This looks like a nice experience, but I'm realizing that I don't want to do anything like this. I thought I did, but I guess not. That includes driving an RV around America or New Zealand, hiking the Appalachian trail, or any other kind of journey where you travel from A to B and see a few things along the way. I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me. I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.
I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.
The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".
I don't care that this is a late and buried reply and most likely only you will read it. I even created an account just to reply to you. I did this because I was you about a year ago and your post is exactly something I could hear myself say or think. I had a good friend that had lived part of their life out in the big world and I was talking to her about it, explaining how I felt, which is just about what you write in your post. It ended up changing my perspective a bit and I actually finally just did it: I quit my very nice job, girlfriend quit her nice job, we sold the car and left to travel the world. We are still travelling, and are going to continue doing so for at least another couple of month.
Reread your first paragraph, then reread your second paragraph. To paraphrase them both a bit: "You would like to experience some real adventure, but getting stuck in the mud doesn't really appeal to you". Hmm?
The only way you will experience something that is really fulfilling to you in this way, is if you go do something that you are not really all that comfortable with. Go do it and feel how you are not only a better version of yourself, because you know that you can now "do this too", but it also changed your view on the world just a little bit. It broadened you character and your perspectives a bit and THAT is fulfilling.
It doesn't have to be mud in Africa, but it does have to be one of those things where some part of it doesn't really appeal to you. The only fulfilling adventures are the ones that change you, and an experience can't change you if it is designed to only give you what you already know and like.
You don't have to do that one big thing. You can do a series of smaller things instead. As long as they challenge you it will be fulfilling overcoming that challenge.
Congrats, that sounds very exciting and it sounds like you helped people as well. I'm not sure you need it, but just in case, I would like to validate you and your decision to go off the beaten track. Ultimately it's important to do what makes you happy and fulfilled and traveling seems to make you happy and fulfilled, which is great to hear.
There is deep truth in this comment, doing something you are not sure you can do will challenge you. And in overcoming that challenge you will be hugely rewarded.
As others have said, the struggle is what will be meaningful, long term. But don't feel compelled to get in over your head, just because you want a cooler tall tale when all's said and done. On the other hand--and I only discovered this after that unplanned sojourn in Turkish prison--there are challenges and adventures to be had in Anytown, USA. You just have to know where to look, or learn to see differently.
"First, I'm going to deliver this case to Marcellus, then I'm just going to walk the earth."
I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.
The counterpoint to this stance is that there's something about ground travel (and "slow travel" generally) that's very different from the usual airport → city center → airport drill. Having to do with being continually in contact with the earth, and experiencing the slow transition from one geology, climate, and local culture to another. Not to mention some of the stunning, accidental scenery you'll be exposed to (and some of which I can still see, as if before my eyes) that you just won't see from a plane... and certainly not during the (significant) times one spends stuck in, or on the way to and from airports.
There's a significant time investment involved, of course, and a life devoted only to sightseeing would be very boring. Bu it's an experience that puts us in touch with the world more the way it actually is, and -- at least I find -- literally helps me feel more "grounded", even many years past the experience.
> The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do.
Traveling can be fun, but also alienating. I met many people who renounced to their trip around the world after a few months. It can become boring after a while and you start to wonder what is the point of it. And you don't really build anything while traveling. Maybe not everyone has this feeling, but I'd like my life to have an other purpose than just roaming...
Nowadays, the way I like it is to travel from 3 to 6 weeks at a time. It's long enough so that you can go at a relaxed pace, but not so long that you feel you're wasting your time. I also like try to do something constructive a few hours a day (especially if I travel for a longer period of time).
As far as adventure goes, I find it more rewarding to live and work in a different country than to go to the usual backpackers circuits.
I like to get some classes in the local language for a couple of hours a day. You'll learn something new, meet some locals and you can often interact more with locals you meet afterwards when mangling a little of their language.
As a simpler, less ambitious adventure, suitable for people that don't want to quit their job, you might try Habitat for Humanity.
There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing. You get to meet and work with locals for a couple of weeks. I went to rural Hungry. I had one friend who also went on the build. He talked me into doing it with him, and I'm glad he did.
> There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing.
I highly advise against this. There is no shortage of unqualified labor in underdeveloped countries. Most of these projects are just 'feel good charity tourism'.
If you want to make a difference you are much better of donating 20% of a US salary which will employ many more underqualified locals who actually need the job.
This is a very important point that a lot of charity givers miss -- what's the marginal value of your charitable contribution? By taking a construction job, you might just be displacing a local from their job.
The goal is precisely feel good charity tourism as a safe adventure you don't need to quit your job over, so it seems like good advice to me. Remember, the top comment is looking for a 'safe' adventure, not trying to be maximally efficient in improving the lives of strangers.
> The goal is precisely feel good charity tourism as a safe adventure you don't need to quit your job over, so it seems like good advice to me.
That might be the nathan_f77's apparently stated goal, but nathan_f77 also states they do not really know what they want. Charity tourism is just disgusting racist white savior paternalism that exploits POC-in-former-colonies poverty for white-people-from-former-colonizer-countries ego inflation. You use the word 'safe' in quotes so I assume you know this: the phrase "safe adventure" is literally an oxymoron (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adventure). Charity tourism might just turn out to be one of those unfulfilling consumer experiences the poster is looking to avoid, wrapped in a feel-good veneer.
I was the one suggesting Habitat for Humanity and I agree with you that it isn't the most efficient way to support home construction. This was one of the reasons that I had to be persuaded to go.
Obviously, professional construction workers would build homes faster and better than us amateurs. On the surface, it appears that I could simply have done what I am good at (software) for two weeks and pay professionals to do the building in Hungry instead.
