How 'cheap' are subsaharan africa for a solo traveler?
Posted by badboyzpwns@reddit | Shoestring | View on Reddit | 23 comments
For now Im plannign to look into
Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania.
Im curious about the hostel scene and if hotels are preferred. I know the safaris are expensive as well, but I think the rest like transportation and food is okay. Atleast not as expensive as Western EU.
T_KVT@reddit
I'd do a kruger self drive or go to a lesser known country like malawi.
Liwonde safari camp offers really nice accom for like $20 a night and car/boat safaris for $25.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
I was acutaly thinking of Malawi, but i beleive you can only do a self-drive there right? or a tour guide
T_KVT@reddit
Nah the camps do tours. The $25 is for a guided tour. Liwonde is awesome because they have raised viewing platforms and the elephants and such come about 2m away from you.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
oh thanks! do you mind hsaring how you got to the camp?
I havent dug into logistics in Malawi but im interested now!
T_KVT@reddit
I took the local transport which is cars/vans. They are extremely uncomfortable, but cheap. You stand on the side of the road and flag them down. They squish like 9 people into a car.
You can also just rent a car but it is pricey.
Then you take a motorbike taxi to the camp, which is about a 15 min ride.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
thank you veyr much :)!!!
Kloppite16@reddit
My cheapest hostel in Africa was a $6 a night single room in Arusha, Tanzania. The most expensive was a $20 a night guest house room but that had a direct view of the Egyptian Pyrmiads. That was out of 6 months travel/180 nights. In general prices were around $12-15 a night for guesthouses - you don't find that many hostels in Africa it is mainly cheap guest houses where you get your own room.
Otherwise Etosha National Park in Namibia is cheap safari - only $8 for a ticket to enter the park and 4 hour game drives are available for about $50 by joining a group. .
Chobe National Park in Botswana also has cheap safari. Stay at nearby Elephant Trails hostel and they have safari jeeps leaving every day. National ParkTicket is $25 then a 6 hour game drive is $50 and a 3 hour river safari on the River Chobe is $25. Do both in one day so your 24 hour ticket covers both activities. For just $100 you will see thousands of animals, we saw a pack of lions killing a buffalo and also a leopard with their kill up a tree. There are thousands of elephants in Chobe, huge big herds of them.
Another place is Elephant Sands in Botswana if you have a tent.. There you camp beside the waterhole and about 40-50 elephants show up every day right near your tent. They have lodges for $150+ a night but camping is only $12 a night and you get the exact same view of the elephants that the lodges do. You can also use the swimming pool, free WiFi and restaurant in the main building.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
Wow...thank you very much for sharing :D I always thougth safaris are very expensive from what people share here. I guess some are, and soem arent. Did you think after visitng these safaris, its worth doing the others?
Kloppite16@reddit
If you look at safaris online they are mainly expensive. But when you are on the ground you can find it much cheaper. That said both Etosha in Namibia and Chobe nearby in Botswana are known as cheaper safaris.
I did 5 safaris total during my 6 months in Africa and they were all worth it as you see something different each time. It wasnt until my 5th safari (which was in the Serengeti in Tanzania) that I saw a cheetah who had two young cubs with her. Some animals can be very elusive so its unlikely you will see everything you want to see just on one safari alone. Some areas are known for a specific animal, like Etosha is the last stronghold of the white rhino which is endangered but you should see lots of them in that park. Whereas further north in Kenya/Tanzania it is very difficult to see rhinos. They are there but not in the numbers that Etosha has.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
oh and in terms of nature, do you find these safaris differ a lot? I personaly am not a big fan of wildlfie, and love nature more. If the scenaries are drasticaly different, I would be open doing multiple safaris
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
thanks so much!!
>If you look at safaris online they are mainly expensive. But when you are on the ground you can find it much cheaper.
How do you 'find' these on the gorund? I assume your hotel accomodation knows the 'real' price? If so, you can ask them online right?
Ok-Picture-2018@reddit
Did you ever fear that an elephant might trample on your tent ? :)
Kloppite16@reddit
no because they have surrounded the campsite with these small concrete pyramid shaped stones which the elephants cant walk across. In the bar & restaurant area the elephants come right up to the wall but there is an electric fence there so they cannot get so close that they steal your dinner with their trunk.
Ok-Picture-2018@reddit
Remarkable! Sounds wonderful. I'm visiting Uganda for the 1st time in December, looking forward to it so much
fraxbo@reddit
Safari doesn’t need to be expensive. I’ve been on three thus far (all in South Africa), and have done it at several different price levels.
