Last week we had a great #TRLT’s Twitter Travel chat on ROADS. Get ready to enjoy a stimulating and sometimes shocking ROAD PHOTO ESSAY that will take you around the world while you lounge in the comfort of your sofa! You’ll welcome the wind in your hair and the sand in your teeth while you traverse a road that will visually change your life.

We talk about our dreams, destinations and journeys we plan to take, and simply “hittin’ the road”,  but have you ever stopped to think purely about the The Road itself? The dust that billows up in little clouds from your feet and lodges, tangling your hair on a bone dry desert road in Rajasthan, India? Or the red earth that permanently stains your sandalled feet in the rusty orange sand that makes up the countryside of Sudan? Or the fork in the road where you must stop,  “Do I turn left or right?”,  a  life question,  a paramount decision, that will change everything?

From the age of fourteen, my teen years were spent living a nomadic lifestyle, traveling, watching, as the roads and scenery themselves morphed around me, over time transforming me. 

The roads introduced me to new foods to crave, friends to cherish, cultures to dive into,  even introducing me to “Case” my future husband. Ragged roads threw me, denting the ceiling of a trucks, makeshift buses with crates for seats where I watched the miles passing through the gaping holes in the floor at my feet.  Pavement roads that sliced through the landscape creating a smooth snake of tarmac comforting our weary bums. The ultimate award for most extreme road we ever traversed, was undoubtably the main highway, the only way through, leading from the border of Nigeria into the depths of Cameroon’s unforgiving jungles. It took us an entire day, ten hours, to conquer 6km.  We were bombarded by The Road, forced to stop,  hacking our way through strangling vines,  extricating ourselves from the muddy grips of the jungle floor.  Unable to change lanes due to the parallel walls of truck high mud scraping the sides of our vehicle, the semi trucks, the pickups, the beater cars and even the motorcycles were not exempt from the unrelenting war waged by The Road against us. 

Traffic finally moving after 3 days of solid digging to pass through on Cameroon’s main highway.

It seems no road can discourage even the most beat-up cars in Cameroon.

A rainbow, a paradigm of hope, beauty and welcome over the lifeless roads on the Friendship highway in Tibet.

We travelled over this sketchy bridge in a fully loaded bus. What for much of the world would be a walkway, in Nepal this is an operational roadway.

Pick a road. Cameroon’s main highway exciting Nigeria

Our MAN truck took the highroad while the Land Rover took the low road

A perilous passage while the roadway cleaved away beneath us, on our way to Karimabad, Pakistan.

We found ourselves on a solid road with moving obstacles and random interruptions in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan.

On world famous Khyber Pass east and westbound vehicles share a single road, scraping each other’s mirrors off as they crawl in opposite directions.

Gazing over the precipice we saw dozens of vehicles formed a metal cemetery, Khyber Pass, Afghanistan

This is a makeshift bridge we needed to reinforce after nearly crashing to our deaths on the first attempt in Gabon, West Africa- See link for full video of our dangerous crossing.

Smooth road and looming storm sets us up for a muddy mess in Cameroon, West Africa.

War-torn roads attacked and bombarded by mortars are common in Angola

In rural Ethiopia the definition for a vehicle extends to camels.

A refreshingly smooth road found in Benin, West Africa.

Changing lanes is impossible unless you’re a semi in Kenya.

Driving towards the most beautiful escarpment through a splash of color in Kenya.

There’s no limits for load or heights when you’re travelling through Kenya.

China leaving its high-tech footprint over the desert of Sudan.

The dichotomy of photo #19 and #20 is clear. Progress comes slowly to Sudan.

Aways down this Ugandan road, we yielded to a troop of wild chimpanzees who had the right of way.

We’d love for you to join us by using the hashtag #TRLT! Today’s topic on “The Road Less Travelled” LIVE Twitter chat is HOPE and starts at 1pmNYC/6pmUK. To see this week’s post on HOPE check out my featured post on Trip Time Insurance

I am there each and every week hosting the chat with fellow travellers Shane Dallas (public speaker, visited 100+ countries), Jessica Lipowski (author and foodie) and Anton Magnin (family travel).

Next week we’re chatting HISTORY on #TRLT.