Articles

Great Zimbabwe, Lalibela, Timbuktu, Aksum. The sites are not obscure. What is worth knowing is how hard some scholarship worked to explain them away.

There is no such thing as African food. There are Ethiopian, Senegalese, Cape Malay and Swahili coast cuisines, and the difference is the point.

The planning method applied to one concrete trip — twelve days in Ghana, and every decision that shaped it. An illustration, not a recommendation.

Why multi-country itineraries are marketed the way they are, what the arithmetic actually gives you, and the commercial interest behind the pitch.

A checklist to take to any operator — including the one that publishes this. The questions that separate a well-run company from a well-marketed one.

Pharaonic Egypt is one layer of the country, and the one most visitors stop at. Coptic and Islamic Cairo, the working Nile, and the Nubian south.

Ghana holds a particular place in diaspora travel, and a first visit asks more of you than a list of sights suggests. What to understand before you go.

Most Kenya coverage is safari marketing. What the seasons actually mean, why "the migration" is not a date, and the country beyond the parks.

The history is not an optional morning in the itinerary. How to plan a South Africa trip that takes it seriously, and why sequencing matters.

What each approach actually gives you and costs you — including the cases where a guided tour is the wrong choice, which our own commercial interest would prefer we skipped.

Heritage travel is not sightseeing with a heavier subject. It asks something of the traveller that ordinary travel does not — and it is worth knowing what, before you go.

Routing, connections and jet lag — arriving in a state to enjoy the first day rather than sleep through it.