What are some good countries in Africa to visit?
Moved to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I visited both South Africa and Egypt, and while they are very different from each other they were both fascinating countries for an American to see. I’m not sure how you would define “good”.
It depends on what you want to see and do, and what level of comfort you need when traveling.
What kind of experience are you looking for?
NM
Ninja’d
I’d say safaris and exploring a big city.
I’m off to Democratic Republic of Congo this week. I’m going to climb a volcano called Nyiragongo and visit some mountain gorillas. By all accounts these are two incredible locations in the same national park. However the country is not considered safe. If you aren’t comfortable with that sort of thing then avoid. But for pure adventure I reckon it won’t get better. I will report back if I survive.
Africa however is, as you’d expect, massively varied. Are there beach resorts with wild nightclubs? Perhaps somewhere but they are probably the exception.
Somaliland. Globally recognized as being a part of Somalia, the Mogadishu administration has no presence nor authority in Somaliland, the northern part of the country. Somaliland runs on its own, in complete diplomatic isolation, not recognized by any nation. To enter, you need a Somaliland visa, easy to get from a legation in Addis Ababa or Djibouti, and Ethiopia also has a visa-issuing legation in Somaliland’s only city, Hargeisa, which has nearly a million proud and contented inhabitants.
Hargeisa international airport has only five flights a day., the only alternative to 18 bone-jarring hours in a Range Rover. The city has less than a mile of paved streets, but it is clean and tidy – I saw a trash compactor truck picking up trash behind my hotel. Tapwater is safe to drink, electrical outages are few, and wifi is better than in Ethiopia. Inhabitants are friendly and welcoming, but not pushy. The few hotels are pleasant and comfortable, and cheap. Food is abundant and varied, markets are busy. Hargeisa is probably the safest city in east Africa, but the rural desert around the city may not be and travelers outside Hargeisa must pass through a checkpoint, which requires foreigners to be accompanied by an armed guard, but that is often waived on the highway to Berbera, which by Somali standards, is “busy”.
Most of the economy comes from remittances by Somalis abroad. The main export seems to be camels. In short, Hargeisa is an invisible community of a million people who are making it (just fine) on their own, collectively making their own rules, without any meddling from the outside world nor dues to pay.
It might be worth checking into The Gambia. It was once a well-developed tourist vacation destination for Europeans, but then went through some damaging political upheavals. By all accounts, it has been safe and quiet for the past year. One of the few African countries not requiring a punitive visa from Americans. Good beaches, lots of jungle outback, plenty of hotels and lodges. English spoken everywhere. Easy tg get to, either by direct flight, or overland from Dakar. Personally, I haven’t been there since the 60s, but like most of Africa, it probably hasn’t changed much…
Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania, especially for photo safaris. Tanzania has the Serengeti
and Ngorongoro Crater, along with Olduvai Gorge.
In South Africa, I’d stick to Capetown and avoid Jo-Burg and Pretoria.
Uganda has become a bit unstable outside of Kampala, but there are some nice parks there to visit if things calm down; also, some of the best Indian food you’ll ever eat outside of the sub-continent.
I don’t know how Mali is for travel these days, but some things worth seeing are the Great Mosque at Djenne and the Bandiagara Escarpment in Dogon country.
Zambia has Victoria Falls, of course, and the old Victoria Falls Hotel. Just a short hop from there to Chobe Game Park.
Congo was just downright fucking dangerous when I was in that part of the world. Nobody in their right mind went there, even to trek for gorillas. In fact, a trekking base camp in Uganda was attacked by Congolese militants, people were kidnapped and some were murdered.
I just realized it’s 30 years since I was in Africa.
Sigh
Northern Malawi was wonderful, welcoming people and great food. No idea how the current situation is with the past few years of the AIDS epidemic haven taken a heavy toll.
My mom had a great time in Uganda and Tanzania this past fall, but then again, her idea of a great time is very different from most people’s.
