paid to camp ~25% of the time. Stayed in hotels 4 nights at the request of wife/daughter.

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Old 28 Aug 2007
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Hi Pumba,

We made the same experience than Richard. North Africa / Desert 95% bush camping. Campsite just in the big cities. As further south as more campsites.

For the east route bush camping will be fairly finished in Khartoum / Border to Ethiopia. In Ethiopia you face the first time the high population density you also find (even if it is not as extreme) further south. So the decision for a camping spot is always driven by:
- availability
(don’t laugh, we often drove much further than we planned because of endless forest, rocks, villages and luckily ended up in some gravel pit)
- safety
(as closer to the big cities as dangerous. We even had two times visitors on the roof rack at camp sites))
- personal mood
(you do not always have the patience to replace TV for the local crowd. Some days it is fun – some days it is a real pain in the ass… and after a while you also look forward to meet other travellers)

So be prepared to spend most of the nights in eastern and southern Africa on campsites / hotel backyards e.g. After fuel it is one of the main items in the budget. With sensible choice and a bit bargain it is around 5US per person but it adds up.

Best regards
Bernd
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