23 ms·

I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

485 points by lornemalvo 10y ago

jharohit 10y ago
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!
- greenmountin 10y ago
  He said [1] upfront costs were ~$100k, though recouped ~$30k by selling the truck at the end. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_bought_an_army_truck_and_spent_19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_... Reddit thread has NSFW tag for source pictures
  - donquichotte 10y ago
    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.
    - estefan 10y ago
      What sort of bike did you take? A shitty 600CC that was knackered to start with, or did you go for a BMW tourer a la Long Way Round?
      - NaliSauce 10y ago
        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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LEgowbzSc
      - donquichotte 10y ago
        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.
        estefan 10y ago
        Thanks. It's something I've been thinking about doing :-) Edit: Can those lighter bikes take panniers? I guess you're not going a long way with a rucksack?
        donquichotte 10y ago
        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.
        estefan 10y ago
        Sweet, thanks for the tips.
      - sickbeard 10y ago
        I don't think you want to bike through a forest if it's going to take days..
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    That was a few years ago, the pound was significantly stronger back then. But even at the current exchange rate, he sold it for over $35k.
overcast 10y ago
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.
- codeduck 10y ago
  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.
  - georgespencer 10y ago
    > 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"?
    - codeduck 10y ago
      There isn't much direct evidence, no. Publications like https://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/7A814B01-5B83-4C27-A1F9-8B051E4294D6/0/HBETve.pdf https://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/7A814B01-5B83-4C27-A1F9-8B0... stress types of vehicle which are recommended / not recommended. 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.
barking 10y ago
Is this the 21st century equivalent of big game hunting? Driving around africa in a truck for 19 months isn't exactly environmentally friendly. How many miles to the gallon do those things do?
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Neither is taking a plane somewhere.
- jsaxton86 10y ago
  On /r/travel the OP said 4 km/liter
  - barking 10y ago
    Thanks. I think that works out at about 18 mpg which is better than I thought it would be. I thought it might have been single digits
- gambiting 10y ago
  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.
  - barking 10y ago
    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?
    - gambiting 10y ago
      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.
cdubzzz 10y ago
Straight from Mali to Benin. What about Ouagadougou! ):
prawn 10y ago
It pains me that so many beautiful sights on our planet are in what is reasonably dangerous territory or at least perceived as such. I would love to see all of Africa, but have only been to Morocco, which seemed very safe at least.
- tim333 10y ago
  There are always organised overland truck trips which are pretty safe eg http://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/search/trip?f%5Bduration%5D=itm_field_pp_duration%3A%5B31%20TO%20301%5D&f%5Bregion0%5D=im_field_pp_region%3A4116&solrsort=fts_field_pp_rating_marketing%20desc http://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/search/trip?f%5Bduration%5D... or https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-africa https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-afric... which does much the same route as in the article for approx £8k
- RogtamBar 10y ago
  Freedom means you're free to succeed or fail on your own merits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanzelka_and_Zikmund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanzelka_and_Zikmund .. these guys travelled the world widely in late 1940's. I've read the African book, and it's very funny reading these days. 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.
  - prawn 10y ago
    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.
lintiness 10y ago
goddamn am i boring.
ep103 10y ago
I gotta wonder how much this would cost
- aiyodev 10y ago
  I'm guessing about three or four octillion Zimbabwe dollars.
  - shiggerino 10y ago
    How much is that in Schrutebucks?
- bfuller 10y ago
  100k with 30k recouped at the end by selling the truck
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    Cheaper than SF rent
MrDosu 10y ago
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...
- colmvp 10y ago
  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.
  - kochthesecond 10y ago
    Just to add anecdotal evidence, I have travelled a lot in Spain and never felt unsafe nor been robbed.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      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.
      - ctrl-j 10y ago
        > 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?
        mklim 10y ago
        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.
ggregoire 10y ago
What's your background? Did you live in Africa for a while before this trip? Otherwise it sounds to me insanely courageous, I would love to be so adventurous. :) What about the language barrier?
georgeg 10y ago
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!
grecy 10y ago
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. The details on the Jeep I built into my house are here: http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o I'm filming a YouTube series as I go: http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme And you can follow the adventure in real time across social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme Twitter: https://twitter.com/dangrec https://twitter.com/dangrec And my website: http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pmarreck 10y ago
  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. ;)
  - collyw 10y ago
    In the States. Elsewhere in the world the salaries are much more average.
  - grecy 10y ago
    > I have no sympathy for you Sympathy? I think you're confused. I'm living a life dream, no need for any sympathy. > the creature comforts will still be there when you tire of not having them, and anyway, you will appreciate them more. Last time I drove Alaska->Argentina, and since then I've been living in the Yukon. I'm in no hurry to get back to creature comforts, trust me :)
Allower 10y ago
Looks like a horrible experience
nathan_f77 10y ago
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".
- lasfter 10y ago
  Perhaps try Doctors Without Borders? It is more of a long-term kind of travel, but you will be doing real good and definitely living an adventure. They need people with all kinds of backgrounds, not just medical, so it might be worth a look.
  - imgabe 10y ago
    There's also Engineers Without Borders - http://www.ewb-usa.org/ http://www.ewb-usa.org/
    - nojvek 10y ago
      That looks very promising. I'm going to definitely check it out.
  - todd8 10y ago
    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.
sickbeard 10y ago
The most dangerous thing in Africa is running into an armed rebel group or corrupt police/army. The vast majority of strangers you meet will mostly be sympathetic to your cause and help you when they can. You'll also be SOL if you are not handy.
- RogtamBar 10y ago
  Not in Congo though. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo-Lubumbashi-to-Kinshasa http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democrat... Multiple times, the travellers found spots where locals would make traps for cars and then ask for money to get the cars unstuck. The only people who were invariably helpful were priests.
  - sickbeard 10y ago
    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
    - RogtamBar 10y ago
      Land Rover is not 4x4?
- noobermin 10y ago
  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.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
    You clearly don't live around here!
jonstewart 10y ago
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-job-to-travel-the-world 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.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > 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.)
  - jonstewart 10y ago
    > 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.
  - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    You forget the timeline involved. There is nothing surprising about getting stuck 3-4 times on dirt roads over the course of 19 months.
donretag 10y ago
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.
- clydethefrog 10y ago
  I loved reading the story about "the lunatic express", the Nairobi-Mombasa train. https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-lunatic-express https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-lunatic-express
  - donretag 10y ago
    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.
donretag 10y ago
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).
- hexadec0079 10y ago
  Hell yeah, I'm pretty mechanically handy and have been on a few stage rallies in the area. Let me know if you find the remainder of a team!
ftrflyr 10y ago
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.
nxzero 10y ago
Author of the post has posted responses to comments on Reddit: https://m.reddit.com/u/skebanga/activity https://m.reddit.com/u/skebanga/activity
tunichtgut 10y ago
Now thats an amazing truck! Love it!
Marthyn 10y ago
How did you pay for all of this? And are you back working now?
- tspike 10y ago
  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.
  - Marthyn 10y ago
    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.
djaychela 10y ago
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. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourists_in_Mauritania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourist...
ebebeb 10y ago
Why is this blog-tier garbage on "hacker" news, why does it have (currently) 350+ votes? A true testament to this community of hipsters posing as self-described hackers/developers/programmers...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
resmote 10y ago
I think I'd almost feel safer circumnavigating Russia than Africa in an old truck.
sinatra 10y ago
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!
genericacct 10y ago
You circumnavigated Africa with a truck? I am impressed!

