Africa. I’m still not sure whether this was a major road trip or a minor expedition, but if it’s the former it has to come top of this list. The route was just short of 6500km and took in South Africa, then Namibia (a favourite of ours, see below); Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, finishing off in Botswana again – we even set foot in Angola, but that was just a cheeky visit thanks to an obliging boatman in Rundu.

We opted for a rental Nissan 4x4 for the journey, equipped with a roof tent, Engel fridge, one-hob gas cooker and lots of stuff to get us out of deep sand – such as high-lift jack and spade – and also a compressor so we could tweak the tyre pressures to make sure we didn’t get bogged down in the first place.

There are too many highlights to list fully but wild camping in Namibia and Botswana (the latter amidst a herd of elephants) stand out; as does the drive along the Skeleton Coast to Terrace Bay (and all the desert driving in Namibia actually); hiking in lion country in Zimbabwe with an armed ranger for protection; Victoria Falls (breath-taking); arriving in Zambia via the Kazungula Ferry across the Zambezi; coming face to face with a group of hippos while in a dugout canoe in the Okavango Delta; the friendliest speeding ticket ever in Zimbabwe; The Matopos Hills (magical); Bulawayo; getting stuck in with the 4x4 in Botswana in particular; Zambezi beer and Windhoek Draught. As always in Africa the people were friendly almost everywhere.  

Marco Polo. That’s the name given to the series of features for The VW Golf magazine that were the by-product of this trip, a three-month journey in an ancient £300 ‘bread van’ shaped VW Polo in 2004. The route took us down through France and over the Alps into Italy, and then down the east coast to Bari, where we caught a boat to Greece. Then we drove up through Greece and into Turkey, down the Gallipoli peninsula and around the coast before heading up to Cappadocia, which was where we turned back. A long drive back across the Turkish interior followed, and then Istanbul during the rush hour (which was fun!), before driving back to London via eastern and western Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France). Memorable moments? Losing the exhaust in Turkey then having it fixed for around 10p; being caught in a dust storm and almost collecting a parked car; Czech beer; The Pelion at Easter; taking in a lap of the old Pescara road course; the ruins at Pergamum and the amazing Travertine pools at Pamukkale; Bulgarian border guards ripping the guts out of poor little Marco because they thought we might be drug smugglers (to do with the Indian visas in our passports, long story); and simply taking our time – we had a lot of it, and the car struggled to do much more than 60mph anyway.

Australia. There is something immeasurably satisfying about driving across a continent, especially when it’s one that’s as sublimely empty as Australia. We took what might be thought of as the zipper route – or ‘up the guts’ as it’s called in Oz – Adelaide to Darwin along the Stuart Highway. The trip was just under 4000km, but this included a few detours: Flinders Ranges; Uluru (Ayers Rock); King’s Canyon, and Kakadu. For the first time we didn’t use a car, but a motorhome; a VW Crafter, which was fast enough to overtake three- or four-trailer road trains (amazingly long articulated rigs) with ease, yet also very comfortable. There were some long days of driving and a few wonderful dawn starts – there’s something very special about starting a long day on the road just as the sun rises. Most of the kangaroos we saw were dead by the side of the highway (51 of them in fact), but we did get close up to one with a joey early on, and saw plenty of wallabies, while there was no shortage of salt water crocodiles (the dangerous type) at Kakadu. Highlights? Canoeing in Katherine Gorge; walking around Uluru; tea and
Tim Tams; watching as a dust devil formed in front of our eyes
then spun past like a whirling dervish just feet from where we stood; Cooper’s Pale Ale; swimming at Edith Falls; and cooking snags on the van’s fold out barbi.

