We rolled into Astana quite late at night, just before reception closed in the Nomad4x4 hostel. It was raining and the forecast didn’t look much better either. Since we failed to drive on our planned southern route to visit Baikonur and the Aral Lake, Astana was an attraction much further north that I was looking … Read more
As of this writing we are sitting in the Kazakh Steppe, totally alone with the next village at least 60 miles away. We’re waiting for the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century and couldn’t be in a better location to watch. This has also reminded me to write about our lights, from the smallest … Read more
The reason we drove all day this time was that we didn’t want to stay in a random hotel in a small town in Abkhazia. We wanted to reach Astrakhan, a larger town right on the border with Kazakhstan. This city was 400 miles away, however. Driving in this part of Russia was much easier … Read more
During the week when we were in Georgia, we had to figure out our itinerary for the next couple of weeks. In particular, the Caspian Sea and the countries surrounding it require some plans to be in place. In order to make a sensible decision, I asked other overlanders in the Overlanding Asia Facebook group … Read more
The Tusheti National Park is something very unique. It’s only really accessible for about 5 months of the year, which is probably how it’s managed to stay so pristine and brutally beautiful. The road leading up to Omalo, the main village up in the Tusheti mountains, goes through the infamous Abano Pass. The road itself … Read more
We came up with a rough route between our starting point of Budapest, Europe and the desired finish line of Singapore, and all our navigation is based around this rough itinerary. Evelin has put a road-book together that lists potential sights, basic information about each country and currency, and printed a Google Maps screenshot for … Read more
I think the top 5 places to see in Georgia are: Mount Kazbegi and the Gergeti Trinity Church Vardzia, the cave settlement from the 12th century The Svaneti Region The Tusheti National Park Tbilisi and Mtskheta Of course there are plenty of other great attractions, but for the limited time we had in Georgia, we … Read more
Leaving very early from Cappadocia meant there was hardly any traffic on the road. We were driving east with Vince and Maxime following behind us. After a couple of hours I started to recognize a few places by the road. This was the same main road we took when we drove to Mongolia with two … Read more
We took small country roads from Hattusa to Cappadocia. It was extremely hot but we only had to drive for about 2-3 hours. Having a campsite already in mind (that we found on iOverlander again) made our arrival easy. We wanted to stay in a campsite as we planned to spend a couple of nights … Read more
The rain had finally stopped following us when we approached Istanbul. It was extremely hot when we were sitting in the traffic jam of this absolutely huge city. Earlier, we were discussing whether to stop and spend a few days exploring the city, but then we agreed not to. As interesting as it would have … Read more
Rather than just writing about where we are and what we do, I’m starting a series of posts about the overlanding gear we use on this trip, as well as the ins and outs of overlanding from our perspective and limitations. Our point of view means the equipment we use is based on and influenced … Read more
We woke up to some nasty, rainy weather – the kind that won’t seem to stop all day. And it didn’t. Quite a bad day not to be on the move. I prefer driving in rainy weather than staying in a campsite. But since this was a campsite with restaurants and other amenities we decided … Read more
While heading for the Turkish border in southeast Bulgaria, I realized that we actually made quite good progress. Our only deadline during the trip is August 27th, when we enter China and meet up with the tour company at the border, but we’ll probably catch up with Lotte, Niels and Giampiero before that somewhere in … Read more
I don’t really know where to start. We’ve started our biggest overland trip yet. It’s now day 4 and there’s a lot to report on. The last few days before our departure were extremely hectic. Getting our paperwork all in order, finalizing our gear and vehicle setup and leaving everything in order created multiple lists … Read more
February 11-19, 2018 After leaving Imlil our trip turned into a touristy holiday rather than overlanding, which is one of the reasons I decided to sum it up in a photo report rather than continue with our daily posts. I want to keep the focus on writing posts about overlanding rather than holiday-like travel … Read more
February 10, 2018 Our guest house was on the top of the hill in Imlil, which meant we’d had to climb up a slippery, muddy, donkey poo-covered trail at 1am the previous night with our big bags. The guest house was kind enough to send someone to help us, even at that time of … Read more
February 9, 2018 After a bitterly cold night in our rooftop tent, where even our skiing clothes were insufficient, we said goodbye to Ahmed and Owen and set off westward. Evelin wasn’t feeling well, so we didn’t have a great start to the day. Ahmed explained how to get to the main road and … Read more
February 8, 2018 After a great breakfast in the morning sun, we packed our rig for the Erg Chigaga tour. From Mhamid you can do a round trip returning to Mhamid, but since we were heading north soon, we’d planned it one-way through the Erg Chigaga area, from Mhamid to Erg Chigaga and continuing … Read more
February 7, 2018 One of the main reasons for the long drives we did during these few days is that we’d planned to see too many places in too short a time in Morocco. The country is quite big and there’s plenty to see. Whether you’re interested in nature or history, Morocco has a … Read more
February 6, 2018 Although I was complaining about the long drives in my previous post, I didn’t actually know what was coming in the week that followed. Before that though, we had a very relaxing day walking around in Tafraoute. We checked out a souvenir shop, called Maison du Troc, where we bought a … Read more
May 13, 2018 While we’re still trying to catch up on our notes from our African adventure during January and February, it’s time to also start talking about our future plans. We’re about to embark on our biggest overland trip yet! The plan is to drive from Budapest, Hungary all the way to Singapore … Read more
February 6, 2018 Some of the days during the Rally were really long both in terms of distance as well as the number of hours we were driving. We expected to have a much easier time of it once we were overlanding on our own, but sometimes we underestimated how big Morocco actually is. … Read more
With several previous interests, I’ve found that once I started looking into them, the first impression was always that there was still so much to learn and research! It was overwhelming — find out how much there was to know about a single topic. It wasn’t any different with overlanding either. When I got passionately … Read more
February 5, 2018 We figured one day off from driving was more than enough for us, so after another rooftop breakfast we were on our way. We remembered this part of Western Sahara with the road right next to the huge, spectacular cliffs just by the Ocean, and of course the shipwrecks. We stopped … Read more
February 4, 2018 We woke up relaxed, as we didn’t have to wake up to an annoying alarm screaming from our phones for a change. The plan was to hang around Dakhla, really just relax and catch up with our messages and emails. The Dar Dakhla had a nice rooftop breakfast bar set up, … Read more
Our featured image is actually a real, live-size version of a nicely built Land Rover Defender 110. When we came across the Traxxas TRX-4 and its features, we couldn’t find words to describe our amazement. Looking at its details, it’s hard to tell the difference between a Traxxas and a real size vehicle. Basically you … Read more
February 3, 2018 The Sahara Desert at sunrise is truly spectacular. The colors you encounter and the shadows of the sand dunes make it look like a scene from a movie. We had an awesome drive… until a sand storm hit us. On top of the fact that we were driving through some really … Read more
February 2, 2018 We were quite glad to be driving with Mate and Aliz on our way to, and the next day through, Mauritania. Our goal for the day was Nouakchott, 350 miles and a border crossing away. We were considering stopping in the Zebrabar again to look around St. Louis, but there were … Read more
February 1, 2018 You wouldn’t think Dakar has anything to do with North Korea. However, one of Dakar’s main attractions is a massive, hideous statue that’s supposed to be a symbol of the African Renaissance. On this day we were going to look around Dakar, and the statute was on our list. According to … Read more
January 31, 2018 As I looked into it, the only three countries in the world where the definite article, “the”, is officially obligatory are The Bahamas, The Gambia, and The Netherlands. There are a number of other countries in the world that are sometimes referred to with the definite article, like ‘the Ukraine’ and … Read more