When I quite my job and relocate I'm going to go and see afica. The idea is to start in cape town and end up in egypt, with all travel by either coach or train, unless there are any truly hostile parts which i shouldnd't go through.
Any one done anything like this before
Which way you going? East or West coast? I work in West Africa Namibia, Angola, Congo (Not the DRC still civil war) Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria and IMO apart from safaris and the city of Windhoek in Namibia I would avoid the west coast, not because of the "war torn countries" as pretty much all of them apart from Port Harcourt and Lagos in Nigeria are pretty good security wise, IMO there is just not that much to see unless you are into bullet ridden Colonial buildings in the capitol cities.
TBH though in any African country you have to extra careful as everyone wants something from you whether or not you are willing to give it or not.
As for traveling south to north on only coaches and trains I think you will be struggling.
I would go
SA
Namibia
Botswana
Zambia
Tanzania
Kenya
Uganda for lake Victoria
Then into the Sudan if only to get the ferry from Khartoum up the Nile to the Aswan Dam and the valley of the kings then the rest of Egypt, Cairo, Alex.
Then finish off in Libya, Tubruq to see the war Graves, museum, and the world war 2 hardware left rotting in the desert, particularly good is the Spitfire half covered in sand with only the Rolls Royce rocker covers removed from the Merlin engine.
But by road only?
I was going to go up the east cost. Money is going to be an issue, hence trying to make the travelling as cheap as possible. I was thinking that i don't have to stop in every country just travel through them.
I'm thinking of doing mount killomanjaro and a safari, though money for that will come seperaty
Many moons ago my wife hitched from Cape Town back to London. Took her 8 months and she managed to spend £600 in that time. Think most of her lifts came from people taking truck tour trucks back north. Perhaps that is still an option.
A good book to read is 'Three men on a bike', where 3 students travelled from South to North on the ex Goodies trandem, ending up in Egypt.
Where they had trouble with kids chucking rocks at them.
I have traveled by road between Namibia and Angola and the north of Angola to DRC and Cabinda and the border crossings are not a nice experience and that's with an agent with bags full of cash and on occasion armed guards but guards more so at the tail end of the troubles and have had no end of problems getting from country to country by road, but that is probably due to the fact I was working for one of the major oil companies, not sure what the experience would be like as a tourist though. Would have liked to think it would be easier with an agent with cash for bribes.
Visas can also be a problem, if all the i's are not dotted and the t's not crossed boarder guards will use any excuse to try and extort dollars from you, and if you don't have dollars they will just keep hold of your passport making you sweat until they get bored after say 12-24 hours while you sit on the kerb in the middle of the jungle sweating and getting eating alive by cerebral carrying mozzies.
thats food for thought scotsman
try thorntree on lonely planet forum for advice from folk there or just back.
I hung out with a dragoman overland driver when i was in brazil and chatted about travelling in africa but couldn't afford overland travel. He suggested finding out where the overland companies stopped and striking up a conversation with the drivers, said they would prob take you along if you pitched in with cleaning and cooking. Still never been to africa to test the theory but he reckoned that they'd be up for it because if you're knocking about on your own you're prob someone they could have a decent chat with
Very interesting blog here about a girl cycling solo from the UK down through africa... Sounds like fun but a fair amount of stress involved... probably no more than 'normal life' tho ! ? !
After reading this blog and 'Three men on a bike' I'd probably avoid Egypt, everyone seems to throw stones at cyclists and think it's well funny... 
How much time do you have and what will your budget be?
What are your skills and commitments "back home"? Would you have anything to offer charitable/volunteer projects? I have issues with gap-year volunteers who have few skills to offer and pay somebody else to organise their year-out for them, but I do like the idea of identifying volunteer projects and joining them up as a basis of a trip.
A book I found myself nodding, chuckling and shaking my head at was Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. Egypt to Cape Town overland. Caution: may contain spoilers for your own trip. By which I mean he seems to have had a good time and met lots of interesting people. Your mileage may vary.
I reckon scotsman has it about right: too much unpleasantness in the west and centre. I know people doing business in DRC and Central African Republic and nothing happens without greasing the wheels.
fontmoss might be onto a good one: I commute between Francistown and Maun (Botswana) every couple of weeks and the overland trucks are endless. As far as I can tell most of them start in South Africa and don't go much further north than Maun/Victoria Falls. Typically the ones that do the whole north-south/south-north trip are UK registered - you can search for things like africa overland, cape to cairo, etc. for companies. I doubt the drivers would take you on informally as a helper for the whole trip but it might work out for short stretches.
However, ask yourself what kind of trip you want: I get the feeling that sitting on an overland truck driving between campsites (mostly on tar roads) leaves you a bit isolated from the environment. A bus-truck full of sunburned firstworlders dozing or reading novels and getting silly-drunk in the evenings wouldn't be on my list of things to do.
Also, you might find yourself on a bit of a mad dash from one place to the next to finish the journey in time. If it was me I wouldn't set myself the goal of "Cape to Cairo," but rather just meander around and see how far I could get within my budget of time and money.
The majority of people are genuinely friendly and you can have great conversations, but the ones that believe in wealth redistribution and free enterprise will be on you like iron filings on a magnet. My advice: travel light and low-tech.
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