Flying from Paris to Accra takes six hours and 20 minutes, direct. But why fly when you can drive? One Ghanaian opted to take the road less traveled this summer, clocking 4,900 miles in just nine days. Why? For family and for country.
Twenty-nine-year-old mechanical engineer Nicholas Afedi Donkoh drove all the way from his house in France to his hometown in Ghana to prove a point: that everyone deserves an adventure.
“I just wanted the world to know that it’s not only white people who can go on such trips, but we blacks, too, can do that as well,” he says.
There was a secondary purpose also: “The whole idea was to make Ghana more popular and also make Ghanaians all over the world proud.”
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Donkoh says he bankrolled the trip himself, denying earlier reports that he received sponsorships, while revealing he spent nearly $2,400 just on fuel.
Before setting off, Donkoh tinkered with his BMW 7 Series to boost performance.
“I increased the horsepower from 400 to 450 so that the car could move a little bit faster,” he says, adding that a trip to the Chambre de Commerce in Paris was required for all the necessary travel documents and permits. A bit of self-care was also called for, with the driver kick-starting an exercise regimen to ready himself for the road.
