I’m working up to a long open-ended trip down thw West Coast of Africa from Tangier to wherever I get, in 2023.
Maybe even Cape Town, I have no time constraints.
Has anybody done some or all of that, or know anyone who has.
My initial research suggests getting to Guinea-Bissau should be feasible enough, but after that I’m struggling to find much useful recent info.
My current concerns are:
- are the main coast roads between Senegal and Ghana paved and passable on a touring bike?
- same question for the stretch between Ghana and Angola.
- are there any long stretches where it may be difficult to find petrol?
- is it relatively straightforward to get local bike insurance at the border crossings?
- are any of the borders likely to pose a problem to someone traveling on an EU (Irish) passport?
But no doubt I will find plenty more things to worry about!

There are a number of threads on UKGSER about the travels of a couple of gentlemen of the Irish persuasion around Africa.

I think this is the first one for West Africa.

The whole series are interesting and have a good blend of photos and text - it may not be as up to date as you might wish but it will whet your appetite for the journey.

__________________
You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

I´m researching for a similar attempt during this winter. Procastrinating for ages.

I hope this thread on Africa without a carnet is still somehow usefull. I´d follow this guide roughly in terms of visa and TIP, but would cross check with recent reports.

Road conditions can be choosen to suit touring bikes, I guess, for most of the way. If it gets too tough, throw it on a lorry and take a lift. Your milage may vary, most overlanding bikers take a fuel bladder for the longer legs. ioverlander gives a good listing of fuel stations.

Insurance is still a topic, I need to research deeper, too.

Hopefully, this thread brings up to date info.

Thanks Both,
All very useful, and has helped get me off to a flying start.
I’m starting to get some traction and am accumulating quite a lot of information from different sources already. Steadily building confidence that this could be an adventure rather than an ordeal.
I may do a small dummy run: fly to Ghana this November, hire a small trail bike locally (with insurance) and try a couple of border crossings in both directions. Just to build confidence and hopefully make some contacts. There would be nothing lost if I decided to abandon the border crossings and the experience would be useful.

A trial run to someplace relatively quite easy--Ghana or Senegal--sounds like a good plan. I don't hold with the mystification sometimes attached to travel in Africa--it's not "The Dark Continent," really. But it definitely doesn't suit everyone, not least because much information collected in advance turns out to be inapplicable by the time you arrive. That requires a degree of flexibility which some find harder to summon than others.

Your original questions seem to lump long, varied sections by geography alone, like Senegal through Ghana or Ghana through Angola, but this doesn't make much sense on the ground. Ghana paralleling the coast is easy, as are Togo and Benin, but Nigeria along the coast is problematic at best, and not because of the roads. DRC, Nigeria and Angola have presented some serious visa issues in addition to sometimes-difficult roads, and the border of Cote d'Ivoire has been officially closed for quite some time now. Et cetera.

All of these countries and routes have been discussed at length, both here and elsewhere--I'm not sure why you're having difficulty finding information. There are people traveling this route right now, and some are posting in exhaustive detail as they go. In my view, you'll do best researching existing accounts first, before asking broad, general questions--your research will establish the key contexts for understanding the answers to later, more-specific questions. But that's just me.

I've rented quite a few times in Ghana, but I'm unaware of any functioning rental agencies at the moment. If you go this route, posting what you find and how it works out would be a real service to other travelers.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Thanks very much Markharf. Some helpful bits there.

Africa per se doesn’t faze me. My wife’s from Somalia/Uganda, our son is married into a big African family, and we have spent quite some time in Ethiopia. I‘ve travelled widely in E. Africa, including from Cairo to Cape Town overland.

W. Africa is much less familiar: I’ve been many times to Morocco where we’ve got family connections (one in the travel business) and I’ve ridden through the Atlas and deep into the Sahara. I know Senegal fairly well by car, but everything south of that is unknown (except Ghana) - and that’s precisely why I want to see it. As you quite rightly say that leaves two large regions - where specific answers and tips from recent travellers could be useful.

Just spotted this and by now OP may well have finished his trip> Anyway I am one of the gentlemen of an Irish persuasion and this the eventual path I followed.

Attached Thumbnails