Route 66. The granddaddy of road trips; from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then we drove on to New York, so by journey’s end we had crossed the entire continent. The car was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, a bit bouncy, but comfortable. Following Route 66 was not simple, though I believe it is easier now as this trip’s become popular lately. That said, much of it is hardly used by regular traffic these days, and while some stretches run parallel to the interstates that superseded them, others curve away into the hills and valleys and quite often through genuine ghost towns. We even found a couple of early stretches which were just dirt tracks. Small detours took us to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, while a larger detour took us to Las Vegas – which is as fake as Dubai, but a lot more fun. There’s plenty to see along the way, and it was a great way to discover small town America. Listening to the car radio as we went, the stations switching as we crossed county lines, was an education, too – especially some of the quite frankly frightening right wing Christian broadcasts. Memorable moments? Shooting a full magazine from a Kalashnikov AK47 in a gun shop; Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo; big steaks and huge portions; driving through New York to drop off the Chevy at the end of the trip; a drugged up gangster showing me his gun – in a friendly way – in LA; the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest; Amish country; and the biker bar at the Devil’s Elbow, the ceiling hung with bras donated by customers. Jassy did not donate.

Nambia. Many travel around this amazing country in a 4x4, but to upgrade would cost £400, the same price as a long lens for the camera we needed for photographing game, so … Anyway, I was pretty sure a VW Polo would be up to the task, having enjoyed a previous adventure in a much older version (see above). Most of the roads were gravel, dirt or sand, but the Polo was great fun and didn’t miss a beat, apart from a broken fuel gauge which we only realised wasn’t working (stuck on ‘full’) when we were in the middle of the desert hours away from human habitation. Highlights? Driving for hours across vast swathes of the Namib Desert without seeing another vehicle, and stopping every now and then simply to soak up the silence. Hiking over and through the towering and beautiful sand dunes at Sossusvlei was pretty remarkable, too. And then there were the animals, and getting our little Polo up close to a breeding pair of lions as they flirted playfully, and then had a vicious tiff. We were lucky enough to see the ‘Big Five’ (elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo), but the giraffes were a particular favourite. Driving along a stretch of the Skeleton Coast was pretty cool, too. But best of all were the people, in Namibia and South Africa (we bookended the trip with a stop in Cape Town and then a mini road trip from Johannesburg to Kruger and back).

Italy. Research trips often make the best road trips and this was no exception. This was the first time we made use of a satnav and we were glad we did, as it can be difficult to find your way through Italian cities (we still managed to get lost in Rome and Florence). We followed the route of the fabled Mille Miglia road race (not the new one that rich people do, but the real one that hasn't been held since 1957). As the name suggests, it’s 1000 miles, and Stirling Moss completed this in just over 10 hours in 1955! We started halfway around the course, in Rome, and the hire car was a Lancia Ypsillon – a rather rubbish runabout but I was quite glad it was a Lancia, as that was the make of car that won in 1954 in the hands of Ascari, the year featured in my novel, Faster than the Bullet. Highlights? The Futa and the Raticosa pass; spending a night in Ferrari’s home town of Marranelo; the hidden gem that is Brescia; the Mille Miglia museum in that same city; Tivoli; Rome; and the food and wine everywhere, but especially in the vineyard we stayed in in the hills above Verona.  It was also interesting to see a preserved stretch of old Mille Migia road, just the loop of a hairpin with the old cobbled surface, above Antrodoco, near Rieti. It gave me a clear idea of just how much the corners have opened out with the road widening over the years, and also just how much more of a challenge the route would have been in 1954. 

Tanzania. The guidebooks say that Tanzania is not really a fly-drive destination, but we found a car hire company that rents out old, well-used, but solid Toyota Rav 4s and then got on with it. I don’t really know why it’s not recommended, it seems no more difficult than any other African country to drive in and the main roads are in good condition. Traffic in towns and cities is heavy and a bit frenetic, though, but also fun to drive in – when it’s flowing, that is, as Dar es Salaam in particular has some serious jams. Maybe if the traffic police dealt with these rather than dishing out speeding fines it would not be such a problem? Yes, I got caught speeding … Again. There was some rough stuff to negotiate, too, one quite extreme stretch in the Usambara Mountains when the satnav took us the wrong way,

but the little Rav 4 never missed a beat. A perfect small car for Africa, I’d say. 

Over-officious traffic police and border officials aside, Tanzania’s a fantastic country, if a bit expensive. This trip started with a safari in the Serengeti before we picked up the car in Arusha, then it was out to Tarangire, doubling back to Moshi, the Usambara Mountains, a sublime cabin on an Indian Ocean beach near Pangani, then a fantastic drive on to Dar es Salaam.

