Hi all,
Planning to cross africa this winter, and wanted to check with members here if they thought there was something crazy in my itinerary. Please let me know.
Thanks!

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I had a similarly planned trip in 2007...but acquiring the Sudanese visa ahead of time to enter from Western Sudan/Darfur...was not possible.

Search the HUBB files for prior postings...there's a lot of useful information to help you in your trip planning.

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edde
93 BMW K75s
www.motoedde.com

Great route, but as @MotoEdde said, we also couldn't get access to that part of Sudan - and we were in Sudan at the time! (also 2007).

Let us know how you get on.

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Nick Taylor, a Colorado Mack'em
blog | vehicles

We did all of the route down and across but then headed south from khartoum. As mentioned Sudan visas would be a real problem. Also even if you did get the visas, that area of the world doesn't seem that nice a place to be at this time. Maybe things have improved but nothing in news coverage to suggest so. Even when we went through before the trouble, had troops turning up in Landcruiser utes with 50 cals mounted on the back, very jumpy, didn't want us in the area. Beautiful countryside and really friendly Sudanese locals but troops, police etc not so good. Also Chad was fairly full on, quite hostile locals, broke down and got stoned and robbed by a mob of about 100 whilst we fixed it, one guy got mugged, met a couple of other travellers whilst we were going through who had also been mugged. Country is ruled by a warload, not a great sense of security. Some travellers got through without incident but not the easiest country and this again was before all the latest troubles. Suggest its may be doable, usually for all the talk that it can't be done, there is some solo german motorcyclist who drove through warzone without paperwork and got through but you would have to be fairly hardcore to do it.

Other difficulty is most likely place for getting visas will be neighbouring countries. Long been the case that you could sit for months trying to get visas in European capitals without success and then get one in 24 hours in neighbouring country. However long way to go to try and find out. Ideally you want an alternative route so you have a way of salvaging your trip, otherwise its just a big back tracking exercise.

Hundreds of thousands of starving people in Dharfur, petrol is not high on their priority list. Biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Chad is listed as highly dangerous on the British Foreign Office site. Visas are the least of the problem.

Great, that's exactly the feedback i need. I suspected the east part was too difficult. Plus i'm worry about getting saudi arabia visa.
So now, if you wanted to cross a nice part of africa, and then continue your trip east without missing interesting countries in the middle east, how would you do?
Thanks all!

Hi Davestar!

Also considered your proposed route - at least for going west to east - but decided to do it much further south, because of the ongoing troubles in northern DRC, Chad and Sudan, but also because my final destination is South Africa. Have a look at the route on One ball One continent and PM me if you'd be interested. Timing though: starting from Amsterdam 31 Jan 2010.

Kobus

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"The fates lead him who will; him who won't they drag." - Anon