Customer Reviews

Sahara Overland: A Route and Planning Guide

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4 star:		(1)
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Sahara Overland: A Route & Planning Guide is the first truly comprehensive guidebook to one of the world's most compelling and challenging environments, North Africa's Sahara Desert. Ranging from the Moroccan Atlas Mountains to the Red Sea, Sahara Overland is ideal for Saharan travelers whether for a weekend excursion, a week long vacation, or a season spanning safari. Thirty-five detailed itineraries are available, covering more than 15,000 miles through nine countries: Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Mali, Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Chad and Egypt. The only Saharan guidebook covering all aspects of traveling the great desert by vehicle, Sahara Overland provides tips on how not to get lost, and what to do when things go wrong. Chris Scott's informative, "traveler friendly" text is enhanced with fifty maps and more than 300 b&w and color photographs. If you are planning a trip through the Sahara, begin with acquiring and throughly reading Chris Scott's Sahara Overland.

Chris Scott's book was worth the wait. I've been exploring the deserts of the United States and Mexico for decades, and my wife and I plan to ship our vehicle to Morocco and explore the Sahara soon. This book has left no question unanswered.

Chris's approach is always engaging, but exhaustive where necessary. He isn't afraid to be honest in equipment choices. For example, since he is from the U.K. I expected the vehicle selection chapter to be a Tom Sheppard-esque sermon about the perfection of the Land Rover. Instead, while pointing out the strengths of Land Rovers, he quite bluntly states that anyone needing the utmost in reliability should buy a Toyota Land Cruiser instead. The section on vehicle preparation is full of good, practical advice.

The route descriptions are excellent (and you can visit the author's web site for updates). However, I would recommend this book strongly to anyone considering traveling by vehicle in any desert in the world--there's that much information in it.

I bought this book out of curiosity after reading an excerpt on the internet. I was totally absorbed in the book for some time after recieveing it. If you have any notion of traveling in the Sahara on your own or in a guided tour you need to read this book. The amount of information boggles ones mind, especially when it's delivered in a format that doesn't bore one to tears.

There are only 2 books worth buying if you intend to spend more than a couple of days overlanding: Tom Sheppard's "Vehicle-Dependent Expedition Guide" and this one. Whether you plan to go to the Sahara or not, there is so much information packed into this thick, single-spaced, no-nonsense guide, that you could simply rename it "Overlanding: A Route And Planning Guide." Sahara-specific information is covered in less than half the book.

I am an experienced desert driver and bought Sahara Overland in the planning stage of a Gilf Kebir and Uweinat trip that I put together with a bunch of friends when I was living in Egypt. On preparation, this is the bible. It is an absolute MUST get and DEFINITE need.What cars (although a bunch of good cars are not covered, and to his credit Chris Scott acknowledges this) and how to prepare them, advice on equipment and supplies, emergency repairs, all invaluable.

Advice on how to drive .... correct in places but dubious in others. Gilf trip GPS points were all out by a long way ... we thought as much before the trip when we plugged them into Ozzy Explorer and noticed that they kinda didn't fit with the sat images and the old Brit military maps. I cannot comment on other trips, but get alternative way points for the Gilf, the ones in the book are wrong.

Still, apart from these minor foibles, this book contains a wealth of sound advice, and is one of my favourite types of armchair travel books, not only does it stir my imagination (I dream of desert trips), but Chris writes with a dry laconic and sarcastic humour that put a smile on my face whenever I picked up this book.

This is not ordinary guide book as traveling in the Sahara is not ordinary. A lot of practical advices: what to take, how to prepare, what to expect, how to buy a camel, how to successfully buy your way out of the troubles and many many others. Chapter with real life stories of traveling in the Sahara makes very interesting reading. You got a good feel of what to expect. If you even consider going to Sahara buy this book.

This guide is simply fantastic, it is amazingly accurate, and makes traveling across the Sahara so incredably easy! It is truly a fabulous guide, and comes highly reccommended!