Africa Roadtrip: 5 Countries, 3 Weeks, 2000 Pairs of Shoes

I’ve done a lot of crazy travel adventures, but recently I leapt the farthest out of my comfort zone when I opted in for a charity roadtrip across southern Africa. I’m not talking just South Africa, I’m talking FIVE countries that we drove across, stopping to camp, sightsee, and donate shoes to children along the way.

The name of this magical adventure, is Put Foot Rally. It’s a three week journey that requires participants to acquire their own vehicles (and encourages getting creative with them), and map their own route with guidance along the way in the form of checkpoint parties.

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Aside from the do-good aspect of delivering quality footwear to less-fortunate children, the rally was the best way to see lesser-known areas of Africa. Typically people just fly into the main popular spots and go straight on safari, but this roadtrip was the real deal. I would know after driving 5000 miles, and figuring out how to find campgrounds just about anywhere. (Side note: One of my friends drove most of the time while I blogged, in exchange for a free trip to Africa!).

Speaking of which, my sweet ride was a pickup truck turned camp-mobile, with a roof that popped up into a tent, and everything necessary to store and cook my own food! Plus the rally leaders surprised me with a personalized pink logo, social media handles, and my blog’s name printed across the sides of it!

It was a really fun, safe, and affordable way to see that many places in Africa while giving back at the same time! Check out everything we got to see!

South Africa

Cape Town is the starting point of this epic adventure, so I got there two weeks early to explore before setting off for the Namibia border. It’s technically not part of the rally (since most participants are from South Africa) but it’s obviously awesome, so I couldn’t miss it.

Best things to see in the Cape Town area are of course Table Mountain (one of the 7 Wonders of Nature), Camps Bay, Muizenberg Beach, Boulder’s Beach, and Cape Point!

Namibia

Namibia (and most of the countries we went to) probably wouldn’t have made it onto my to-go list if it hadn’t been for Put Foot Rally. I had no idea that’s where the famous red sand dunes of Sossusvlei and the photographer’s dream, Deadvlei were!

I also didn’t know that Etosha National Park had so many wild animals! I nearly peed myself when we started driving into the park and there were just giraffes right there on the side of the road! I also got super lucky and saw a super rare White Rhino, literally right outside of my window, and a male lion snoozing.

Namibia was also where our first “shoe drop” was, and where I learned the process for sizing the shoes for the kids. The kids by the way, were incredible, and a daily reminder for me to be happy and grateful for everything in life. They were just so happy, and all they wanted to do was hold hands, walk around, and play. …and by “play”, I mean with my long blonde hair and GoPro.

Botswana

Botswana is another place that I never knew was so awesome until I drove through it! It was my first time seeing actual WILD elephants walking around, and there were SO MANY of them! In fact, I even got to stay at a campground called Ellie Sands with a watering hole that the wild elephants come to each night!

So a bit of an embarrassing story happened here as well…since I had never seen a wild elephant (only ones at rescues or in National Parks), I didn’t understand the concept of being “wild”. I assumed they had to be used to humans if they were coming near them every day. Well, that is, until I took a photo as one walked by me, then turned around to find the entire campground with looks of horror on their faces. Yes, I was that girl.

Apparently allowing people to camp where wild elephants walk does not translate to “the elephants are automatically friendly”  like I assumed it did. Nothing happened to me thankfully, but I did get a few lectures about how dangerous wild elephants can be.

Moral: don’t go near wild elephants.

Zambia

Getting to Zambia was interesting. We had to put my camper-truck on a ferry, then go through about six different counters at the border control just to get a visa. But once we were in, we were in adventure-heaven!

The founder of Put Foot Rally knew of my obsession with waterfall chasing, so set me up with every possible way of chasing Victoria Falls in Livingstone! I flew over it with my feet dangling barefoot, I bungee jumped, swung, and zip lined in front of it, I selfie’d at the base of it, and of course, I went and swam in the Devil’s Pool at the rim of it!

Also, since they knew I was sad about my not-so-friendly experience with the elephants in Botswana, they also sent me to an elephant reserve to meet a forty year old “Tusker”. The elephants at the reserve (which is also a cafe called The Elephant Cafe whose revenue supports the ellies) were rescued from times when elephants were being killed due to over-population, and are some of the last Tuskers in the world.

Malawi

Did you know that the “Heart of Africa” is in Malawi? Or that there’s a massive, beautiful, clear lake in the middle of the country? Neither did I until I found myself diving off a boulder into it!

Malawi was the last stop on the Put Foot Rally, and it ended with a party on the sandy shores of the lake. After driving and camping for three weeks, you can probably imagine how happy we all were to jump in that water! I even got to go horseback riding on the beach! 

Since it was the end of the trip, I also decided to trade all of my toiletries, and most of my clothing and other random belongings for souvenirs from the locals, including two hand-sewn skirts and a ton of jewelry!

You may be wondering if I was dying after roadtripping for three weeks through Africa, but I was actually the opposite! In fact, a few of us continued driving up through Tanzania, and I even took the ferry to Zanzibar! So if you’re looking for an awesome way to see southern Africa, a roadtrip is definitely the way to go!

Interested in joining the Put Foot Rally next year? Whether you have a team or are a solo traveler like me looking to join other solo travelers, send me an email with “Put Foot Rally 2018” in the subject line and I’ll send you all the details! Email: info@mylifesamovie.com