What are some unique, not overdone, travel experiences, adventures or destinations that might interest some people here?
I'll start with the iron ore train in Mauritania. It takes 20+ hours, you ride through the Sahara in an open train wagon.
Most unique travel experiences, destinations & adventures
The Trans Siberian Railway might be more known, but not done a lot. You cross the largest country in the world in an old train with mostly alcoholics.
And watch flat nothing for days on end. The only way to make this journey worthwhile is to stop frequently along the way. And really, why not spend time in and around Moscow/St.Petersburg instead?
There is something about being on a train for more than a night, your perception of time and space gets warped, just like on a trans-ocean passage.
This is not unique to the Trans-Siberian, however there are not many continuous train journeys of this length in the world any more.
some anon linked this guy's blog a while back. he got the train from Vienna to Pyongyang via that line. one of the more interesting things to see on the net
>Russia
>2023
Probably one of the best years to visit Russia, few other tourists plus interested locals.
Hard to do, but staying and exploring Antarctica might be one of the least done travel experiences, can be very interesting
damn that looks sick
Somehow I thought it was gonna be a lot bigger
bro if you look closely you can see the south pole right in the middle
near the shore?
A tour in the Amazon is great and everyone should do it once
What's involved and how much does that cost?
personally if i could i would go to the underground arcades on Borneo
I did downhilling on a mountain bike from almost the top of a volcation in Ecuador. I think it was called Chimborazo. A jeep would take you up with a few people and bicycles and you'd ride it down to the town at the bottom.
Was pretty cool.
I'm planning to do the Budapest to Bamako rally in 2024. Sign-ups should open up any day now.
Saved, thanks anon
Happy to pass on an idea. I heard about it a few weeks ago, and I've been fascinated since then. My wife and I both spent significant amounts of time in Africa when we were younger, and by 2024 the kids will be old enough to stay with grandparents for a few weeks, so we're looking forward to going back.
It's inspired by the Paris-Dakar, but it's meant to be more accessible to the normal person without a huge budget and dedicated support team. I plan to do the "touring" division.
>In this category there are no rules, no timing, no scoring, no difficult offroad sections. The only thing that counts is the finish line, completing the challenge and making new friends. This is also knows as the “party division” of the rally.
Someone in my local Twingo owners' club did it this year with a first generation Twingo, which is how I heard about it, so it should be pretty accessible for normal cars.
looks crazy thanks
I have never heard of this. Is this similar to Dakar?
>Bamako
I was working in Bamako and Mali last year. I checked the route and it basically goes through the safest area of Mali but I'd still want to check up on the organization and security for the Mali leg of this "rally". There were terrorist attacks in the past two years in this area against whites, as close as 60km west of Bamako city proper.
Bamako itself is pretty safe. Keep in mind all whites there are basically working for the UN, NGO:s, foreign government aid or are old French colonists who are well-connected after living in the country for generations (and most of those have left, the rest have moved into Bamako). All the foreigners belong to an organization and have some sort of security backup available and most are armed themselves.
Outside of Bamako there's pretty much only military camps. Possibly some civilian NGO presence in Timbuktu or Gao but I very much doubt it, the only ones I know of are contractors who rent space to be interred within military camps and coordinate their own movements with military patrols for protection.
Pretty much every "private traveller" who've gone against recommendations and decided to visit/drive through Mali outside of Bamako have been kidnapped and are now dead or in somewhere in the desert. A couple of guys were ransomed by private actors after like 6 years as captives. This was according to a couple of embassies security info last year (European countries).
Ofc, if you are black you can probably disregard alot of this, as long as you can blend in and not stand out as a rich Westerner.
I love adventurous travel but after working for NGO:s a few years I would never visit a country in an armed conflict/in civil war after knowing how easily your luck can run out. It's far more common than you think.
This year, the rally ended in Freetown instead of Bamako due to the security issues. We'll see what the actual route looks like for 2024.
