JED THE SPREAD
CampervanCulture.com
I thought I would share a trip we did this time last year. We decided to make a video series of the trip so rather than me type out pages and pages of text and add loads of pictures you can be lazy and kick back with a can or two of beer and just watch it.
My name is Jed and with my long term partner Louise and our 9 year old son Isaac we headed to Morocco with a couple of friends in our old VW Syncro 4x4 camper vans. We did quite a bit of work to the vans before the trip so we could travel independently and be totally self sufficient. Diesel hot air heating via an Eberspacher, compressor fridge and a portable hot water system were all must haves on this winter trip. We stayed on a few campsites just because we were traveling with others but more often than not we free camped most of the time. We didn't just want to motor down to Morocco and when we were messaged randomly via our VW Syncro, Adventure camping and independent expedition outfitting company CampervanCulture.com from a guy called Dave things started to look more interesting. Dave was an English bloke who lived in a cave in Spain, he said, "Why don't you guys swing by for a couple of days on the way down?". First thoughts were this Dave fella sounds a nut job but if we were going to be making a travel series we needed to meet interesting people right!
Here's part 1
http://campervanculture.com/2014/02/morocco-overland-in-a-t3t25vanagon-syncro-part-one-uk-and-spain/
We finally entered Africa! Our first overnight stop was the town of Chefchouen and after that we headed to Fez to to the city tour and just generally got right into it. Culturally it was totally different to Europe it has got to be the biggest change in such a small distance in the world, we loved it. I don't know if it was because Louise is dark skinned and always made sure her shoulders were covered but when the three of us walked around on our own we hardly even got asked to buy a carpet. More often than not she had a head scarf with her and just popped it over her head when entering an area full of men or older people just as a jester of manners and she would often get Moroccan ladies come over and ask her about her western family in Arabic. The general thought was that she was a Moroccan that had married a long haired scruffy bearded English bloke, I think they felt sorry for her.
Here's part 2
http://campervanculture.com/2014/03...a-t3t25vanagon-syncro-part-2-entry-to-africa/
With Fez done and dusted it was time to get into what I had personally come away to do, off road driving and getting into the wilds to see what the country had to offer off the beaten track and free camp,we were not disappointed. Christmas approaching fast and we found the perfect spot for a wild camp to hang out in for a few days over Christmas and while chopping fire wood we all agreed. Though some how things changed and we headed to a campsite and one of the regrets of the trip was not stop there, it was perfect. The campsite we found was great and a we enjoyed our stay but we had to drive quite a lot on Christmas eve when we could have been relaxing back at the nice spot in the wilderness we left hours before.
Here's part 3
http://campervanculture.com/2014/03/morocco-overland-episode-3-journey-to-christmas/
The main road started to get a bit more lively as we heeded off the next day. We had our first sighting of a camel and luckily we stopped to show Isaac. Some Berber guys appeared from a roadside cafe/clothes shop, the kind of place you see around Morocco. A young couple from Spain who were traveling around on a couple of mountain bikes also appeared and after a chat with those guys they recommended we go with the Berber gentleman to see the underground canal. Boy were we impressed with what we were shown. After coming back up to ground level we noticed some 4x4's heading off into the desert behind us and the Berber chap told us about something we had read about online before we left so we said our good bye's and headed off into the desert for the first time. What we found blew our minds...
To find out what, here is part 4
http://campervanculture.com/2014/05/morocco-overland-episode-4-into-the-wilderness/
When I was the same age as my son Isaac my dad had a Land rover. This thing was old even back then but one thing I remember about it was an old pealed and cracked yellow window sticker on the back window and on the bottom of it was the words "Black Rock Desert Morocco Trip". When I was 9 and my dad used to go in the pub for a few pints (drink driving wasn't an issue in the early and boozy 80's) while on an errand and leave me in the Landy on my own for what felt like hours. Sat on my own with a packet of peanuts and a bottle of coke with a straw I used to look at the yellow sticker and wonder where this Landy had been and what the Black Rock Desert was like and my imagination used to wander, maybe that is why I am like I am today! Imagine my Joy when I found myself with my family the next day driving across The Black Rock Desert in our 4x4 camper van, amazing... I was really trying to take it all in when the others motored on ahead and we lost them, no worries though because although we had planned to reach Erg Chebbi that afternoon it was clear we could not do that distance desert driving so I just slowed right down and we could always hook up at Erg Chebbi. Isaac sat on my knee and did the steering while I explained to him about my dads Landy and the yellow sticker, it was really good and we decided to camp in this section just because when you slowed down it was an amazing place to be. After a while we caught up to the others and they decided to join us for a while camp in the desert rather than power drive to Erg Chebbi. It was an amazing night and we sat up into the night under a perfect moon chatting and having a laugh next to the fire, I will never forget that time. The next week or so we saw a lot of sand, no beer but lots of sand, we loved it.
