What To Expect on a Camping Africa Overland Tour

Aside from South Africa, Southern and East Africa are not easy to travel independently, especially solo, which is why taking an Africa overland tour is so practical and popular.

Despite the ease and convenience of having your route, planning, accommodation, activities and meals taken care of while on an Africa overland tour, the trip does not come without its own unique challenges. So I’m sharing my experiences and advice for what to expect and how to prepare for your own Africa overland tour adventure.

My advice in this article is based on my experience on the Ultimate Africa 54 day tour with G Adventures, which covered Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda and a small part of South Africa. This information also applies to other G Adventures Africa overland tours for 18-39 year olds, as well as similar budget camping tours with other companies, like Acacia. However, this information may not be as relevant if you book a higher budget, non-camping tour.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE A BUDGET AFRICA OVERLAND TOUR

BE PREPARED FOR A LOT OF DRIVING

A LOT of driving. Most days are 7-10 hours of driving in the overland truck. My Africa overland tour covered nearly 13,000km in 54 days. Bring music, cards, games and books to entertain yourself.

Driving short distances can take a very long time due to terrible roads. It’s normal that driving 300km can take 6-8 hours and Africa is MASSIVE.

The roads can often be incredibly and violently bumpy. It’s a good idea for the ladies to wear a sportsbra.

PARTICIPATION CAMPING MEANS EVERYONE IS EXPECTED TO PITCH IN

This means everyone needs to pitch and unpitch their own tents, help with cooking, cleaning, packing and unpacking the truck, and washing dishes. This keeps costs lower and and it helps everything move faster.

africa overland tour

THE OPTIONAL EXCURSIONS ADD UP VERY QUICKLY

You’ll need to have a lot of extra money set aside for optional excursions, as well as some meals (most, but not all meals are included on the tour), lots of snacks, drinks, water and souvenirs.

Bungee Jumping Victoria Falls — Bungee jumping at Victoria Falls was a fun optional excursion

Skydiving Swakopmund Namibia — Skydiving in Namibia

ABOUT THE SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS…

The majority of nights will be spent sleeping on a 2 inch thick mattress in a 2 person tent that you pitch and unpitch yourself.

Every so often, some campgrounds have an upgrade option available if you want a room and a break from tenting for an extra fee (which will add up quickly)

And in some places, like in Zanzibar, Victoria Falls and Swakopmund, you get to stay in hostels or budget hotels, which is so appreciated after so many nights of camping.

Solo travelers will share a tent. Each tent sleeps 2 people, so you’ll have someone else to help pitch and unpitch your tent. If you really want your own tent, you can pay extra.

DESPITE CAMPING THE MAJORITY OF THE TRIP, THIS IS NOT AN INEXPENSIVE TRIP

Africa is really expensive to travel because tourism is the one area where they can really make money. And tours are never cheap.

Despite the camping, my Africa overland tour was by far the most expensive travel I’ve done. Consider this and then consider how much it would cost to do a luxury version of this trip instead.

THE CAMPSITES VARY IN QUALITY AND FACILITIES

The campgrounds in South Africa and Namibia are quite nice and often have showers, swimming pools, bars and wi-fi. However, the amenities decline rapidly as you travel east, where the campgrounds often involve a hole in the ground for a toilet and sometimes a bucket for a shower.

Out of the 54 days of my overland tour, there were only 2 nights that had only basic bush camping. You will want to pack wipes for these nights.

GET USED TO COLD SHOWERS

The facilities are often extremely basic

YOU LIKELY WON’T NEED TO GET YOUR VISAS IN ADVANCE

Depending on which country you’re from, so check in advance, of course. Everyone on my overland tour was able to get visas on arrival at the borders, which is far cheaper and less time consuming than getting the visas in advance.

YOU CAN CHARGE YOUR ELECTRONICS ON THE OVERLAND TRUCK

While the truck is driving.

elephants chobe botswana — Chobe in Botswana

WI-FI IS EXTREMELY SCARCE AND IT’S NOT UNCOMMON TO GO A WEEK WITHOUT IT

Especially in East Africa. And when you do find wi-fi, it’s not going to be good.

GET USED TO GOING TO THE BATHROOM ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

And behind a bush, if you’re lucky enough to find a bush. But this is often more ideal and clean than the rare and very dirty public toilets you’ll find. The overland truck doesn’t have a toilet and you’ll need to bring toilet paper.

GOING TO THE BATHROOM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IS TERRIFYING

Due to the wild animal situation, you need to check outside your tent with a flashlight first. If you see red eyes, it’s a predator; if you see green eyes, it’s not a predator, but the animal may charge instead. But if your flashlight is not very bright, like mine, you pull a Hail Mary and hope for the best.

BE PREPARED FOR EXTREMELY EARLY WAKE UP TIMES

Most mornings you’ll wake up at 5:30am, before sunrise. You must pack your things and unpitch your tent in the dark, with the help of your flashlight/phone.

Animals are most active in the mornings and evenings because the midday sun is too hot for them to do much else other than lie in the shade. Therefore, most safari days take place either in the early morning before the sunrise, or in the late afternoon.

