African Tour: Advice (especially about VISAs for UK PP holders)

ThisIs Geoffrey

New Overlander
May 8, 2019
1
0
1
Hi All

So we are getting married in the summer. For our honeymoon we are leaving our jobs for a year, we have brought a 4x4 (sprinter van) and plan on driving through Africa.

We have SO MANY questions but right now our main focus is VISAs. Specifically we want to know where we should/could get the VISAs for each country (importantly we need to know which to get before leaving the UK).

Our vague plan is either west coast down to south Africa and back up the east OR a slightly slower pace down the west coast and finish in south Africa a year later (and arrange shipping).

Questions:
1. Is the West and East coast feasible in a year or would we be better just doing the west coast?
2. We have listed the countries we think we would head through (along with VERY rough idea on POSSIBLE dates) - which VISAs should we get before leaving the UK?
3. Any other VISA advice?
4. Any weather / rainy season advice (looking at the suggested dates).
5. Who should we use for a Carnet (as you can see we are looking at Egypt and our Vehicle is probably worth about £17k)

UK-France-Spain (fairly quickly, leaving mid-august)
Morocco (a couple of weeks)
Western Sahara
Mauritania (End of September ISH)
Senegal
Gambia
Guinea (October ISH)
Cote d'Ivoire
Ghana
Togo (November ISH)
Benin
Nigeria
Cameroon (Christmas ISH)
Gabon
Republic of congo
DRC
Angola (Jan ISH)
Namibia
Botswana (Febuary ISH)
South Africa (March)
Mozambique
Zambia (April)
Malawi
Tanzania (MAy)
Uganda
Kenya (June)
Ethiopia
Sudan (July)
Egypt
Turkey (Augsut 2020)
Greece

Any advice (especially VISA related) would be awesome.

Thanks

Kev + H (and our van, Geoffrey)
 
Hi Kev, H (and Geoffrey!),

I've just joined the forum today with lots of questions about my own route through Africa 2020/2021 (UK-built Land Cruiser/Patrol shipped to Kenya (also short on info for carnet) then driving to South Africa, possibly selling in SA) but thought I'd chime in with some VISA related info as I was just looking at it.

You may have already found this site... it seems to be for UK passport holders, which I assume you both are:
LINK: Visa Quick Check for British Citizens

As I grew up in Botswana and have a few 2-3 week self-drive bushtrips under my belt I know that Botswana, Namibia and South Africa will give you 90 day tourist visas at the border.

I would say that 1 year to do a full circuit might be a bit rushed but it depends on the pace you want to go at and what you want to see! I'm looking at only Kenya, Tanzania (and Zanzibar), Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and I'm already pushing 9 months!

Road quality will vary across Africa and a large amount of my planned route will be new for me but I can give you a heads up on Botswana, not to put you off as the central region and north are extraordinary but just to be prepared for; it's become very expensive and the "tarred" roads (unless repaired since last year this time) are a national embarrassment... Chinese built roads that have disintegrated and very little maintenance have turned them into pothole ridden nightmares. The route north from Francistown to Kasane and across between Maun and Nata are very poor. Combine crawling along at times less then 10km/h weaving all over (and off) the road to avoid the worst patches with oncoming traffic and overtaking traffic made it quite an experience! I'm not sure if you're planning to go into the national parks in Botswana but if you are I would get as much info as you can about what a sprinter can cope with as the roads can be incredibly challenging even for fully prepped hilux/patrol/cruiser/etc.

A couple of useful sites I'll pass on are:

Best times to go (Won't cover all your countries): Safari Bookings
Fuel prices (I think it's pretty up-to-date): Global Petrol Prices

Congratulations on getting hitched and I hope your trip is a great success! If I can help with anything else (particularly Botswana) let me know,

Kind Regards,

Graham