Back cover blurbs. . .
Emma Gregg made her first trip to Africa in the early 1990s, and felt instantly at home. From her base in the UK, she visits Africa on a regular basis and has so far spent time in over twenty countries, sampling everything from obscure music festivals to five-star safaris. As well as writing about Africa for Rough Guides, she contributes travel writing and photography to numerous other publications, including Travel Africa magazine, The Independent and National Geographic Traveller.
Richard Trillo first went to Africa on a hitchhiking trip to Timbuktu in 1977, with a friend and $100. Since then, he has travelled widely throughout the continent and gained a master’s degree in East African ethnography, African linguistics and Swahili from the School of Oriental and African studies, London University. He is also the author of Rough Guides to Kenya and West Africa and was formerly Rough Guides’ Director of Communications. He is now a freelance writer, editor and PR consultant, and lives in the remote suburbs of southwest London with his wife and their three children.
Why did we write First-Time Africa?
As the authors of this book, we hadn’t thought much about our first trips to Africa. Emma sketched out an epic, year-long adventure, aiming to take public transport from The Gambia right down to the south, but in the end West Africa proved so interesting that she spent her entire time there instead. Richard took off from England one Friday with a plan to hitch-hike to Timbuktu, getting to the fabled city, and home again, largely by good luck and the kindness of others, having learned what a visa is, and what malaria feels like.
Both of us could have done with a book like First-Time Africa. It’s full of the practical advice and – we hope – wisdom absorbed from a combined fifty years of visiting Africa, studying its languages, cultures and wildlife, writing guidebooks and articles about it and travelling there with our families.
First-Time Africa: know before you go 