While working in Hungry I had time to reflect upon this for two weeks. Most of the volunteers there did it because they wanted to help people, and most didn't think about the economic efficiency of they way they were doing it. A few of us (some Stanford MBA's and I) talked about it.
In retrospect, the issue is more nuanced. Habitat for Humanity is the world's largest non-profit homebuilder [0]. They require the future owners to contribute a significant portion of the effort in construction of what will become their home. This, they claim, results in better care for the home after they move in. If so, it seems like a useful model (but see the criticisms of Habitat for Humanity on the cited Wikipedia page).
Couldn't this be done using professional builders and not volunteers? Perhaps. However, let me relate something that was said to me in the small town where I was working. We were building a home for a family of Romani Hungarians in eastern Hungary. These people, sometimes called Gypsies, are not always treated well in rural areas of Hungary[1].
At one point, I met a townsperson that spent some time speaking to me. He said that at first the townspeople couldn't understand why people from the USA had to go to Hungry to find work. They were surprised that we were not being paid but instead had to pay for the privilege of working in Hungry (there are local trade's people involved with the construction that must be paid, construction supervisors, electricians, plumbers, cement companies and materials have to be paid for by our donations).
He told me that the concept of charitably taking care of someone not a family member was unusual there, and the whole town noticed us being there and doing it. We were well treated and the people were very friendly to us. One benefit of the trip is that we gained an appreciation of a different culture and so did they.
The remarkable thing was that he (the townsperson) described to me how seeing us volunteering to help people we didn't know in his own town inspired him to do the same; he had actually taken time in the past to work on the build too after seeing the volunteers from the US doing it. I realized that it isn't just about economic efficiency.
I still have mixed feelings about Habitat for Humanity, but overall I continue to believe that it is a form of "volunteer tourism" that has pluses and minuses but ends up being a net positive.
They are feel good charity tourism, but they also fund projects (including local labor) in otherwise poor areas, and they generate good will across cultural and economic divisions.
I don't see what is wrong with a tourist feeling good and doing something charitable.
I think the assumption is that he has in-demand skills that would be used in a job at home, while the work he would be doing overseas could be done by unskilled labor. Put another way, for a highly skilled technology worker, it is better to help fill a labor shortage in their field of expertise than displace a worker that is in a region with a labor surplus. Even without charitable contributions, the economics work out better for everyone involved.
Admittedly, this assumes both a labor shortage in the technologists field and a labor surplus for unskilled workers in the foreign country, but I think both of those assumptions are supportable.
This echoes my thoughts about travel. While I love being in transit, the idea of just seeing (or hearing/eating/etc) a bunch of things just isn't all that appealing.
I've lived in a few places in Asia and really liked that. Spending a few months to a year in a place, making friends, getting to know the locals. It felt good, though it limited the kind of work projects I could do. (I was an English teacher rather than a programmer or other independent worker at the time)
In some ways the digital nomad lifestyle, which is related to what I was doing, is very appealing. I know a programmer who has been bouncing around Southeast Asia working on programming projects, some contracted some independent, for the last year or two and learning languages.
Is that or something like it what you're looking for?
I've been thinking about this for a while myself. The current place I work at is extremely remote-work friendly, and we have people in many cities all over the US and the world working from their homes.
One possibility is to take up a job at such a firm, and then do your traveling while you work. I think it beats stressing out about finding a new gig every few months, at least. It's also easier if you happen to travel in the same/similar timezone.
Having done a similar trip with my wife and few years back, the challenge is a huge part of the adventure. Getting stuck in crazy places, getting help from villagers, being invited to a rural dinner "just because".
Of course, the beauty of nature is a huge part of the trip, but being taken out of your comfort zone is what makes it extra special.
If you're not prepared to step out of your comfort zone, then everything will seem run-of-the-mill and ordinary. Because it is.
Just be prepared (we could survive for 2 weeks on our own at any point) and take the right safety precautions (don't drive into war torn areas).
There's often a ton of things people can do where they are, as well. If you get involved in local politics, join a community arts project, get involved in neighborhood rehabilitation, join a dancing group, etc. You often see a side of things you never realized was there.
You get a different experience from "outside looking in activities (travel, overseas volunteer work, habitat for humanity) than you get from activities where you see yourself as being a member of the group you're trying to help or create something with. Both kinds of experiences can be useful, though it's important to understand the limits of each.
> 'but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.'
That's so true. Once you are a part of something bigger, the experiences, adventure and thrill land up on their own. This applies not only to travel, but every part of life.
> I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me. I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.
You're missing the point. It's the adventure, not the trail, not the road you'll chose or the destinations... It's the adversities on the trip, the people you meet, the broken cars, that bus/airplain/boat you didn't catch that will make the difference, a point vey well made by my favorite Cavafy poem[1].
Avoiding hardships of road travel is like avoiding hardships of working out while trying to stay healthy. Comparison may be a bit of a stretch, but I for one agree that road adventures are the whole point, rather the physical presence at the destination.
What I learned upon reflection on travelling widely is that the best stories, the things that I remember most fondly were the worst things that happened to me. Like being three quarters way up a mountain and getting hailed on in July. It definitely wasn't pleasant at the time yet it was a grand adventure!
It transforms the way you enjoy traveling. Every landscape you go through, you start having a real connection to the biology and ecology because you are actively thinking about the organisms that live there, and you are somewhat knowledgable about it. It makes you a biologist, and scientist as you're traveling. The choice of birds is for two good reasons: (1) other than plants and humans they are the easiest macroscopic organisms to see, anywhere in the world; (2) they are beautiful. It brings you into contact with areas of science -- evolutionary biology, genetics, conservation biology. It makes traveling through wild parts of the world so much more interesting than it would be otherwise.
