Overlanding in 35 African countries in 3 years - Dan Grec

On March 14, 2020, Dan Grec's Kickstarter will end. If you're listening to this before that date, buy Dan's book on Kickstarter. His book (and website) are called The Road Chose Me.

If you're listening to this after March 14th, buy Dan Grec's book on Amazon.

Why buy his book? 

Because for 999 days Dan Grec drove through 35 of the 54 African countries. His book recounts his 3-year adventure.  

In this 90-min podcast, we discuss:

• His road trip across Latin America.
• How he saved money for 4 years for this 3-year trip.
• Why he biked to work in Yukon's winter.
• Which were some of the toughest African border crossings.
• How he got (or didn't get) African visas on the fly.
• How much it cost to ship his truck across the Atlantic
• How many times he got malaria and how it was.
• What he thinks of South Africa's future.
• What makes Sudan special and unique.
• His speaking tour.
• What he's planning to do next.

We discussed the Caprivi Strip. Here are the facts from Wikipedia:

Caprivi was named after German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi (in office 1890–1894), who negotiated the acquisition of the land in an 1890 exchange with the United Kingdom. Caprivi arranged for the Caprivi strip to be annexed to German South West Africa in order to give Germany access to the Zambezi River and a route to Africa's east coast, where the colony of German East Africa (now part of Tanzania) was situated. The river later proved unnavigable and inaccessible to the Indian Ocean due to the Victoria Falls. The transfer of territory was a part of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890, in which Germany gave up its interest in Zanzibar in return for the Caprivi Strip and the island of Heligoland in the North Sea.

We also wondered where the expression "rest on your laurels" comes from. Simply put: the origins of the phrase lie in ancient Greece, where laurel wreaths were symbols of victory and status.

You can watch the interview on YouTube, although the audio is out of sync.

More info