At nearly 40 years old, Lars Jensen’s Volkswagen camper van appeals to him mostly for its lack of modern features. The vehicle he calls “Sally” is just the right rig to drive around Africa over the next 18 months to explore the world’s most promising supply chain frontier.

As Google AI or ChatGPT will attest, Jensen is the most widely cited analyst in container shipping, an industry that handles some 80% of global merchandise trade worth $26-trillion last year. A former analyst with AP Moller-Maersk, he’s a regular speaker on the maritime conference circuit in his role as a consultant.

Through nearly a decade of supply shocks, he’s been in high demand.

“Lars, without offending you, I do feel like you’re probably the biggest geek in our industry and one of my favorites to listen to,” Trine Nielsen, an ocean freight executive at Flexport, said on a webinar last year, noting his more than 150 000 followers on LinkedIn (now 171 000). “You are definitely an important voice in our industry.”

Jensen, 56, is about to take his shipping and social media shows on the road. On July 1, he plans to set off from Copenhagen and head south through Spain, and catch a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar toward Morocco.

On a journey co-sponsored by German container carrier Hapag-Lloyd, Danish logistics giant DSV and Swiss tech company Nexxiot, he plans to travel through 41 countries and cover more than 65 000 km — nearly double the Earth’s circumference at the equator.

He’ll zigzag down the western coast to South Africa before turning north. Some countries are too dangerous to travel by road, so he’ll park the van occasionally and fly around. The rough itinerary ends in Kenya sometime near the end of 2027.

The goal is to scope out opportunities and risks — invisible from afar — to better connect Africa’s economies to the global trading system.

“This is going to be the largest-growing market for freight in the next 25 years,” said Jensen, the CEO of the Denmark-based Vespucci Maritime. “Which means, if you want to be a major player in this African market a couple decades down the line, now is the time to get on the train.”

By 2050, Africa’s container imports will reach Europe’s current volumes, he estimates.

The trip reflects the aspirations of more than one analyst’s bucket list and professional curiosity.

Global shipping lanes and logistics networks over the past half century have been configured at scale mostly east to west. With the rise of the Global South and demographic shifts favoring emerging African economies, capital-intensive industries like freight transport are chasing growth markets where e-commerce hasn’t yet plateaued.

It’s a playing field where China has already invested heavily, and others will follow given the need to export raw materials and import more consumer goods.

According to a research post last month by Landry Signé, a senior fellow and Africa expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, the continent’s logistics market is projected to hit $447-billion by the end of the decade, up from $344-billion in 2020. African maritime trade is projected to more than double to 132-million tons by 2030, fueled in part by the African Continental Free Trade Area.

That boom will require an extra two-million trucks and 100 cargo vessels, Signé wrote.

Part of Jensen’s mission is to survey the range of development needs and relay that back to his benefactors. Fixed to the van will be a Nexxiot tracking device like those Hapag-Lloyd attaches to its containers. He’ll be meeting with sponsors’ clients along the way and posting regularly on LinkedIn and Instagram (#SyncroSallyVoyage).

Jensen said he’s ready for any logistical challenges that he himself encounters.

Lacking air-conditioning, electric windows or headlights that automatically turn off with the ignition, his yellow 1987 Volkswagen T3 Syncro does have four-wheel drive and just 86 000 miles on its current engine. The fact that it’s not “riddled with electronics” is a bonus because repairs are easier, he said.

Still, he’s counting on the help of locals should he break down. “I’m a market analyst — I’m not a mechanic,” Jensen said.