I also quit my Software Engineering job, and I'm driving around Africa right now!
I decided I didn't want to sit at a desk for 30 years to pay off a mortgage, so I'm not going to. Dumping my life savings into this likely means I'll never have a new car, big screen TV or new iPhone, but I'd rather have this experience than those things.
In 2009 I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina too.
I remember your reddit thread, nearly everyone was convinced you'd be murdered and robbed by the end of the first day. Seems like you're doing alright so far, but have you run into any substantial trouble along those lines?
Friendly people everywhere I've been - in fact much more so than I was expecting.
Just today I was talking to a guy who agrees he feels much safer and more welcome here than he would if he showed up in a random city in the USA or Europe.
Right. This always surprises me. Americans are especially guilty of this feeling that the rest of the world is a dangerous, lawless hellhole. When in fact, 99.9995% of the world's population is just trying to get by with the least amount of trouble possible. Also, thanks for sharing your comments. They are inspiring and cool.
Are you in communication with the local governemnts about your travel.
How do you know what areas are ok to travel to?
Do you have to register your vehicle in these countries?
Who do you ask for permission to park your car.
How are you on the internet right now?
How do you communicate with locals, do they know English or do you speak what ever local language there is?
Have you hooked up with any other travelers?
How about any of these tribal women?
How do you pay from stuff. Do they take U.S. Dollars or Euros or do you have to get a billion Zimbabwe dollars for candy.
What are you eating.
When you get sick from eating local food what do you do?
Are you armed?
If so did you have a license for your weapons?
How do you cross the Sahara. Do those sand dunes move around and block roads or do they just stay in one spot. Or are these trucks able to ride over them without sinking into the sand.
If you are in Sahara and water runs out what do you do?
Thanks for the questions. I hope you don't mind, I'll use them as the basis for an FAQ on my website. Speaking of FAQ, checkout the FAQ on WikiOverland which covers lots of the basics of driving your own vehicle around the world.
The one from your home country is enough, sometimes you will be asked for an International Driving Permit, so you may as well get one from your home country (the AAA, or CAA or whoever in your country will issue it for about $10)
> Are you in communication with the local governemnts about your travel.
Local ones? no.
They don't care.
> How do you know what areas are ok to travel to?
Talk to locals, talk to travelers, read online from other travelers, read government travel warnings - i.e. checkout Mauritania right now - mostly OK, some red. I'll stay out of the red :)
> Do you have to register your vehicle in these countries?
No. It stays registered in it's home country, and I'm given permission at each country to "temporarily" be there with the vehicle. Usually 30, 60 or 90 days. I MUST take the car out again.
> Who do you ask for permission to park your car.
Depends where I am, but in cities there are paid lots just the same as you are used to.
> How are you on the internet right now?
There is a lot of infrastructure here - 3G is everywhere so I caved and bought a $20 smart phone that I now tether to. I'll buy a new Sim for $1 in each country.
> How do you communicate with locals, do they know English or do you speak what ever local language there is?
I'm trying to learn French as fast as possible, which is the generic language of West Africa. I can say a few words in a few local languages, but it keeps changing when I change countries. I want to learn more Swahili, which I'm told will be useful in many countries in South/East.
> Have you hooked up with any other travelers?
(assuming you mean met/hungout with)
Yep, there are other people getting around in cars and on bikes and motorbikes, and there are backpackers, and tons of UN ex-pats.
> How about any of these tribal women?
Dude, keep the questions SFW please.
> How do you pay from stuff. Do they take U.S. Dollars or Euros or do you have to get a billion Zimbabwe dollars for candy.
There are ATMs in the capitals where I can take out the local currency, otherwise I'm changing USD and Euro to the local currency on the street - getting the black market rate is fun :)
> What are you eating.
I'm trying to cook as much as possible to save money - so oats, toast for breakfast, usually buy rice with some kind of sauce for lunch from a street vendor, and maybe cheap street food or cook rice/pasta for dinner. Food is a couple of bucks a meal when you eat on the street.
> When you get sick from eating local food what do you do?
Suffer. I'll be writing about the worst case I've ever had on my blog soon...
> Are you armed?
No. crossing an international border with a firearm is a serious, serious no no. I would spend many years in jail if they found it, and they've searched well enough already to find all my "hidden" stuff like my money stash, so they would find it.
If so did you have a license for your weapons?
> How do you cross the Sahara. Do those sand dunes move around and block roads or do they just stay in one spot. Or are these trucks able to ride over them without sinking into the sand.
There is a road from Morocco to Mauritania - the sand blows onto it (think drifting snow) it's passable.
> If you are in Sahara and water runs out what do you do?
Why would it run out? why does water magically run out because I happen to be somewhere hot? I have a 13 gallon tank, I make sure it's full as often as I can. Also there is traffic on the roads, I would flag someone down if I had major trouble.
When you make it as far as Cape Town I'd like to meet up with you and briefly chat, if you don't mind. I've followed your blog so far and I'm very interested in following your process as you're making your way down south. It's definitely going to be a challenge.
Absolutely. Drop me a line when I'm getting closer.
Just this week I've bumped into three different people who just came North on the West Coast from Cape Town, including a guy from South Korea on a bicycle, alone, who doesn't speak a word of French and very basic English.
