Why are we travelling in Central Africa at a quicker pace than usual?
If you’ve been following our journey for a while, you might have noticed we are moving a little faster across Central Africa.
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Nigeria was officially our last country in West Africa. We were ready to plunge into the central, more unexplored part of Africa.
Our travelling style in Central Africa has changed and we are definitely moving faster than before.
Ok, let’s talk about money. We are travelling on a daily budget of USD 50 per person per day. Sadly, travelling in Central Africa is burning through our budget much quicker than we had hoped.
Our everyday expenses like meals, transport and some accommodation are quite reasonable. We book most of our accommodation on Booking.com, although what we pay in Central Africa for a simple fan room with cold water would buy a gorgeous room in Asia and a cosy apartment in Europe.
Our room in Malabo, EG was USD $140 a night and double that price for our room in Bangui in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Gabon has proved to be gorgeous and green and would be a great example of what travelling in Central Africa could be. But again, the cost of accommodation and even the cost of the train has added up so quickly.
We actually ran out of local currency when we visited Lope National Park.
There are no ATMs or money exchange facilities there and they don’t like to accept anything but the local currency, so we had to cut our time a little shorter here.
The inevitable visas across Africa have added up very quickly, averaging at around USD $100 per visa. We have now obtained 28 visas each. That’s a lot of money!
All countries in Central Africa require a visa and only one of these visas can be obtained on arrival – the visa for Gabon. This makes travelling in Central Africa not very appealing for most visitors.
You may be interested in reading our Visa Page for more information about applying for visas around the world.
Above all, it’s the cost of flights within Africa that is really dragging us down.
Even when we apply all of our tips and hints to book the cheapest flight possible, internal flights in this part of Africa are expensive. There is no way around it.
It’s often cheaper to fly to Europe than to fly to the neighbouring country.
We have travelled overland across most of West Africa, but some flights were necessary due to safety (more about that below) and some due to logistics. As these are often local airlines, we can’t use any of our points.
The average cost of a 1-2 hour flight is around $200 -$400. Ouch, right?
The last few countries were tough. If you look at any government travel advice, you’ll find them marked with “Do not travel”. We were leaving Benin as more governments were changing the north part of Benin into a “do not travel zone”.
We spent five days in Lagos, Nigeria, which sadly has some of the highest crime rates. The most common question we get about travelling here is, ‘Is it safe to walk around Lagos, Nigeria“?
We would love to spend more time in Nigeria to try more excellent Nigerian cuisine, and we agree that Nigeria belongs on our list of the 10 best African countries for food.
The north of the country is considered unsafe due to Boko Haram. The eastern border with Cameroon is also off-limits, so our plan to overland to Cameroon had to change.
Cameroon has its own internal conflict, and politics are currently heating up, too. While we were here, the opposition leader was arrested, and we were told a few times to avoid Douala if we could.
The Central African Republic is a “no go zone” as a whole country so our time and movement here were limited. The plan to see the National Park instead of the capital has backfired due to visas.
The good news is that while we were in CAR, a peace deal with armed rebels was signed, so hopefully, the future will see some improvements.
Related Post – Our experience visiting the Central African Republic
Chad is another country where you don’t play tourists. While we had a fantastic time exploring and eating great food in its capital N’djamena, venturing further into the country was strongly discouraged.
And quite frankly, the logistics to arrange transport were complex and costly.
When searching for information on travelling in Central Africa, we found only a few short blogs on the main cities.
Equatorial Guinea is not considered dangerous, but it certainly isn’t a fun destination. With its own strict regulations, and rules (you need a permit to take a photo) it is not fun.
And let’s not forget the high cost for visitors.
When looking at the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) things get a bit shady too.
The troubled Eastern part of the DRC with National Park that is home to gorillas has been closed due to an incident. The Ebola outbreak in this region is now in full swing too.
The efforts of the medical teams on the ground to control the spread have been complicated by the presence of armed rebels.
Of course, more in-depth travel in these countries is possible, but it requires a lot more planning and a lot more cash.
If you get stressed about planning a vacation, then trust us West and Central Africa is on another level. Travelling in Central Africa has proven to be extra difficult.
Here is the riddle: You are in Cotonou, Benin and need to visit Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea. And you need to get to Congo before your Congo visa expires on 19 Feb.
