OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
The journey to the ancient Inca citadel that is Machu Picchu is very easy if your wallet knows no restraint. The real challenge is to get to Machu Picchu without having your wallet or credit card raped. We spoke to numerous ‘English speaking’ tour operators during our investigation into every available option open to us, we also explained in great…
22nd May 2013 Lake District Cumbria There is a reason England is green. It rains a little from time to time. Particularly in the coldest, wettest Spring since 1979- just to welcome us. Even floods encountered across the roads in Cumbria a few days ago which even Tin Can was not eager to cross as the Floods in Cumbria water…
We arrived at the border and were stamped out of Malawi pretty painlessly. We expected the Tanzanian Border to be easy because we had our Carne and visas, and only needed to get insurance. There is an exchange bureau at the Tanzanian Border and we got good rate for our Malawian Kwacha… Which is always surprising at a border! We…
Toda fronteira é complicada, pois vários fatores envolvem a travessia, mesmo nas fronteiras mais remotas na cordilheira entre Argentina e Chile, onde imaginei ser tranquilo e rápido, fomos submetidos a uma revista mais rigorosa, mas essa fronteira bateu todos os recordes de fiscalização e demora. Foram mais de três horas nos procedimentos burocráticos de saída da Bolívia e entrada na…
Depois de Copacabana, deveríamos tomar uma decisão; seguir pela Bolívia até Uyuni, para visitar o maior deserto de sal do mundo ou desviar o caminho e voltar para o Chile onde as condições são bem melhores para viajar. Já na saída de Copacabana um pedágio era cobrado em nome da conservação da cidade e uma taxa adicional, a título de…
Laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador Quito, Ecuador [by Jeremy] It’s often said to be an endearing quality in a man to be able to show emotion, to be able to shed a tear. It’s not quite so endearing when the man in question is on all fours, clinging to a rock and blubbing uncontrollably. I am that man. Before setting out on…
The Caspian Sea I arrived at the Azerbaijan border and passed through the Georgian side in 5 minutes. Then began the queuing for Azerbaijan. It wasn’t moving fast so I settled in for a wait. A friendly local chap introduced himself and we passed the time with him teach me introductory Azerbaijani lingo. Overall it took about 2.5hrs to get…
The drive to Livingstonia was slow, but absolutely beautiful! The most part of the road winds between part of The Great Rift Valley and the views are breathtaking! Mzuzu town is perched on the mountains at 1200m altitude, and driving to Livingstonia takes you all the way back to the Lake, and then up another mountain. As we started descending,…
If I’ve been doing a good job at promoting it, you know that we’ve been trying to raise money through Kickstarter to write a book about traversing China and the Silk Road in Nacho. We were attempting to raise $25,602 to cover the cost of permission to enter China twice with a government-approved guide. After thirty days of fundraising, you…
In Luxor we stayed at a campsite called Razeiky Camp. This is a hotel with a large garden / sandpit and as we sat nursing ice cold beers in the afternoon heat we were told grand stories of yesteryear by the manager (who reminds Jules of her dad, but for the sake of keeping wills intact no photo was taken),…
Part 3: A gentleman is defined, not by the distance he keeps from his own, internal wildness, but by his ability to scrub up afterwards. Iconic (Photo: RWH) Having left all chance of contact with the outside, Dan and Alki dropped off the edge of our map and headed to the border of the Congo. Here are some of the…
Once again this year, we headed southwest to Newport, Oregon and South Beach State Park for the Rogue Brewery’s Memorial Ale Fest. Brewer was the beloved Rogue black lab mascot who worked his way up to CEO. After his death the brewery began throwing an annual doggie brew fest in his memory. South Beach State Park, quite frankly, is…
Nossa última noite antes de entrar na Bolívia foi em Puno, onde chegamos já no final da tarde vindo de Cusco. Como o hotel já estava reservado anteriormente pela internet, não tivemos muitos problemas para montar acampamento. O estacionamento estava incluso na diária, mas a vaga ficava a 3 quadras do hotel, em uma rua muito estreita e que exigiu…
A saída de Arequipa deveria ser rápida, mas o maldito programa de GPS que compramos na hora H não funcionava e tivemos que sair da cidade pedindo informações, o que te leva para diversas direções menos para a certa. Recebemos várias informações erradas inclusive de policiais. Depois da difícil saída de Arequipa, e o congestionado trânsito na periferia, encaramos uma…
