Oct 27 2011
Your First Time Trip To Africa – Advice
If you are from outside of Africa and have decided to go on holiday to this wonderful continent then you have made the best possible choice. If you’ve been before you can probably ignore all this, but if it’s your first time, then it might be of use to you.
Firstly you are very lucky to be travelling to Africa as many people in this day and age cannot afford to travel long haul distances anymore. You can guarantee that most Africans would give their right arm to be jumping on a plane to the USA or UK so make the most of it. Now, do you have family there? Are you meeting someone for the first time? Are you going on a package tour? If you’ve got family or you’re going on a package tour, the majority of your tour will be taken care of for you such as many Tanzania safaris or a Serengeti safari are.
How are you travelling?
If you have decided to travel alone then you must ensure that the person you are meeting the other end are who they say they are. If you’re not sure, make a contingency plan in case you get into trouble. Find out where your country embassy is in that country and their phone number. Many pre-arranged tours to the Okavango Delta In Botswana or elsewhere in Africa will have already supplied you with this information and they will be on hand to meet you at the airport.
Health
Before you head off on your jolly’s make sure you have had your relevant jabs. There are one or two health risks you need to be aware of including HIV/AIDS and Malaria which are both killers. You must make sure you see your local travel doctor or GP to ensure you have had the correct injections and are covered for your trip. In some cases this can take weeks so it’s a good idea either to book it in advance or check into a private health clinic.
Country Background
In the bureaucrat’s world, everything foreign is bad and everything indigenous is good. For example, you might find warnings against travelling to Bali due to terrorist activity, but not to Spain, although both countries were attacked by al-Qaida terrorists.
Basically your government is risk averse and doesn’t want to get sued for giving wrongful advice, for example if you based your trip abroad on favourable country advice and then got bombed, you might be able to sue them. So bear that in mind. For example the FCO still advises on Kenya that “Do not accept food or drink from strangers as it may be drugged” although there is no evidence of Kenyan locals running around with drugged sweets forcing them into foreigners mouths, and it may even be based on a rumour that is several years old.
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