You are here: travel-the-world / travel-africa

Travel Africa

It is not possible to sum up Africa on paper. The pure scale of the African continent and the variety of its landscapes, peoples and wildlife leave an ingrained impression on any traveller. Africa delivers a huge variety of experiences dependent up on the season and country visited. Many people choose to travel Africa by an overland truck tour. This is great way to cram in a lot of the continent over a shorter period of time and more importantly on a tighter budget. Travel in Africa offers a travel experience million miles away from the well-backpacked, air-conditioned tourist trails of Southeast Asia or the well developed back backer industries of Australia or Europe.     

What to do on your Africa Gap Year

We recommend a minimum of 3 months on you Africa gap year if you want to hit the Africa overland trail. The easiest gateway city for Brits is Nairobi, the bustling Kenyan capital, where English is spoken as widely as Swahili and safari operators wait to transport you to the wildebeest-filled plains of the Maasai Mara or the tribal territories around Lake Turkana.

For month two, kick back on the beaches north of Mombasa, then travel south to the Maasai Mara to tick off the Big Five: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino. For more wild encounters, cross the Tanzanian border at Namanga and drop into the Ngorongoro Crater, before attempting to climb Kilimanjaro. At 15,100ft, this is Africa's highest mountain, but if Chris Moyles can reach the top, you probably can too.

Moving on to hectic Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, board a boat bound for Zanzibar to explore the backstreets of this former slave and spice port, then fly south to Johannesburg or head down by overland truck tour.

For the final month, head overland to Durban through the Drakensberg mountains, then rumble along the Shipwreck Coast to Cape Town, where the townships are juxtaposed with swanky wharf-side developments and the paintbox-coloured houses of Bo Kaap. There should just be time to climb Table Mountain and visit Nelson Mandela's old cell on Robben Island before you board the flight for home.