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Paul Theroux’s crusty look at an interrupted return trip to Africa
DestinationsPaul Theroux wrote his last great travel book, Dark Star Safari, an account of his overland journey down the eastern edge of Africa from Cairo to Cape Town, in 2002. It was a bleakly typical work of an irascible writer obsessed with the grimmer aspects of his destinations and revealed a land that was simply [...]
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Travel in Tunisia: Separating the headlines from reality
DestinationsSidi Bou Said’s signature blue-and-white houses are framed with sweet-smelling jasmine and bougainvillea. The soft sunshine is making them seem so picture-perfect it’s hard to associate this with tanks and barbed wire. A short cab ride away from the Tunisian capital, this coastal hilltop town is full of steep cobbled streets, beautiful buildings and lazy [...]
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African airlines look to consolidation to take back control of their continent’s airspace
TransportAfrican airlines are calling for greater unity among themselves to better compete against much bigger foreign airlines in their own skies and for African governments to liberalise the continent’s air space. Kenya Airways believes a merger between itself, Ethiopian Airlines and South African Airways is necessary to create a single large carrier representing Africa so [...]
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Startup Globa.li tries to take bookings for African hotels and tours into the 21st century
DestinationsGo to TripAdvisor, enter Masai Mara, Kenya, and sure enough you will get some great, inspiring recommendations. The problem, however, is that most of these properties are not yet bookable online. So prospective customers reading a TripAdvisor review usually have the option to either email the hotel or be redirected to a third party website, [...]
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Africa’s new budget airline FastJet readies for inaugural flight through Tanzania this Thursday
DestinationsThe inaugural flight of fastjet, the new African low-cost airline backed by the easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, is set to take off later this week. Flight FN0161 from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza in north-western Tanzania will depart at 6am local time on Thursday November 30, marking a new era in air travel in [...]
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Why more tourists aren’t choosing Uganda for their exotic getaway
DestinationsIn the late 1990s…President Museveni…was very focused on how to present Uganda to the world, this land that has almost every attraction tourists look for but have little knowledge of. Many years later, and after numerous travels in Uganda and around the world, I could not agree more with the President. Apart from some little [...]
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Africa flies as global airlines vie for the last big growth market
DestinationsAfter decades as the poor relation of global air transport, Africa is attracting carriers from Brussels to Beijing as a commodities boom spurs economic growth. British Airways began serving its 19th destination there on Sept. 10, while Qatar Airways Ltd. adds its fourth route of the year next month and FastJet Plc starts flights in [...]
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Air Cote d’Ivoire to launch next month with flights to nine international cities
TransportStart-up Air Côte d’Ivoire is working towards an Oct-2012 launch, having delayed from Jul-2012 due to regulatory and aircraft delays. Initial services will be international, with a regional network eventually due to increase to nine cities in west and east Africa. Domestic services, initially scheduled to commence by end-2012, will now commence in Jan-2013 to eight [...]
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New airlines in Congo improve in hopes of getting off global safety blacklists
TransportIts tarmac littered with dozens of dilapidated planes, the airport in Congo’s capital Kinshasa makes clear the dire state of aviation even by Africa’s generally low standards. The planes have been abandoned either as mechanical failures or by companies that went bust in a sector where a lack of proper infrastructure means pilots sometimes navigate [...]
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South Sudan looks for international company to help build national airline
TransportThe world’s newest nation South Sudan is looking for an international company to help run its nascent national airline in a public-private partnership and hopes to choose a firm after about a month, a senior transport official said. South Sudan split from Sudan over a year ago after decades of civil war that left the [...]
