Frustrations of my self-planned trip to Tanzania

Lessons I have learnt on a self-planned trip in Tanzania, Africa

In December 2019, I went on a self-planned trip to Africa. Having only decided quite last minute that Africa was going to be my destination for the Christmas holiday, I had just around 2 months to plan the trip, despite somehow knowing that this would be a difficult trip to plan which most people start planning 6 month if not earlier in advance. When I started the planning, I felt completely lost and overwhelmed, not even knowing which countries I should add to my list. At some point, I entertained the idea of joining a tour group to spare me the fun and agony of the planning work. However, I knew I was going to hate it as tour groups have never been my cup of tea. Finally, I stumbled upon a fellow traveller's post about her and her family's successful self-planned, self-drive trip in Tanzania, which sounded so exciting that I could feel my dopamine level rise even just reading her story. I made up my mind that I would make it happen through my own planning, and that Africa is not going to deter me in any ways...

How I planned the trip is quite another story which I will write about in another article. What I would like to share with you here is my African experience that made me scream almost everyday whilst on the trip that "THIS IS NOT A HOLIDAY!!!" - Yes, my very frustrations from the trip, which was mostly encountered in Tanzania, even though I had decided to hire a rental car with a local driver guide, which was meant to make my life much easier as a tourist. And for anyone who is interested in self-planned trips, I hope my experience will be helpful to you, so your holiday could feel more like a relaxed vacation to you. I was jogging these down in bullet points whilst I was on the trip, just so that I won't forget about them when I finally get around to blogging about them. I have summarised 7 points in total:

1. Airport arrivals & departures are extremely slow. My personal experience has been such that the immigrations upon arrival can take 1-2 hours at least in some countries. As I booked my tickets to Tanzania via Ethiopia, this was my experience getting through immigrations in Ethiopia. Do allow yourself ample time for the check-ins without risking missing the flights, especially when you are transferring via a third country. Get your travel visa sorted beforehand if you can as this will make a huge difference. Even though most countries offer visas on arrival, have the e-visa sorted before your trip may just save you from painfully and anxiously waiting in a long line.

2. Do not believe everything on the usual hotel booking websites, especially locations/addresses of the accommodation (lodge, hotel, camps, etc...), including the locations on Google Map. When you are there, you will realise that a lot of the places are not on an actual road/street. Some places are just a dot on the map in the middle of a land mass, not showing which road leads to them, or even if there's any road that could lead to them. Often, the Google Map locations are incorrect and cannot be trusted. We went in December, which was the wet season in Tanzania. And this problem certainly made navigation even more difficult, as many areas of the country were flooded, and road conditions were simply impossible. "Road is bad!" is what you would often hear from the locals. And this means "You will be stuck in the mud" even with our 4 wheel drive Land Rover driven by our local driver. We personally had a "near death" experience where we were stuck on a muddy path just about 1-2 km from the camp (not that we were aware of this at the time), in complete darkness, just outside of Ikoma Gate of the Serengeti National Park. I honestly thought we were going to be attacked by wild animals and the story would appear in newspapers the next day. So the moral of the story is, find out before your trip and obtain an accurate GPS coordinate from your camp/accomodation beforehand, and ask about the road conditions. You will save yourself a lot of time and unnecessary trouble.

3. Don't trust locals for directions. Somehow, the hotels/camps tend to change their names a lot that the locals don't even know about them. Again, find out before your trip and obtain an accurate GPS coordinate from your camp/accomodation before your trip, and ask about the road conditions.

4. Hot water is a luxury. Despite all hotels/camps' advertising about hot water showers, do not get your hopes up (This is of course not a problem if you can afford to pay $2000USD/night for a luxury camp). In the entire week we spent in Tanzania, we were only able to have 1 proper shower with hot water which turned out to be the last camp we stayed with. Most of the camps are off the grid and rely on solar systems for hot water. Either there wasn't enough sun in the rainy season, or there just wasn't enough hot water for all guests is just a myth that we'll never figure out. So be prepared to brave yourself with cold water showers when the temperature at night falls to 18 degrees. And No, you won't be able to skip the shower when you have been covered in dust and sweat from your safari drives during the day when it is 30 degrees.

5. Be aware of additional government charges: I thought I had done all the researches required in relation to the camps that we had booked into. However, you may still come across toll stations which you had no idea existed and be asked to pay for admin fees that you were not even sure were legit or not. Mind you, nothing comes cheap in Africa. We are not talking about 10 dollars here, but rather 100 USD per person + vehicle fee, per day kind of charge. Moral of the story is, ask your camp before the trip if they are aware of any local government charges that are applicable to guests staying in the area/camp, and have it organised in advance if possible. This will save you loads of time and pain trying to figure out whether you should pay the fee or not, having no reception/internet on the spot.

6. Don't trust the local travel agency that they would fully take care of your itinerary. My decision to take a rental car with a local driver guide was to make my life easier. As they offered to take care of all my bookings for the national parks, I went the extra mile to pay them for the park entrance fees and had them look after the registrations. There were a few days they forgot to register and book the tickets for us, which resulted in us getting up at 5:00am, but stuck at the park gate for 2 hours... very frustrating experience indeed. And worst of all, you won't be advised of the true reason that you didn't have access to the park, but were told that it was a system issue that we just had to wait. Had I known that they had forgotten, I would have gone and purchased another set of tickets, and asked them to reimburse me later on. Time is of the essence when you are on these safari trips, especially the best animal viewing times of a day.

7. Not all petrol station have petrol. Imagine your driver telling you that you can't go on more safari drive because the car is running out of petrol and there is no where nearby that he can get petrol from... Be prepared for this and prompt your driver to fill up when they can!

There was something happening almost every single day, that made me scream "This is not a holiday!" However, something amazing may just happen the next minute that made you feel wonderfully blessed to be there. Africa, as frustrating as it is, it can also be intoxicating & addictive at the same time. At the end of the trip, despite all the frustrations, I knew I would be going back again.

Click the video below to see my travel video for the self-planned trip to Tanzania

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