Travel Guides

Everyone needs a visa for Malawi again. Apply online in advance through the immigration department, and treat advice saying you need none as out of date.

Where access has been designed in, where it has not, and the specific questions worth asking an operator before any deposit is paid.

A bus rapid transit system that works, ferries with a bad record, minibuses with a worse one, and a separate driving permit for Zanzibar.

Dollars in tourist areas, shillings everywhere else, ATMs that run dry, and cash shortages that followed the 2025 election.

A plastic bag ban enforced at the airport, a dress code with a fine attached, and altitude that starts long before the summit.

Tanzania's specific risks: the far southern border, an election aftermath that is still current, laws on photography and phones, and on same-sex activity.

An e-visa applied for in advance, a separate compulsory insurance policy for Zanzibar, and an online health form that every arrival now has to complete.

A boat on the Kazinga Channel is among the most rewarding hours in the whole country, and one of the very few that asks nothing at all of your legs.

Boda bodas everywhere, long distances on mixed roads, and one Saturday morning each month when non-essential movement is prohibited nationwide.

The Ugandan shilling, a mobile money system that runs the country, and where cards stop working once you leave Kampala and Entebbe.

One clothing rule in Uganda carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and it applies to children as well as adults.

Attacks have reached national parks and tourists, Uganda's Ebola outbreak is over but the DRC's is not, and one law carries the death penalty.