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This site accompanies the travel guide The Rough Guide to First-Time Africa. It's not an alternative to the book, but includes samples of the contents, a blog page and the opportunity to comment on posts and pages and put questions to the authors.
Static web pages ("The book", "The authors" etc) are tabbed up on the left beneath the photo of Lamu waterfront. Blog posts all appear on the "Home" page, at the far left, with the most recent post at the top. Each blog post is tagged with subject and/or country categories, allowing you to access the posts you're interested in using the Category dropdown menu, below.
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Last 10 blog posts
- British tourist, visitor and resident deaths in Africa: 325 people in 12 months out of more than 3 million British visitors
- Surprised 2174 Brits died abroad of “unknown causes” in 2010: new figures from the FCO
- Accidents abroad: Britons killed in Africa
- Britons murdered in Africa: very few indeed
- Improved security in the Sahel: military escorts dropped in northern Niger
- Rodrigues on the radio
- KCB Safari Rally 2011 – take care on those roads!
- The Lake of Stars Festival
- Zambia travel update
- Cycling in Uganda
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Author Archives: Richard Trillo
British tourist, visitor and resident deaths in Africa: 325 people in 12 months out of more than 3 million British visitors
Below are the full country-by-country breakdowns of the African figures broken out of the FCO’s recent “British Behaviour Abroad” report. As explained in previous posts, the original published report contained very broad-brush data. I wanted to have the real figures, … Continue reading
Surprised 2174 Brits died abroad of “unknown causes” in 2010: new figures from the FCO
More data from the FCO, going into further detail about the figures published in their “British Behaviour Abroad” report, covering consular activity between March 2010 and March 2011. It took so long to get a breakdown of the 62 murders that … Continue reading
Accidents abroad: Britons killed in Africa
Full marks to the FCO press office for getting back to me so quickly on my latest request to unpick the broad-brush data in their “British Behaviour Abroad” report – this time with a country-by-country breakdown of the 386 Britons … Continue reading
Britons murdered in Africa: very few indeed
At the beginning of this month the British foreign affairs department (the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, or FCO) released its annual roundup of “British Behaviour Abroad” covering all the cases of British passport holders needing consular assistance between March 2010 … Continue reading
Posted in Cameroon, Mauritius, Murder, Nigeria, Security, South Africa
Tagged murder, security
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Improved security in the Sahel: military escorts dropped in northern Niger
This story about travelling in Niger, by the Xinhua press agency, “No more convoys under military escort in order to travel in the North”, is highly significant, if it’s entirely true. It says the routes radiating between Agadez and Arlit … Continue reading
Rodrigues on the radio
A nice piece on Africa’s furthest-east territory, by Nick Redmayne. Will independence for Mauritius’s smaller island ever be feasible? Rodrigues on iPlayer, 28 July 2011
Posted in Mauritius, Rodrigues
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KCB Safari Rally 2011 – take care on those roads!
The KCB Safari Rally happens this weekend and will basically clog up much of the route between Nairobi and Namanga in Kenya– ie the northern part of the road between Nairobi and Arusha in Tanzania. If you’re heading for Amboseli, … Continue reading
Posted in Buses, Kenya, Roads, Tanzania
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The Lake of Stars Festival
One of Africa’s best music festivals, in Malawi, the Lake of Stars festival at Sunbird Nkopola Lodge, at Mangochi on the shores of Lake Malawi, is covered in the Observer today. It’s a lively piece, highlighting the festival’s hugely positive influence on … Continue reading
Posted in Festivals, Malawi, Music
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Zambia travel update
News of border crossing scams at Livingston/Victoria Falls (drivers beware). And there’s a new requirement for travellers who have been in Zambia to have a Yellow Fever certificate issued at least ten days earlier, when entering South Africa, based on changes to the Yellow … Continue reading
Posted in Botswana, Health, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe
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Cycling in Uganda
Bikes are such a great way of travelling in Africa – not least because you get to travel the way most local people do, under your own steam (and sweat) – that it’s not surprising it’s an increasingly popular way … Continue reading
Posted in Cycling, Uganda, Uncategorized
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First-Time Africa: know before you go 