Africa Vacation Ideas

Africa travel ideas are often restricted only to wildlife safaris and these are, indeed, the most well known and most popular type of vacation for the continent. However, some of the best places to go in Africa have little to do with the kind of exotic wildlife most people think of when they are coming up with vacation ideas for a trip here.

One of the first Africa vacation tips if you’re looking for something other than elephants and lions is to look for beaches. The Tanzania and Kenyan beaches in East Africa have been popular holiday destinations with people from Europe for decades. The island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam is graced with magnificent coral beaches, as are the idyllic islands of the Seychelles even farther out in the Indian Ocean. There are also long stretches of pristine beaches north and south of Mombasa and Malindi on the coast of mainland Kenya. All of these places are full of beautiful tropical beach resorts that also offer excellent scuba diving and deep sea fishing, and fascinating historical sites, including the mysterious ruins at Gedi dating to the thirteenth century.

More Africa travel ideas in this region include the historic Swahili town of Lamu dating to the fourteenth century, which is Kenya’s oldest continually inhabited town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located within ten to fifteen miles of Mombasa are the Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary and the Shimba Hills National Wildlife Reserve. So, if you’ve come for a beach holiday, you can still take a day excursion to see elephants and buffalo, giraffe and Cape buffalo, leopards and hyenas, the elegant sable antelope and dozens of other species.

The best places to go in Africa for wildlife safaris include the interior of Kenya and Tanzania, site of the great migration between the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, the tallest mountain on the continent (Kilimanjaro), and numerous other parks and reserves that protect some of the rarest wildlife in the world. Other wonderful safari destinations can be found in Zambia (especially in the Luangwa Valley), in Namibia (home of Etosha National Park and the Namib Desert), Botswana (home of the fabled Okavango Delta), and in South Africa.

Your Africa travel ideas for wildlife safaris should definitely include South Africa. This large country boasts a spectacular concentration of wildlife concentrated in a number of parks and reserves, including Sabi Sands, Kruger National Park, and Hluhluwe Umfolozi. The birdlife reveals close to 900 different species, and there are about 300 different mammal species, including all of the Big Five, a few dozen different antelope species, all the big cats, and much more. There are beaches here as well all along the South Atlantic Coast from around Port Elizabeth to Durban. Africa vacation tips for this area will point you to more wildlife of the marine kind. There are huge populations of white sharks that have provided some of the most memorable video of this great beast ever produced. This is a major whale migration corridor that sees humpbacks, southern right whales, Bryde’s whales. There is excellent scuba diving here as well as deep sea fishing.

This is also one of the best places to go in Africa for cosmopolitan cities like beautiful Cape Town, located on the Cape of Good Hope and often compared to San Francisco for its lovely seascape backed by Table Mountain. Here, you can visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and enjoy fine dining and five star luxury hotels. You can drive the scenic Garden Route along the coast or visit vineyards in the Winelands around Stellenbosch where some of the most prestigious vintages in the world are produced.

Most people associate Egypt with the iconic ancient ruins of the civilization that thrived here thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The great Giza Pyramids and the legendary Valley of the Kings and Queens across the Nile from Luxor draw millions of visitors. If you come here for these extraordinary attractions, one of the best Africa vacation tips is to try to fit Nile River cruises into your itinerary where you will discover more ancient temples along its banks. Egypt also boasts great beaches and resorts on the Red Sea Coast around Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh. More venerable culture and beaches will be discovered in Morocco, which has coasts along both the Atlantic and Mediterranean.