The first time, it was all out- Sabi Sabi, Kruger, luxury.
But, the second time, I did it at Pilanesberg. Rented a Hilux outfitted with rooftop tents and camping equipment in the bed. We stayed at a campsite in the park. It wasn’t bad.
The third time, just earlier this year, I went to Kruger again, but stayed at Berg-en-dal. I rented a house in the camp and just took every morning drive and evening drive and walking tour I could during the four days I was there. It was awesome and cost less than like $700 for four days.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
Would you think these would be still be cheap without driving and relying on a safari guide?
fraxbo@reddit
What specifically do you mean? I only drove myself one of these trips, the middle one with camping.
There, we drove ourselves both to the camp and through the park. That was cheap. But actually not the cheapest of these three.
The first one was guided and expensive. We had a guide from the resort who took us out on all drives.
The most recent one was also guided. But I took a taxi from the airport to the camp. Then took the morning and night drives and the midday walk through the park. The house I rented in the camp was largish but basic. This was the cheapest of these options.
soil_nerd@reddit
If anyone here knows how to get around for a reasonable price outside of Southern Africa, I’m interested.
I’ve rented 4x4s and driven all around SA, Nam, Moz, Zim, Bots, and Eswatini. But I can’t figure out a reasonably priced way for other countries in Africa.
eatmelikeamaindish@reddit
how did you like zimbabwe?
soil_nerd@reddit
Logistically, it’s kind of tough to travel through, mostly due to their crazy currency situation. Other than that, I had a good time, it’s a pretty country. Outside of Victoria Falls you will have tourist attractions all to yourself. As an example, I spent like 14 hours driving through Hwange National Park and didn’t see another person once I left the front gate area, tons of wildlife too, there were multiple times I watched a heard of dozens of elephants all by myself. The Eastern Highlands were really special too, dense jungle and mountains, also no one around.
marktthemailman@reddit
Hostels existence varies by country and location. Sth africa has a great network. Tanzania have a fair few. Ethiopia very few by comparison.
Id recommend taking a tent. Namibia, Botswana etc have great value campsite where they provide a cooking area, usually woodfired showers and sometimes a pool.
In the touristy places like arusha, zanzibar, maun there are quite a few hostels, but often you need to stay in smaller towns to get where you are going. There are still places to stay but they may be very very basic. Sometimes a a concrete room with a bed, no power and no running water. Sometimes a sandy shack if you are on the coast.
There are also upmarket hotels, but they tend to be expensive. We camped about a third of the time, hostels, homestays, and cheaper lodges, basic rooms rest of the time. Camping safaris are much cheaper than lodge ones. Some if the lodges have a camping option which js great because you can still eat at the restaurant, use the pool etc.
Occasionally you might get stuck - we did a couple times, some locals we were on mini buses with found basic hotels (just rooms) for us. Another time the local policeman let us stay (very reluctantly) in his police station - which was just a basic but clean mud hut and we slept on the floor.
Generally the further stay you go the infrastructure and facilities improves.
badboyzpwns@reddit (OP)
thanks very much interesring idea hahah! how did you guys get stuck? is it becauase of camping?
marktthemailman@reddit
We were in nth Mozambique. We were travelling from “hashims place’ a well known basic camp/hostel (hand carved wooden bed, mozquito net and sand floor) on the coast to an island called ibo known for its marine reserve and abandoned and partially restored portugese colonial buildings. Like most public travel we left hashims before dawn on a truck and got to the next junction town, then a ute dropped us at the next village. We git there quite early in the day maybe about 9am…and then we waited and waited along with 4 or 5 others.
A crowd of bored locals surrounded us at nightfall, the others (no tourists just other mozambiqueans) got offered to spend the night in village houses which left us by the side of the road. Eventually someone got the off duty policeman. He didn’t speak english but he let us stay in the police station. He told us not to touch anything which was okay because there was nothing but a bare desk in the hut.
The next morning eventually a ute came to take us to the fishing port to Ibo. It happened to be the same ute that had dropped us off the day before.
We tried to charter the ferry (just a dhow) to get us to Ibo rather than wait 8 hrs for the scheduled time. We got there eventually. Ibo was interesting but very quiet. There seemed to only be maybe 2 others tourists there staying at an upmarket lodge (we had lunch there because options were very limited), an NGO from portugal doing some education work and a couple who were hotel sitting a boutique hotel while it was closed for rainy season.
Anyway - if you spend long enough in Africa these experiences are kind of normal. Its alot rougher than asia or latin america. You can hire private safaris, drivers etc or hire a car (we hired a car in namibia) but clearly that comes at a cost.