I used to be an avid Lonely Planet, and Let’s Go Guidebook lover when I travelled . My favourite moment would be picking up my travel books and start earmarking & highlighting the “off the beaten path” places I wanted to discover.
I loved the insider tips you would get from the likes of those books (like go to the second bookstore outside the bus station to get the scoop on best accommodations for that night). Our way of travelling was to book nothing. Relying solely on those books and walking the town.
Times have so changed.
The invention of Websites, Blogs, Twitter and Pinterest took over this trip. They became the best and worst thing about researching and getting ready for Africa.
The BEST.
Websites
Travel planning is done so easily now. When we finally sat down to get our trip organized, we reviewed various tour operators via recommended blog posts/Trip advisor and decided on Intrepid Travel. They are a travel company that provides experiences vs tours and we were instantly smitten with how easy it was to navigate their site. We then had an alert (via Trip advisor) set up for flights to Tanzania and got notified when special offers were posted. We used Booking.com to get us a place in Amsterdam and the hotel we needed the night we got into Kilimanjaro and utilized their shuttle offer featured on the site to get from the airport.
Blog Posts
Reading dozens of blogs helped us wrap our heads around what we were going to do and provided welcome information on what to expect. We researched the posts for travel vaccine suggestions, what to pack, hacks and multi-use ideas, the climb itself and what else to do when we were in Tanzania.
We were going to climb Mt. Kilimajaro with the awesome tour group Intrepid Travel. Since Twitter is a space I love and am comfortable in, I started following them and discovered they were highly active during #TTOT (Travel Talk on Twitter). This Twitter Chat draws people globally and the only unfortunate part is that it tends to be at 5am in my time zone which meant getting up earlier than usual to connect.
Twitter chats are great for finding like-minded people and especially ones who can impart knowledge of a particular space. Jumping on #TTOT, I was able to find a variety of global travellers, and a number of resident African tweeps who could provide me with some on the ground insights I otherwise might not been able to find.
There is nothing better than Pinterest to get your travel juices flowing. I was able to pin inspiring places that previously I would never have even heard about or seen with flags on possible accommodation choices, attractions to visit, animals to see and most importantly, Mt Kilimanjaro…Seeing photos from the top would get us giddy and beyond pumped to go. Feel free to check out our Pinterest Board in prep for Mt. Kilimanjaro
THE DOWN
The downside to all this information at the tip of your fingers is that it was like being pregnant. There was just too much information and suddenly you are overwhelmed. We certainly were and look forward to providing as much comprehensive information in our Africa Series as we possibly can to help you have an easier time in planning your Africa trip.
Jenn & Chris travelled to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro as a different way to celebrate their 10th Anniversary and Jenn’s 40th Birthday. Travel tour was designed by Intrepid Travel and in working with them, they are raising funds for VEPK – The Village Education Project Kilimanjaro. Donations are always accepted and The Intrepid Foundation not only matches but they also take on all admin fees which means ALL the money goes direct.
AFRICA SERIES