Encircle Africa: Around Africa by Public Transport.
Available as both paperback and kindle editions, Encircle Africa: Around Africa by Public Transport is the account of Ian’s attempt to complete the first solo and unassisted circumnavigation of Africa using public transport. The decision to travel using transport only available to local populations ensured immersion with populations across the continent.
It led Ian to cross Africa riding in battered minibuses and bush taxis, on the backs of flatbed trucks, over rivers in dugout canoes, and along the coast of South Africa in a van delivering freshly-made meat pies.
We thoroughly recommend Ian’s book about his adventure Encircle Africa: Around Africa by Public Transport
Travel Africa magazine
Overall, this is a fascinating journey
Compass magazine
Travelling 25,000 miles (40,000 km) – equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth at the equator – with no communications but an old mobile phone, and all his kit for more than a year of travel hauled onto his back, Ian was as reliant on some of the one billion people that call Africa home as he was on his own wits.
Lasting more than 13 months his journey took Ian along the coast of 31 countries, where he discovered for himself the daily struggle of living in and travelling through Africa. Starting his journey in Gibraltar before crossing to Tangier in Morocco, he travelled westward, experiencing Africa at its most raw and real.
He is forced to fight off thieves in Senegal, is mistaken for an undercover UN official during Liberia’s presidential election, refused entry into the Democratic Republic of Congo, and while in Sudan becomes perhaps the only person teargassed trying to visit a museum. Travelling during an electrifying year for Africa, he is one of the first tourists to visit the Libyan capital after the revolution that wrenched Colonel Gaddafi from power.
An honest and personal account of his journey, Encircle Africa: Around Africa by Public Transport acts as a powerful contrast to the perception of Earth’s oldest and poorest continent.
Start reading it here.