Africa

So this is it, a step literally into the unknown. On October 1^st me and two of my best friends will be flying out to Dakar, Senegal, for four months backpacking across the west coast of Africa.

Nervous hardly covers it. I’ve been travelling before (to south-east Asia), but this will be a completely different scene. No Khao San road, no air-conditioned minibuses, no ticket touts. But for this, I am glad. This is the travelling I’ve wanted to do for ages; to see some real diversity and get off that notorious ‘beaten track’.

From Senegal we’re heading through The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo and ending up in Benin. Along the way we shall spend a week on a fishing boat going to Timbuktu (yes it’s a real place!), helping in a Gambian orphanage, visiting the deserted Bijagós islands, living with a Dogon tribe and taking part in a Voodoo festival.

So, why Africa? I’ll come clean here. It was my best mate’s idea, and at first I complimented him on his good joke. I thought of Africa and visualised famine, disease, corrupt governments and armed militia, and all those other preconceptions that come from watching Blood Diamond and The Constant Gardener.

But this is what excites me – the unfamiliar, the adventure. We are going to places, and undertaking journeys, that very few people will ever do in their life. Do not get me wrong, I don’t want to end up on TV in an orange jumpsuit, but the more I travel, the more I want to explore more remote places.

I am also a budding travel journalist, aiming to incorporate my joint loves of travelling and photography into a perfect career. It would also be useful to use my journalism degree, after it costing me three years of my life and however many thousands of pounds. I would truly love to be paid to travel the world, reporting on places that others will become inspired by. And why not…someone has to!

Unfortunately, we’ve had to miss out other countries in the region for various reasons; military juntas, difficulty in obtaining visas, civil wars, but mainly because of a traveller’s worst enemies – time and money. For instance, Guinea was on our list, but the cost of the visa (£113) combined with the fact that we’d only have two weeks there meant we had to revaluate.

If I could I’d spend at least a month in each country, but the aforementioned constraints limit our stay to four months. However, if I can I’ll stay for longer. I’ve recently been offered an exciting opportunity to work out there for a volunteering organisation – building wells, teaching and helping communities in need.

So that’s it; the step into the unknown. But as a great man once said, “Buy the ticket, take the ride”, and I think I shall do just that.