It’s Africa, so far too many highlights for the space available, but the walking safari at Tarangire was memorable (“we are now surrounded by four of Africa’s most dangerous animals,” said the guide, glad he had a gun), as was going off to brush my teeth at our Serengeti camp and coming face to face with a hyena (glad I had my toothbrush). Two lionesses and a cub breakfasting on a freshly killed zebra at dawn was quite something, too. We were very close, and the noise as they tore and crunched at the still steaming carcass will live long in the memory. There was also a bull elephant who took a dislike to our car. Quite quick, those Rav 4s …

Animal encounters aside, Moshi was fun, and hiking in the Usumbura Mountains looking for lizards with Joseph Chameleon was a great experience (if you do this, don’t drink the sugar cane beer). Chilling at Capricorn Beach was relaxing, while Dar es Salaam was exciting – a wonderful city. As to the age-old question as to which beer is best, Kilimanjaro or Safari, the answer is Serengeti – just a shame we found that out on the last day.

Cuba. They say you should visit Cuba before it changes, but then they’ve been saying that since the 1980s. Cuba is still Cuba, I’m happy to report, with its shortages of goods in the shops, queues for food and sometimes maddening bureaucracy. But then there’s also the music and the bars, the living history, and let’s not forget those wonderful old American cars.

It’s worth sorting out your hire car well in advance if you are planning a road trip on this wonderful Caribbean island, though, as they can be hard to find if you leave it late – and don’t expect a 1954 Chevy, a more modern Chinese runabout is the more likely rental takeaway here.

Our trip started in vibrant Havana, driving along the Malecon, where when the sea is rough you can get a salty car wash as the surf breaks over the wall. We then used the almost empty autopista to get to Vinales – few Cubans own cars and while the motorways may not be in the best of condition there’s certainly plenty of room to swerve around the potholes. Vinales is very picturesque, and smoking a freshly rolled Havana cigar in the farm where the tobacco had been grown was a memorable experience here. After Vinales it was a longish drive to Playa Larga on the Bay of Pigs, where the paradise beaches are dotted with reminders from the fighting in 1961. From there it was on to charming and colourful Cienfuegos (my favourite place in Cuba), before driving along a great coast road to time warp Trinidad; then making a figure-eight to head north to Varedero via Sancti Spiritus. The former is a touristy resort, but stay at the western end and it’s not so bad, with some long and lonely stretches of sand – this is a very long beach. One tip: pay a visit to San Miguel de Los Banos on the way to Varedero, to explore the crumbling and deserted Gran Hotel, which is slightly dangerous but very atmospheric – watch out for falling masonry and a huge bees’ nest in the foyer. On the way back to the airport we visited Ernest Hemingway’s old pad, Finca Vigia, another time capsule, which has not been touched since he moved out in 1960. A bit like Cuba itself, in a way.

Japan. “Have you booked your Bullet Train tickets yet?” A couple of people asked this, when I said we were off to Japan. I understand why, the railway system in this marvellous country is justifiably legendary, for both its speed and punctuality. But if you really want to see Japan then I’d argue a car is still best. Even if that car is as vanilla as the Nissan March automatic we picked up at Narita Airport.

One thing this car did have going for it, though, was an English-speaking satnav, which we literally would have been lost without, and the card tech (ETC) to automatically pay the astronomical tolls for the Expressways. Actually, once you drive these motorways you get an idea of why they cost so much to maintain; mile after mile after mile of flyover and when it’s not flying over its burrowing under – so many tunnels. Driving the Expressways through Tokyo and Osaka, as if you’re flying at fifth floor height, is a memorable experience, as is crossing the huge bridges – actually bridge systems where one towering edifice links to another – that connect Shikoku with Honshu, Japan’s main island.

Shikoku was probably the best for the driving, with our trip from Momijigawa Onsen to Iya Valley being the biggest challenge – in places single track and skirting long drops – but this road trip was bookended with two far more famous driving routes. The first was the Irohazaka Winding Road, home of the drifters, just outside
our first night’s stop at Nikko, but a bit disappointing as there was far too much traffic (I think drifting is a night-time activity); and then towards the end of the trip there was the Hakone Turnpike; Japan’s Nurburgring and a real treat, even in a shopping trolley
like our hire car.

