Trans Sahara West to East | Sahara Overland

See also:<br>VW Kombis west-east 1983-4

January 2026

Half a century ago when the Sahara was more accessible, lateral crossings, all of them west to east, used to capture the imagination of adventurists, both private and corporate. Although such transits aren’t what it’s about to me, I wrote a box for the final edition of Sahara Overland about the four best-known vehicular transits which, broadly speaking, set out with this goal in mind, and expand on this page:

• Belgians – Unimog, 1964-5<br>• Brits – Land Rover 101, 1975<br>• Germans – Hanomag, 1975-6<br>• French – Saviem, 1977

Mogs arriving in Tangiers

As I suggested in the book, a true, unbroken, all-desert lateral crossing of the Sahara with vehicles had yet to be achieved and as things stand, never will be in our time. If you combined the British route across Mauritania and Mali, then follow the French or Germans to Dirkou in Niger and the French or Belgians east of there, you have a pretty good line. As it is, even with a lot of road-driving in Algeria, I’d say from Tan Tan 9000km east to Port Safaga near Hurghada on the Red Sea, the Belgies get the nod (map below but note the oddly misaligned borders, not least Niger-Chad).

The chances of achieving a true Saharan traverse are currently about as slim as they’ve ever been. Much of the Sahara of Mali, southern Libya, northern Niger and Egypt are unsafe or off-limits. Eastern Far western Mauritania is said to be the same, and much of southern Algeria between Bordj east towards Djanet (as we did in 2006) is now restricted.

Unimog in Faya, 1965

Northern Chad always presented difficulties from the mountainous terrain, let alone permissions and security issues. Meanwhile, people smuggling convoys still roll into Libya across northern Sudan above Darfur and are preyed on by bandits.

One Hanomag burned out in the Gilf or thereabouts.

JSE 1975 route

In southern Egypt the Gilf has so many access regulations that few bother any more. Even in the west-east expedition era, permissions heavily restricted access: the Belgians had to enter Algeria from Spanish Sahara, not Morocco; the Brits couldn’t enter Algeria at all which kiboshed their plans and they went via Nigeria (left). Meanwhile the Hanomagers bounced for over 16,000km between the Maghreb and the Sahel like pinballs, but did a whole lot of classic desert routes; and the French seemed to dodge Algeria and Chad.

British Joint Services 101s in Sudan, 1975. More here

The Saviems of 1997 made a pretty good job of it once they left Mali, planting at least 25 of their distinctive blue and white balises across the desert is a bid to establish a new lateral trade route across the width of the Sahara. The value of that is clearly rather dubious, but it was a good excuse to promote the lorries and have a big Sahara nadventure, using trials bikes and even parascenders to help recce the route ahead.

In my travels I’ve come across remnants of Saviem #16 in Niger, as well as an intact Saviem #22 east of the Gilf Kebir (below). And there’s a photo here of Saviem #10 just a couple of years after it was installed.

https://sahara-overland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/head-funsit.jpg<br>" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://sahara-overland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/head-funsit.jpg?w=625" data-id="877" src="https://sahara-overland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/11-1976-saviem-exped-marker.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-877" />Saviem balise #22 in Egypt’s Libyan Desert

Saviem TP3 vans and SM8 trucks spinning down in southern Egypt, 1977, below the final balise #25, somewhere south of Kharga on the Darb el Arbain around here.

Of the four expeditions mentioned here, the three continental ones produced illustrated books in French and German (below). If you don’t read either language any better than me, the big-format Croisiere des Sables is a good one to get – mostly pictures and under a tenner on abebooks last time I looked.

Coup d’Eclat au Sahara, Jean Stasse (2011, available new)<br>Trans Sahara – vom Atlantik zum Nil , Gerd Heussler (1978)<br>Croisiere des Sables , Christian Gallissian (1977)

Even though Tom Sheppard has published a couple of lavish Sahara picture books on his own travels, it looks like we’ll never get a full account of the JSE 101 crossing (but see below). There was an appropriately dry expedition report for the Geographical Journal in 1976 which you can read on JSTOR (map below).

Tom Sheppard also wrote a well illustrated summary in the winter 2016 issue of Overland Journal (right). In 2022 I received an email from a reader who’d just acquired the full and exceedingly rare 150-page report which was being auctioned here. Looking further, it seems there may be a hard copy at the National Archives in Kew, too. Watch an interview with Tom here.

My own lateral crossing s

A while back, before things really got bad in the Sahara (right) it occurred to me that, with one small effort I could link up my own...