485 points by lornemalvo 10y ago

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!

greenmountin 10y ago
He said [1] upfront costs were ~$100k, though recouped ~$30k by selling the truck at the end. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_bought_an_army_truck_and_spent_19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/53eqlt/i_quit_my_job_... Reddit thread has NSFW tag for source pictures
- donquichotte 10y ago
  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.
  - estefan 10y ago
    What sort of bike did you take? A shitty 600CC that was knackered to start with, or did you go for a BMW tourer a la Long Way Round?
    - NaliSauce 10y ago
      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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LEgowbzSc
    - donquichotte 10y ago
      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.
      - estefan 10y ago
        Thanks. It's something I've been thinking about doing :-) Edit: Can those lighter bikes take panniers? I guess you're not going a long way with a rucksack?
        donquichotte 10y ago
        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.
        estefan 10y ago
        Sweet, thanks for the tips.
    - sickbeard 10y ago
      I don't think you want to bike through a forest if it's going to take days..
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  That was a few years ago, the pound was significantly stronger back then. But even at the current exchange rate, he sold it for over $35k.

overcast 10y ago

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.

codeduck 10y ago
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.
- georgespencer 10y ago
  > 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"?
  - codeduck 10y ago
    There isn't much direct evidence, no. Publications like https://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/7A814B01-5B83-4C27-A1F9-8B051E4294D6/0/HBETve.pdf https://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/7A814B01-5B83-4C27-A1F9-8B0... stress types of vehicle which are recommended / not recommended. 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.

barking 10y ago

Is this the 21st century equivalent of big game hunting? Driving around africa in a truck for 19 months isn't exactly environmentally friendly. How many miles to the gallon do those things do?

emodendroket 10y ago
Neither is taking a plane somewhere.
jsaxton86 10y ago
On /r/travel the OP said 4 km/liter
- barking 10y ago
  Thanks. I think that works out at about 18 mpg which is better than I thought it would be. I thought it might have been single digits
gambiting 10y ago
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.
- barking 10y ago
  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?
  - gambiting 10y ago
    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.

cdubzzz 10y ago

Straight from Mali to Benin. What about Ouagadougou! ):

prawn 10y ago

It pains me that so many beautiful sights on our planet are in what is reasonably dangerous territory or at least perceived as such. I would love to see all of Africa, but have only been to Morocco, which seemed very safe at least.

