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Saudi Arabia - part 2 More of the wooden screened boxes And then we were on our way again - more beach and desert camping! We learned to keep an eye out for these guys - mostly they hid under rocks Next we visited Al Ula, an ancient oasis city in the desert and the surrounding desert with...

I would not go out of my way to go back there again. However, it was interesting to see. We like to talk about our top 10% countries which include Iceland, Norway, Albania, Romania, Morocco, Benin, Tanzania and Oman but haven’t put together a list of our bottom 10%, but Saudi Arabia would...

Saudi Arabia - part 1 Wild camping at “Judah’s Thumb” Saudi Arabia is enormous, with vast rocky and desert flat stretches. There were areas of exquisite beauty, and also a lot of empty space to cover. It was not our favorite Arabian Peninsula country. The culture felt less welcoming to us...

Bahrain Bahrain is slightly less prosperous than Qatar and also more socially relaxed. It has half the population of Qatar with 50% of its residents living in the capital of Manama. Although not as shiny and new as Doha, Manama had a charm of its own. The country is really a collection of...

We also thought Africa was going to be cheaper. But what was interesting is West Africa and East/Southern Africa were roughly the same cost. West Africa had much higher visa costs whle South/E. Africa had much higher national park/camping fees. Visiting almost any African national park is...

Qatar Al Zubara fort, Qatar Qatar and Bahrain are similar in that they are both two small Arabian Gulf countries with economies based on oil and gas. For both of them, their main connection to the rest of Arabia is through Saudi Arabia. Qatar is a small peninsula land locked by Saudi Arabia...

Trip Costs Sure thing! So far we are 3 1/2 years into our five year driving around the world adventure where we have put on 125,000 miles so far. We spent our first year and a half on the road traveling the US and Baja, Mexico (our eventual goal is to visit every US national park, right now...

Thank you for the super kind words. At times I wonder how large of an audience we're reaching out to. Some of what we do is just to remind ourselves where we have been, haha.

UAE - part 2 Then we were back to city life and learning about UAE history and culture. Abu Dhabi was a pleasant surprise (those of you who have read other blogs know we are usually grumpy city people). After a year of navigating cities in Africa, we were still amazed with the cities on the...

United Arab Emirates - part 1 Dhafeer Fort - Liwa Oasis The United Arab Emirates continued our fascination with the Arabian Peninsula. Although it did not quite have the extraordinarily beautiful wild camping spots common in Oman, the country offered the intrigue of huge culturally...

Oman - part 2 Typical town along the coast Despite already getting stuck in the sand once in Oman, we decided to check out a track into Wahiba Sands - the biggest dunes in Oman. We know we are heavy, so sand is not always our friend, but still thought we would try. Heading into the Wahiba...

Oman - part 1 Oman is an overlander’s heaven. It is probably the simplest place we have ever traveled in our truck in terms of abundant and gorgeous wild camping and easy and inexpensive access to any amenity (gas, food, water). Oman has wisely invested it’s oil revenue in infrastructure and...

I'm super glad you like it! Every traveler needs to visit Africa at least once

Thanks! Many of these photos were taken by our son with his SLR camera and his 600mm lense. Yes, posting more frequently would great because I have to edit out 2/3rds of the photos, that’s difficult. Our problem is finding places with high speed wifi. We’re usually limited on data on our...

Kenya - Part 2 Tsavo National Park had beautiful scenery, but brush was often thick by the side of the road so it could be more difficult to spot wildlife. This made us appreciate our next park, Amboseli, even more with its wide open vistas and more elephants than anywhere else we had been...

Kenya - part 1 Our family group gathered with the Land Cruiser that was our home for a week (while our Toyota Tacoma was on its way to Oman) Kenya was a terrific experience for us but not a typical overlanding one. As we did in Morocco a year earlier, we were gathering with our family for the...

It was indeed stressful! But we limped along. The gorillas were an absolute African highlight. Its a must do.

Uganda As we were winding up our time in Africa (entering our 29th out of 30 countries on the continent) we were looking back on our time and thinking about all we had experienced and learned. Along the way we had listened to a variety of African literature. We shorted our route through...

Rwanda Mountain gorilla in Uganda We feel like we did Rwanda and Uganda a disservice by not staying longer but at this point we were speeding up to meet family flying into Kenya to meet us for Christmas. (We have been rightfully accused of “always working to a deadline,” we like to pretend it...

Thanks! That photo was taken a couple of months ago in Uganda where the Nile river drains out of Lake Victoria