Our route was Narita; Nikko; Karuizawa (wonderful fiery autumn foliage); Nakatsugawa (hilarious confusion at an Isakaya, a traditional pub-eatery); Nara (the awesome Todai-ji, friendly wild deer and much more); Shikoku (an unspoilt treat); Himeji (with its storybook feudal castle); Kyoto (The Golden Temple [pictured] and the wonderful Nishiki market); Hakone (Onsen – hot springs baths and a shy Mount Fuji, hiding behind a veil of fog), and then Tokyo. Wonderful food, lovely people, awesome scenery, stunning architecture both old and new and, of course, great driving. But next time it’ll have to be a GTR.

Uganda and Rwanda. It’s usually best to time your trip to East Africa so that it doesn’t coincide with the Big Rains, but in recent years the rains themselves have not been quite so good at sticking to the schedule. So, when we arrived in Uganda for this particular two-country adventure – and thanks to the muddy roads adventure it surely was – it was often grey skies in the day and very dramatic thunderstorms at night.

Luckily, our vehicle was an old Toyota Land Cruiser, a truck that was pretty much built for Africa. Yet even in this we had our moments, including taking five attempts to climb up one muddy slope which itself was on the edge of a long drop, getting completely stuck a couple of times, and rescuing a minibus from the mire.

Beyond the fun driving, one of the really memorable things about this trip was the border crossings, which involved going from a country where they drive on the left – Uganda – to one in which they drive on the right – Rwanda – and then back the other way. But you know what, on neither border post was there a sign to point this out, which seemed even more crazy when you see how quiet and twisting the road from Gatuna towards Kigali in Rwanda is.

This was one of those trips that could fill a book – or, to put it another way, it was in Africa – but highlights include getting within two or three metres of a silverback mountain gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (Uganda); a bunch of lions in a tree in Ishasha (Uganda); the tropical paradise that is Rubona on Lake Kivu (Rwanda) – El Classico 1 here is my favourite bar in all of Africa; dealing with the traffic in Kampala and Kigali (“I’m in a Land Cruiser and I’m coming through”); plus, and this is perhaps most remarkable given the history of these two lands, some of the most friendly people you will meet anywhere in the world.  

One piece of advice, if you’re heading to Rubona from the south, don’t take the ridiculously rocky little track through Rambo (I’ve only just noticed that Stallone coincidence!), even if you are driving a Land Cruiser and your navigation app insists it’s the best way to go. We needed those cold Mutzig beers in El Classico 1 after that …

Mexico. The 1700km road that extends down the length of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico has a few names. Some call it Ruta 1, others Highway 1, while the signs say
Mexico 1. It’s also known as the Carretera Transpeninsula. But whatever you call it, this is a very fine road trip, encapsulating mountain passes, long arrow-straight desert roads and gorgeous drives along both the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez coasts. It is one of those trips where you have to pay a steep drop off fee for the hire car, though, but you can blame geography for that, and it’s definitely worth it anyway.

Our route took us from Tijuana, where we traced the ‘wall’ between Mexico and the US for a few kilometres and then down the Pacific coast to Ensenada. Then the next day it was into the desert …

Desert drives are always special, and this did not disappoint, but strangely enough it’s water that sticks in the memory. First the true oasis of San Ignacio, where we swam in the cool green river, which was striped with the shadows of lofty palm trees. Then there was both coasts – this trip does more than kiss them, it’s more of a caress – and lovely Loreto and La Ventana, the latter a mecca for kite surfing with a cool Californian vibe, where Baja Joe’s is a great place for a craft beer.  

Highlights include potent Margaritas at journey’s end in San Jose del Cabo; the wonderful boulder-strewn scenery around Catavina, which was our overnight stop on day two; tasty fish tacos; circling eagles, frantic hummingbirds, sea skimming pelicans and even a real roadrunner (beep-beep!).

But the drive was the best of it, for while there were a few of those long, straight stretches – which have a mindful charm all of their own – there were also some very fine roads; some of which even made a Kia Rio rental seem exciting. 