I made http://wikioverland.org to help get the knowledge out there so other people can do trips like this. As you might imagine, I'm passionate about helping others - ask away!
installing diesel instead of perfectly fine gas engine looked like typical mistake of a software engineer - we don't really need it, but it would be sooo cool to try!:)
Software engineers make pretty decent money, and can work from anywhere. If you want an affordable mortgage, all you have to do is move out of range of the big cities. I'm also a software engineer and I am fully aware that we have a job that has one of the highest satisfaction rates AND pay in the world right now. I have no sympathy for you lol
But enjoy your time away, the creature comforts will still be there when you tire of not having them, and anyway, you will appreciate them more. ;)
I wasn't really trying to convince him, I just think making drastic life decisions based on what sounds in essence to me like "whining" is possibly less than ideal, he had many other choices available to him if simply paying a long mortgage was the prime motivating factor. I may also be showing an anti-millennial bias /sigh
I have also heard one too many stories of post-college kids doing cross-country bike rides for similar reasons and getting run over and killed, and that upsets me.
> I have also heard one too many stories of post-college kids doing cross-country bike rides for similar reasons and getting run over and killed, and that upsets me.
Do you propose they sit at a desk instead, and be scared to actually live?
It's cool to bash on desk jobs but for most it's low-risk high-income work, and there are surely plenty of guys doing very manual risky jobs who would be only so happy to trade up to a cushy air conditioned office job for the same or better pay.
But some folks will figure out what works for them eventually. And admittedly it's probably not for everyone.
Of course, that's the point. If someone wants to quit so they can ride a bike across a country, that's as valid a choice as yours is to keep going to work. Nobody is wrong, everyone is just making their own choices.
he's bothered by the fact that his goals may not be the ones he thinks he wants, hence the projection and self-convincing. when you invest all day every day in something it hurts to see other people reject it, i guess.
i've sat at a desk my entire career, almost 15 years, and it's starting to get old. it's starting to make me feel old, and i'm not old, not by a long shot. it's starting to affect my social life and mental health. 3 months ago i decided to make a change, and have started to implement it. hopefully will be done within a year.
i promised myself if it seems like i'm being sucked back in, which happens when lots of money is involved, i'm going to cut and run on my 35th birthday. there's no fucking way i'm going to sit at a desk all day (a little is fine) at the mid-way point of this decade before 40.
This is reminds of a story of friends of mine from South Africa. They took the kids out of school to travel all the way up Africa and into Europ and back down for a year. They got robbed three times. Two times in France and once in Spain...
Ha! I've travelled to remote parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and the only times I ever experienced getting robbed or deeply fearing for my safety was in Barcelona and Philly.
I've been to Barcelona twice. A beautiful city that I really enjoyed. I never felt threatened in any way (but see next paragraph). I went out at night to local clubs and didn't feel that there was any more risk than going out in a large US city. Take the same kind of precautions, ask people before venturing into areas that you are unfamiliar with at night.
Las Ramblas is a large interesting boulevard through the middle of town and is a lot of fun to see. However, in any location where there are tourists, there appear to be very talented pickpockets targeting them; be careful.
I'm an amateur (very amateur) magician so I was fascinated to see the street scams based on the classic shell game being performed openly on Las Ramblas, complete with confederates winning money etc.
The pickpockets there are magicians themselves. I watched* my friend get his phone lifted on a nearly empty Barcelona street at 5am, and neither of us had any clue.
*: more like I was looking in the exact direction but not actually seeing what was happening.
Philly is one of those fun places where you can go from "Look at this lovely campus!" to "Oh god... we... we came to the wrong part of town. See how everyone is looking at us like we're crazy to be here? What... we were just on campus!!!" in a couple of blocks.
Same I've been to Philly and Barcelona, and live in Oakland, CA. Never felt like I was about to be robbed. I guess at the risk of being downvoted for victim blaming, "don't be stupid." It wouldn't surprise me if people let their guard down when they felt they were in a "safe" area.
Depends on when you lived in Oakland, CA. When I lived there (Lake Merritt and 17th) in 1998/1999, it was a total war zone. Absolutely nobody went out a night, and cars would typically drive through red lights rather than stop.
I visited it recently, and the entire Lake area has become gentrified. Almost like an entirely new city, with lots of people out at night. And I wasn't too worried about being robbed. Of course, I was robbed at gunpoint just a few years ago walking home from work in Redwood City - so it just goes to show it can happen almost anywhere. Except, of course, Singapore. Gotta be the safest city in the world.
> live in Oakland, CA. Never felt like I was about to be robbed. I guess at the risk of being downvoted for victim blaming, "don't be stupid."
Unless things have improved a lot in the last fifteen years, it's really pretty easy for a tourist inclined to walk between touristy areas in Oakland to wander into an unsafe area. I wouldn't blame that on stupidity, it's not as if the city puts warning signs up.
> I've been to Philly and Barcelona, and live in Oakland, CA. Never felt like I was about to be robbed.
Maybe you don't know what the feeling is like? I mean, how long have you lived in Oakland? If you grew up in the city with the 3rd highest crime rate in the US, maybe your barometer isn't calibrated the best?
On the other hand, I lived in Detroit for years. I think most people conflate "visibly poor" with "actively dangerous" and feel scared when they shouldn't. So many people would come in from the suburbs and visibly panic because they saw a crumbling building or a homeless person and figured they were about to get mugged, even though they were by the DIA in broad daylight surrounded by a crowd of people. My university's campus had less reported crimes than U of M's while I was there, and I still had a middle aged suburban woman try to get my professor to end a 6-9pm class at 7pm because she was scared to walk the 100 well-lit feet from the lecture hall to the parking structure after dark.
I am a native Detroiter though I don't live there now. It has always puzzled me that people view Chicago as a safe and fun place to visit. Yet South Chicago is in many ways more dangerous than most Detroit neighborhoods. But they don't hold that against the city because most visitors never enter South Chicago. Yet people are afraid to visit downtown Detroit because of the crime in neighborhoods like precinct nine.
