Ian Mac wrote:Having read the book my initial thoughts are don't do it alone - you could have an accident, become ill, encounter road side bandits and have to deal with border guards who need to be bribed to allow access to particular countries. Also, expect the costs to escalate far beyond what you expect.
Me and Nick did most of our trip alone, however through the Iran desert we had a pair of *big* 4x4's. I got the car epically stuck in the soft sand and we would have been screwed without it. 10miles later I stuffed the wheel completely on a boulder as I was following the 4x4's too close and didn't see it in the dust. We also had 3 sat phones at that point.
A couple of times when we were on our own I was less than comfortable, to the point we hadn't had signal for 2 days in an area of epic dubiousness. Whilst sleeping in the car the phone beeped with a text from Andy and I pretty much texted instantly back with nothing more than a location as to where we were last
Tbf nothing was ever that bad but it's all new and takes a bit of getting your head round, at the time I hadn't!
The best thing to try and do is to get in contact with motor clubs on route and meet up with people along the way. Whilst we were on our own, every major country (for us the last 4) we had people to meet and who knew what we were doing. We had their contact details and vice versa and a day when we expected to be there.
As to pennies, I agree. If like us you are driving 4-700 miles a day on roads that make Hampshire lanes look like motorways the last thing you want to do at night is scout out cheap accomodation. I know I wasn't paying for it but I had the opportunity of driving up to a valet parking attendant in a muddy as hell City Rover, throwing the keys at him at 3am and going to reception to ask for a room. The look of disgust I got was awesome and I was told I may want to look at the pricelist before I committed to which I threw down a bundle of $500 and repeated the fact I wanted a room. After looking at the price list I realised I wasn't going to get a huge amount of it back
(luckily the chap paying wanted us to go there anyway... but still. Once a tight 300 driving student type...)
).
88 Volvo 340DL Diesel
