Overland Dreamer

When I wrote of my car last month I realised now was the perfect time to realise one of my flights of fancy and buy a Land Rover 110. I absolutely love it. I love driving it, I love fixing it (a hobby it seems to inflict on me quite regularly) and I don't know how I got by without it.

The reason I spent the extra time searching for a 110 was that the thought of an overland trip lurked in the back of my mind. Since then I have begun the very initial stages of planning.

A friend and I are both currently Army Cadet instructors looking at careers in the Regular Army. What we'd like to do is take an adventure with a military theme in the hopes of having an awesome time and raising some cash for one of the many military charities.

I want to avoid smooth tarmac highways as much as possible and visit some remote parts of the world, keeping costs to a minimum (classic problem eh?). A healthy dose of calculated risk is good too.

I have been researching things like "Operation Torch" an allied landing during WWII that lead to the success of the North Africa campaign and gives me several locations along the North African coast to visit (an awesome trip and a military tie in), however I understand Algeria is not exactly....safe.


Any suggestions welcome!

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Sounds like alot of fun what you hope to plan. Keep us posted

TJ

Hi and welcome,

An official welcome from me! Fresh blood, just what we like!

Don't know that part of the world too much, I'm sure someone will come up with a cunning plan. Has the situation in Libya calmed down now, enough to start planning a trip? Apparently there are still vehicles sitting in the Libyan desert from WWII - complete armoured columns which either got attacked by Typhon aircraft or simply ran out of juice as the Axis machine ground to a halt as supplies ran out. Always wanted to hunting for them myself as it happens!

It has to be worth a bit of research ... could be interesting as part of an intended tour?

Libya and Algeria both currently have AVOID ALL BUT ESSENTIAL TRAVEL and Libya has AVOID ALL TRAVEL on some areas.

Mmmm, not one of my beter ideas then.

It might ease up by the time I want to travel (around August/September)

Redwall wrote:

It might ease up by the time I want to travel (around August/September)

Libya has always been complex for travel. You had to have an invite and employ a guide (that was after we went)

We were in libya 99/2000 and it was a great country to travel in, rock paintings in the akakus mountains, amazing roman remains and very helpfull people (we left our vehicles to be guarded by the Libyian army in Tripoli)

I'm guessing that getting independant travellers back to the country is not high up on the list of priorities for the transitional government, but sahara overland has threads on people going thru libya as recently as Jan 2012 with current costings and paperwork

Rich

That may be the case, but unless there is really no other option, I personally wouldn't go near the place until the all-clear is sounded. Enough hassle at times travelling as it is without entering what you know could be an unstable environment. Could be 100% okay, but would you really want to risk it?