Ferry between Iskenderun - Port Said / eastroute 2014

After an pretty inconsistent informations about the unroro ferry between Iskenderun and Damietta I`m glad to tell here, that there is an alternative arround.

An option who was available at the past is running since a while, the ferry "Cenk Y" who runs between turkey (Iskenderun) and Egypt (Port Said):




The ferry CENK Y, Source: marinetraffic.com

The ferry operates regularly and directly between Iskenderun and Port Said. You can see the current location, Speed and Target Harbor under this livetracking link:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/de/ais/details/ships/271042575

The Ship is built at 1970 and is under turkey flag. It is tagged as Roro/Passenger Ship, so that we Overlanders can travel with the ship and don`t have to use a airplane. If you look at the Pictures who are provided by Marinetraffic it can also handle big trucks, what is nice for these readers who use a an bigger expedition truck

The Informations about the Ferry who are currently available are pretty poor. Also the Website of the operator dont show much informations:

http://www.cenkgroup.net/en

Planning and visualize an RTW Trip

As surely many others, I have previously have planned my trips with Google Maps, which can be a bit notchy, specially if you plan longer trips. Also, it is not possible to share the route comfortable or to discuss individual points of your trip.

Some days ago I read a blog where the travellers had used tripline to visualize their trip through China - and I start to love this project! It is definitively a big time safer, to everyone who plan a big or also shorter trip.

You can not only plan your trip, setting your trip to private or public - you can also add public and private notices to each waypoint, you can discuss your route zu the public or also just friends.

Here is a short summary about the advantages and unique features of this tool, togehter with also a sample route.

The Webinterface is quite clean and allows to work pretty quick. At first you have to create an account, or to signin with your facebook account. After that you can start your new map:

the buildup of the verhicle: Winch, Frontbar, Sparetyreholder

Many of us overlanders are trying to make their verhicles more capable, to add a winch, frontbar, rear tyre holder, additional fuel tank, rear bar some armor, bigger tyres and so on.

I suggests to watch the weight of the vehicle during this buildup process.

For an capable travelling and offroad vehicle, you should try to keep your vehicle light, to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, to keep the weight between the axles balanced. What we should always keep in mind is the maximum legal payload.

If we look at the 3.5ton class, from Land Rover, Land Cruiser and Mercedes G you can mostly add 500-1000kg on weight to your vehicle. On modern cars they often use the basic edition inside of the papers - on the weigh station you see some kilos more than described. At first you should weight your verhicle, add the weight of the travellers to the bill.

Now let us look to the stuff what would be nice to add. From making the vehicle to an more capable offroader, to the stuff we need on an extended trip. 

Far bad tracks and terrain one of the best mods are bigger tires to add more ground clearance under the differential. Now the spare tyre don`t fit below the car, we need a spare tyre holder in the rear (on top of the vehicle.  So one mod often cause the next mod.

The following list is not complete, it shows also just the basic stuff, with an estimated weight. Often i use very lightweight equipment here, to find camping chears & table for just 15 kilo - is not easy at sample.

You get back some kilos from this bill, because you can remove the 2nd and on some cars too the 3rd row of seats. This bill is as it is in the 3.5 ton class. It dosnt matter if you sleep inside of the car, on a roof tent, a popup roof or on a ground tent.

You can just have a fully modded offroader for weekend trips, if you try to stay legal. If you add the stuff of the column to the right "internal building" - then you exceed what is legally possible.

If you attach great importance to a legal vehicle in the long-term travel trim, it is therefore advisable to stay close to the original vehicle configuration. To select the desired extensions wisely.

I`m pretty shure that you think now: what the hell - how all these others was able to travel extended with their beautiful modded cars? The answer is simple: they drive overloaded.

Also if in the papers the weight you can carry is limmited, many cars can take a much higher payload. How much they can carry, you can see on the armored versions of your car, who drive with the same axles and frame. I dont want to say: hey easy, overload your car. I just want to point to the reality. Try to travel light!

Look how is the weight between the  axxle, look during the buildup that your car is well balanced. Try to use the ratio between the axxles, if it is documented. Look too that the center of gravity is low as possible.

