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| Although in years gone by most overland travellers to Africa would have left with very little if any information about how to get from place to place, today is different. You could continue to carry out your adventure the same way but why not make use of the tools available to make your life and journey easier. Below is a list of the tools that we have taken with us for navigation purposes. |
| Compass |
Never leave home without the most basic of navigational aids. Okay it can’t find you where the fancy hotel is or even a mountain range on its own, but when all else fails it could be indispensable. We tend to use it in tandem with all the other aids to be more confident in our direction. We actually have three: One dash mounted, one decent hand held for use with a map and one tiny key ring based compass that lives in our rucksack.
The main compass is a that tends to be used more on boats but gives a really good easy to see bearing, it is also beneficial at night as it illuminates. |
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| GPS |
We have chosen to use a handheld based that also has the benefit of being able to perform mapping. It does not have the biggest display, but it is small and compact enough if you ever want to take it walking. It seems that once you get to a certain specification level the only extra benefit is the size of the screen and the buttons. This model does have the benefit of being quick to start, accurate and provides accurate tracking of the route that has been travelled.
Unfortunately as this is more of an outdoor and walking based GPS it does not come with any road based mapping. It does have a world base map, which personally is inaccurate and really pretty useless as a means of navigation as most of the time it thinks you’re driving in the sea. Because of this we then bought the Garmin Europe City Navigator software to enhance the use of the device. Now this is actually more expensive than most GPS devices on the market but essential.
We are more than happy with our choice and would buy the same again if it broke, but we highly recommend the 12v power adapter as it is a little power hungry. |
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| Tracks4Africa Mapping |
A mapping GPS is fairly useless without the possibility of adding maps, something ours is capable of. However Garmin or any other company do not produce any mapping that can be downloaded to the GPS. This is where comes in to play, it is a community based South African company that has built accurate mapping of Africa based on travellers recording their tracks and waypoints. It does mean that the further south you travel the more information available but it is complete with the major information for North Africa. Although it is made by you and I it is not expensive so I highly suggest buying it legitimately.
Having travelled through Europe with Garmin City Navigation mapping and then the Middle East with out any mapping, it is a big comfort blanket knowing how to easily get from A to B, especially in cities.
Do bare in mind that it is not complete and only places that get recommended by lots of people appear, so if an area or town is rubbish then no accommodation will be listed. But of course just because it is not listed does not mean it is not worthy of you time and money, many places we have already stayed that are not included have been wonderful. |
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| Spreadsheets From Travellers |
Other travellers information is a great source of knowledge, especially when accompanied by the personal views. We scanned others overland sites and downloaded a handful of spreadsheets summarising their own trip but in a lot of cases included where they stayed and the GPS coordinates for them. Some even went as far as including huge amounts of extra waypoints for sites and shopping.
Below are links to some of the spreadsheets that we have used and would recommend printing or saving even if you don’t plan to use them, you never know when you might need them. Apologies to the owners of some of these but we did not always remember where we found them, if you let us know we will credit you as it is deserved.
- Andrew Adventure () and
- Border Crossings ()
- (Provided to us by Tom a German Overlander)
- Debbie and Andrew ()
- (unknown origin, sorry) |
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| Maps |
Leaving home without paper based maps would be a foolish thing to do. Electronic devices can fail and let you down, or even lie to you! Instead you should always make sure that you have some decent paper maps to both clarify the GPS but also to help plan your route.
We decided that we would use the maps as they are waterproof and tear proof, meaning no matter what they will survive till the end. Some of the countries are now printed under Rough Guide maps, but they have simply bought the licensing for them.
We are happy with them, especially their strength, however as they are German some of the town names and highlights are spelt differently, causing a few headaches. Our recommendation though is to go to a map shop (ideally Stanfords as the have the most variety) to flick through different makes for the same place as they are all different in detail, clarity, quality and most importantly completeness. |
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| Guide Books |
This is yet another area of mixed thoughts and feelings, with different people having preferences. We had heard some good things about the guides and although not always the simplest for finding hoards of information about a specific town, they are more personally written than other books. Unfortunately they tend to focus more on the non-tourist countries so alternatives are needed instead of a complete set. What many people seem to do is opt for the guide book that is the most up to date. Our opinion is that prices and things change quickly so they should only ever be used as a suggestion.
Whatever guidebooks you go for none seem perfect and many have inaccuracies, which can be very frustrating. We have found that very few brands focus on Overland based trips, more backpacking or organised. Below is a list of our thoughts for each make:
Bradt
- Full of Personal Opinions
- Impression that everything mentioned is first hand, otherwise stated as such
- Maps are not the best
- Enjoyable to read
- Plenty of information about culture and history
Lonely Planet
- Very good maps
- Good long listings of Accommodation and other travel info for each Town
- Easy to find information
- Attraction information is dry and almost straight from Tourist Information Leaflet.
- Hard to work out what is good and what is not, sits on the fence too much.
Rough Guide
-Not always sure of market they are aimed at.
- More similar to Lonely Planet than Bradt and share similar feelings.
Much like paper maps, they are a key piece of kit on the journey to help plan and for any extra information that is needed along the way. We decided not to worry about some of Europe and felt that it was a mistake travelling without any information about the forthcoming countries, so even if it is a more generic Eastern Europe or Southern Africa book you will benefit from it. |
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| Tourist Information Leaflets |
| Guidebooks are great but they don’t tend to have the latest information and not always include every attraction or place to stay. Admittedly Tourist Information places are not as informative in Africa as they are in Europe, but they are clearly the best way to get local, accurate information about many aspects, so make use of them where possible. Especially in more developed countries the leaflets have pictures to give an idea about the place, where no guidebook has pictures of hotels or campsites. |
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