Iceland. The best single-country road trip in Europe? Probably. There’s no better way to see a great deal of what Iceland has to offer than driving the Ring Road, or Route 1, to give it its official title. This 1330km loop starts in the lively, if expensive, capital of Reykjavik, but it’s worth picking up the Ring Road a little further along, at Selfoss, as that way you can explore the touristy (for good reason) Golden Circle first (Thingvellir National Park, towering hot water spurts at Geysir, the spectacular Gullfoss waterfall, and more). The spectacle is far from over after that, though, and in fact it just keeps coming, mile after mile after mile …

We drove this trip in October, which is the start of the low season, and this meant some snow on the road. On the other hand, there was very little traffic in the east and north. And there was huge drama everywhere: the waterfalls at Seljalandsfoss, Skogafoss, Dettifoss and Godafoss, each very different, none anything less than majestic; the sublime drive between Egilsstadir and Myvatn, where you literally feel you’re on top of the world; tracing the edges of the fjords along the east coast; lava fields that make it seem like you’re on another planet; enormous glaciers reaching out to touch the green land like icy-white fingers; ghostly icebergs floating in the Jokulsarlon lagoon, and glooping, hot mud pools melting the snow.

Highlights for us included whale watching from Akureyri (it was very cold but worth it, getting up close to huge hump backed and minke whales); relaxing in geothermal fed hot pots, nice and warm while the wind-driven snow pricked at our faces; picking our way over snow-covered passes secure in the knowledge that we’d opted for a 4x4 with winter tyres; the Northern Lights (though the dimmer switch was on low, to be honest); excellent food, especially the fish and lamb; and, most of all, that feeling that we were indeed once more having a proper adventure and a taste of freedom after 21 months in HMP Covid. 

Kenya. The bar at the top of The Curve building in Nairobi might just be one of the coolest in Africa. On one side, ‘Fifteen Rooftop’ overlooks Nairobi National Park, on the other the burgeoning skyline. It’s a great place to quaff a few cold Tuskers while watching the sun sink into the city (incidentally, east Africans drink their beer warm, as just about everybody seems to believe you’ll catch a cold if it’s chilled!).

Fifteen Rooftop was also a great place to reflect on a wonderful road trip, a loop which started and finished in the frantic metropolis (driving through the rush hour traffic was quite an experience), then went on to Lake Naivasha and Hell’s Gate; then Nakuru and a rash of pink flamingos on the lake, before ascending the heights of the Laikipia Plateau (with its surprising rain and fog), then dropping down into the desert lands of the north, and Samburu, before the long, incident-packed drive back to Nairobi.

Highlights included camping out in Ol Pejeta (totally alone except for the wildlife, with a couple of elephants dropping in for dinner); Samburu National Park, where our old Land Cruiser really came into its own on the sandy tracks; the wonderful Lion’s Cave camp at Archer’s Post; and the stay at Eagle’s View in Naboisho Conservancy, Masai Mara, which we tacked on to the end of the trip. The latter was enjoyable as much for the flight there and back, touching down on dirt strips in a little Twin Otter, as for the amazing wildlife (I’ve never seen so many lions in one place, we witnessed a 20-plus lion hunt one night), the sumptuous ‘tents’ plus the great food cooked up by chef Julius.

The only sour note on this trip was provided by a bully of a police lieutenant at a checkpoint close to Archer’s Post. Given the choice of staying in Kenya to go to court a few weeks later, for a dubious traffic offence, or an on-the-spot 5000 shilling ‘fine’ I chose the latter (about £40). There was no receipt. But then that’s all part of the fun in Africa, we agreed, as we sipped our chilled beers in Fifteen Rooftop.

Alpine blast. Eight countries, eight days, taking in some of the best Alpine passes – just the way to try the new MX-5 out while getting in some First World War research for a new project. First stop was Verdun, via the old grand prix circuit at Rheims, then it was into Switzerland, through Lichtenstein, and on to Italy, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France. The passes were brilliant fun in the Mazda: Fluela, Stelvio and Grossglockner the best – particularly the last. We did have one near miss on a derestricted section of autobahn outside Munich, when the rain suddenly started to fall and an old bloke in a Passat simply lost it in a straight line and pinballed from barrier to barrier right in front of us when we were doing around about 120mph. Close one, that, and the driver was very lucky to climb out with just a hobble and a white face. Verdun, The Somme and Le Cateau, were interesting and moving, as old battlefields always are, but the highlight of this trip was really the driving.