In general, you should always save on weight where it is possible. Overloaded to be on the road is one thing, but nevertheless it is important to save every kilo of what is possible. In the terrain you are happy with every kilo saved.

At the end of each stop and rebuild (and only then) you should weight the vehicle again, fully loaded with all travelers. Now comes the most important: The suspension must be designed for this travel weight.

Of courset this are peak loads, where the diesel and water tanks are finally not always full to the brim (empty tanks are a good method for a quite legally drive in your homecountry. Nevertheless, you will always try in an environment with poor infrastructure to be as well supplied as possible, exactly where the bad roads are.

China crossings 2014/2015: traveller searching travellers to share costs

Do you plan to cross china as selfdriver with your own vehicle? Or do you want to travel China and connect you to a group in order to reduce costs? Then you are right here - I'm trying to keep a list of those who are planning such a trip for the years 2014 / 2015.Herewith I try to help you travelers to come easily into contact with each other to find the similar plan. Probably this links helps you too, if you just have start to plan that trip, as often mentioned costs , routes and travel agencies and guides and are listed in detail.

You can send in your call via "add comment" feature . For this purpose, you should a link to your blog or to a forum thread, so that others can reach you easily. But i cannot prove this travellers

But  I cannot prove that travellers, the seriousness of inquiries and travelers, tour groups or organizers, so please use normal caution.

Spectacular roads and tracks around the world

Something lurid is the domain name "Dangerous Roads", because actually it 's more about routes and tracks that are exceptional. Who offers an exceptional experience.

For example there are listened the Furka, Albula and Gotthard pass among others, just normal streets but with a beautiful environment.

Of course, we know all our surroundings well enough to know such routes . But abroad that already looks very different. Do you know extraordinary routes in Croatia? In Peru or Angola ?

Therein lies the strength of the site that still has some gaps , of course, depending on the country . For example, Laos was not detected , even in Africa there is still much to do .

But everyone can help to close the gaps. For many routes more images are available , sometimes links to Google Maps or Wikipedia are included .


This Websit can help you to find some pleaces, you maybe didnt find without, when you are planning a panamerica at sample. Or also when you just plan an USA Roadtrip by a rental.

http://www.dangerousroads.org/

In addition to the travel planning in the distance , the website can also tempt to various gravel roads, sometimes not so far away. Who knows, maybe also you will soon be myself once a route before that you liked ?

Transafrica: Ideas made in Africa

A refreshingly different facet of Africa illuminate the three travelers of "Ideas Made in Africa". The three students are traveling with a Mitsubishi L300 4x4 on Africa's west route. Currently they reach Cameroon on their Trans Africa journey.

On their way to get in contact with company founders and local start-ups. Contact with young Africans who make self-employed with their idea.

Where most travelers rather seeking privacy, or rather search in small villages in contact with the local people, immerse yourself these three travelers, in the bustling cities, conduct interviews with young entrepreneurs, illuminate their everyday life, corporate structure and business idea.

The three along the way are well equipped to document their research trip in image sound and video. The three students will use the experiences and research result for they university degree. This fact opens many doors for them and creates contacts and points that they can visit.

We readers can look at a different perspective to africa, while reading here, really a new facet. Photos from the cities , from a bird perspective grant date from Africa rather unusual insights .

The trip reports are written thrilling, let a dip - and at least for me a little admiration comes to how fearlessly they move through the African business world.

To raise additional funds for their journey , the three also go for a Overlander still quite unfamiliar way : through a crowdfunding platform they are on to be generated 3000 Euro .

As a supporter of the project, you can get different things depending by the amount of contributions: from a postcard to a photo book , a dinner or a lecture.

Die Website / Travel-Blog:

http://ideasmadeinafrica.alfahosting.org/wordpress/?lang=en

The Crowdfunding Projekt at startnext

http://www.startnext.de/ideasmadeinafrica

Currently their crowd funding project just started - they got 340 Euro of the 3000 who are required. I hope they will get everything together.

Howto reach the eastern route of africa

This article shows how you can reach the eastroute of africa as self driver. How you can reach or avoid egypt. You can read an many places that it is not possible today, therefore I try to show here what options are known and give you links to travelblogs where the travellers had choosen that option.

