Ghanaian group makes history driving from Accra to London on daring 10,000km trip

A group of adventurous Ghanaians who embarked on an epic 10,000km road trip late last month from Ghana’s capital Accra to London, UK, finally made it to their destination on Sunday. The group, known as Wanderlust Ghana, arrived around 12:00 pm GMT (1:00 pm BST) after an expedition that took the team through various African countries and destinations in Europe.

They started the road trip from Accra on Sunday, July 23, 2023, through Ghanaian cities such as Aburi, Nsawam, Kumasi, and Sunyani to Dormaa before entering Cote d’Ivoire through Golokrom, citinewsroom.com reported.

From Cote D’Ivoire, the group went through Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, and Morocco, and finally entered Europe through Spain by a Mediterranean ferry. All in all, in Europe, they traveled through Spain, Monaco, France, Italy, Germany, and The Netherlands and arrived in London on Sunday, August 6.

“I’m in. We made history,” Kwadwo Saka wrote on Twitter, now known as X, on Sunday.

A team of 12 including Richard Anim, Kwadwo Saka, Kwame Peprah, Kofi Peprah, and a female auto repair technician called Nana Afua Serwaa started the journey but one person dropped off in Senegal due to work reasons and two others also left in Morocco.

Vehicles used for the journey included a Mercedez Benz G-Wagon, two Toyota Landcruisers (V8), Lexus RX 350 and a Ford F150, Raptor, all Ghanaian registered. Members of the team revealed that they used about 250 liters of fuel daily and covered an average of 800 to 900 kilometers per day. In spite of the various challenges including frequent brake pad changes and interactions with authorities in Mauritania, the group said their time in Senegal and Morocco was amazing due to the countries’ infrastructure, hospitality and beauty.

The idea to drive from Accra, Ghana, to London, United Kingdom, was planned in 2018 by Kwame Peprah, who asked some friends to come along, with many rubbishing the idea. Auto marketing companies were also not willing to sponsor the trip. But after getting some responses from a few friends, the team decided to start the journey in 2020. Then Covid-19 ruined their plans. Later, the group did some traveling within Ghana to gain some experience before embarking on the daring road trip to London.

“We are explorers and we are doing this for fun,” one member of the group told Ghanaian station Peace FM after making it to Spain. “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.”

“We’ve been driving around our continent, we’ve been driving around our country and we decided to take it to the next level,” Kwabena Peprah told the BBC. “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,” he added.

After their warm reception in London, the team said they were planning to engage with the Ghanaian community and the Ghana High Commission to pitch their philanthropy to them. They will also be having a party with the Ghanaian community next Saturday.