Last year, we broke the story of a driver for a group overland tour company, Brenden Blithell, who claimed his truck was a “death trap”. Not words you want to hear as you hurtle down a 1-in-8 hill in the Andes, where Blithell drove for the UK-based firm Kumuka.

Bald tyres, no brakes, no seat belts, no insurance – Blithell paints a worrying picture. “The steering would lock when going round a corner; you just hoped you could stop before you went off the road.”

An isolated case? We decided to find out, investigating overlanding operators, monitoring overlanding blogs, questioning drivers and keeping a close eye on the mail you send us to see whether the problem is unique to Kumuka or extends to overlanding as a whole.

What immediately became clear was that something has changed in overlanding, and not for the better. These days, nearly everyone subcontracts. Ten years ago, there were about 15 UK overlanding operators building their own trucks and recruiting their own crew; today, there are only six .

It’s all comes down to money : building a fleet of trucks, training drivers, making sure the vehicles are maint ain ed – it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to pay someone in Cape Town to worry about that stuff.

So what’s so wrong with subcontracting? Theoretically, nothing: just because a company is based in Quito, that doesn’t mean it can’t maintain its trucks properly and recruit decent drivers. In practice, however, as the Kumuka case highlights, and as your letters and blogs testify (the Saharan overland trip that couldn’t go into the desert because the sand mats weren’t up to scratch, the drivers busted for smuggling alcohol across the Sudanese border , the food kitty that was used to pay for repairs), local outfits often aren’t as reliable as the UK operators who build and maintain their own fleets.

It should be said that truly dodgy operators are thin on the ground. None of the companies listed below are cowboys: for every complaint we’ve found about Kumuka, for example, there’s another customer extolling its virtues. But some will be better than others , so we identified five key questions to sort the great from the simply good, then put them to the UK’s 10 leading overland operators.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

DO YOU SUBCONTRACT?

If you were selling overland holidays, wouldn’t you prefer to recruit your own crew? A one-man-and-his-truck operator in South America might be fantastic, but he and his truck are harder to predict . The whole question of subcontracting tells you a lot about a company’s culture.

Dragoman: No.
Oasis: No.
African Trails: No.
Acacia: No.
Tucan: No.
Kumuka: Yes; the trips are subcontracted to local operators, using mostly former Kumuka crew and trucks .
Intrepid: Yes – South American, Asian and West African trips are run by Dragoman.
Absolute Africa: No.
On the Go: Yes, all trips are run by a South African operator.
GAP Adventures: Trucks are chartered from local agents, crew recruited by GAP.

DO YOU BUILD YOUR OWN TRUCKS?

Many operators will buy in the basic rig – chassis, engine, driver’s cab – and custom-build everything else. Those that do tend to look after them better, and know how to fix them too.

Dragoman: Yes; 23 trucks, all built in the firm’s Hertfordshire workshop. From this month, though, UK-built flat-beds will have customised rear sections added in Nairobi.
Oasis: Yes; 11 out of 12 trucks are built in its Somerset workshop.
African Trails: Yes; 9 trucks, all built by African Trails’ crew in Tanzania.
Acacia: Yes; 18 trucks, built by Acacia crew in its South African workshop.
Tucan: No; 20 trucks, various sources.
Kumuka: No; 20 trucks, various sources.
Intrepid: Yes ; builds and maintains its 20 African trucks in Nairobi.
Absolute Africa: No; 12 trucks, bought in South Africa or Tanzania.
On the Go: No; 65 trucks, vari ous sources.
GAP Adventures: No; 8 trucks, various sources.

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