Hello,

The HUBB’s contribution to adventure travel is enormous. Countless people, myself included, have used the vast archives of this website to plan a significant event of our lives. The resources and people on this website have aided me over the past 3 years as I have traversed North and South America, Vladivostok to Mongolia to the Pamir, and as I have planned my current trip from Morocco to South Africa. The knowledge and experience is past down freely, to encourage others to overcome the potential struggles, and bring about a continuation of these types of adventures.

Throughout my travels, I have always been keen to meet other overlanders and share stories and information, so as to assist them in any way possible. And I am always grateful for the knowledge shared with me on the road. But, when it has come to this forum, I have been decided selfish: taking much and offering little. This is what I hope to change during my current, and final, adventure.


Prep Work
There are 3 of us, including myself (Gino), my brother (Mario), and our cousin (Jamie). We all ride Kawaski KLR 650’s. Last June we shipped them from the USA to Busan, South Korea and then ferried them into Russia to ride west from Vladivostok through Mongolia and the Stans and eventually to Sicily to meet some family…I need to go back and do a big write-up about that trip, but probably not until I’m home in a few months. That being said, the bikes were already prepped for that first trip. In Sicily we performed the standard maintenance; checked the electrics; checked the bearings; and fixed everything that broke, snapped, or rattled loose during the Pamir and Wakhan Corridor. We threw on some fresh tires (Shinko 804/805) and headed towards the ferry port in Palermo.

Route & Visas
All 3 of us have USA Passports.

Morocco > Mauritania > Senegal > Mali > Burkina Faso > Ghana > Togo > Benin > Nigeria > Cameroon > Gabon > R.O. Congo > D.R. Congo > Angola > Namibia > Botswana > South Africa

We are flexible, depending on the visa situation that we encounter. This is particularly the case for Ghana. We would like to go, but if we can’t get the visa, then we will just go directly into Togo from Burkina Faso. Below is a complete listing of our plan for obtaining visas:

Country I'm In > Visa I Want to Obtain Here
Morocco > Mali, Ghana, Nigeria
Western Sahara > None
Mauritania > None
Senegal > Ghana, Cameroon
Mali > Nigeria, Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso > Nigeria, Benin, Togo
Ghana > Benin, Togo, Angola, Nigeria
Togo > Gabon, RO Congo
Benin > DR Congo, Nigeria
Nigeria > Cameroon
Cameroon > None
Gabon > None
RO Congo > Angola
DR Congo > None
Angola > None
Namibia > None
Botswana > None
South Africa > None

Our basic strategy is to try early and often for the more tricky visas like Nigeria (hard to get a firm answer on if/where people are having success with this one) and Ghana.

If anyone has advice / suggestions / recommendations on where to get any of the visas, I’d love to have it. I did my best to gather all of this information from the HUDD and a few other resources, but first-hand experience is always welcomed.

I will keep everyone updated on the visa situation as we find success (or failure) at the various locations.

Currently in: Morocco
There are a number of ferry options into Morocco depending on where you’re launching from. We left from Sicily and used GNV ferries. Their website Grandi Navi Veloci - Traghetti Sardegna, Sicilia, Spagna, Tunisia e Marocco is very straight forward and gives you the option to choose which type of cabin you want and if you want to pay for the meal plan. We had to book two separate itineraries, A: Sicility to Genova, and B: Genova to Tangier Med. The total price per person, including bike, was about 250 Euros.

We arrived in the port of Tangier Med on late Wednesday night. A special note of interest is that the city of Tangier is a solid 45 minutes away from Tangier Med Port. I mention this because if you arrive at 11 PM like we did, then it’s a bit disappointing to spend about an hour and half in customs, and then have to drive to your hotel, only to arrive at about 2 am. Anyways, book wisely!

The immigration process at Tangier Med was both chaotic and relatively painless. None of us speak French, so that makes it a little harder, but everyone was pretty helpful. The immigration process was handled on our boat a day before we arrived. So our passports were stamped before we landed in Morocco. Once you’re off the ship, just keep driving and showing your passport to which ever officials you pass. Eventually you will make it to the customs area. In our case, the asked motorcycles to pull all the way through and park about 25 meters passed the offices. Then find an official and get to work. Just make sure to remember your customs officer. He will have you fill out a form, you then must go show the form and your passport to the police officer, who will then input your information into the computer. The police officer sits in a booth about 50 meters away from the customs area…You passed this booth as you drove towards customs, so you have to walk back to get this taken care of. After the police officer has entered your information, take the form back to your customs agent. He then walks around with it for about 15 minutes, doing nothing, and finally takes it to the customs agent with the computer and everything gets squared away. Then they will tell you’re good to go.

Keep driving for about half a mile maybe and then you will come to a set of small buildings on your left. This is where you can exchange money and buy insurance. We probably bought insurance at about 12:30 or 1:00 AM, so I guess they’re there all night, but I can’t be sure. We each paid 950 Dirhams (about $100 USD) for 30 days of insurance.

We are currently in Rabat, Morocco. Our goal is to get approved for several visas while we are here, as it would be nice to have everything situated and better able to plan our route and timing.

Visas Obtained in Morocco
Mali: Obtained
Location is correct on iOverlander, Maps.ME, and Google. Very easy process and polite people. Same day pickup. We were even there on a Friday.

Required:
Passport
2 passport style photos
1 print out for a hotel reservation. Canceled later via booking.com
A short application which they provided

One month single entry visa was 250 MAD (27USD) they allowed us to pick the start date of the visa.

There is an internet / print shop in the tobacco shop inside the Carrefour on the main road a few blocks away. We used this to print the hotel reservation.

Ghana: Not Obtained
Location is correct on Google, but not found on maps.me or iOverlander. It’s just down the street from the Mali embassy.

We were told that only residents of Morocco can apply for visas. I sent an email over the weekend, hoping someone is sympathetic to our cause. I will update as I know more.

We are in Rabat for one more week, so our plan is to apply for a visa for Nigeria, if they allow us. I will provide updates at the end of the week.

If you want to see some of our photos and videos, we have an Instagram @destination_south and our youtube videos are a link in that bio.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully someone, somewhere down the line, will get some use out of this. Updates coming soon.

Gino