There are actually severall options

- Arrival across Tunesia and Libya
- Arrival across the ferry from Turkey to Egypt (Iskenderun, Damietta)
- Arrival across the Taba border at Israel / Egypt (not by 4x4)
- Arrival across the Nuweiba border, ferry Jordan - Egypt (not by 4x4)
- Avoiding Egypt (bypassing via Jordan via Jordan/Sudan and Saudi-Arabia/Sudan
- Shipping the car from Jordan (Container) to Egypt (Sokhna)
  (Shipping will give you many more options anyway)

The problem of 4x4 vehicles are just at the sinai, from Israel and Jordan borders. From Lybia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Sudan you can enter Egypt too by 4x4.

Here is a List of travelers who did that borders recently, where you can optain fresh experiences about border crossings, bureaucracy, Visas and Paperwork generally.

Panamericana Roadtrip - tips and tricks for overlanders

The Panamericana is a Road Network who cross two continents and 12 countrys. Just a small part between isnt connected, the darian gap.
 It is one of these famous routes like the Silkroad or a Transafrica over east or west who let travellers dream about, to drive there sometimes in their live.

Each year severall travellers start a trip on one of these parts of the world The Swiss television did in its format DOK a documentation about the "Panamericana" in 7 pieces at the year 2011, which is still available online. Absolutely worth seeing, is very well suited as an appetizer in the preparation of such a journey.

Therefore we plan on our next journey we read many blogs of other travellers. So i search for informations about south america, and found the website

http://panamericanainfo.com/en/info

Many helpful blogs of travellers are linked there in details. Blogs who are helpful for Paperwork, Visa, Border crossings. Blogs who had collected GPS Waypoints of Wildcamp-Spots ore places who the travellers meet each other, so called "overlander hotspots". Blogs who had written in details about shipping costs and handling.

In short, a very comprehensive compendium of such a journey. From crossing the darian gap till many border crossings, very helpful informations.

There are also special themes linked deeply. Like travelling with dogs, travelling with kids, garages and mechanics in south america. This website is a little time machine for us overlanders, save us hours of searching at the internet.

Such projects live from us travellers. If you start your journey, I hope you remember about where you get so much informations, and you can help us others with updated informations.

Also the africa overland Network has a category "Panamerica / the Americas" http://www.africa-overland.net/The-Americas who is worth to visit, because some travelers are listened just on this website.

Also if you find there many blogs of travellers, here you may find some futher ones:

http://www.panamericana2010.de/Links/links.htm

Webcommunities:
http://panamericanaforum.org/index.php?mode=index
http://www.südamerika-forum.de/
http://www.amerika-forum.de/forum.php

Offroad training and school

These Videos are made at the famous 80s. They show us, how we have to use our cars on different terrains. In the beautiful australian landscape we can see how these beautiful old cars do their job! The Video teach us the basics of Offroad driving in a good way.

I guess also skilled drives find some reasons to watch these Videos besides of the cars and the funny hairstyle.

I think many of us travelers drive off road because they have to do it, to reach their targets. Not because they love to drive offroad. So they have to learn to drive off road during their trip.

Because of this we have these myths about these hardcore off road tracks in Cameroon and the Congo`s. Because they are heavy if you are not trained for these terrain.
If you had some experiences, you like to drive off road these tracks are fun and not really dangerous.

Inexperienced Drivers will choose there a wrong driving style, the wrong speed and take there to much risk. Therefore: try your car before you start your big trip. The local Offroad Clubs they will be happy to train you and help you to be prepared.

Ebola outbreak in West Africa

In Guinea, the Ebola virus has broken out. Since in the meantime, cases have been confirmed in the capital, the risk of spreading is given to neighboring countries, even in Canada there is a West Africa-traveler in quarantine because he showed the symptoms after return.

Here is a contribution of the SRF:

http://www.srf.ch/news/international/ebola-fieber-erreicht-guineische-hauptstadt

For all who are traveling just to the West Route and West Africa, this means that the borders can be closed at any time to prevent a further spread.

2009 Angola had, for example, respond to an outbreak in DR Congo in this way (https://de.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/01/15/angola-mit-ebola-um-die-ecke-sind-die-grenzen-geschlossen/).