tim333 10y ago
There are always organised overland truck trips which are pretty safe eg http://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/search/trip?f%5Bduration%5D=itm_field_pp_duration%3A%5B31%20TO%20301%5D&f%5Bregion0%5D=im_field_pp_region%3A4116&solrsort=fts_field_pp_rating_marketing%20desc http://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/search/trip?f%5Bduration%5D... or https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-africa https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-afric... which does much the same route as in the article for approx £8k
RogtamBar 10y ago
Freedom means you're free to succeed or fail on your own merits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanzelka_and_Zikmund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanzelka_and_Zikmund .. these guys travelled the world widely in late 1940's. I've read the African book, and it's very funny reading these days. 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.
- prawn 10y ago
  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.

lintiness 10y ago

goddamn am i boring.

ep103 10y ago

I gotta wonder how much this would cost

aiyodev 10y ago
I'm guessing about three or four octillion Zimbabwe dollars.
- shiggerino 10y ago
  How much is that in Schrutebucks?
bfuller 10y ago
100k with 30k recouped at the end by selling the truck
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Cheaper than SF rent

MrDosu 10y ago

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...

colmvp 10y ago
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.
- kochthesecond 10y ago
  Just to add anecdotal evidence, I have travelled a lot in Spain and never felt unsafe nor been robbed.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    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.
    - ctrl-j 10y ago
      > 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?
      - mklim 10y ago
        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.

ggregoire 10y ago

What's your background? Did you live in Africa for a while before this trip? Otherwise it sounds to me insanely courageous, I would love to be so adventurous. :) What about the language barrier?

georgeg 10y ago

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!

grecy 10y ago

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. The details on the Jeep I built into my house are here: http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o http://imgur.com/a/OLK3o I'm filming a YouTube series as I go: http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme And you can follow the adventure in real time across social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme Twitter: https://twitter.com/dangrec https://twitter.com/dangrec And my website: http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com

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pmarreck 10y ago
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. ;)
- collyw 10y ago
  In the States. Elsewhere in the world the salaries are much more average.
- grecy 10y ago
  > I have no sympathy for you Sympathy? I think you're confused. I'm living a life dream, no need for any sympathy. > the creature comforts will still be there when you tire of not having them, and anyway, you will appreciate them more. Last time I drove Alaska->Argentina, and since then I've been living in the Yukon. I'm in no hurry to get back to creature comforts, trust me :)

Allower 10y ago

Looks like a horrible experience

nathan_f77 10y ago

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".

lasfter 10y ago
Perhaps try Doctors Without Borders? It is more of a long-term kind of travel, but you will be doing real good and definitely living an adventure. They need people with all kinds of backgrounds, not just medical, so it might be worth a look.
- imgabe 10y ago
  There's also Engineers Without Borders - http://www.ewb-usa.org/ http://www.ewb-usa.org/
  - nojvek 10y ago
    That looks very promising. I'm going to definitely check it out.
- todd8 10y ago
  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.

sickbeard 10y ago

The most dangerous thing in Africa is running into an armed rebel group or corrupt police/army. The vast majority of strangers you meet will mostly be sympathetic to your cause and help you when they can. You'll also be SOL if you are not handy.

RogtamBar 10y ago
Not in Congo though. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo-Lubumbashi-to-Kinshasa http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democrat... Multiple times, the travellers found spots where locals would make traps for cars and then ask for money to get the cars unstuck. The only people who were invariably helpful were priests.
- sickbeard 10y ago
  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
  - RogtamBar 10y ago
    Land Rover is not 4x4?
noobermin 10y ago
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.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  You clearly don't live around here!

jonstewart 10y ago

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-job-to-travel-the-world 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.

DanBC 10y ago
> 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.)
- jonstewart 10y ago
  > 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.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  You forget the timeline involved. There is nothing surprising about getting stuck 3-4 times on dirt roads over the course of 19 months.

donretag 10y ago

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.

clydethefrog 10y ago
I loved reading the story about "the lunatic express", the Nairobi-Mombasa train. https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-lunatic-express https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-lunatic-express
- donretag 10y ago
  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.

donretag 10y ago

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).

hexadec0079 10y ago
Hell yeah, I'm pretty mechanically handy and have been on a few stage rallies in the area. Let me know if you find the remainder of a team!

ftrflyr 10y ago

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.

nxzero 10y ago

Author of the post has posted responses to comments on Reddit: https://m.reddit.com/u/skebanga/activity https://m.reddit.com/u/skebanga/activity

tunichtgut 10y ago

Now thats an amazing truck! Love it!

Marthyn 10y ago

How did you pay for all of this? And are you back working now?

tspike 10y ago
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.
- Marthyn 10y ago
  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.

djaychela 10y ago

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. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourists_in_Mauritania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourist...

ebebeb 10y ago

Why is this blog-tier garbage on "hacker" news, why does it have (currently) 350+ votes? A true testament to this community of hipsters posing as self-described hackers/developers/programmers...

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resmote 10y ago

I think I'd almost feel safer circumnavigating Russia than Africa in an old truck.

sinatra 10y ago

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!

genericacct 10y ago

You circumnavigated Africa with a truck? I am impressed!