Expert: Stephen Tanenbaum - 1/11/2010

Question
Should we book in US. or travel to Africa and book it there in South Africa. What are some tips u can give on traveling in Africa, time of year, what type clothing to take, range of cost of tours. etc, Thank you. Harriett

Answer
Hi Harriett:

Our experience with Africa goes back some years when we visited Kenya and the next year Tanzania. With that said I would offer some hopefully helpful comments.

Booking a tour here or there: My guess is that 99% book here as we did for both trips. I assume by 'tour' you mean either city sightseeing and more to the point a photo safari like to Kruger park.

For weather aviod the hottest months and rainiest months. Check web charts to confirm the best  months to visit.

CLOTHES: comfortable, loose fitting, light weight and easy to wash and dry. We took half body netting, from waist to over the head for the bed, but found all the lodges had great screens and/or bed netting tha covered the entire bed.

Be sure to get all your shots and carry all medication with you and NOT in luggage. We had to LOAN quinine to someone whose medication went to Isreal instead of Nairobi due to lost luggage.

CCST OF TOURS: I collected all available brochures that covered the type of tour we wanted. I then compared the most expensive, abrocrombie and kent (sic) to a half cost version of the same tour. One reason for half price, about $1,000 per week per person total, was that that Abocrombie and Kent included a PHD on each van and also used plane flights, very expensive, to travel from several points to other points thus avoiding long bumpy roads that we endured in order to save thousands.

Hope some of this helps. If you need more help I will be back home from this current trip after Jan 25th so you can send me a follow up at that time.

Steve t.