Who is just getting started or who plan a Trans-Africa soon, should probably watch at a safe distance the development of that outbreak. Or avoid that area with driving to Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Nigeria bypassing the region.

 1976-2008 Ebola Outbreaks: Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebolavirus

So far, it never came to a broader distribution of this viral disease, against which there is no vaccine.

The virus is transmitted through blood and body fluids, so we overlanders belong probably not  to the classical risk group. 

The ferry from Iskenderun (turkey) to Damietta (egypt)

You can read in many blogs and websites, that we overlanders can't travel with the ferry, that we had to ship the car and take an airplane. These Informations are pretty outdated, when we watch these pictures:

 

A swiss guy who blogs under the name Cruise-the Planet did the crossing from Iskenderun (Turkey) to Damietta (Egypt) at march 2014. And he had manage it to stay in a cabin. Great news for us Overlanders!

At the Port in Iskenderun (Turkey) you can organize everything for the ferry. If there is no cabin-space left, you can organize there a flight and the whole transfer.

There are not many cabins, so you better should book the cabin early, or bring the time with you to wait for the ferry coming back. Or to be a lucky guy who get a cabin without a reservation like this guy.

The cabins are for two persons, if you travel alone you will have to share them. There is no entertainment or so, but you will get some food.

The first stretch from Iskenderun to Haifa (Israel) needs around 20hours. In Haifa the ferry does a stopover and some cars and trucks leave the ship, new one comes. After that the ferry needs around 12 hours to reach Damietta (Egypt).

The whole process is described thrilling, of paid bribes to a small odyssey until the vehicle finally could be driven out of the harbor.

Here is the Link to the Blog:

http://cruise-the-planet.ch 

Translated to English with: Google-Translate

A beautiful well written blog, i hope that google Translate did the job for you readers! Many thanks to Lukas, for allowing me to use his pictures!

Using an Euro5 Diesel car for an worldtrip?

The discussion what is better for an Worldtrip is endless. An Petrol car can handle bad fuel much better than modern diesel cars. For many years also mercedes use only their petrol based cars on their Mercedes Experience Tours in Africa and South America.

But today they use also their Common-Rail diesel cars on their Mercedes Experience Tours 



Source: http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/

What happens? I think the experience of worldtravellers, the escort cars on the paris dakar has showed, that it is possible to use newer cars. And what it need to use these cars abroad.

It is a fact that modern diesel with Euro5 exhaust emission standard and an managed diesel particulate filter "DPF" can`t handle bad fuel, or the using of the engine in regions 2500m above sea level.

At the following i will show you samples where the people get stranded, but too what you have to do, that you can using modern diesel on worldtrips - without hassle.

There are many well documented samples, where the travellers had breakdowns because of this:

An VW Crafter with Euro5 had many trouble and some expensive repair bills in south america:
http://b-u-globetrotter.de/Crafter.htm

The pensioner caravan through mongolia (many different brands):
 Rentnerkarawane durch die Mongolei

Another VW based story from 2014 from south america:
http://peterundsandra.blog.de/2014/01/16/16-januar-17601441/

Here an Euro5 G-Class PUR Mercedes story, they start an africa roundtrip and had just reach eqypt as they had to remove the Euro5 stuff and to do an downgrade to Euro3 without DPF:
wegaufzeit

Mercedes Sprinter 316 CDI mit Euro5 had too trouble in South America:
http://www.sb-beutel.de/Argentinien-Kolumbien

These sample shows us, that you CAN NOT use an modern Euro5 car in South America, Asia or Africa.

When you study that samples in details you will see that it is possible to avoid these breakdowns. Mercedes has special parameters and upgrades for some of their diesel based cars, all other (also other brands) have to do an downgrade to Euro3/4 and to take out the DPF.

With the older Euro4 Standard the diesel particulate filter "DPF" was not managed, therefore you can use these without much preparation, you can replace the DPF with an pipe.

These samples of travellers shows us too, that you had to do additional filtering of the fuel, to avoid that water or dirt can reach the Injectors, because that will cause too breakdowns and expensive repair bills.



