hello my friends.

i need to ask some questions about Africa since i have never been there before.

i have a united states passport.
do i need to apply ahead of time for entry visas for each african country ?
what about my motorcycle; does it need to have its own "visa" for each country?

or

can i simply show up at the border of each country and fill out the paperwork needed to get me into each country?

For the west coast route, you can get by without a carnet (bike visa) by getting temporary import permits at each border. There are some benefits to using a carnet (lower or no vehicle fees at some borders) but this is offset by the carnet deposit requirements.

As for you, there are a couple of countries which are a pain to get visas for enroute and are much easier to get in your home country. The rest you can get on the way, usually in the country prior.

If you want to use the search function at the top, it's pretty good to read up on what the latest is.

When are you heading over?

At least the Visa for the DRC and Angola - you have to obtain in your homecountry. I suggest to obtain as much as possible - what suits your time plans.

A carnet de passage (customs - papers for your bike) you need for Namibia and Southafrica:



When you take small borders they dont know exactly what you need - and you may have a chance get through without. But each Police Checkpoint can catch you then - so i would suggest to do your paperwork in a legal way. I dont see any reason to cheat there - or do you get in line with that guys who had to pay high bribe's - because of that?

Maybe my blog could help you: http://transafrica2012.blogspot.com

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

surfy ,
thanks for the info. surfy i checked out your blog site. interesting. i also looked at the tracks4africa gps site that you mentioned on your blog site. ill be downloading their maps. i've included a link to my ride reports for you at the bottom of this post. you will find some good info for traveling as well as all of my gps data for those trips.

mountain man,
i think it will be better to just buy a carnet de passage for the bike in order to avoid having to carry loads of cash with me as well as avoid loads of paperwork.

not exactly sure when i will be heading over. i just started planning the route, researching, thinking about which bike to ride. however i im leaning towards the "winter" months.

-do either of you know if anyone has gone from North to South, strait down the middle of africa (that has documented their trip)?


Enduro Earth

the middle as in Libya, chad, CAR, crossing the congo basin then into zambia? Never heard of anyone doing it that way (with good reason).
there are no roads straight through the middle of the congo, so would be a lot of river travel.
as for your visa question, visas at border are few and far between, but most you can get on the road. angola is a must to get in your home country, drc and nigeria can also be trouble some to acquire.

yea thats pretty much the line i drew on my map.

thanks ozranger for the info on visas and roads. have you been to Africa on a motorcycle ? when ? i can learn a lot from those of you who have done this before.

i see lots of people riding / driving africa in 4 months. does it really take that long?

NOTE: all the is my opinion and other will have different opinions. get as much information as you can and then decide for yourself where you want to go.

yeah i rode from ghana to south africa this time last year. took me 3.5 months and that was moving pretty fast. if you want to follow that line, if it's possible, (and that's is a very BIG IF) i would recommend minimum 6 months.

would i ride africa again? in a heart beat, would i ride the route your thinking? no way!

libya is a mess, imminent threat of attack warning was issued for benghazi last week. people who want to cross the 'developed' areas are having severe issues obtaining transit visas using 'fixing' companies (tour companies if i remember correctly). that area of the Sahara is bandit country, not just steal you s**t bandit, but kill you or take you as a hostage bandit country.

chad is also quite lawless in the Saharan area same issue as libya, and the decision to enter is not to be taken lightly. it is high on the list of dangerous countries.

CAR is also pretty messed up, rebels were marching towards the capital bangui, capturing towns just a few weeks ago. they have brokered a peace deal with the government but these are worth a grain of salt in most cases.

DRC is never a stable country and the far north is rebel area, LRA, FDLR and M23 all operate up near that area.

this map is a bit old but you get the idea.
boat travel will probably take you at least a month, depends where you want to go but its slow, and then the roads if there are any are horrible quality.

oh and last note, if you have travel insurance you will not likely be covered in the any of these countries if you government advises DO NOT TRAVEL in there travel warnings. so if some bad happens you on your own.

otherwise safe travels

sounds like shiny happy people holding hands.

well i guess its going to be a "hug the west" route then.

good advice , thanks.

Not all seems to have read our blog

We have reached Capetown inside of two months (52 days) - and we do an extra line to botswana, with additional 4500km - and have done severall resting / chilling days, and also many days in Nationalparks.



We would do it again with a two month timeframe... But the costs of the whole trip are the fuel, visas, insurance and road tax, when you do wildcamp most of the time (what you have to often (no Hotels).

So it is near the same price to do it in 2 or 4 months, the food is very cheap.

I suggests to start to watch for the things you want to see in each country, make a list of attractions and cities and so on - you want to see.

Than do you can start planning, how much time you will need. I think 3 months let you see everything you want, and give you also time to relax.

With 4 months you have a very comfortable timeframe, which also allows to do some voluntary work.

When you want to stay in a small village for some weeks, look how they life and try to give them a better life (dig for water and so on) - yes - you will need more time.

We will start again, when we have a 2 month timeframe.

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

angola could be a challenge. there's a bunch of people stuck in Congo (some for three months already), trying to get into angola. they have recently made changes in visa regulations, and will - in principle - only issue it in the applicant's country; and then only for a 7-days' transit visum, no more than 2 months in advance.

of course, this being africa, there are ways around rules. Angolan visa seem to be issued from the consulate in Jo'burg, and sometimes from Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire. But no guarantees...
Some people have managed to mail their passports to Jo'burg, get the visum, and have it mailed back - but this takes African connections...

20500km in 52 days! sweet jesus! thats almost 400km a day!
and i thought i moved quick! each to there own. you say if you could you would do it in 2 months again, if i had my time again it would have been 6 months for me and doing half the distance.
everybody has there own speed in which they want to do it. but i think its better to give yourself plenty of time and finish early then not enough time and miss things. easier said then done of course

We also hope for a bigger timeframe(s) for future travel(s) - depending from the route and style of the trip.

I just try to note here - that 4 months allows to do a transafrica with visiting many areas in each country in a comfortable way.

If i can`t get more time - i would do such a trip again in two months - better than nothing. We had planned more - and had no chance to get more than 2 month at the end.

So we tried it in 2 months -and it was a nice experience. Else we had to wait 2 years...

In 2 years we will travel again anyway - and have the experience from this trip - not a bad way to start.

If we again just gets a 2 months timeframe because of our life circumstances - but can do it again extra occupational, keep our flat at home - why not?

The time for really extended trips will come - someday - also for us - sometimes sooner than we thought...

For our Transafrica we want to see the beautiful landscape, the animals, the environment, want to spend time together. And we want to test our setup of the car - if we are happy how he is build - if we see us travel this way on an extended trip. And we want to see if africa is the target for an extended trip.

This questions we have answered for us. The setup of the car is approved - and some minor changes we will do in the next months.

We both love our jobs, our friends, our life here - and we love too to travel. Maybe you think that this is crazy - for us it was the best compromise we can get in the 2012.

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Im in Israel now,I cross 22countrys from Maroco - Cape town-Cario riding Us register bike.
with out Carnet,I took advise from Mrwhite.
When, you coming to Egypt from Sudan ask for TIP(temporary importation papers) and pay $800 Refundable-Deposit which I got back to the penny when I left Egypt to Israel,lost $70 when I exchange from Egypt money to Us$,make sure you exchange on Egypt side NOT Israel.
Canada carnet that you need if you live in USA,cost $750 non refundable
+ other horseshit. and Kenya border,easy dont stop at customs and just ride using the other gate like 25,000 miles with Luke and Nick Did Or pay $20usd for TIP.

Thank you Mrwhite,Luke and Nick.
my road in Africa! 2012-2013