BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi All,

I recently returned from a 58 day overland trip from Nairobi to Cape Town. For those thinking of booking or who have booked - you WILL have the time of your life. Eastern and Southern Africa is a truely wonderful place and you will have a great time no matter who you go with. A few tips before you go

1 - DONT GO OVERLAND CLUB! - I did and they're terrible. They increased our local payment by 260dollars the say we arrived in Nairobi, the truck is poor, the organiastion is poor and if anything bad happens that happened to us they (the office in the UK that is) wont want to know. Now if you have booked with them, dont worry, you'll still have a ball. Our guides were great and as I said Africa is great so dont panic (I read bad things about AOC after I had booked and I began to panic). Try look up companies like Absolute Africa, Accacia and others.

2 - The absolute highlight on the 58 day trip was the Gorillas in the Congo. Include them in your plans as I definite

3 - Dont bring travellers checks! - Look into to alternatives - one of the girls on our trip had a ForEx travel card that she could use as like an international atm card. Travellers checks can be a real headache to change and the banks really screw you (I know its sounds crazy that big multi-national companies like banks try to screw people in Africa but occasionally it happens)

Other than that - have a great time

Santi Sana

Sound like you had a great time. I will be doing something similar with Intrepid travel.

One question I have is this.....Dollars or local currency. Many places say dollars, but my friend who lives in Kenya says use local currency instead, especially as a lot of places (e.g. taxis) don't accept dollars. Countries I'm visiting are Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana & S Africa. Any tips?

Cheers

Everyone I travelled with took Dollars with them. We had very few problems. Nearly all safari companies take dollars as payment as do border crossing for visas. There was a good few campsites where we were allowed pay for our bar tabs in dollars too. Our first stop at every country was to a BdC.

Other tips - Bring pens for the kids. Bring cards, one of those travel pillows for the truck, try make it to Zanzibar, do qaud biking (Namibia-so much better than I imagined it would be)...thats about it I think...you're simply going to have a ball!

I have recently done a massive 8 month long trans africa overland trip and absolutely loved every second of it!

As the previous response says you will have a ball without doubt. make sure you enjoy even the hard and not so much fun bits and relax its African time...!

That is probably the best general advice you can get apart from making sure you take it all in, dont sit behind a camera all the time, as even after 9 and a half months on the continent i feel like i have only had a tiny taster of what there is to enjoy and will be back one day without a doubt.

I agree with the dollars cash rather than travellers cheques cos they really are a hassle to change. Defo change to local currency everywhere you go though, it can be fun experience in itself! In the countries you are going through usd will probably be best and gain the most favourable rate, though pounds will be similar. Make sure the notes you take are post '96 definately and post '99 to make sure...some places are just a bit funny about old notes and can refuse to take them. depending on how much you plan to take, try to get a mixture of small and large notes too.

If you plan to withdraw cash from atms and are from the uk then i recommend a nationwide account as they dont charge for the withdrawals everytime as other places do. A cc is a good back up just make sure you tell you bank here you are going and watch out for commission charges which are sometimes huge.

Your company will give you all the advice you will need when it comes the that anyway. And from what i know Intrepid is a really good company to go with (one of my friends recently went to india and nepal with them and will use them again in a couple of months time)

Onto Africa, my faveourote continent in the world, although i cant decide on one fave country cos i love them all so much. Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru Nat Parks are my fave for Kenya, the latter being the only place i saw a leopard the whole trip and the former being a beautiful park. The elephant orphanage is worth a visit...they are very cute indeed but dont bother with Karen Blixens house.

A trip into the Okavango Delta is worth it if only for the mokoro ride in and out and the hippos...kinda scary though cos you can hear them but you cant see them...! One of the things i mut go back for is the flight over it though.

As you will soon realise i love being in planes and therefore i am going to also recommend the sunset flight over soussevlei and dead vlei and dune 45...the colours are beautiful.

You will soon also notice that i could rave about Namibia till the end of time!: pace yourself walking up dune 45, its tough work and maybe easier bare foot. the sunset at spitzkoppe was the best i have ever seen so make sure you have plenty of film handy. Sleep outside wherever you can in Namibia cos the sky is amazing especially at night, and watch out for those seals at cape cross seal colony cos they smell really bad from very far away!

In swakopmund do the quadbiking and sand boarding cos you hav to and if you do a tandem skydive then pay the little bit extra to land on the beach if you can, its very cool to sumersault out over the sea and be able to see the dunes and town too.

Etosha national park is great, the watering holes are well worth sitting round by night and depending on the time of year you will see loads. I was there twice and the forst time was around march and we saw loads of animals out in the park but not much by the water holes and then again in june and saw amazing amounts by the water but not a lot out on the roads. the best night was probably when there were 40 plus elephant early eve and then the big bulls came back accompanied by black rhino and giraffe!

One other thing about Namibia, not sure if it will be on your timetable but Cheetah Park is good fun where you will get to pet a cheetah and see them being fed. It is a section of farm land where they keep wild cheetah to stop the local farmers from killing them when they become troublsome and take too many cattle...much better then killing them. if you get there say hi to Mario and Daniella, Zsu and the monkey for me!

