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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.

A first journey is a first journey to one or two places, not to a continent. What to decide first, and what surprises people who have not been.

What to check, where to check it, and how early — for the documents that stop a trip before it starts.

Which bag, and how much it may weigh — baggage limits on multi-leg African routes, and why the smallest aircraft decides what you can bring.

Border days, regional flights and the arithmetic that decides how much of a multi-country trip you actually spend travelling.

What to ask before joining a group, and what to settle before organising one — including the money conversation nobody wants to have.

How to read an itinerary properly — counting nights rather than days, and telling a good one from a busy one.

The order to plan an Africa journey in, and which decisions have a lead time. What each stage needs, and where to check the things that change.

How to decide what to carry — by trip type rather than by destination — and the few things worth getting right before you leave.