Voilà une liste des endroits qui nous ont plu à BA. This is it: the trip is over. Tomorrow morning we climb on the airplane and we jet back to the ‘real world’, to friends and family (good) and to work (bad). Here is a list of places and activities we enjoyed during our transitional time in Buenos Aires that…
In 1956 the French left Morocco after 44-years of occupation but recent times have seen a new invasion; from the Southern Spanish Ports they come in their thousands, a campervan cavalcade marching to a victory of sunshine and low-cost campsites. Throughout natural history, species with the means (ie-wings) have wisely selected to spend their winter months in the sunshine of…
We are suffering from a bit of sensory overload after three days in Etosha. It is not easy to describe the scenery, the vegetation, the vastness of the Etosha Pan, or the animals we saw. Or the numbers of animals we saw… Etosha National Park started out in the early 1900s as a 90,000 square kilometre park, but the last…
A good few nights wild camping and driving quite quickly we stayed one night in a rather expensive campsite in Hotel Huanchaco Gardens Hotel. It was OK. I’ve posted some photos. For the price is could have been better but it was quiet so probably worth it.I might not have mentioned the attempted robbery in Puno in Peru. Well We’ve…
Crossing over to North Sudan Driving down from Gondar in Ethiopia to the Sudanese border takes you from a very cool elevation of 2,100m down to just 600m. Upon arriving at the border town of Metema, we were completely dumbfounded by the intensity of the Sudanese desert heat. “Only 38 degrees today!” the locals cheerfully replied. “In Khartoum, it’s 46!”…
Kezbegi Mountains The Georgian border was a formality in comparison to the Russian exit. I waited in a queue for 15 minutes, handed over my visa, told them where I was going and that was it. Welcome to Georgia they said and I was in. I had a simple check by customs which was basic to say the least. I…
“It’s all about trust. And when it comes to monkeys, I have none.“ — Anthony Bourdain This is a good quote to live by. I should have learned my lesson a few weeks ago. Brad and I had just awoken and were strolling down a sleepy street in Cherating when we saw kitten sized baby monkeys swinging in the trees…
Patagonia was tough on us. As were the mountains and deserts of Northern Chile and Argentina. It has been even tougher for others, we have had American friends roll their Toyota on the Caraterra Austral and English friends in a Land Rover who lost, basically, the entire rear axle before plunging down an embankment on the Tierra del Fuego road.…
Currently we are 10 days into the trip and enjoying it, we have done around 2,000 miles and the car has averaged around 35 mpg, no problems yet fingers crossed. Overall, Germany we drove through quickly, maybe we should have visited more sites, but plan to revisit on the way back, Denmark was dull much like England, sweden and Norway…
I was taken aback immediately to my school days when I saw the first old Blue Bird school bus rolling through the Belizean countryside. With their bright colors, roof racks, ladders and souped up engines and transmissions these old buses will get you just about anywhere you need to go in the county. It’s funny after carting thousands of US…
We arrived late in Letaba on Friday because of the long delay at Skukuza workshop. Arno decided to drive the Hilux in 4×4 because the vibration that we heard at the front right wheel then stops. We were lucky to get the very last campsite against the fence. As normal, the hyenas came at dusk running up and down the…
“Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the” … I was trying to shake the theme song from Gilligan’s Island from my head, but it was not working. You see normally I’d like to kind of have a…
After a few days in northwestern Nicaragua (Somoto Canyon and Esteli), we made a beeline to the coast for some surf. We stopped at a town called El Transito, and instead of surf, we found a really sketchy little fishing town with one very aggressive drunk. That night, we asked to park at a hotel and they told us it…
15th May 2013 N48° 24.598’ W123° 19.869’ After Medford we wanted to drop by at Crater Lake, about 100 kms NW of Medford along the appropriately named Crater Lake Highway. Everyone who knew that part of Oregon told us it was perhaps the most beautiful lake in north America and definitely worth the trip. But being quite high up in…
Truck on it’s side A herd of Camals A donkey carrying far to much hay Truck loses it’s load down a donga We found some interesting photo’s depicting Ethiopian roads while we driving south towards South Africa……
We’ve done an extensive 4×4 Overland experiment where we have taken two brands of the same size tyres and driven them extensively from London the UK to South Africa. The Toyo was fitted to a long wheel base Toyota Land Cruiser Prado and the BFG fitted to a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado short wheel base. Toyo 255/85 MT tyres at…