Chile. This wasn’t a particularly long road trip, but by virtue of the fact that it was all about the journey and not the destination, it certainly was a road trip. After a couple of days’ fiction research in Buenos Aires in Argentina we flew to Arica, close to the border with Peru in the north of Chile, and picked up the car. The trip was a drive south through the Atacama Desert to San Pedro de Atacama. Desert driving is always wonderful, and this proved no exception. It was our first time in South America but the third continent in which we’d crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and also the sixth continent we’ve driven a road trip on; which leaves only Antarctica …

The car was the new Toyota Rav 4. We didn’t get on to much rough stuff at all, the Chilean stretch of the Pan-American Highway (Route 5) is nicely paved, but when we did it coped very well indeed, and it was perhaps the most comfortable car I’ve ever used on a road trip. It has to be said, the food’s not great in Chile, but the wine more than makes up for that, while empanadas aren’t so bad – just like a British road trip, all those pasties! Highlights include the haunting atmosphere at ghost town Humberstone; El Democrático – a bar by the port in Iquique, a little rough maybe (or characterful), but great fun; Valle de Luna, with some of the best desert scenery anywhere in the world (with the added bonus of the snow-capped Andean volcanoes in the distance – simply stunning); watching flamingos sipping their reflections at Laguna Chaxa on Salar de Atacama; and long, straight desert roads, wrinkled with mirages.

We spent the last two days of the trip in Santiago, a fantastic city – if Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America, this is its Rome.

Sourthern Africa. The last casualty of Isandlwana? I’ll get to that later … A Toyota Corolla hire car and a 10 day loop that took us from Johannesburg to Swaziland (now called Eswatini), then down in to KwaZulu Natal, then back up to Jo’burg. Swaziland’s a nice little country, and it was here that we had one of our best wildlife experiences ever, in Hlane, on foot, coming within five metres of a rhino with a baby. The mother shifted quite aggressively, and we had to crouch down to pretend to be bushes – rhinos really should go to Specsavers. Back in South Africa we had an encounter with a smaller creature that was almost as exciting. Our guide showed us a trapdoor spider, again with young. It was quite surreal; a mark on the path, nothing more; looked a bit like a knot in wood. Then he lifted the hinged hatch, which actually almost seemed manmade, like a rubber grommet over a Smarties tube, which itself seemed plastic-white on the inside – but it’s actually made of silk. The spiders were inside; no Smarties. Hluhluwe-Imfolozi was impressive, one of the most beautiful reserves I’ve visited. And then there were the battlefields: Rorkes Drift and Isandlwana. We were taken on a hike along Fugitives Drift by a Zulu guide called Tulani. It was interesting to get a very different take on the battles and also an insight in to current South African politics; he was great company, too. I was so wrapped up in the conversation I tripped over a root and landed very heavily. Thought I’d broken my arm, and crossing the Buffalo River at the end of the trek was tough, as was the drive back to Jo’Burg – where we also visited Soweto. All in all a more thought-provoking trip than other African adventures, perhaps, but also hugely enjoyable. Oh, the thunderstorm in Pho-Pho was pretty memorable, too, as was the Bunny Chow near Durban: curry in a hollowed out loaf of bread. What’s not to like?

Malawi. Sometimes the most venomous of creatures are brightly coloured, just so that you know not to mess with them. But this is not usually the case with cars, and when we picked up our Suzuki Jimny from the airport in Lilongwe I didn’t really think we had much to worry about, even though it was a very toxic shade of green (the picture doesn’t quite convey the lurid lime hue). Anyway, Suzukis never let you down, do they?

For this trip we drove a loop that connected Lilongwe with Senga Bay and Cape Maclear on the shores of Lake Malawi, and then on to Liwondi and back via a marvellous, hilly road that traced the Mozambique border, with simply stunning mountain scenery, which was a real surprise and delight. Not that I could fully appreciate it as it was at this point that a very peculiar misfire developed – and when you pull out to pass a ridiculously overloaded truck in Africa you really don’t want to lose revs on acceleration. It wasn’t tainted fuel, which does happen, but electrical, I’m sure of that, though I did manage to coax it back to the capital. Still, a pity, as before this it had been a fantastic African road trip car – really coming into its own when we had to go offroad to get around an overturned lorry that blocked a narrow track, and at other times when the going got sandy, mucky, bumpy and fun.

