Beyond the Safari April 5, 2008
Posted by Dan Herman in Africa, Tourism.Tags: Africa, Sierra Leone, Tourism
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Award winning columnist cum author Stephanie Nolan has an interesting article at the Globe and Mail about travel in Africa, and among other things, the impact of civil strife on the Kenyan tourist industry. Beyond Kenya, however, she notes that “there’s a wealth of other vacation options on this vast continent. You can take both wildly opulent and budget safaris in South Africa. You can trek in the ancient cliff villages of Mali. Or sail a dhow in Zanzibar. There is much more to Africa than Kenya, despite what Papa Hemingway may have led you to believe.”
No freaking kidding. Nolan does a great job at painting the popular tourist haunts on the Cape to Cairo trail through South Africa, Zambia, and into Tanzania, and deserves credit for highlighting the legendary music of Mali. But in highlighting the most frequented places on the Continent she misses an opportunity to spread the wealth around, and draw attention to equally tourist-dollar starved locations ever so slightly off the beaten path. Now I’ll admit that any mention of travel to Africa is usually met with blank stares and offers of life insurance but having travelled through 17 countries on the Continent, and having crossed 17 borders by land, I’d like to offer an alternative to Nolan’s list.
But before I get to the list, a few important points that may help convince would-be travellers believe that I’m not alone in pushing these far-off destinations. In December 2007, Delta Airlines officially opened three new routes from the U.S. to the Continent, with flights linking New York and Atlanta to Accra, Dakar and Lagos. Even more exotic was British Midland’s decision in February to take over operations of a London to Freetown, Sierra Leone route.
And so I’ll start with this last destination, a former outpost of mine, Sierra Leone. (more…)