I think you are placing undue weight on the statistics. Just because it's the 3rd highest in the US does not mean every waking second is spent looking over your shoulder lest you be robbed.
I've only ever been robbed in Italy, but I've been back a lot in the hope of meeting my robber again (he was Italian, he had dark hair, medium height, and was somewhat unshaven - anyone know him?).
Barcelona really? I am from Barcelona but never thought people are scared to be in Barcelona. I heard people get robbed in Las Ramblas years back but now its quite safe. You will never get mugged in Barcelona according to my experience.
Years ago I found a foreign hand in my pocket at metro turnstiles in Barcelona, elaborate scheme with 3 people, one covering on the back, one on my right distracting me and one on my left reaching into my pocket.
Something tripped my alarm and I ripped the hand out of my pocket before I lost anything, that dude was gone in a flash, the other two urged me to go through the gates as I would lose my ticket.
Then I remembered the recommendation to swear angrily in Russian at them and came up with a few of those I knew and the other two took a hike very quickly. Apparently they are very afraid of Russian speaking people.
Anyone who doesn't look Spanish is likely to get pickpocketed on Las Ramblas. I've heard multiple stories and seen it myself despite having only visited a few times.
I wouldn't feel unsafe there, but the risk of getting robbed is very high.
You can sit on one of the benches in the busier areas and easily spot the pickpockets and see them going in people's bags and backpacks and taking stuff. This isn't a rare occurrence and it does not take a practised eye to see. The pickpockets are always well dressed (usually very similar to the tourists). I like visiting BCN and I think it's a wonderful city, but it is completely infested with thieves targeting tourists to a degree that I have not seen in other European cities.
I'm surprised this is not common knowledge among people from there, maybe try 15-20 minutes people watching anywhere along Las Ramblas and see for yourself. Busy, sunny days with lots of people and police around are the best times to spot the thieves. You'll also frequently see tourist couples speaking to police reporting the robberies. You can watch the body language and gestures from a distance and it is very obvious.
My friend went to Barcelona and ended up in the hospital with a whole lot of stitches after being mugged in a tourist area after dark.
The place is also fairly well known for robberies of tourists in rental cars on the way to and from the airport. We were cautioned about this and rented a car from the other side of town instead.
I'm a foreigner living in Barcelona for four years, only once has someone tried to pickpocket me and I noticed them easily. I agree with your sentiment though, Barcelona feels like an incredibly safe city (at least in the center/Eixample) and I've never felt worried at night. Having lived/visited in Leeds/London and NYC in my experiences they are vastly more worrying/dangerous at night.
My grandpa was visiting Barcelone about 3 years ago and he got mugged in broad daylight. He's 80 years old. One mugger put him in a chokehold while the other emptied his pockets.
My grandpa lost consciousness and had to be taken to a nearby hospital.
After he woke up, he said the people around the incident just ignored them, even though he called for help. He said he got the impression that it must be an everyday occurrence.
I was not worried about the mugger himself, but of any possible friends nearby. I could have floored him easily (martial arts), but I did not want to start a rumble.
Last year I was mugged away from Las Ramblas, guy ran up to me, pushed me from behind and got my phone while I was on the floor. I had my hand on the damn thing at the time too! This was on a busy street around 1am. So while perhaps not typical it does happen.
Bastard ran up £3k in premium rate calls by the time I got back to the hotel to cancel it. Luckily I was refunded for those!
Maybe it's because the French are really soft on prisoners. That Coulibaly guy was furious they confiscated his playstation. I doubt Morocco or Algeria would have ever allowed him one..
I have spent the past 10 years doing this with Engineers Without Borders and conducting independent research. My experience is similar to yours but I didn't buy a vehicle - I used busses and trains.
My research in Africa was around Energy and the many forms it presents itself. I only encountered a handful of negative experiences:
[1] Getting jailed at the border in Mozambique for refusing to pay a bribe.
[2] Nearly getting kidnapped in Musoma, Tanzania by the biggest Tanzania I have ever seen in my life. He proceeded to grab my arm and pull be down and ally proclaiming I was to come with him and play the drums.
[3] In Nairobi during one of the worst storms in the past 25 years.
I just spent that past 11 months backpacking South America. This time, my research was focused on Drones and Last Mile Distribution.
In 2007-08 I did a three week trip in a banger (£155 Skoda Felicia), taking in some of the areas covered here - Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finally The Gambia. Cars were donated to raise money for Gambian causes, and it was an incredible experience. We got to Senegal just when the route recce crews came through for the (eventually cancelled) 2008 Dakar Rally - cancelled because of the murder of french tourists [1], which we were unaware of as we'd set off before it happened. It was part of the rise of Al Qaeda in Africa, and indeed I wouldn't do the same trip again today because of the security problems that are far worse now than they were then. Drove for days in the Sahara, did 100km along the beach in Mauritania, 4400 miles in total in a tired old thing that never said die. I can totally believe it about the roads in places - some of the 'proper' roads we drove on were unbelievably hard going (and I say that as someone whose hobby was gravel rallying in the UK) - one was a 100km stretch of washboarded road to the Senegalese border that put paid to many of the rear dampers in the group due to overheating and eventual expiry.
Africa is a magical place - I've been fortunate enough to go for a reasonable period twice - also worked in Tanzania for three weeks in 2004 - but it's certainly not for the faint hearted; I'd not want to go there without serious mechanical skills as there isn't the level of support that you get in Europe, and the fuel supply is hugely variable; indeed some stations have a reputation for deliberately supplying poor fuel to travellers to allow them to try to buy the vehicle for a low price (this actually happened - dodgy diesel from a barrel, and then 5 minutes later the vendor was saying he'd buy the car off the guys we were with. Needless to say we fixed it). Anyway, the memories will last a lifetime, and perhaps more importantly the lessons learnt there (such as how fortunate I am to have been born by chance into a wealth, stable democracy) have shaped my life ever since.