That said, most of the roads in Malawi are pretty decent, though there are some nasty potholed stretches, and it’s a great country for a small road trip. The people are very friendly, even the police, and there was only one request for a ‘small gift’ from a soldier at a checkpoint, who rewarded me with a smart salute when I politely refused. But then we also had a very bizarre episode when airport security made us bin a wooden chopping board that I guess they thought might be used as a weapon, which was just bloody-minded stupidity, to be honest. But then every country in the world has its jobsworth idiots, sadly.

Otherwise, this was quite a chilled trip. The highlights were a visit to a small fishing village in Senga; a sunset boat trip around Thumbi Island, and the wildlife in Liwonde – game was hard to find here, because of the flooding after Cyclone Freddy a few months earlier, but we saw swimming elephants and then a very bad tempered young bull, trumpeting and mock charging. There were also elephants in the camp, which we could hear at night, and then see their spoor in the morning just outside the front door of our rondavel.

Flying home we took advantage of our Ethiopian connection with a few days in Addis Ababa, an intoxicating city where we seemed to be the only tourists, while we also went north on a day trip – it was nice to let someone else dodge the potholes for a change, while I concentrated on looking out the window. There was a lot to see, too, as Ethiopia’s an interesting and exciting place, well worth another visit. Maybe even a road trip …

Costa Rica. Sloths live all alone in the high branches of trees, only coming
down for a poo once a week. Our trip to Costa Rica was also a week, but I’d say it was a little more interesting than that.

A week meant this wasn’t a very long road trip, though, yet we did manage to pack a lot in, with some wonderful hiking in the rainforests (where we actually spotted sloths, one of them grinning away very happily) and a hotel stay that was perhaps as good as anywhere else we have stayed in the world – the wonderful Celeste Mountain Lodge, just on the edge of the Volcan Tenorio park.

We also visited Santa Elena and Monteverde, enjoying a cloud forest canopy walk along a series of very high suspension bridge walkways, luckily without seeing anyone else for most of the time we were up there. I say luckily, because if there is a problem with Costa Rica it is that there are too many tourists. And this has had the knock-on effect of spawning a series of what might be described as ‘selfie-factories’, and it seems to me you could probably travel the length of the country by zipline these days – and has there ever been a falser ‘adventure’ than this particular ‘thrill’? Maybe I’m getting old (I am) but the butterfly gardens in Santa Elena, where you release your own Blue Morpho butterflies (you also get up very close and personal with tarantulas, scorpions and all manner of other creepy crawlies) was far more exciting. Other highlights included the tour of a small chocolate farm,
going through the whole process from pod to sampling, and the equally interesting (though also sad, as many of the animals have been rescued from misguided and cruel captivity as pets) Las Pumas animal sanctuary near Corobici, where you can see Jaguars, Ocelots and Pumas.

Our final stop, before a long drive back to the airport in Liberia, was Manuel Antonio, with its famous national park (note: it’s shut on Tuesdays, not Mondays as the guidebooks say) and magnificent beach. I’m not normally one for lying on the sand, but I made an exception here, and I must admit that just lazing around all day doing nothing certainly has its attractions. Maybe those sloths are on to something, after all? 

Canada. Vancouver’s a nice city and a great place to start a tour of British Columbia and Alberta. The hire car was a boring Toyota I Forget, and an automatic at that, but it did the job. Some of the scenery was almost unbelievably spectacular, especially in Wells Gray Provincial Park, where they have some of the most amazing waterfalls tucked away, which are hardly mentioned in the guidebooks. We saw bears here, too, which was exciting, but not quite as exciting as hiking through the forests knowing they’re around. The Icefields Parkway, which crosses the Canadian Rockies, was a spectacular day’s drive, and going out on to a glacier in a special ice explorer (basically a bus with giant wheels) was memorable. Other memorable moments include eating poutine (chips topped with gravy and cheese curds, far better than it sounds and a Canadian delicacy), the steaks in Calgary, and drinking excellent craft beers.