I promise to stop rambling on very soon but just a couple of tips:
'No' means 'yes'
'maybe later' means 'no'
'yes' means 'yes'
Dont start bargining for something unless you are pretty serious about buying it
There is no need to bargin the market stall workers into the ground, pay what you believe to be a fair price, it doesnt matter at anyone else got it for
Have fun bargining for souviners, if you relax it becomes a much nicer experience. The hassle is a lot of the time just an excuse to get into a conversation with you.
Be confident and dont act like a tourist, especially in Nariobi and Cape Town, no getting out of maps and standing wondering where you are in the middle of the street and watch where you get your camera out too. If you get a cab anywhere make sure they actually know where they are going before you bother getting in!
I personally had no problems but you will always hear stories...
Also the scam going on in Narobi when i was there was people coming up to you in the street and pretending they were security from your hotel/hostel in order to ask for money. I know perfectly intelligent people who fell for it make sure you are not one of them!

Ok i am going to shut up right now cos i literally could write foreve and a day but any questions i would be only to pleased to answer...

What travel company did you go with? Was there anough free time to do what you want? I am looking at the 58 day overland trip with Kumuka or Acacia or a 70 day trip with a UK based company. How much did the trip cost all up including spending money? I will be booking this trip from London. Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.

You are all going to enjoy Africa. It is absolutely wonderful!

I do want to say though, because someone mentioned bringing pens for kids, that I think that is a bad idea. Giving kids pens, candy, money, etc. encourages them to beg from foreigners and to view foreigners as nothing more than people who will give them something. Sometimes they even start to feel entitled. I had a boy get upset with me because I wouldn't give him my whistle. And it doesn't go away when the kids grow up. I had many, many adults ask me what I was going to do for them, wanting me to give them money!

You can, however, use pens for bargaining and trading. I friend of mine traded some pens for some very tasty mangos. A win-win situation for everyone!

The Man speaks the truth I am on oner land club as we speak and the head office really does not give a $(@% about us. Our guids have been great. I booked the over land experience DO NOT BE FOOLED this is overland club

on a 57 day trip from Capetown to Nairobi what would you say you spent in USD total including tips, food, tour

(NOT INCLUDING AIRFARE)

I went overland from Capetown SA to Cairo, Egypt with a company called Africa Routes they're at http://www.africanroutes.co.za I had a great time and would recommend the company over the others we met up with along the way. None of them are perfect but we seemed to be having a better time than the other groups. One thing is they have an age lime of 18-35. They will make exceptions, a couple of people were around 40. I was the only American. And only two people out of 32 gave me enough grief over it to mention. There were 5 of us that went the whole way. It was actually 3 tours back to back. We left the truck in Wadi Halfa Sudan and took a ferry to Egypt and then used local transport and trains in Egypt. If you have any more detailed questions you can contact me.

Hello acs,
I am looking at the African routes 70 day tour (after your reading your rave review) and was wondering, did it include the gorilla trekking? I have read the info provided but just wanted to double check before deciding on it, otherwise i will have to tack on the gorilla safari (3 weeks) component onto Cape to Cairo trip. I was originally looking at the Acacia or Kumuka trip.
Also was wondering how much did the optionals cost? I am trying to figure out how much money to have for that component wihtout having to miss out on other travelling i would like to do after Africa.
There is a 22 - 29 Weeks Trans Africa tour (i think i got it off the bna website. Have you heard of it?
Any advice or reccomendations will be appreciated. Anyone reading this post, please feel free to reply to my request.

Thanks
Shaz

Don't use Africa Travel Company. These dudes almost caused our whole truck to be killed, and the crappy shipping company they HIGHLY recommended hasn't shipped our stuff - now a year later. We could have not received our stuff for a lot less from one of the random touts.

What surprises me about this thread is the willingness that everyone has to take a package tour. In some ways understandable, given the subject heading. But is it difficult to travel overland independently in Africa? Is there anyone who booked a tour package and wishes, looking back, they had just made their own way?

from what i have researched all the tours to see the gorillas dont include the permit to get to the park which is now $275USD.

Housediggity, I think the main reason people choose this type of tour for africa is because the continent is so big. Some things would be really hard to do indepenantly and you get a group discount for everything which adds up after a few months.

what i want to know if its possible to organise a tour like this from either cape Jo'burg or Nairobi. tours are neally always cheaper if you buy them localy as you dont have to give someone in your home country a cut.

When I go back to Africa I won't do it on a tour. The main reason I did one originally was wanting to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time...to be honest though, looking back, I would probably have preferred to cover a shorter amount of time and done it myself.

I have just returned from an overland safari with Bukima. I can thoroughly recommend them.

They told us that we were not to give the children pens or pencils. They recommended us to visit local schools and give the pens etc to them. They actually organised a couple of trips to local schools and in fact we spent a whole day helping the locals decorate a classroom.

Regards

David

Okay, how about this for advice. DO NOT GO WITH AN ORGANIZED TOUR. Go on your own, make your own agenda and do not tie yourself down to the same people and an itinerary ... I can't for the life of me understand why people choose to pay kore to have their collective hands held while seeing a continent ...

East Africa is not a difficult place to travel ... I spent the better part of a year going overland from Cape Town to nairobi, with side stops to Zmibabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Botswana and Namibia, before flying up to Egypt ...

Please, if you can help it and have a bit of adventure in you, try to resist becoming package tourists where the bus driver tells you when to wake up, when to go to sleep and what you will see on any given day ...

There will be time enough to be a package tourist when you are 80 or so ... try to hold off the moment as long as you can ...

AaA