I live in Africa and I am pretty envious of this trip. I plan for something close when my son gets 16 if he agree to that is. It would be wonderful! I think you will agree with me that what the western world reports of Africa is largely skewed and not representative of such a diverse continent, culture and landscape! Kenya is amazingly beautiful!
Perhaps I should do a Ask HN, but are there any fellow geeks that would want to do the Mongol Rally in 2017/2018? Would love to do it, but none of my friend are that type of person (or cannot quit their job).
I envy this sense of adventure, but a lot of Africa is such a volatile place. The countries there are consistently in the top 20 most dangerous places to visit, and placed on do not go lists. Definitely takes a special person to deal with all of that, on top of all of the obstacles they ran into. Looks like they could have avoided most of the transportation issues, by investing in a true land rover type vehicle, instead of a heavy behemoth.
> I envy this sense of adventure, but a lot of Africa is such a volatile place.
This generalization is so broad as to be useless (akin to "America is a racist, xenophobic place"). Africa is 54 countries and 1 billion people and countless cities and neighorhoods, painting with a broad brush is unhelpful. Only a handful of countries have active conflicts or instability, it is easy to avoid them on a trip such as this one.
[Edit] Here's a fun game that was featured on the Daily Show: see if you can you tell if a photograph was taken in Africa or the US[1]
To be fair, this is about travelling across Africa rather than visiting a specific locale, that makes it more likely that you will need to pass through some of these "dangerous areas". Much as the other commenter here was mentioning getting robbed in Philly.
Not when those places are the ones people want to be. Yes clearly driving out into the middle of the desert, or on top of the highest mountain, probably low risk from the populace.
Sure, you can cherry pick it however you like. They also circumnavigated the entire continent in an old truck. Which means the likelihood of running into something not so pleasant, much greater.
When you are talking about a road trip around an entire continent, broad generalisations can be very useful. If two friends want to drive a truck to 20 countries, they will likely be much safer doing it in Europe than Africa - even with careful planning.
> they will likely be much safer doing it in Europe than Africa - even with careful planning.
Can you enumerate the dangers that the two friends will face in Africa - sudden malnutrition? If you are referring to armed conflict or the danger of being abducted by the local African warlord[1], then you might be happy to know that such dangers are highly localized and the high-risk areas easily avoided; after all, Africa is a large place (larger than the US, China and most of Europe. Combined[2].
A much safer alternative would be circumnavigating Australia. By land via Highway 1 (the world's longest continuous road at 15,000 km). Or by sea in a luxury super yacht ;)
Yeah I don't understand doing it for scenery. I saw this on /r/overlanding and it's not appealing. The scenic density seems low and all the problems as well as the uncomfortable truck make it seem really stressful... Doing it for 19 months? I'd be bored after two weeks.
If I really wanted to understand Africa I'd pick a city and go work and live in it... Not drive through it in an army truck.
There is very little to worry about there. Having your car break down or get bogged in a remote location is a much greater danger, but one that lots of tourists ignore.
Um, Australia is home to some of the most poisonous snakes and spiders on the planet. And outside of major cities, they crawl into people's homes and cars on occasion.
Australian here. What you say is true, but avoid long grass (snakes) when out walking and check under the toilet seat (spiders) before sitting and you'll be fine. More importantly, make sure you look up constantly when around gum trees to avoid sudden and violent drop-bear attacks. The exact number of deaths and injuries caused by drop-bears is keep secret by the Australian government to avoid putting off tourists, but could well be more than zero.
A normal clean toilet is no danger, same as everywhere else in the world, but if you're going to the loo in one of those ramshackle open-to-the-elements rustic outhouses, you might want to check the seat.
Real, but usually only if you have an 'outside toilet'; I had one of these in a WWII-era home located in a country area of Australia, and there would often be red-back spiders + eggs under the seat. Still, easily checked for and destroyed.
Considering that I live in rural Minnesota and if my shoes are left outside in summer, I check them for wasps or snakes before putting them on, I'd go for them being real.
Apart from one or two snakes, the cassowary, and the crocodile, dangerous Australian wildlife is pretty shy and sleepy. Make noise when you walk through scrub and the snakes, if any, will avoid you. The only particularly deadly spider lives only around Sydney, you have to go hunting for it, and there's antivenin for it. I've also never heard about snakes getting into people's cars. Sure, it probably happens, but it's rare if it does.
Yes, the toxicity on paper of Australia's animals is sky-high, but that's not the full story. You're far more at risk of heatstroke than animal problems when travelling Australia.
As someone who spent a lot of time in Congo -- you also don't get the full picture from the media or even State Department statuses. In the example of Congo, the problem area is limited to a couple towns versus a country that's the size of Western Europe combined, and even there it's pretty infrequent. To go by what you read, the whole country is in constant chaos.
I will agree the media like to blow a lot of things out of proportion. But you can not deny Africa has some serious problems that outsiders just aren't exposed to in any form daily. I'm glad you had a positive experience, but downplaying things has the opposite effect.
The gun homicide rate per 100,000 is 3.43 in the US, and 37.16 in swaziland. We have a big population in the US, of course we're going to have more of lots of things. But in terms of disease, violence, and vulnerability to official corruption, the US is way ahead of africa as a whole.
Last time I ran the numbers, 70s Detroit was more dangerous than 70s Belfast, despite the ongoing low intensity civil war and frequent bombings of Belfast.
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An old truck is a vastly more practical vehicle in Africa than a landrover - LRs need a lot of maintenance, whereas trucks generally just keep going.