Here's part 5
http://campervanculture.com/2014/07/morocco-overland-episode-5-sahara/
We found beer.... YIPEE! We drove a really good piste up a dry canyon that was really scenic and relaxing. There were a few tricky sections but all in all this next part of the trip was amazing.
Here is part 6
http://campervanculture.com/2014/09/morocco-overland-episode-6-rock-stone/
We hit the coast and the first stop was Siri Ifni, a town full of try hard hipsters and RV owning French coffin dodgers escaping the crappy european winter weather. Lucky for us it was just a quick stop before we headed north up the coast and onto some 5 star wild camping then onto Tagazoute for a quick cheese burger (yes you read that correctly). I had my 40th birthday there and we got caught up in a pretty fighting flash flood but secretly I loved it pulling a load of Swiss people out of the way of the flood.
Here's part 7
http://campervanculture.com/2014/10/4148/
We left the others as we had to get Isaac back to school for the 1st of February otherwise they would give his place away. We were blown away by a couple of beach areas on the way north and gutted one of the memory cards gave up but we managed to capture a little of what we did before we hit Spain again. We were firmly on our way home in this final part but we did take the time to visit Gibraltar and we really enjoyed that as well as everywhere in Spain before we hit the crappy weather of France and the UK where they had seen the worse floods on record. We even woke up in the middle of one!
Here's part 8
http://campervanculture.com/2014/12/morocco-overland-episode-8-the-long-journey-home/
What did we learn from this trip.
1 When traveling with others make sure you all are reading from the same page and you all are looking to drive and camp in the same style and mind set.
2 We have traveled loads over the last 20 years and Morocco has to be one of the safest friendliest places we have visited.
3 Don't carry beer it is to heavy, I like to kick back and have a few drinks of an evening round the fire. Buy spirits from Spain cheaply and mix them.
4 Bring cheese and pork with you, you won't find it in Morocco.
5 Pringles are expensive...
6 Bring as many old mobile phones with you as you can to exchange for fuel money, every one I know has draws full of them but bring the chargers too. You could easily finance a trip by chopping old phones outside gas stations.
7 Don't get hung up on finding a camp site. They are usually OK places and interesting at first but they usually are behind high walls kind of nice but you are trapped in cut off from the outside. There are lots of places to wild or free camp and we actually found it harder to find a campsite that we had to pay to stay than we did to find a free camp with views.
8 70% of campsites we stayed at didn't have a hot or warm shower so bring your own.
I hope you found this useful and enjoyed watching.
Stay safe,
Jed
My name is Jed and with my long term partner Louise and our 9 year old son Isaac we headed to Morocco with a couple of friends in our old VW Syncro 4x4 camper vans. We did quite a bit of work to the vans before the trip so we could travel independently and be totally self sufficient. Diesel hot air heating via an Eberspacher, compressor fridge and a portable hot water system were all must haves on this winter trip. We stayed on a few campsites just because we were traveling with others but more often than not we free camped most of the time. We didn't just want to motor down to Morocco and when we were messaged randomly via our VW Syncro, Adventure camping and independent expedition outfitting company CampervanCulture.com from a guy called Dave things started to look more interesting. Dave was an English bloke who lived in a cave in Spain, he said, "Why don't you guys swing by for a couple of days on the way down?". First thoughts were this Dave fella sounds a nut job but if we were going to be making a travel series we needed to meet interesting people right!
Here's part 1
http://campervanculture.com/2014/02/morocco-overland-in-a-t3t25vanagon-syncro-part-one-uk-and-spain/
We finally entered Africa! Our first overnight stop was the town of Chefchouen and after that we headed to Fez to to the city tour and just generally got right into it. Culturally it was totally different to Europe it has got to be the biggest change in such a small distance in the world, we loved it. I don't know if it was because Louise is dark skinned and always made sure her shoulders were covered but when the three of us walked around on our own we hardly even got asked to buy a carpet. More often than not she had a head scarf with her and just popped it over her head when entering an area full of men or older people just as a jester of manners and she would often get Moroccan ladies come over and ask her about her western family in Arabic. The general thought was that she was a Moroccan that had married a long haired scruffy bearded English bloke, I think they felt sorry for her.
Here's part 2
http://campervanculture.com/2014/03...a-t3t25vanagon-syncro-part-2-entry-to-africa/
With Fez done and dusted it was time to get into what I had personally come away to do, off road driving and getting into the wilds to see what the country had to offer off the beaten track and free camp,we were not disappointed. Christmas approaching fast and we found the perfect spot for a wild camp to hang out in for a few days over Christmas and while chopping fire wood we all agreed. Though some how things changed and we headed to a campsite and one of the regrets of the trip was not stop there, it was perfect. The campsite we found was great and a we enjoyed our stay but we had to drive quite a lot on Christmas eve when we could have been relaxing back at the nice spot in the wilderness we left hours before.
