Eight Countries, One Defender, 45,000 km: Our Southern and Eastern Africa Overlanding Route Explained

Every overlanding route starts as a plan and ends as a story. The plan gives you a direction. The story is what actually happens — border closures, a Rwandan frontier that stayed shut for two years, a country you fell so deeply in love with that you stayed twice, and a destination that was supposed to be your first stop becoming, beautifully, your last.

This is our route. Not the one we planned. The one we drove.

The Original Plan: Going North Fast

What we mapped out during the build — and why it made complete sense at the time.

The thinking behind the original route was straightforward. We knew South Africa from previous trips. Botswana was the priority — the Kalahari and the Okavango Delta had been at the top of the list from the very beginning. From there, north through Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, and likely Kenya, with a possible extension further north. On the way south, Malawi was certain, Mozambique a possibility.

The guiding principle was deliberate flexibility. Take it country by country. Where we liked it, we'd stay. Talk to travellers coming from where we were heading. Make decisions based on real, current information. Then COVID happened, Rwanda never opened, and the route became something else entirely.

October 2020: Namibia First

Botswana in lockdown. The decision made itself.

When Ntombi rolled out of Durban in October 2020, Botswana was still closed. Two options north: Mozambique east or Namibia west through the Caprivi Strip. We'd been to Namibia before and loved it. Easy call.

What we found was unlike anything expected — COVID had emptied it. National parks that normally run at full capacity had campsite after campsite vacant. We spent nights at famous sites completely alone, the kind of silence money cannot normally buy. Extraordinary and, at times, sobering — every empty site representing livelihoods on pause. Four weeks. Stunning landscapes, world-class campsite infrastructure, roads that reward every kilometre. Just never underestimate the distances.

Zambia: Friends, Christmas, a Visa Clock

From the Caprivi Strip into Zambia — friends, familiar roads, Christmas 2020 in the bush. Accumulated visas from seven months at the Sissing Sanctuary meant overstaying was not an option. Tanzania came sooner than planned.

Tanzania: Rainy Season, the Coast, and Kilimanjaro

Tanzania had kept its borders open throughout COVID. More travellers here than anywhere since Durban. We arrived in rainy season — national park tracks muddy, some impassable — and adapted, heading east towards the coast, still taking every park possible on route, shifting the balance towards hiking and coastal time.

On the road we met travellers who had just summited Kilimanjaro in the quietest conditions in years. We added it to the list immediately. We summited. On a clear morning at 5,895 metres, with East Africa beneath us, the scale of where we were travelling became briefly and powerfully visible. From the coast we tracked north and west — through the Serengeti, Lake Victoria. Uganda was next.

Uganda: Six Weeks and a Country That Changed the List

We had not anticipated Uganda becoming one of the highlights of the route. It did. Extraordinarily friendly people, remarkable landscape diversity, gorilla trekking in Bwindi, the game of Kidepo and Murchison Falls. Nobody talks about Uganda enough.

Six weeks. At the final stop for maintenance we received an offer to manage a lodge in Murchison Falls National Park. Interesting and genuine. But the Maasai Mara was calling, dry season in Kenya was exactly the right moment, and we asked the owner if she could wait a few weeks. She agreed.

Kenya: Six Weeks, beautiful beaches and a stunning Mara

Six weeks. The Mara in dry season — the migration moving, predators active, game viewing that justifies an entire trip. We would have stayed longer. We had a promise to keep. In April we crossed back into Uganda.

Murchison Falls: Three Months as Lodge Managers

Murchison Falls in northwestern Uganda — where the entire Victoria Nile forces itself through a seven-metre gap in the rock — became home for approximately three months. We managed the lodge as promised. Living inside one of Africa's great parks, wildlife through the property, hippos in the river, the roars of lions audible at night.

The further north option — South Sudan, Congo, southern Ethiopia — we had kept open throughout. Intelligence on the ground closed it definitively. No overlanders coming from any direction. Road conditions, fuel, safety all consistently problematic. The Uganda-South Sudan border became our furthest point north. We turned south.

Rwanda remained closed. Back through Tanzania it was.

Tanzania West, Then Malawi

Going north we took Tanzania's east. Going south the west — different parks, different landscapes. Tanzania rewards the return.

From Tanzania into Malawi. Put Malawi on your list. Lake Malawi alone — an inland sea with clear water, a distinct fishing culture, mountain backdrops — is one of the most beautiful settings in all of Africa. The country is also, honestly, one of the poorest on the continent, and the contrast between landscape beauty and daily reality stays with you.

Zambia Again — This Time Properly

Back to Zambia with Ntombi as home, no visa pressure, the time to do it properly. South Luangwa, North Luangwa, the Kafue, the Lower Zambezi. A stop at the Sissing Sanctuary. A stop at Palmwood Lodge in Lusaka.

And then, finally - Botswana.

Botswana: The Last Country, the Longest-Awaited

Planned as the first destination. It became the last — and the crescendo.

Six weeks. The Kalahari. The Okavango Delta. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve — one of the largest wildlife reserves in the world and one of the most remote. Botswana's bush is different from every other country we drove through: drier, more ancient-feeling, with game densities in the right areas matched nowhere else on the continent.

We would have stayed longer. A friend flying from Japan to spend Christmas with us in South Africa brought us south. A few days in northern South Africa — new territory even for us — then Durban. Eight countries. 45,000 kilometres. Just under a year and a half.

Route at a Glance

What the Route Taught Us About Planning

Plan the route. Then let it be what it needs to be.

Rwanda closed for two years was not in the plan. Kilimanjaro was not in the plan. Three months managing a lodge in Murchison Falls was not in the plan. Botswana as the final country instead of the first was not in the plan.

Every one of those things became a highlight. Some became the highlights.

The plan gave us a direction. The flexibility gave us the journey.

Individual country posts follow — each covers the route, the camps, the moments, and the practical details in full.