Spotlight
Accra to London by road for adventure, charity, the story of Wanderlust Ghana tourism enthusiasts
It is an epic story of a road trip from one continent to the other, that is from Accra in Ghana through many African countries to London in the United Kingdom through other European countries, a journey of about 10,000 kilometres.
That is the journey Kwabena Peprah, Kwabena Peprah and 10 other colleagues from Wanderlust Ghana, a group of philanthropists and tourism enthusiasts have embarked on.
The common trip has always been stories of people travelling by road from Europe to Ghana, but this time around the tourism enthusiasts from Ghana are doing the reverse.
They started the expedition of driving from one continent to the other from Accra on Sunday [July 23, 2023] through Aburi, Nsawam, Kumasi, and Sunyani to Dormaa and then entered Cote d’Ivoire via Golokrom.
They were 12 people when they started the journey but one person dropped off in Senegal because of work-related reasons and two others also dropped off in Morocco.
By Friday [August 4, 2023], they were on the outskirts of Monaco in Europe and were about to enter France, having moved through Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco in Africa and entered Europe by ferry on the Mediterranean to Spain. They spent three days in the country in Morocco.
They should be at the end of their journey in London by Sunday, August 6 or Monday, August 7.
After that, they will ship their vehicles back to Ghana.
They started the journey as a group of 12 people and are using five different Ghanaian registered vehicles, a Mercedez Benz G-Wagon, two Toyota Landcruisers (V8), Lexus RX 350 and a Ford F150.
On a daily basis, each of the vehicles they are using uses about 250 litres of fuel. Averagely they do about 800km to 900km in a day.
They have shared videos on social media moving through the desert and how some of the vehicles – Toyota – have had brake pads changed many times while the others are still moving without any brake pads changed.
Graphic Online understands that Teddy for instance had been planning to go on this trip for a very long time. He had wanted them to go in 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented them from doing so.
Ghana Card
Kwabena Peprah explains that all they needed was their Ghana Card [ECOWAS card] which they used to travel through West African countries until their entry into Mauritania where they had to pay to get a visa on arrival. It is 60 Euros but they had to pay 120 Euros due to what they termed as extortion by security officers.
They entered Morocco from Mauritania with a visa on arrival at US$10 and entered Europe through Spain via the Mediterranean with Schengen visas and then headed towards London with their UK visa.
They started the journey as a team of 12 Ghanaians and expected to cover a total of about 10,000 km by the time they reach London.
The expedition is also being used to raise funds for rural primary schools in Ghana, according to Kwabena Peprah.
Landing in Algeras in Spain, the team in a radio interview monitored by Graohic Online on Accra-based Peace FM shared their motivation for embarking on the extraordinary journey.
They explained that they were inspired by stories of people traveling from Europe to Ghana and other African countries by road and to other African nations and hence they decided to attempt this adventure as a fun activity, alongside exploring other nations.
“We are explorers and we are doing this for fun. We’ve read about people driving from Europe to Ghana all the time, and we also planned to do it and we are almost there.”
Accra to Cape Town trip next
They are hoping to drive from Accra in Ghana to Cape Town in the South in 2024.
BBC interview
Asked why they decided to do “this epic journey” in a BBC television interview monitored by Graphic Online when they reached the outskirts of Monaco on Friday, Kwabena Peprah answered; “the simplest answer is why not. We are adventure enthusiasts and tourism enthusiasts. We’ve been driving around our continent, we’ve been driving around our country and we decided to take it to the next level.”
“But most importantly we knew we will get some traction with the media and we’d use it to raise funds to help underserved communities in our country through EduSpots, which is a philanthropy organization, which creates educational hotspots for schools in deprived areas.
Mauritania experience
Highlighting their experience on the road, Kwabena Peprah said “The craziest was when policemen extorted us and kept us for seven hours in Mauritania. That is not a friendly country, they started off by giving us one reason after the other why we needed to stay with them. They were going to impound our cars for two days, just because they said there was an infraction on their traffic rules. They were made to pay a fine for tinted windows.
He said there are two favourite countries, and that one was Senegal and the other was Morocco. “They are beautiful, they are clean and the infrastructure is awesome. The people are very friendly. There was a policeman in Morocco, we stopped at a traffic light and he came over and he was curious about the [Ghana vehicle registration number] plates, and he asked us, which country and we said Ghana, and he goes like Abedi Pele, our footballer, I said yes, this guy [policeman] just turned on his sirens and gave us an escort out of town, it was so wonderful.”
Kwabena Peprah explained that when they get to London, they will engage in a number of activities with the Ghana High Commission organising for them to meet other people to pitch their philanthropic plans.
“We will be having a party in the park with the Ghanaian community next Saturday.”
#AccratoLondon by road for charity, the story of Wanderlust Ghana tourism enthusiasts https://t.co/lSVY7r2TNz pic.twitter.com/d0HbsFlfnp
— GraphicOnline (@Graphicgh) August 4, 2023
#AccratoLondon by road for charity, the story of Wanderlust Ghana tourism enthusiasts https://t.co/lSVY7r2TNz pic.twitter.com/2XQ8vKSAY0
— GraphicOnline (@Graphicgh) August 4, 2023
To support the fundraiser, visit EduSpots.org
more to follow…
