Traveling during conflict
 

Hello

I’m a journalist with Plenty Magazine, and have been reading the Africa forums with interest.

I am wondering if any posters here follow through with, or even initiate, plans to destinations where disruption or conflict have arisen, such as Kenya, because they want to financially support an embattled tourism industry or feel their presence contributes to the protection of wildlife?

I ask because I’ve reported in Kenya in the past and enjoyed safaris in Botswana and South Africa. The financial significance of the tourism industry in many areas is of course great and concerns of poaching arise when fighting escalates. Just wondering how people view their role as travelers during times of conflict.

Thank you,

Victoria

www.vschlesinger.com

I have a trip planned to Kenya in October.
My feeling on it is that if there will be an
overwhelming sense of lack of safety to tourists I will not go, despite the economic hardship that the locals may face unfortunately. But I will have to judge that more carefully closer to the time.
From the news reports I have read most of the violence is occurring in the slums. I live one hour from Detroit and while I go to the suburbs frequently I avoid the sketchy areas which are high crime. Therefore when I go to Kenya I will handle things similarly.

hi
i am trying to plan a trip in africa for the end of march with my husband and three daughters in their 20s. they have already been to the krueger and capetown. we are considering botswana and vic falls. do you have any recommendations in botswana? we are looking for adventure; it is nice to sleep in comfort, but the food does not need to be fine dining. how about vic falls? do you know of any comfortable places to stay in vic falls other than royal livingstone or is that the best place to stay? again, we would like to travel like south africans, not tourists...
thanx

I arrived in Kenya on Jan 7th, shortly after the conflicts had started. My decision to go ahead with my trip is not quite as humanitarian as you suggest. I was just determined to go on my vacation. Helping with the economy, etc didn't really cross my mind. Once over there, though, and seeing how the lack of tourism was really hurting things, I was glad that we decided to go.

Shane

I continued on my trip because i felt that the areas i was visiting were safe. I did tons of research and found that they had not been affected by the conflict. If they had, i would not have gone. Its nice to be able to help the few people of kenya that i did, but that was not a main reason for going.

It was not the reason for my going -never even occurred to me.
But from now on, I think it will factor in, - now that I've seen a bit of the country, met and talked to some Kenyans, and continued to follow the situation.
Jess

There are 4 of us who have planned a safari to Tanzania and Kenya in June.

We picked these destinations, because we have never been to them.

Each time that we travel we try to go to a different place on this wonderful world on which we live, so that we can meet native people & learn from them about their countries.

If with the "conflict" and now the airline personnel strike we can still get back home from Kenya we will go on this leg of our safari.

I hope that the airline strike does not last long; for us and for the people of Kenya.

Thanks very much to everyone for responding. I don't know if anyone saw the New York Times video piece on tourism in Kenya today. There's no way to link to it, but it is on the front page of their website and worth a look.

Thanks again,
Victoria

Yes! I saw the video - hence my other post. We were in Kenya and the only change we made was to fly from certain parks rather than to drive. IT was amazing to be there, yet so sad that we were alone. While it's great not to see tourists, it was sad that all the amazing people we met were affected so drastically. I am so glad we were able to help them, but we didn't plan our trip for that purpose at all. I am trying to convince my friends and family to go now - both to help the country and because there are so many deals to see this exquisite place.