Like everything else in the world, my trip was disrupted by COVID-19. On the grand scale of things, of course, it does not matter. I was lucky to make it home safe, before air travel and borders shut down. People…
Getting Home Amidst a Pandemic
When you don’t have a lot of need for communication, being in a remote place can be great. You can unwind, disconnect, relax. But when a pandemic is occurring, information is changing by the hour, and you’re trying to look…
Re-learning to Surf in Coffee Bay
From Durban, I got an early morning bus to Umtata, where I waited with some others who had arrived off the Baz Bus backpacker bus for the shuttle to arrive from the hostel I was staying in Coffee Bay. Coffee…
Back to South Africa: Johannesburg and Durban
After months of wearing the same three shirts and one pair of jeans, most of my clothes had either disintegrated (my hiking pants), gotten stitched up so many times they literally disappeared from the bus (my hiking boots) or were…
Serious island time on Zanzibar
And just like that, Marieke and Jon were heading back to Canada and I was on my own again! I checked out of the guesthouse in Dar Es Salaam and made my way up to the main road, where I…
Mountains of Lushoto and an Epic Journey to Mafia Island
As we had booked a big bus taking us all the way to Tanga, Tanzania, from Diani beach, the border crossing from Kenya into Tanzania was pretty easy, with the bus staff helping us get in the right queues for…
Diani Beach- The Nicest Beach on the Kenyan Coast, Apparently.
With Marieke still feeling the effects of a stomach bug she had in Mombasa, we decided to grab a Bolt taxi to the pier, to walk on the ferry to get across the water to the southern Kenya coast. Our…
Super Bowl Monday Morning in Mombasa
Guest post by Jonathan Baggs There’s a lot of heartbreak in the lives of most team sports fans. The goal of any team’s season is to win a championship. Anything less is a disappointment and the closer a team gets…
Alone in Lamu
It’s always a good sign when the driver spends the first 5 minutes bailing out the bottom of the boat before you can leave the island. Just when I thought he was done he switched to the other, smaller bailer…
Smuggling Gin and Knives on the Train from Nairobi to Mombasa
After a lot of camping at Lake Navaisha and in the Maasai Mara, we were pretty excited about the prospect of staying in an apartment for a few days in Nairobi, which ended up costing less than three beds in…