A Backpacker's Guide to Self-Driving through Southern Africa

In 2019, I fulfilled a life-long dream of mine and backpacked through southern Africa.

And better yet, I did it with one of my best friends in the world, Caroline Gregory (also known as @tattooedtraveler), in tow. We landed at the Johannesburg airport in late April and promptly rented a tent-top truck that we lovingly nicknamed Wildebeest (or “Wildee” for short), and hit the road. I spluttered my way out of the rental company’s parking lot as I re-learned how to drive a car with a manual transmission (on the other side of the road, no less) – but before too long, we were cruising through the impossibly vast landscapes that make Africa, Africa.

During the three months before our trip, I was deep in trip planning mode – scribbling campsite names in my journal during MBA classes, combing through antiquated blog posts describing what we’d need to pack, and chatting with friends who had gone on similar adventures (huge shoutout to Dan Klemmer). Fortunately, I I absolutely adore trip planning, but I know most people don’t… so I want to make it as easy as possible for anyone hoping to create their own journey through this part of the world.

This post is a table of contents, of sorts, to help you sift through all the other posts I have written about the three week self-drive safari Caroline and I did through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Though you can find country-specific posts on any of the country-specific pages, I wanted to clarify the most important posts for anyone considering a similar journey. Here are the main things you’ll need to reference if planning your own trip: