COS Trip Itinerary Through Southern Africa

katlynsaley
Aug 17, 2018
2 min read

If you know me at all, then you know I'm a huge planner when it comes to travel itineraries. I like to think I'm spontaneous sometimes (or could be), but then when I really think about it if I don’t have something planned it makes me pretty stressed. Like how do you know if you are going to the right places or getting the best deals if you don’t research ahead of time…(when I say ahead of time I mean months ahead of time). And that brings me to writing this post today – in the middle of August – for the two and a half month trip I am going on once I finish my Peace Corps service at the end of September.

This trip itinerary in particular has consumed a lot of my time. I always knew I wanted to travel after PC (my original plan being to take a year and go lots of places), but exactly where was the difficult question. Did I want to go to Southeast Asia where so many PCVs go because it’s really cheap and has a huge backpacker scene? Or did I want to stay in Africa? Stay near to where I served in Malawi or go to West Africa? Africa is HUGE after all. So many ideas.

After lots of thought, blog reading, and surfing the internet the decision was made to stay in this part of the world and travel through southern Africa (and maybe do Southeast Asia in February. I wonder what the fam would have to say about that…?). Starting in October I will be going up through Malawi and taking a train through Tanzania, hopping on a Ferry to Zanzibar, flying to Zimbabwe, busing to Namibia, and ending the trip in Madagascar. Find most of the itinerary below (I’m still working on a lot of Madagascar....so if you have any tips let me know!)