Backpacking in Africa Jonny Blair
“Alone on the beach🇷🇪, on my own, out of reach, but you just passed me by” – Noel Gallagher (quoted by Jonny Blair when referring to someone who let me down). When I went backpacking (or whackpacking) in Reunion Island, I was here mostly to chill out, get a glimpse of the lifestyle, backpack the…
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“Nayim from the halfway line ” – Tottenham Hotspur fans. Is it possible to go to one continent and yet class yourself as backpacking a different continent? 😂🤣 Well I did a bit of research and it turns out that it is possible to backpack The European Union while also backpacking Africa. You can even…
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Backpacking In Reunion Island: My Dorm Room Stay At Hotel Kaz, Saint Denis I was looking for a budget option while backpacking in Reunion Island and I decided to stay in the capital city, Saint Denis. This was part of a tour where I backpack The European Union in Africa! Logistically Saint Denis was perfect…
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In the glory days before COVID arrived I used to love doing pub crawls. I even helped set up the first organised pub crawl in Bishkek Kyrgyzstan in 2016 and did a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London and a superb pub crawl in Gdansk, Poland. But COVID closed the bars and that avenue of pleasure…
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“When your turn comes round” – Neil Finn. I finally made Mozambique my 34th African country in April 2023 (and it was also my 216th recognised country). It helped me complete a jigsaw of the South of Africa. I had already been in 4 countries that border the Bique. They were South Africa (2011, 2020),…
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It’s often said that capital cities of Africa are usually not the best spots to backpack through to experience that there country. Underwhelming and lackadaisical could be said of a few of my prior capitals on that there continent. Examples that springbourne to mind are Porto Novo (Benin), Lome (Togo) and Kampala (Uganda). In Malawi,…
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“My smile as real as a hyena’s” – Nicky Wire. (de ja vu, just the 10 years later eh?!) I have now racked up eight visits to Ethiopia, nutspacking it as a hub at Africa away time and time again. I have known Addis Ababa was a hub since my legendary 2013 trip to the…
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“Me and my monkey drove in search of the sun” – Robbie Williams. While backpacking in Malawi on my MMM Tour of 2023, I decided on visiting four main parts of the country – Monkey Bay, Cape Maclear, Dedza (including dipping in and out of Mozambique) and Lilongwe (the capital). “Oh hello, Monkey Bay!” When…
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“Oh baby baby it’s a wild world ” – Cat Stevens. Madagascar 🇲🇬is a huge island but I’ve lived on a few. Australia for one. Tasmania another. Great Britain another island I lived on. Ireland another. I even lived on Ma Wan (Park Island) in Hong Kong and have worked on ferries to Guernsey, Jersey…
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“Don’t say a prayer for me now. Save it for the Madagascar🇲🇬” – Duran Duran. Island countries seem to be my weak point in life and when I look at the long list of countries I still haven’t been to – no surprise most of them are islands. Despite 4 trips to the Caribbean, I’ve…
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