Fuel filtration and water separation helps the injectors

In most of these samples the people had ask the seller and manufacture of the cars before that trip, if they can use the car on their worldtrip without special preparation.

They had say "no problem".. Also if you contact Mercedes, VW and others directly, you will will hear "no problem". Here you can show them, that there is a problem. 

You have to find someone who has experience with that, what is not easy. Maybe you contact one of these travellers who had use your brand and contact them - they will have these contacts of professionals who was able to help them.

4x4 Recovery Goes Seriously Wrong - Part II

The first Part of the Video got much international attention and got above 1 million views. The Video ends with one car stucking deep in the mud, the other one lay on its side. Are both cars are lost? Just one?

Here is part I of the Video: Part 1

I`m shure i`m not the only one who want to see the second part of the video. Since some days it is online:

Here is the link to other Videos: http://www.all4adventure.com/

This Video is a good reminder, that we do dangerous things outside there! What we do can go wrong and often we dont just risk our cars. So take care...

Sleeping inside of the car, Overlanding with comfort

In this article I want to highlight only the possibility to sleep in the SUV, because a bigger focus is beyond the scope of a single article.  There are so many options that it is just to much to write about: there are still the other vehicle formats, vans, pickups, trucks, sleeping in a roof tent, folding roofs, pop-up roofs, caravan fittings, Trailer, simple tents, which vehicle choice as such, and much more...

Even with the off-road-vehicle choice you will define a lot about the available space.

In most makes of the internal height is not sufficient to be able to sit comfortably at a table inside, but there is always a way to at least plenty of storage space and a nice deck area to create a kind of minimal expansion sleeping area. Maybe these samples and links helps you to find a good solution for yourself.

 

Always try to see the advantages and disadvantages of any setup. You have to sort out some of these solutions because there are just too many.

 

Depending on the vehicle length and the square of the front seats must be taken in fitting, ie, the seats must be folded to the front / rear to get a decent sleep platform.

Overlanding on Budget

What options one has, if the budget is very tight? Of course you can put in a tent and a small stove in any vehicle - and start traveling. If you feel comfortable with that - start like that! Nothing is better than a setup where you can change the car without to thinking about!

But there are also vehicles arround who have a good mgp rate, have four-wheel - and are more capable than most would suspect. Who offer a good ride comfort also on bad tracks.

One of the biggest cost of traveling with the vehicle is the fuel consumption. Here, of course  a diesel would be able to change some of the consumption statistics, right?

In the Blog of  Kristian Saile i found wonderful pictures, let me search deeper for people who did overlanding with that kind of cars.. At the Subaru Outback community i found more expo builds and people who travel this way.

For shure here are also guys who start to mod their cars. Some armor, Frontbar, Winch, gear reduction and so on. But i think you leave the idea of using a small budget behind pretty fast this way.

The top 7 overland equipment and gear

What are the 7 most important equipment or gear for an extended overland travel? The answer is not that easy, you have to ask yourself what equipment stuff had been a show-stopper. Or which gear you had really miss if it stop working, because of the comfort it brings with.

These list is extremely individual. It depends on the Area you plan to travel, the weather you will meet, the way how your camp looks like (Ground tent, Rooftop-Tent, Popup Roof, or sleeping inside).

However your overland setup looks like, i guess it may be helpful to see what was important for us, if you don't had that much overland experience. Here is our list in descending order:

Comfortable Sleep

During extended traveling it is important to sleep comfortable, to wake up without any pain in the back. A good mattress, a good bed is important.
You have to test your setup before, or you will end more often in Hotels than calculated.

Camping Gear

You use it daily, you setup and pack you camp often - because of this it is an very important gear.
It had much to do with the amount of comfort you had on the way. It is important that it is lightweight and that it don't use much space when packaged.
The handling has to be easy too, watch space and weight before the brand..

Windows Sox - Mosquito Protection for the Car

If you sleep inside of the car this is very important. It let you open your windows wide, without that it is viewable from outside.

The air can circulate and the Mosquito and other animals will stay outside. Additional it dim`s the outside light a bit more, let others not view inside.

Toyota Diagnostic Software & ODB2 Dongle

For all Toyota Drivers i detect something who might interest you. In Ebay and other platforms, a dongle is available, which provides you the access to the ODB2 interface with USB.