Here's part 3
http://campervanculture.com/2014/03/morocco-overland-episode-3-journey-to-christmas/
The main road started to get a bit more lively as we heeded off the next day. We had our first sighting of a camel and luckily we stopped to show Isaac. Some Berber guys appeared from a roadside cafe/clothes shop, the kind of place you see around Morocco. A young couple from Spain who were traveling around on a couple of mountain bikes also appeared and after a chat with those guys they recommended we go with the Berber gentleman to see the underground canal. Boy were we impressed with what we were shown. After coming back up to ground level we noticed some 4x4's heading off into the desert behind us and the Berber chap told us about something we had read about online before we left so we said our good bye's and headed off into the desert for the first time. What we found blew our minds...
To find out what, here is part 4
http://campervanculture.com/2014/05/morocco-overland-episode-4-into-the-wilderness/
When I was the same age as my son Isaac my dad had a Land rover. This thing was old even back then but one thing I remember about it was an old pealed and cracked yellow window sticker on the back window and on the bottom of it was the words "Black Rock Desert Morocco Trip". When I was 9 and my dad used to go in the pub for a few pints (drink driving wasn't an issue in the early and boozy 80's) while on an errand and leave me in the Landy on my own for what felt like hours. Sat on my own with a packet of peanuts and a bottle of coke with a straw I used to look at the yellow sticker and wonder where this Landy had been and what the Black Rock Desert was like and my imagination used to wander, maybe that is why I am like I am today! Imagine my Joy when I found myself with my family the next day driving across The Black Rock Desert in our 4x4 camper van, amazing... I was really trying to take it all in when the others motored on ahead and we lost them, no worries though because although we had planned to reach Erg Chebbi that afternoon it was clear we could not do that distance desert driving so I just slowed right down and we could always hook up at Erg Chebbi. Isaac sat on my knee and did the steering while I explained to him about my dads Landy and the yellow sticker, it was really good and we decided to camp in this section just because when you slowed down it was an amazing place to be. After a while we caught up to the others and they decided to join us for a while camp in the desert rather than power drive to Erg Chebbi. It was an amazing night and we sat up into the night under a perfect moon chatting and having a laugh next to the fire, I will never forget that time. The next week or so we saw a lot of sand, no beer but lots of sand, we loved it.
Here's part 5
http://campervanculture.com/2014/07/morocco-overland-episode-5-sahara/
We found beer.... YIPEE! We drove a really good piste up a dry canyon that was really scenic and relaxing. There were a few tricky sections but all in all this next part of the trip was amazing.
Here is part 6
http://campervanculture.com/2014/09/morocco-overland-episode-6-rock-stone/
We hit the coast and the first stop was Siri Ifni, a town full of try hard hipsters and RV owning French coffin dodgers escaping the crappy european winter weather. Lucky for us it was just a quick stop before we headed north up the coast and onto some 5 star wild camping then onto Tagazoute for a quick cheese burger (yes you read that correctly). I had my 40th birthday there and we got caught up in a pretty fighting flash flood but secretly I loved it pulling a load of Swiss people out of the way of the flood.
Here's part 7
http://campervanculture.com/2014/10/4148/
We left the others as we had to get Isaac back to school for the 1st of February otherwise they would give his place away. We were blown away by a couple of beach areas on the way north and gutted one of the memory cards gave up but we managed to capture a little of what we did before we hit Spain again. We were firmly on our way home in this final part but we did take the time to visit Gibraltar and we really enjoyed that as well as everywhere in Spain before we hit the crappy weather of France and the UK where they had seen the worse floods on record. We even woke up in the middle of one!
Here's part 8
http://campervanculture.com/2014/12/morocco-overland-episode-8-the-long-journey-home/
What did we learn from this trip.
1 When traveling with others make sure you all are reading from the same page and you all are looking to drive and camp in the same style and mind set.
2 We have traveled loads over the last 20 years and Morocco has to be one of the safest friendliest places we have visited.
3 Don't carry beer it is to heavy, I like to kick back and have a few drinks of an evening round the fire. Buy spirits from Spain cheaply and mix them.
4 Bring cheese and pork with you, you won't find it in Morocco.
5 Pringles are expensive...
6 Bring as many old mobile phones with you as you can to exchange for fuel money, every one I know has draws full of them but bring the chargers too. You could easily finance a trip by chopping old phones outside gas stations.
7 Don't get hung up on finding a camp site. They are usually OK places and interesting at first but they usually are behind high walls kind of nice but you are trapped in cut off from the outside. There are lots of places to wild or free camp and we actually found it harder to find a campsite that we had to pay to stay than we did to find a free camp with views.
8 70% of campsites we stayed at didn't have a hot or warm shower so bring your own.
I hope you found this useful and enjoyed watching.
Stay safe,
Jed