>after working for NGO:s a few years I would never visit a country in an armed conflict/in civil war
I used to work for an NGO that had/has pretty close ties with various Marxist revolutionary groups in Africa. All the old hands had stories about working during the civil wars in Mozambique and Angola or vacationing in Western Sahara and hanging out with Polisario. I get the impression that, while it was maybe a dangerous situation, there was little danger to them specifically. The same guys recently had to close up shop at a few projects in northern Mozambique due to Al Qaeda attacks. I guess they don't make insurgent groups like they used to.
>if you are black you can probably disregard alot of this
This is surprisingly not the case. I used to work with a Zimbabwean guy in central Mozambique. His home village couldn't have been more than a couple hundred miles away, and the tribal language there was basically the same as the one where we worked. To my eyes, he was indistinguishable from the locals, but people there could somehow immediately pick him out as a foreigner. It was like he glowed. He was constantly getting hassled by police.
The local word for a white person where I worked was "muzungu", and I and other white folks working there were pretty accustomed to hearing people yelling "muzungu! muzungu!" while we were going about normal day-to-day activities like riding our bikes to work or shopping in the market. The guy from Zimbabwe and another colleague from Sudan constantly got singled out as foreigners, but nobody called them muzungus. On the other hand, our black colleague from the US got the same "muzungu! muzungu!" treatment that the white folks got. She was so excited to be in "the motherland", and she would get so pissed off when people called her muzungu. It was great.
Sounds cool! Yeah, if you are a westerner they will see through you regardless of skincolour but if you have a connection to a country in the area, are familiar with the culture and speak English/French with a local accent you can probably pass.
Where in Moz were you? I lived in Sofala back in 2014-2015 while Dhlakama was doing his thing and shooting up buses.
Muzungu actually means traveler or wandering people. So calling a black American muzungu is accurate
>Ofc, if you are black you can probably disregard alot of this
Thanks anon. Would blackface be an option?
Definitely, it works just OK in Africa but it is foolproof blending in tactic in ghettos in the US.
DPRK. It's something completely unique and different and like a time machine.
That's definitely on the bucket list but I don't think they'll be accepting anyone anytime soon
Even China is starting to open up so DPRK won't be far behind. I'm pretty sure they will reopen in 2023.
I hope so
You can pay a tour company to do that
Check out young pioneer tours
Crossing the Darien Gap by land.
I'm currently riding my American motorcycle around the world
Just got to Greece started in Minnesota
Where did you ship to and from? Are border crossings hard ?
I rode to Montreal and flew it to Paris 1300 dollars
I got denied entry to Macedonia because those morons don't understand American titles but Greece let me in fine from Albania I think I'm going to turkey tomorrow and will spend a little while in Istanbul
>Minnesota
Ayyyy. Plymouth, checking in. Getting buried in snow.
Ok this is based. What bike do you ride? How much did it cost to get it shipped?
>American motorcycle
If it's not a Jap, it's crap.
It's Japanese but assembled in America 🙂
Speedo is in miles it's a 2005 dr650
1300 ship by plane
I'm in Istanbul now
>Dr650
Fuck Im jelly. Maybe I can do the same with mine on day
I’ve done this, as have several anons here. It’s the most physically uncomfortable thing I’ve ever done.
Serious question, why would you do this?
It looks completely miserable, dangerous, filthy, and basically degenerate in that you're larping as a poor person who uses this for genuine transport.
I can think of no reason for anyone to do this other than sheer necessity.
I’m not sure why you clicked on this thread if you need this explained.
https://caravanistan.com/tajikistan/pamir-highway/
seems cool I thought the highest highway in the world was in Ladakh. Maybe that's just the highest road.
>The M41 is the second-highest highway in the world, after the nearby Karakorum Highway.
Third para
I was thinking of Umling la, the highest motorable pass in the world (according to india so it might be a scam)
>tfw my government recently increased its travel warning for mauritania to "do not travel"
Another dream on hold
Mate those warnings are shite, there are valid reasons to give up on your dreams but I can promise you, from experience, that government travel warnings are not among them.
You shouldn't disregard all of them - but there's quite a few that can be ignored with common sense and a few basic precautions.
I once walked down Dotonbori in Osaka and had 6, yes 6 fucking takoyakis.