The Ultimate in Overland Travel: The Camel Safari

If overland travel is your thing, I may have just bested every other overland form of transportation imaginable to find you the best form of overland travel known to man.

We won’t keep you in suspense too long as, frankly, it’s written in the title, but let’s just say you’ll never be able to sit on another horse again, or indeed ride your neighbours enormous dog, once you’ve experienced the thrill of an overland camel safari.

Camel safaris are popular all over the world. From Australia to India, Morocco to Egypt, and Bali to Kenya, you can barely walk a step on this planet without tripping over somebody having the time of their life sat atop a camel. Often taking place beside great deserts, camels can take you through parts of the world that no other animal, or at least no other animal you could comfortably sit on for hours at a time, would ever dare to go. Even the trusty bus or train that so many of you overland travellers have been enjoying for so long wouldn’t be able to make it to the same places these camels can take you, making them the ultimate in desert safari transportation.

When booking your camel safari there are a couple of things you should take into serious consideration before hitting the giant ‘book’ button to make sure you’re not disappointed when you arrive at your destination.

Firstly, many of the destinations in which these safari’s take place from are in difficult to reach locations. Due to many camel safari’s taking place on or beside deserts, as mentioned above, it would often not work for these safari’s to start in a city as you wouldn’t get very far before the camel tired and you would have to return towards where you came from. It is possible to have camel rides within cities, especially in Morocco, but this is, as you would imagine, an entirely different experience to riding one through the desert. Often when you book your safari you will be given instructions on what bus or train to take to bring you to the starting destination of your camel safari.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, sometimes a camel safari is called exactly that, but instead of transporting you on their backs they transport your supplies. Often referred to as pack animals (as they’re carrying your pack) this is more commonplace in Kenya but it’s good to check before you make your booking just to be sure. These expeditions can be fun in there own right, as you trek through the desert finding a place to camp while your camels, other tourists, and your guides walk alongside you, but it’s fair to say if this isn’t what you were expecting you may not enjoy it as much as if you had already planned it out. Check in advance to make sure you don’t come unstuck.

I challenge anybody to come up with a better form of overland travel than the humble camel. Try out a camel safari for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.