The only major mechanical issue they had was caused by dirty diesel, and if they'd had some sort of pre-filtration setup they could have probably avoided this.
Their major issues were simply down to the weight of the vehicle and poor route selection.
> An old truck is a vastly more practical vehicle in Africa than a landrover - LRs need a lot of maintenance, whereas trucks generally just keep going.
This sounds like received wisdom. Is there any evidence to support it? Why would one believe that a land rover's engine requires more maintenance than the average engine found in all the aggregate "old trucks"?
The reason I made my original statement is that old, frequently ex-military trucks and old busses form the backbone of a lot of central and northern africa's transport networks, and the local mechanics are incredibly ingenious and experienced at performing "bush repairs" or fabricating spares to keep them going.
I would add that old vehicles aren't built to the same tight tolerances as newer vehicles. This makes it a lot easier to bodge together repairs for them, which makes them more maintainable by said bush mechanics.
They are the backbone, because they are cheap leftovers. They are very resourceful people for what they have access to. I'm guessing if they had modern trucks, and modern roads, for the same costs of the old hand me downs. They would probably use those instead. Cuba I'm sure is also ready to give up those old cars they've been keeping alive by now.
Top Gear is not by any means a reliable source of motoring journalism, but they do have a series of videos [1] which make a 1988 Toyota Hilux look very durable. At least if you have a mechanic with a "basic set of tools" on hand.
I can supply some anecdotally. I own two vehicles with reputations for running after neglected or minimal maintenance: a 1966 VW Beetle and a Land Rover.
The more correct way of characterising both would be that they will continue to run and function without ongoing maintenance (the proper level of which is way above a modern vehicle) until they break in a spectacular and often terminal way.
To attempt to answer your question, I think the general implication is that "old trucks" are designed for high maintenance intervals whereas Land Rovers, especially as used by the military, are designed to perform a function for short intervals with the long-term aid of a logistics chain.
I have a 2001 Nissan Xterra that's been sitting in my driveway for almost 4 years with a blown head gasket because of the combination of lack of spare time, other available vehicles that I could drive, and the complexity of disassembling the engine to remove the heads. The seats and hatch area are now full of engine parts and I still have to finish taking off the passenger side head.
Contrast that with my 1987 Toyota pickup: I would have had the entire job done in a weekend with time to spare.
So all of those national geographic shows I see, where they are tearing through the jungle in land rover type vehicles, they should trade it in for a giant military diesel?
With Africa and I guess a number of other places around the world, being white helps. You can feel a difference of how they'll treat a white person. It can be the opposite too, being overcharged. I know I'll probably get bashed with comments.
According to several friends who travel or do charity work in Africa, being white makes you more of a target for robbery. It makes sense; they know you probably have note money than the locals, so they're going to approach you accordingly, whether that means being nicer to you or targeting you.
You seem to have missed the point here. A Landrover does not a mobile home make. How are they supposed to live in a Landrover comfortably for 19 months?
My dad had a custom-made LR and two people could very comfortably live out of it for any length of time. It even had a water tank with a heated shower head if you were feeling lavish.
The tent was on the roof so it should have been safe from most animals:
I wish, but no - it was a replica made by a specialist LR garage in Poland. My dad bought it for an expedition to Kazakhstan in 2014, but unfortunately, cancer had other plans. I've inherited the LR but sold it shortly after because I had no use for it.
No, I know what it looks like. A hyena will hop up onto the bonnet of that landrover and sniff / gnaw at the canvas up front, and if there's something inside it wants good luck.
Hiding a 12ga inside a car bodywork is easy peasy lemon squeezy and slugs from that reliably put down grizzly bears, which are I believe the toughest land predator currently in existence.
Trying to cross international borders legally with a firearm for self-defense is really difficult if not impossible. If you talk to Overlanders or international ocean cruisers, almost none of them carry weapons. Trying to sneak or bribe your way across a border with a weapon is a pretty serious crime.
There have been so many of these self-congratulatory I-quit-my-job-to-travel-the-world posts that the New Yorker published a satirical piece on it: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/why-i-quit-my-jo.... TFA doesn't even have any geek discussion of build details, design trade-offs, problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc.
> problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc.
The solutions seem to be "someone else fixed it".
>> Our truck weighed over 10 tonnes fully laden, and whilst driving through some marshland just before we got to Senegal we broke through the hard crust into boggy clay below.
>> We were very lucky to be just ahead of the Amsterdam Dakar Rally, and they helped pull us out. It took about 4 hours of digging, and 3 trucks to get us out - 2 pulling forwards, 1 sideways to make sure we didn't topple over!
[...]
>> We ran out of diesel, and all the crap that had been floating on top clogged up the entire system.
>> For 3 days we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, unable to fix it ourselves. We were travelling in convoy with another couple and they were able to drive to a small village a few hours away where they found someone who knew a guy in Congo who could help us! So he took our friends to a spot where he could illegally cross the border and smuggle his mechanic friend across.
[...]
>> Turns out the dry river beds weren't so dry after all, and the weight of this truck made it sink right through to the mud below.
>> It took 2 days and the help of a nearby village to dig us out.
I'm kind of surprised there isn't a buddy comedy movie about something similar. (I guess Into the Wild, although very much not a comedy, is similar.)
> I'm kind of surprised there isn't a buddy comedy movie about something similar. (I guess Into the Wild, although very much not a comedy, is similar.)
I love the idea of _Heart of Darkness_ filmed as a buddy comedy.
Hit the nail on the head. It's all quite amazing and awe-inspiring as well; I don't want to take away their achievement. However I can't deny how self-congratulatory it feels.