You need to get all 5 visas and navigate the bureaucracy surrounding them (here’s looking at you Nigeria).
You then need to combine multiple airlines between these countries with flights that often go only every second or third day.
Keep in mind the price as you can’t afford to blow your budget. And you are not able to have a stopover, as your visas are single entry only.
It’s quite a challenge, but we are happy we solved it. And we made it to our final country on this leg of our African adventures – Angola! We are planning to revisit this continent later this year.
There you go! As you can gather from this post, travelling in Central Africa is challenging. We travelled through this region of Africa in 2019. You may enjoy reading more about our adventures across Western Africa in our INCREDIBLE journey Recap from 2019.
And if you are heading there, check out these 17 ESSENTIAL things to know before you go.
We have many travel guides and tips for Africa – what a massive continent!
Have you ever wondered how many countries in Africa there are? 54 or 55? We cover them in depth in our ultimate Africa bucket list.
There is some delicious cuisine to be enjoyed across Africa, and these ten best African countries for food will inspire your food journey.
Check out how many of these 15 most popular foods you can taste.
If you’re wondering what they eat for breakfast in Africa, check out these 20 popular breakfast foods.
For food lovers, our Food Map of AFRICA lists the quintessential dish you need to eat in every nation!
It’s worth reading these 17 ESSENTIAL Things to know before travelling to West Africa, and our packing list for Africa may be helpful to you.
Don’t miss our recap of our travels across West Africa for even more helpful tips, and try these popular West African dishes; they’re fantastic!
You’ll need to stay connected while travelling in Africa. We recommend eSIM. It’s easy, reliable and affordable. View eSIMs for individual countries in Africa, or consider a regional eSIM for Africa (which covers 36 countries)
If your travels in Africa are part of a much larger global adventure, then a Global eSIM may be the answer. It connects you in 124 countries, offering data-only eSIM and data/call/text Global eSIM. This eSIM has been a game-changer for us, and we couldn’t imagine travelling without it now.
If you want to travel with like-minded travellers, consider joining a group tour. Check out our Group Tours first for any upcoming departures in Africa, or view Tourradar for deals on group tours in Africa.
Check out our best-ever travel tips compiled from more than twenty years of experience.
✈️ Flights: We use Skyscanner to book cheap flights worldwide.
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5 Comments. Leave new
Hello. My wife and I are travelling to Douala / São Tomé & Ghana in September. We would love to know how you got around cameroon. We are thinking of hiring a car & driver to take us to Kribi and the chimpanzee sanctuary on the sanaga river? We only have 6 days there. Do you have any tips on travel and things to do? Btw…loved your informative post on São Tomé and we just can’t wait to go there !!
Hi Andrew,
We moved around in Cameroon via local buses. We took them from Douala to Yaounde and also to Kribi too. To get around in the cities, we used shared taxis. Easy enough to catch and this is how the locals move about. It’s a super affordable way to get from A to B, but if you have the budget, would like a little more comfort (rather than the tight squeeze of 4 adults in the back seat, 2 in the front passenger seat) and want to maximise your time, you could certainly hire a driver and car. We really enjoyed Cameroon – the people were friendly and seemed to hang out in the evenings in small bars/street side restaurants, a great vibe. The bakeries are fantastic and the food was good too. Definitely visit the beach/Kribi, it was such a nice change from the busy cities. We heard that Limbe was worth a visit too, we just didn’t have enough time. Cameroon is very green and the National parks are great! You guys will have a good time 🙂 We’re glad you enjoyed our Sao Tome post, this was easily one of our favourite countries in Africa…and we’d really love to return – what a gem!
Hi Rach and Marty, really love your travel blog, and i’m leaving for central africa next month! really want to know how to get Equatorial Guinean visa, could you tell me more about it? cheers
Hi Patrick,
Thank you, we’re glad you enjoy our blog. We got out EG Visa in Doula, Cameroon but it was under special conditions so not sure if you will be able to obtain your visa here.
At the moment the best place is either Madrid or Libreville, but you could still try in Doula. If you do try here, you will need an invitation letter.
thanks for your info, is there any way to get an invitation letter? 🙂 i’d try it in douala first, since my first stop will be in cameroon 🙂