Tag: Recent
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A Sunday Stroll in the Ngong Hills
For years my wife has been urging me to hike the Ngong Hills with her. When she first came to Nairobi in 2013, she had read that it was one of the city’s top tourist attractions. But I was always reluctant to do it, convinced that it was unsafe by tales of hikers being ambushed…
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Remembering Kenneth Matiba’s Love of Climbing
‘You are interested in sport, John,’ said Sean Egan, ‘so why don’t you write for our new Sports Desk section of the paper that will be coming out soon?’ That was back in 1987, and Sean was an Advisory Editor of the Nation. I liked the idea. And the first article I wrote was on…
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Re-reading a Classic of Travel Writing
Since the only place I could go these last six weeks has been my own garden, the only other travel I have done is to read and write about it. ‘I have written about travel by trains and travel by ships… What else can I do?’ I asked my wife. ‘What about by feet?’ she…
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Joys and Tribulations of Travel by Ship
A few weeks ago I wrote about books on travel by trains. ‘So why don’t you write about travel by ships?’ my son, Jan, asked. ‘You first came out to Kenya by ship, didn’t you? And you often talk about it!’ Well, my first reaction was that the time is hardly right for that –…
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The Plague: Life And Death Under Lockdown
I have just travelled through another book. What else is there to do, when you need a break from checking the daily record of coronavirus cases and deaths – or watching the circus of Trump’s press briefings? It hasn’t been a relaxing travel. ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus is not an easy ride. The spine…
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Live-streamed Escapes to the Bush
As a safari guide and nature-lover, I am envious of friends and colleagues who are able to isolate outside of Nairobi, in wilderness somewhere. I have daydreams of spending the quiet weeks in a tent, hours away from the nearest people. I’d like to think that I’d spend my time strategizing how to bounce back…
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Of Travel Writing and Travel by Train
It was Good Friday. I was, of course, following the advice of the coronavirus experts to stay at home. I had been doing that for a couple of weeks. Although I had no immediate work to get on with, I was feeling guilty that I wasn’t at my laptop and editing a colleague’s report or…
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A Way to Travel Without Travelling
As we head reluctantly into our fifth week of social isolation, many of you will be yearning for an escape, to a deserted beach maybe, or the open plains of a national park. It may be a while still before we can move as freely as we did before the age of coronavirus, but there…
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Travelling When Staying At Home
In line with the ‘Stay at home’ and ‘Keep social distance’ advisories, I was thinking of a temporary change of name for this column – Not Going Places. But, being one of the lucky ones who can work from home, I was browsing the internet and, on the Travel Magazine website, I came across an…
Going Places Africa 