In June of 2016 I will be travelling to Africa with two friends. Visiting all 7 continents has been a bucket list item of mine and going to Africa will check one more off the list!
Africa is a huge continent with many amazing and wonderful things to see, do, and experience. When thinking about what to do, there were two things at the top of my list:
- Go on a safari
- Visit the pyramids
This meant that we would need to visit Egypt and somewhere further south to go on a safari. We added in a couple of more stops, resulting in an itinerary that ends up looking a little something like this:
- Fly from Vancouver to Cape town
- Spend two days in Cape Town on our own
- Start a 10-day tour from Cape Town to Johannesburg with a safari in Kruger National Park
- Fly from Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi
- Explore Dubai on our own for three days
- Return to Abu Dhabi to explore for a day
- Fly from Abu Dhabi to Cairo
- Take a day tour of the city of Cairo
- Start an 8-day tour from the pyramids to Aswan exploring attractions along the nile
- Fly from Cairo to London
- Spend 20 hours in London
- Fly home to Vancouver
I’ve always enjoyed trip planning so I thought I would share how we got to this nicely routed itinerary.
After doing some research, looking at sample itineraries, and some tour offerings, we decided to start our trip at the southern tip of the continent in Cape Town,
South Africa. Both of my friends and I heard wonderful things about Cape Town so we made it our starting point.
Conveniently we also found an adventure tour company (G Adventures) offering an itinerary that allowed us to explore Cape Town before making our way to Johannesburg, and Safari in Kruger National Park. We had considered a number of other itineraries, and even thought about going on our own, but this one gave us opportunity to “sample” as much as we could in a short time. It also had a boxing day discount of $100, so we booked!
Next, we had to get ourselves to Egypt. We had toyed with the idea of booking a flight that would take us through Victoria Falls; unfortunately, it was cost-prohibitive and we decided against it (sounds like an excuse to return to Africa in the future!)
We struggled with this portion of the trip because we had looked at an Egypt itinerary that G Adventures offered. The only problem was that that it started a week after our safari trip ended. This meant we had some time to kill or alternatives to consider.
I started looking into some local tour companies and all were willing to accommodate our scheduling. At the same time, we started looking at flights to get from Johannesburg to Cairo.
One such routing flew through Abu Dhabi and the idea of spending some time in the Emirates appealed to us.
Coincidentally, we also contacted a local travel agent (one of my travelling companions had worked with him before) who offered us not only a $300 discount on a flight, but also an additional discount if we booked the G Adventure’s Egypt tour him. All in all, it would have been roughly a $400 savings, so we did it!
This meant we had about a week to kill and the Emirates beckoned! After much research, we decided to spend 3 days in Dubai and 1 day in Abu Dhabi. This worked beautifully because we discovered that our airline (Etihad) offers a free shuttle between the cities for its passengers that are arriving or departing the day of their flights.
The final piece was choosing the bookend flights leaving and returning home. Since one of my friends had never visited London and wanted to, we arranged it so that the final part of our trip would include a 20-hour layover in London before flying home to Canada.
All in all, we’re extremely happy with how this trip has materialized. While the thought of exploring an entire continent is daunting, all the pieces we eventually settled on ended up fitting perfectly together!
Planning for a trip is always exciting. It’s when you get to imagine the possibilities and whet your appetite for the experiences to come. With just under a week to go, I am now sufficiently excited and am eagerly anticipating this upcoming adventure!
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