My first few months roaming the world were life-changing. Every day, I updated my Instagram with photos of my favorite sights: cones filled with scoops of glistening gelato; my hand lightly resting on a café table, near an early edition of “On the Road”; selfies of me hugging depressed tigers too stoned on sedatives to drown themselves.
i hate to admit this but im a photographer and have been dreaming about quitting and traveling just for opportunities to take photos. not sure i'd ever put photos of food/sedated tigers though.. but still hits close to home
As another photographer, remember exotic places are always tempting and can be very fun, but travel doesn't make good photos. You make good photos, and you can do it close to home.
So if you want to take beautiful photos of tigers you do have to find tigers, but you also have to be able to take beautiful photos. The tiger won't solve that for you.
(Now, if you're already a great photographer, good enough to sell your works, then you have the skills, so by all means devote yourself to pursuing subjects)
As someone who has a very hard time feeling unqualifiedly good about anything, I find the naive sincerity refreshing, and welcome it to a degree. I mean, is there really something wrong with taking pride in something interesting you did, and sharing it with people? Note that the original trip takers are not necessarily responsible for their wide audience (nor did they necessarily want it).
Perhaps they should have added the customary disclaimer at the top, apologizing for every privilege and benefit that they've received in life, as well as displaying their up-to-date Permission to Experience Joy Despite Unfairly Having More Opportunities Than Others certificate?
P.S. The OP is nothing like the satirical post you linked. It's an imgur album with fairly modest captions.
wow - the views of the Western Sahara, Namibia, Kenya, Zanzibar & the water driven mill is simply staggering! I wonder what were his costs overall. That truck surely looked like a petrol/diesel gargling machine!
With this type of adventure, you can get your cost down to maybe 5-10k/year if you travel light (bicycle, motorbike) and camp out a lot. Source: Quit my job and rode a motorbike from Central Europe to Mongolia. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
On a only slightly related note: there's a guy who drove across a lot of Asia and Europe on a C90. He filmed some of it and cut it togheter. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LEgowbzSc
KLR 650, it is pretty heavy in the mud but easy to work on.
Many adventure bikers start taking light, modern, powerful fuel injected bikes for long range trips now, like the WR250 and the KTM 690 Enduro.
I saw some guys struggling hard with GS1200s in sand and mud. If you know you're going to drop the bike a lot, it's probably worth going for a lighter option.
Yes they can. I used hard cases, for future trips I will change to soft luggage though because everything will be ground to dust in hard panniers if you don't pack tightly and ride hard off-road for days. Walter Colebatch designed the "Magadan" soft panniers after riding the Baikal-Amur Mainline, I personally haven't used them yet but will try them for the next trip. If you're into this kind of stuff, check advrider.com.
The both despised the colonialist administrations, and the book frequently mentioned all the injustices done on the native populations. Yet the factual descriptions of Africa at that time make it look a far safer place.
Friends of my parents' travelled in Afghanistan (and probably neighbouring countries), presumably in the 1970s. And said it was akin to going to Vietnam now - as in, maybe slightly adventurous by average standards, but nothing crazy.
You want crazy? Try going around Africa via public transportation. I would not recommend it. ;) No matter what kind of bus ticket you get promising a luxury bus, it will be anything but that.
Try getting a small group together and do like the author did. I loved Africa.
I took a train from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Slow and decrepit. No first class even if you wanted to. However, they sold beer on board at prices that were cheaper than even a supermarket. We finished their entire supply. Opted not to take the train in Tanzania. There were no other options for trains at other times.
In addition to all the other issues others have raised, I'll worry about the total gallons of gas I'll be burning in the truck in those 19 months. That'll be one heck of a carbon footprint!
I find it very curious that expense is the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people when they hear about trips like this. I understand it is expensive, but so are a lot of things that don't trigger this question. Is it just because it requires eliminating the safety of a regular income? Replacing my roof cost as much as a year of traveling, but nobody ever asked me how I could possibly afford to replace my roof.
Because replacing a roof is not something i would wanna do, and driving around africa in a truck is. I believe he can afford it, i just want to know how much it would cost me to do the same thing.
Not the worst thing in the world. it's part of being handy, you're going to get asked for money A LOT (if you're white). You're going to be asked for dates or marriage a lot if you're a white woman.
Frankly a lot of their problems related to getting stuck was not having a 4x4
That's quite something to be honest. If you break down on the side of the road in the US, the most that will happen is people will call 911, they won't help you pull out of a ditch.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again - I'm 99% certain that my local supermarket stocking fresh cherries from Chille every day(I'm in UK) damages the environment more than someone driving a truck in africa. It almost makes me angry that someone mentions that this sort of adventure shouldn't be done because of environmental reasons.
The odd person driving a truck around africa won't cause environmental damage.
Killing a few elephants won't endanger the species.
Are you in favour of allowing people to shoot elephants?
Apart from the fact that sips likely generate more pollution than cars [1], it's seems very plausible that he would generate more of it being stuck in a traffic jam while getting to work than he did during these holidays.
He also didn't probably use as much electricity as you do at the moment which is likely generated mostly in non environmentally friendly way. Ignoring the fact that many parts of your equipment came on ships from China. From factories which generate a lot of pollution.
Also, if you want to be perfect better-world-optimizer, it is really hard. Even if the earth would get ever slightly more polluted by this single car, the impact of thousands of people reading the story could still be positive. It makes them think about nature, probably slightly increases their well being, and so on.
Why, because my attitude towards shooting elephants has anything to do with my attitude towards driving a truck in africa?
I'm just trying to point out that we're doing more damage demanding brand new phones every year, demanding that every shop around has fresh produce from every corner of the world etc etc etc. Him driving around africa has probably lower impact than an average tourist flying somewhere for holiday.
I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.
The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".