...just over a year ago a friend and myself did East Africa on our bikes. It's not just Egypt but also Ethiopia and Sudan who insisted on having a Carnet on the border. Fortunately we had one. Others didn't. And couldn't cross...

All other countries between South Africa and the Ethiopian border will issue a Temporary Import Permit and you don't need a Carnet when on a motorbike. Other travelers we met came from Spain all through West Africa, South Africa and into Kenya without having a Carnet. However, they had to DHL one in from Spain in order to be allowed into Ethiopia.

good to know - thanks for the info Marco...

Oops...so much for obtaining an Angola Visa while still at home unless I want to go for a little drive to Houston from California:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...-no/angola.jpg

West Africa from Sep 2013
 

So much information. Thanks all. I am looking for some companions to do the Morocco - Mauritania - BF - Cameroon route. Don't have any transportation, but can contribute to the fuel costs. I will be in London mid September, heading to Casablanca later in the month. All the information on visas in great. I am getting the first few here in Washington, DC. They seem to want them from the country of origin.

PM are perfectly acceptable if meeting or skype is required.

David

Hello,

First of all: I'm going to Cyprus this Saturday (15-06-13) for 10 days (so that makes: till Tuesday 25-06-13) with my girlfriend, of course I'll rent a motorbike there and ride a trans-Cyprus-trail XD most likely to take a day, if anyone is on Cyprus in that period of time reading this? Please response, we can do this together maybe.

Second: I still have some questions. First: Carnet de Passage, I don't really need one, I'm only riding up to Accra, Ghana with you guys, and I saw on a website that it is recommended but not required.
ADAC Reise & Freizeit - Carnet de Passages - Englisch
So that will be no carnet for me.

What do we do with tire's? I have falling in love with “Continental TKC 80's” but the are burned out with something like 3000 km. Are there any plans yet for driving to Southern Spain is it like speeding on the highway or will we do some fun-tracks also? I'll adjust my first set of tire’s. How many km will a normal tire do on the 3000 km from Calais to Algeciras? I guess it will be a good idea to by a new rear tire in Spain or Marokko, as it seems hard to get one in real Africa itself.

OK that’s enough for now I guess. When I'll come back from Cyprus and my other holiday planned the week after I'll send you guys a packing list I am taking, so you can correct me on: “take this to” and “leave it, you won't need it”.

Kind regards,

Jeroen.

Hi All,
We are using Continental TCK80s, but not putting them on till we get down to spain as they do wear out pretty quick on tarmac. Taking a spare set aswell, in the Landrover.
Not bothering with carnets, Id rather pay on the borders, but leaving copies of documents with someone at home just in case we do run into problems and have to get them DHL'd out to us. The potential savings seem well worth the risk in my mind.
The main problem countries for carnets seem to be Ethiopia and Egypt, and we had always planned on leaving Egypt off anyway because of the 800 percent premium. It should be possible to pay on the border for Egypt anyway as they have their own import system where you leave a deposit of 2000 Euros which you allegedly get back when you leave. Even if we dont get it back its still cheaper than paying for a carnet.

If anyone else fancies doing just the Europe part for a leisurely sightseeing ride, we are leaving from Dover on 4th Sept and just taking it easy for a month with no particular route planned, as long as we end up at the tip of Spain on Oct 5th :)

Oh yeah, Visas, we arent getting any in advance, I like the idea of the challenge of getting them along the way, and it gives us points to head to in each country for embassies :)

Has anyone else got comms gear on their bikes? We are using Autocom radios which are PMR466 Mhz. Ive got spare radios for use in cars but cant connect headsets to them for using on bikes as they are only cheap ones.
Radios we have on the bikes are Kenwood UBZ units.

Paul-I don't have comms, but like the idea. Can I buy something at reasonble cost somewhere in Europe as I leave in 3 days? After I get my shipped bike in Lithuania in July, I will ride down eastern Europe, across Italy, southern France & northern Spain, down Portugal, then across to Algeciras for the ferry to Tangier.
Chris:)

Hi Chris, I think you should be able to pick up comms gear easy enough, Autocoms are widely used or equivalent radios on the same frequency at least, and theres a lot of 2nd hand stuff about. Theyre all pretty simple to fit. Ill keep an eye on ebay for anything suitable and try and get a few spare bike to bike units to bring with us.

Hey all -

Checking in to let you all know that I'm still up for this, and riding towards Africa now.

I rode across the US, and into Canada, and then have shipped the bike to S Korea, and will get to Vladivostok this Saturday. Should be in europe for late August, and after relaxing, ready to tackle Africa.

I havent started on any visas/carnets yet, but am following this thread closely. I've been so busy figuring out this leg of the trip, i havent thought that far ahead, but did manage to get 2 british passports, so i can be processing 1, while on the road with the other.

NY-Lon

Wow, I was thinking about heading into Asia, but this fits nicely into my schedule. Could you cope with an of road rookie staying their RTW journey joining you? :what:

t
 

drivelandy: of course - I think that we'll all keep close watch on this thread as the end of Sept approaches to try to meet up.

Tires: I'm going to run mefo explorers since they are reported to have decent dirt/gravel transaction and pretty long life - some report up to 10K miles on a single rear. I'll carry the rear until morocco or Senegal or so and then install.

Tires:

I've run D606s off-road, but they wear far too quickly. I get maybe 4k miles out of them.

TKCs I can get 5-8k, and so now I'm trying the 50/50 on/off road K60s, which I also think I can get close to 10k miles out of.

I havent ridden these before, so will see if they are good enough off road.

Thanks for getting in touch Paul,

I'm excited now. I get made redundant on the 5th July and have no plans after that. This will be the start of my RTW trip. I need to start the program of inoculations ASAP. I'll refit my radio to the bike for comms. My plan was to have K60 tyres fitted.

Steve