I know today are many dongles available who allows you to connect with wifi or bluetooht, alows to read and reset errors.

The trick is that the MINI VCI dongle is compatible with the Techstream software from Toyota, which is kindly also included.

Now I do not know if this is requested by Toyota so, but for us travelers, it is good if we are able to adjust the settings of the vehicles when we are away on a world trip or abroad.

The Dongle-Driver is compatible to WindowsXP (32 and 64 bit). I had test it with a virtual WindowsXP on my Macbook, running with Paralells.

It works quite well. Here is a Video who shows you the handling of the Software and Dongle:

You can buy the Dongle at sample at Ebay, if you search for "MiniVci" you will find many other sellers on Amazon and so on. I have ordered on Ebay with the link above. The Package had used 8 Days from China.

Like always when you purchase in Ebay you should use Paypal because you get your money back there, if something goes wrong.

Be careful with using this Software, you can also kill something when you set stuff you dont know about.. The use of the Software is pretty easy, but there are many settings we "normal users" have no idea about. But disable the seat belt reminders on the passenger side and other stuff - easy to do.

Bing vs Google vs OVI - satellite view comparison

Since there are Apps like MotionX on the iPad who allows us to add Custom Tile Server for Downloading, it is time to compare the quality of the different Providers like Google, Bing and Here.com

On the iPad it is MotionX GPS and several and other Apps who are able to download satellite images for offline usage, under Android there are Locus Pro and AlpineQuest GPS.

Want to say that we are able now to use offline Satellite Images. But wich provider has the best quality of images? This kind of Navigation is helpful abroad, where you don't have any road gps coverage. Because of this i had select an area in Cameroon in africa as comparison spot.

At first i start with Bing Satellite-Hybrid view, what means with road overlay. Here i could zoom more tham showed here, it allows me to detect Villages and too single Houses.



Bing Maps

As next i try Google. The resolutions is maxed out here - no chance to see single houses.



Google Maps

Business in Africa - the last wild west?

A very exciting video about the delivery of anti-mine clearing equipment from South Africa in the Southern Sudan. A lot can happen on these 5,000 kilometers, also happens a lot - and it is well documented ...

Apart bush repairs, accidents and the everyday struggle is illustrated with the bureaucracy and of course the handling of countless police checkpoints with the associated corruption. It's worth the 37 minutes to invest:

The titled here as a cowboy capitalists operate a business in South Sudan which deals with the trade of vehicles and transportation of goods.

This site is too exciting for us travelers: http://www.lorryboys.com/home Because there are great vehicles in the Africa version, at very competitive prices ... While Toyota Gibraltar does not deliver to private individuals - I guess the Lorryboys would be interested...

If you like do learn more about the sitation in Juba, South Sudan - here is a
Wer mehr über die aktuelle Situation in Juba, Süd Sudan erfahren möchte - here is a very impressive contribution in the Boston Globe.

Comparison of 12v Air compressors: ViAir, T-Max, ARB, Bearcomp

There are several comparisons and reviews around, who may be helpful for you, when you have to decide which one you should buy.

The australian 4x4Action Magazine did a test about 24 different brands and models. The test is available online from their page for us, for a free download. Also there drawing who explains how they work.

4wdaction Australia-Aircompressor Comparison

Also the german 4x4action did a own test at 2012. This comparison results in an empty purchased sales stand on the overland expo "Abenteuer Allrad" in Germany.

You can find the Testresult on several compressor manufacturer Websites:

4wdaction_german_2012-04 

At the end i think you should look too about the size and weight of the device and not just about the brand. During travel you mostly not in hurry and are able to let the device cool down between the tires. A Duty Cycle of 100% is nice to have, if you have the space and your Setup can handle the weight - but not necessary for the most of us.

 

The right air pressure don't helps just at sand or during wheeling when the traction is bad, it helps too for a more comfortable ride above gravel or washboard tracks.

Normally you can also ride back to civilization, also with lower pressure - but often are the use of a tire repair kit easier than changing the tire... And then you need the compressor.

Buy a decent air compressor and not an all-in one wonder from wall-mart!