Project Africa: Three Countries, Twenty Days

Although Africa is becoming a more popular travel destination, many travelers discount it because of distance, cost and/or uncertainty of how to plan such a trip.

Africa has been on our hit list of places to visit for a few years now. It has taken A LOT of planning, but we are finally making this trip our reality in 2012.

How does one even begin to plan a trip to Africa?

Africa is a very large continent with a vast array of things to see and distinct reasons to visit. If Africa is somewhere you are interested in going you must first identify what it is that you would like to see so that you can narrow down the endless possibilities.

Creating a “must-see” list is always helpful as it will allow you to narrow down the scope of your trip and essentially create an itinerary for you. It is important to take your trip duration into account while creating your “must-see” list as it is very rare you will have time to see EVERYTHING on the list and will likely have to prioritize/narrow it down even further.

Based upon our “must-see” list we have narrowed our visit to South Africa, Tanzania, and Egypt. Some of the highlights of this trip will include: cage diving with the great white sharks in South Africa, a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti in Tanzania, and a cruise up the Nile River in Egypt.

Generally speaking we are pretty self-sufficient when it comes to planning trips and prefer to plan travels ourselves versus using a tour company.  Availability of public transportation significantly contributes to your ability to be self-sufficient while traveling and because Africa is less developed and the logistics are a little more complicated we chose to use a travel agent to assist us with planning our trip. We communicated our itinerary to an agent who will then arrange the logistics and sourcing of the excursions with local tour companies (links to local tour companies to be posted after the trip).

Lastly, it is important to mention the necessity of vaccinations for those travelling to Africa. The recommended vaccinations vary depending on where you will be travelling. Please reference the following Center for Disease Control (CDC) website for suggested vaccinations. 


http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/vaccinations.htm


Please allot enough time before your trip to schedule and receive your vaccinations (4-6 weeks is recommended as some vaccinations require multiple visits). You can consult your regular doctor, but chances are they will not have all of the vaccinations that you will require.  A better alternative might be to arrange an appointment with a local travel clinic as they specialize in vaccinations for international travel. 

We hope you found this blog helpful, please let us know if you have any questions regarding Africa!