I’ll put in a plug for Egypt. We were there 2012 and 2013. After the revolution, tourism sort of feel off a cliff… sad for them, excellent for western visitors. You want to go on an organized tour, unless you easily understand the language and like the challenge of getting around. Thanks to assorted news events, things haven’t gotten much busier in the tourist trade, but at no time did it seem unsafe. The pyramids and other sites (Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel) used to be wall-to-wall tourists. I have photos of Abu Simbel, for example, totally deserted. in one of the tombs in valley of the kings, there was only one other family visiting in a 600-foot-long tomb, there were stories about waiting half an hour for a chance to go in before…We had no problem getting tickets to go inside the Great Pyramid, where the limited number of tickets used to be gone not long after opening time. Sharm el Sheik has snorkelling into reefs almost as lively as the Great Barrier Reef - Where else can you see some guy drive his camel right up to the McDonalds, get off, and go inside? St. Catherine’s Monastery still has the order signed by Mohammed himself giving the Christian monks at the foot of Mount Sinai his protection. And… you can climb Mount Sinai to see the sun rise…
FWIW, the US State Department, the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Government of Canada all advise against travel to Somaliland due to the threat of kidnapping and violent attacks on foreigners. Did you feel at all unsafe there?
Morocco - Marrakesh is worth a visit. it’s a bit full on and the people are either amazingly friendly or looking to scam you in some way but certainly worth a look. the food there was tremendous.
I’ve been on safari in both the Masai Mara, Kenya and South Luangwa, Zambia. Considering one is way more famous than the other, I was astonished about how much better South Luangwa was. Way quieter, and we saw so much more wildlife - a pride of lions with two cubs, a leopard making a kill, a herd of elephants including a baby having a bath. Didn’t make it to Victoria Falls, but that’s an obvious add-on.
Safari vacations begin and end and go through any number of places in South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, etc. You need a professional to help you plan one and the options are limitless.
There are also some big cities in South Africa, but that’s a separate trip. I know it looks smallish on a map, but it’s not. South Africa is bigger than Texas and California combined; to go from a big city like Capetown or Port Elizabeth to a starting point in Botswana or Tanzania is like travelling from New York to Orlando.
Having said that, literally every person I’ve ever known who went on a safari described it as the greatest trip they had ever taken in their lives.
Count me in. Best vacations of my life and wouldn’t trade them for anything. My biggest recommendation is to stay out of the government-run parks and go with a company like Wilderness Safaris. We only went to one government park - Chobe - and ended up in a truck with 12 other people, driving on a paved road with many other trucks full of tourists, all of which rushed to the same spot every time some animals were spotted. Compare that to our trip to Mambo Camp in Botswana, where the trucks can go off-road and the guides are extremely knowledgeable and professional locals with respect for the land and animals.
What do Nairobi and Dar es Salaam offer tourists these days?
I spent about five months in Cairo on a project, but that was in the mid-80s when it was relatively calm there. There are lots of hotels of varying degrees of comfort. Traffic is chaotic. The museum is pretty good. A felucca ride on the Nile is peaceful, and there are tour boats as well. The Khan Al-Khalili is a huge souk (market) in Cairo, where all manner of Egyptian crafts can be negotiated for: papyrus paintings, brass, carvings, etc. And of course there is Giza, with the pyramids and sphinx. Whenever I went to Giza, the street vendors were numerous and annoying. There used to be a nighttime light show there that was nice. Cairo, while Muslim, was not a dry city when I was there, but the local beer (Stella) was god-awful, and often had sediment swirling around in the bottle. Hotels like the Hilton cater to westerners and serve alcohol.
I took one trip down-country to Luxor and saw the temple of Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. The latter was a bit of a bust, as the place is basically just a lot of empty holes in the ground. Everything has either been looted or removed to museums. Same with the burial chamber at the Cheops (Great Pyramid). A hot, steep climb to see an empty room without even an informational plaque.
I also spent a month in Tunis, which is interesting for the ruins at Carthage. I didn’t have much opportunity to see anything else there.
As mentioned, this was all over 30 years ago. Most notable was a head-on collision between the van I was in and a guy on a camel.