Articles

Archaeological sites, rock shelters, Swahili coastal towns and a language spoken by 200 million people: a guide to the heritage landscapes of Tanzania, and how to travel among them responsibly.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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