HAVE VERY LOW EXPECTATIONS FOR MEALS

Being a great chef is NOT a pre-requisite for a being a tour leader. It’s better to low expectations for the food so you’re not disappointed or you’re pleasantly surprised.

There were extremely long waits between meals on my tour- often 8-10 hours between breakfast and lunch (which is INSANE, so we had to survive off snacks which we bought ourselves), and when we were fed, there wasn’t always quite enough food and it was garbage food (i.e. plastic lunch meat and plastic cheese, tons of processed carbs, canned food and very few vegetables). Everyone on my tour was severely hangry all the time.

However, my tour crossed paths with some other G Adventures overland tours who had much better food and without the crazy long waits in between meals. So it all depends on your tour manager and your luck.

A disappointed and hungry lion in the Serengeti

THERE ARE VERY FEW PLACES TO DO LAUNDRY

You’ll often end up doing your own laundry, so come prepared with some soap or detergent. And a clothesline is very helpful.

OTHER OVERLAND TRAVELERS WILL COME AND GO ON YOUR TOUR

Because many little tours are combined into bigger tours.

BE CAREFUL ABOUT HAVING A “LOCAL EXPERIENCE” BECAUSE HIV IS AN EPIDEMIC IN SOME AFRICAN COUNTRIES

From UNICEF- “With only 5% of the world’s population, Southern and East Africa are home to half the world’s population living with HIV”.

YOU MUST CHECK FOR SCORPIONS, SPIDERS AND SNAKES

Especially in the drier areas. Always use a flashlight and scan the ground when walking in the dark, shake your tent before taking it down, and check your shoes before putting them on. Getting stung or bit by any of these things is not fun and it’s preferable to avoid going to an African hospital, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere and nowhere near a hospital.

I was stung by a scorpion twice in Malawi because it was on my dress. But do not let this frighten you out of going to Africa because this is extremely rare and I’m just very unlucky.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TOURS

Tours are very fast-paced with very little freedom and independence, which is true for tours all over the world. They’re very efficient with time, however, some of the places you visit can start to blend together because the planning and organizing is done for you, so you don’t have to think for yourself. This results in a very superficial experience because you get very few authentic local experiences.

On a tour, you don’t get to choose the pace, who you’re with, where you sleep, what you eat and when you eat.

You’ll have some really awesome people in your tour group and you’ll have some not-so-awesome people in your group. And you’ll be stuck with these people 24/7 for the duration of your tour. For me, that was 54 days.

Typically, if you’re fed good food on organized tours, you’re very lucky. In my experience with tours, the food is not good, there is often a lack of food, and there’s often way too much time in between meals, so you absolutely must bring and buy snacks.

MY EXPERIENCE

I went on the Ultimate Africa 54 day tour with G Adventures, which starts in Cape Town and heads north to Namibia, then east to Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya and Uganda. And I was able to take a one day trip to Rwanda from Uganda. Many people opted out of Uganda and chose to stop their tour in Kenya (this tour), which makes the tour exceptionally more affordable as the gorillas in Uganda are a pricey add-on (but so awesome and worth it if you can make it work!). G Adventures often has 20% off sales on their tours, which is worth waiting around for as you can save a significant amount. The price includes accommodation, entrance fees and the majority of meals etc.

The tour companies Acacia and G Adventures run pretty much identical Africa overland tours. I chose G Adventures because Acacia required a local payment of $1860USD cash on arrival, which is an insane amount of cash and I didn’t feel comfortable carrying around that much cash (on top of my own cash) because I had some time in South Africa on my own before the overland tour started.

I had done a few tours many years ago, so I knew what to expect with regards to being on a tour and I knew it would be difficult, but it was more difficult than expected. I’m really glad I did it, especially when I look back at all my amazing photos, but I can’t say I recommend being on a tour, especially a camping tour, for nearly 2 months (and everyone that was on my tour for the duration of the 54 days agreed). I was dealt with an exceptionally poor tour group (i.e. people with poor attitudes and selfish, high maintenance people who weren’t interested in helping with the cooking, cleaning and set-up etc) and while this certainly won’t always be the case, it is a risk when you take a tour.

An unfortunate and very scary personal experience I had on my Africa overland tour was when I got stung by a scorpion, which was an extremely rare and unlucky occurrence (especially in Malawi, where the locals said they’d never seen a scorpion before). The tour managers reassured me that scorpions were not fatal in Africa, but the pain wouldn’t stop escalating severely and I was concerned that I might lose my finger. The tour managers weren’t sure if that was a possibility or not, yet they weren’t overly interested in taking me to a hospital because it was inconvenient and not a part of the organized schedule. 20 hours later, they begrudgingly took me to a filthy hospital in the middle of nowhere in Tanzania that looked like it belonged in a horror film, but I still have my finger!

And as mentioned above about having low expectations for meals, my tour found the food quality to be very poor and unhealthy, we were not fed often enough and sometimes there wasn’t quite enough food.

Needless to say, I got the short end of the stick with my Africa overland tour and I realize I’m not really selling these overland tours, but I’m being honest with my experience. Unless you have a bottomless budget, traveling Africa is NOT easy, especially for such a long time, so you must rough it and make sacrifices. However, I’m positive that anyone would have a better experience than me.