Pre-Planning

The first thing that we found was that paperwork was the hardest part of planning a trip such as we wanted to do. Luckily we managed to find an official travel agents book which was not sold to the general public. We had to go to the publisher’s office to pick it up and they informed us that if we took an interesting photo with it, that they could use for promotion, then we might get some payment (most likely a free book). The book was fantastic, with info on every country in the world but was the size of a large telephone book!

We then proceeded to get all the visas and vehicle paperwork that we could. BA couldn’t get a visa for Algeria (because Britain wouldn’t give visas to Algerians). I lucked out on green card insurance for Morocco. We couldn’t afford carnets for the scooters for Egypt. Getting us and scooter through Iran/Iraq/Saudi and lots of other countries was near impossible. By the time we were ready to go, we had decided that we had to play it by ear for a lot of things. I had almost enough paperwork to get me to Greece, so our plan was to go that way via North Africa. Once in Greece I was going to grab a boat (because it was big port) and see what country I could get so I could carry on the journey (most likely India). Since we were leaving in Winter the plan was to go South as quickly as possible.

Other planning was getting jabs and other equipment. We ended up spending 60 quid on a first aid kit, which the headache tablets were used almost immediately after a hard night of celebrating before we were leaving. At the same time as getting the kit, we had our jabs. We both weren’t expecting this straight away and BA had the embarrassment of baring is bum through Christmas tree underwear while the nurse gave him a jab.