Cairo to Nairobi overland tours

You’ll travel with a group of up to 24 others, as well as a driver and a tour leader. Along the way you’ll meet up with experienced local guides who can tell you everything you need to know about whichever pyramid, ancient city or national park you’re visiting, as well as fill you in on local gossip, politics and culture. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for other cultural exchanges, too. You’ll visit a cattle market in Sudan, for example, encounter different ethnic groups in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley and meet plenty of talented artists and makers as you travel down through the continent.

Getting up close to a huge variety of wildlife is another boon, with everything from snorkelling in the Red Sea to meeting gelada baboons in Ethiopia to a classic East African safari on the agenda. But there are also those off-menu wildlife encounters that seem to happen every day on trips like these – coming across camels blocking your path on a remote desert track; watching a massive swarm of bats swoop overhead at dusk; hearing the distant grunting of hyenas at night; or even having your bags broken into by a baboon. Overland truck tours certainly aren’t for everyone, though. You’ll be spending long hours with your truck-mates, and there’ll be gruelling drives, nights spent back-to-basics camping, and daily chores to take part in. Plus you do sacrifice some independence for the good of the group, with limited time to go off exploring on your own. And then there’s the fact that you’ll be spending long hours with the same group of people for weeks on end. Like your family, you can’t choose your truck-mates, so patience and an easy-going nature will stand you in good stead.

Cairo to Nairobi covers over 12,000km, a journey of around nine weeks, depending on the route taken. For much of the journey you’ll follow the Nile, through Egypt, into Sudan and as far south as Khartoum and then along the Blue Nile towards remote reaches of Ethiopia. From here you’ll move onto the parks and reserves of Kenya, with some tours taking a detour into Uganda and Rwanda for gorilla trekking. This itinerary can also be done in reverse, from Nairobi to Cairo.

You’ve reached peak wildlife viewing once you hit Kenya, with the Great Rift Valley opening up some of the most dramatic scenery in the world – vast empty plains, hills covered in tea plantations and expanses of desert. Wildlife watching takes place at Hells Gate National park, Lake Nakuru National Park, Lake Naivasha and Masai Mara National Park.

Your home for this mammoth adventure will be a durable but comfortable and well-equipped purpose-built truck, that can deal with all manner of road conditions and comes with perks such as an on board library, charging points and a stereo system. You’ll travel with up to 24 other passengers, most of whom will be traveling solo, as well as a driver and a tour leader, though you’ll often have extra guidance from local experts at sites of specific interest – the pyramids, for example.

Distances are huge in this part of the world so you can expect early starts, long drives and some late finishes. You’ll travel by truck between each destination, and you’ll be on the road for between three-and-a-half and nine hours a day on travel days. Generally, you’ll spend one or two nights at each stop, though this could be longer – a few days in Jinja, Uganda for adrenaline activities, for example, and four or five days in Aswan to finalise Sudanese visas, where you can opt to take a felucca cruise.

Most nights will be spent camping out under the stars, either at purpose-built campsites or out in the wilderness, with the odd night sleeping at small locally-run hostels and guest houses. It’s important that everyone mucks in on these trips, so you’ll be involved in shopping for food in local markets, cooking for your group, collecting water and setting up camp.