Tanzania

Africa Beyond the Tourist Trail   (Tanzania)

As overlanders, you have to ask yourselves a simple question: are we really experiencing Africa, or the version of Africa that tourism has created for us? There is nothing wrong with a traditional safari. The Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Masai Mara, Kruger and Etosha are extraordinary places. Seeing a lion, leopard or cheetah in the wild is something you never forget. But that’s not the only Africa. Drive into a busy national park and before long you can find yourself surrounded by safari vehicles. Someone spots a lion, the radio crackles, and within minutes vehicles arrive from every direction, all chasing the same photograph. Modern technology has made wildlife even easier to find. Some animals carry GPS collars, allowing guides to track their movements and take tourists directly to them. For us, that’s not quite the adventure we’re looking for. We want to leave the paved road behind, drop the tyre pressures, engage four-wheel drive and disappear down a track that may or may not lead anywhere. We want the corrugations, the dust, the heat, the mud and the river crossings. We want the breakdowns, the wrong turns and those long stretches where we don’t see another vehicle for hours. Maybe an elephant appears beside the track.

Maybe a herd of buffalo crosses in front of us. Maybe we catch a glimpse of a lion disappearing into the grass. Or we wake in our motorhome to fresh tracks outside the door, step into the morning with a coffee and realise there isn’t another vehicle for kilometres. We want the unknown. Just wilderness. That’s the Africa we come looking for. Overlanding also takes us beyond wildlife. We cross borders, pass through remote villages and meet people along the way. A stop for fuel can become a conversation. Buying food and water can introduce us to people we would never have met from the back of a safari vehicle. These moments aren’t on an itinerary. They happen because we’re travelling through the country rather than simply being taken through it. Then the sun drops behind the horizon and we pull off somewhere remote. We set up camp with nothing around us but bush and open sky. No fences. No gates No restaurant. No reception. Just Africa. As darkness falls, the sounds begin. Hyenas calling somewhere beyond the camp. Something moving through the grass. Perhaps elephants nearby. Maybe the distant roar of a lion all while sitting next to a great campfire. We don’t know what’s out there. And that’s what makes it exciting. Tomorrow might bring elephants, lions or cheetahs. It might bring a spectacular landscape, a remote village or a road that simply disappears into the bush. Or we might see nothing at all. That’s fine. Because the adventure isn’t measured by how many animals we find. It’s measured by what happens along the way. We’re not being taken somewhere to see Africa. We’re travelling through it. We’re dealing with the roads, the weather, the breakdowns and whatever the day throws at us. There are thousands of kilometres beyond the famous parks, leading towards places where the crowds disappear and the real adventure begins. We’re not saying you shouldn’t go on safari. We love wildlife, and those famous parks are incredible. But there is another way. A slower, rougher and far less predictable way. A way that takes us beyond the places everyone knows and towards the places nobody told us about. Because sometimes the greatest adventure isn’t waiting at the destination. It’s somewhere out there on an unmarked track, miles from anywhere, with no idea what lies ahead. So we keep driving. Further from the crowds. Further from the familiar. Further into the unknown. Because for us, Africa isn’t somewhere we simply want to visit. It’s somewhere we want to get lost in.

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