EXPERIENCES & TRAVEL
TUK SOUTH
FROM KENYA TO THE WORLD
AND BACK
Every great adventure begins with a single idea. This one began in Nanyuki, with a few friends, a couple of tuk tuks and a question: what if? What followed was a journey that has taken two humble three-wheelers from the foothills of Mount Kenya across Africa and into South America, proving that the most extraordinary expeditions rarely start with extraordinary vehicles. They start with curiosity, determination and the willingness to embrace the unexpected. In this exclusive first-person account, the team behind Tuk South shares the story of how a Kenyan dream became one of the world’s most remarkable overland adventures-and why, despite everything, the journey is far from over.
Hello! Our story starts in the foothills of Mount Kenya at Cinnabar Green, an essential oils farm just outside the town of Nanyuki. We were drinking a few White Caps in the afternoon glow, attempting to explain TikTok to a Zimbabwean lady.
“So we go on adventures, film them, and post them on Tiklok,” I explained whilst scratching a sausage dog behind the ears.
“And who watches these tuk tuks?” the Zimbabwean lady replied as the screeching sound of a tiny rodent-like creature called a hyrax pierced the night air.
“TikToks… and anyone really. If people like them, the algorithm pushes the video to more people and your channel starts to grow.”
“And can you make money from tuk tuk?”
We stopped trying to correct the Zimbabwean lady. There was a pause in conversation.
“The TikTok tuk tuk,” someone said. “That has a ring to it.”
As the weeks went by, Jasper, Ivo, Robbie and I continued making our adventure videos in the Kenyan bush, but as we sat around campfires beneath the stars, our conversation kept returning to the idea of a TikTok tuk tuk.
We travelled to Northern Kenya, camping deep in Ethiopia on the dried bed of Lake Stefanie, explored the basalt canyons of Sibiloi National Park on the southern edge of Lake Turkana, and braved the stinging nettles and buffaloes of the Aberdares in search of trout.
But nothing could shift our thoughts from the ridiculous idea of going on these missions in a tuk tuk. The writing was on the wall.
Having lost our jobs due to the pandemic, we were all just waiting for the world to start turning again. But what if we did not have to wait for normal jobs? What if we did not have to go back to being welders and hotel managers?
We counted up our shillings and realised that, between us, we had just enough money to buy a pair of brand new Piaggio Ape 200cc diesel tuk tuks.
It was a business investment. Surely the TikTok tuk tuk would take the world by storm, even if we had only started making videos a few months prior.
Next, we needed a ridiculous mission. Drive to the bottom of Africa? Kenya to Cape Town. That had a nice ring to it.
We walked into Car & General in Nanyuki and handed over the cash. A week later, we were the proud owners of a passenger tuk tuk and a van tuk tuk.
What now?
Well, after a quick drive around the farm, we realised the tuk tuks seemed to have been designed to turn our spines into dust if we drove off-road. We needed new seats. Also, the frame seemed to be made from rolled-up tinfoil. If we fell over, we were in trouble.
After asking around town, we found a steel wizard called Kingori, who managed to bend us a roll cage from scratch. Now we would be safer if we rolled. Still not sure how we would get on if an elephant got hold of us, but we put that to the back of our minds.
To find new seats, Robbie and Ivo visited the local scrapyard. After a bit of digging, they found a small Suzuki with seats that seemed perfect for the job.
Whilst the farm’s mechanics, Philip and Jeremiah, welded the seats in place, Ivo was busy turning our van tuk tuk, Princess Buttercup, into something we could live out of. Food drawers, kitchen tables, storage boxes and a functioning shower were all installed.
Next, a local craftsman from Nanyuki created a bespoke canvas roof for the passenger tuk tuk, Wesley. We added water jug holders, fuel jerry cans, molle bags for storage, fishing rod holders and all the essentials.
After months of tinkering. painting and planning. in October 2021, the Tuk South team was ready to set off. We thought we would be in Cape Town in three months and home by Christmas.
Time to hit the road.
On our last night in Namibia, we sat on our camp chairs listening to the Orange River flow by and stared at the final country of our trip, South Africa.
But reaching the finish line did not feel like a victory. These past 15 months had been the greatest experience of our lives. It could not end here.
We began to spitball ideas on where we could go next and it did not take long for an obvious destination to appear.
Tuk South? Tuk South America. That has a ring to it.
Having made it to Cape Town, we got to work fundraising, modifying and planning to send Princess Buttercup and Wesley across the Atlantic Ocean. We thought we would be in Uruguay in three months. Almost two years later, in January 2025, we arrived in South America.
How would the tuk tuks deal with the extremes of South America? The 6,500-metre mountains, the frozen wonderland of Patagonia, the Atacama Desert and, of course, the greatest rainforest on the planet, the Amazon.
And never mind the tuk tuks. How would the human members of Tuk South get on in South America?
Our first mission was to drive the tuk tuks we had bought on Africas equator to the southernmost drivable bit of road on Earth, Tierra del Fuego and Fin del Mundo. The end of the world.
Tuk South America begins.
After 15 months in South America, Tuk South has been pushed to its limit. We have camped in minus 10°C as winter caught us in Patagonia, pushed the tuk ruks over 4,700-metre passes to cross the Peruvian Andes, been hit by altitude sickness on the snow-capped peaks of the Atacama and become hosts to a horrible little parasite called leishmaniasis in the Bolivian Amazon.
But this is why we chose tuk tuks. We do not want windows, doors and walls to keep the world out. If that is your goal whilst travelling, I strongly advise you not to travel in a tuk tuk. We want to let the world in.
Sometimes that means dealing with discomfort, but if that is the price we have to pay for the experiences we have been lucky enough to have over these past few years, we would pay it a million times over.
When you travel in a tuk tuk, you are a physical representation of an underdog story, and people love an underdog. They invite us into their homes, gift us crops they grow and fill us up on homemade hooch.
Before setting off on the Tuk South mission, we saw other people as something we wanted to avoid something that would lessen the adventurousness of our expedition. But with time, the tuk tuks opened our eyes to humanity and connection with others sort of became the whole point.
Every obstacle has become an opportunity for us, including the one we are currently looking at in Colombia.
How do we cross the Darién Gap? An area of jungle between Colombia and Panama with no road running through it.
We put out a video asking people to help and somebody heard our call. The place where it all started. Kenya.
Kenyans can recognise our KTWC licence plate even if it is just a few pixels on a screen. None of us expected to receive the amount of love we have from the amazing people where our journey began and, having heard how proud they are of these two Kenyan tuk tuks, we have changed the goal of the Tuk South mission.
Written on the back of Princess Buttercup it says, “From Kenya to the North Pole.”
But that does not work anymore.
They need to come home.
Once we cross the Darién Gap, the Bering Strait and the Suez Canal back into Africa, we will get these tuk tuks back to Kenya.
Thank you for your love and support. We will see you soon(ish). □
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