How To Plan A Trip To Africa on A Budget? 10 Essential tips To Keep In Mind

How to Plan A Trip to Africa on A Budget: As a land of diverse wonders Africa buttresses wanderlust since the advent of civilization. Backpackers or family, expensive or cheap, crowdy or offbeat— whatever a passionate traveller hankers for, Africa never steps back to feed individual zeal. As a matter of fact, Africa is also well-known as a land of financial dichotomy after smelling an individual’s wandering penchant. This means patrons are flexible to choose between expensive and cheap budget trips at their stake. However, as a budget trip is more consistent with smart calculations and witty strategies, most often planners found themselves as hapless failure in this game. To sort this part with definitive assortments, we have devoted our attention to discussing 10 essential budget-saving trips before flying to Africa. Let’s uncover what these are. 

How to Plan A Trip to Africa On A Budget? Uncover 10 Smart Tricks

How to plan a trip to Africa on a budget? Well, frankly speaking, the answer consists of a humungous criterion. So, prior to starting with the major discourse, be ensure of the simple truth that Africa is that land travelling diversity that can cost you from $1/day to $500/day. The final decision stands upon your needs and values that is whether you want a lavish holiday or a rudimentary one loaded with rejoinder. However, you can take into account the following pointers to make your Africa travel plan budget-proof.

Choose The Season Wisely

The first and foremost thing to consider prior to any kind of trip irrespective of the destinations. The same goes for Africa as well. Being a pure tropical country, the smartest way to cost-cut the travel budget in Africa is to roam it during off-seasons i.e. between March – June and October – December. Albeit, the weather may propel a bit of discomfort but this is one of the most likeable options when it comes to travelling Africa on a budget. You can save nearly about 20%-40% of your budget just by leaning on off-season travelling. Do carry some essential medicines and other precautionary gear just to be more prudent.

Opt-in Cheap Countries for Affordable Visas

Applying for an African Visa is the one which adheres to maximum headache to the travellers. The core reason behind this is these are the most expensive ones. On average African Visas costs between $50 to $100 to each country offering a staying of 30-40 days. Thus the total number cumulates with add-ons. There is a witty trick to trim extra costs from African Visas. This is excluding countries with expensive Visa amounts. For example, striking out Tanzania from the list as it is the highest Visa charge maker; takes $100 for each person. Such countries can be usurped by cheap countries, especially lies in the Eastern borders which charge a decent amount. For example, a $50 cost for Kenya, $50 for Uganda, and $30 for Rwanda. On average you can assume a total of $550 cost for Visas itself. There is another option to save your cost in this regard and this bespeaks to a definite lesser number of countries. That means the lesser the countries, the more depreciation on the total bill itself.

Look For Budget Airlines

Invest some genuine time, researching budget airlines that will take you to Africa without any hassle or burning bills superfluously. There are some popular airlines we’ve comprehended which are Kulula, Fastjet, Mango, FlySafair, Fly540, JamboJet, Dana Air, Flydubai, and Skywise. All these airlines not only enable incredibly cheaper booking rates but at the same time let you have some giggling cashback as well if you are in luck. Besides these, you can check for adhesive deal-making websites such as Booking.com, TripAdvisor.com, Kayak, etc which drop entangling budget rates on booking. Followed by this, there would be another smart pocket to thrush up your gain in case of group or family travelling. 

Avoid Expensive Safari Tours

Here comes the most significant part. Touring Africa without safaris is a true torment, especially for those foreigners who are travelling the continent for the very first time. Gauging the depth of the emotion, safari trips (considering both the grasslands and deserts) are not only floating on the line of expensive boundaries but they shatter pinnacles of affordability for economic travellers. But here again, with respect to the budget, myriads of tricky alcoves exist to save extra costs. Travellers are encouraged to give it a try for a bit offbeat national perks (Masai Mara, Kenya costs $200 for 2 days 1 night per person) rather than hyped one (Serengeti, Tanzania, $400- $500 for 2 days 1 night per person). Because no matter what the name of a national perk expells, animals remain the same. Followed by these are some additional ways to barricade your expenses. For example, 

• Abstinence from online booking and rather be prompt on on-the-spot booking. This can save a lot around $200 to $400 minimum depending on the place’s popularity
• Excluding guides who charge around $40- $50 per visit when not required 
• Not jumbling with too many places with too many activities. Better prioritize what you seek more.

In this way, you can satiate your safari splendours without denting your pockets just by being a smart calculator. 

Inspect for Budget Accommodations

As it has already been stated that Africa unveils a financial dichotomy to travellers, you can easily grab the options for budget accommodations by clicking on the options for hostels, camping, homestays, group staying and many more analogous ones. While even budget hotels cost you not lesser than $200 per day accommodation, you can easily tuck your head into budget hostels, or homestays paying around $20 to $70 accordingly. With this, savouring delicious home-cooked meals along with socializing with new people will be a plus. 

Sign-Up With A Volunteer Programme To Travel Free

Travelling Africa for free is not essentially impossible even if it sounds. There are some clever hacks to make it happen and that is to be a part of any concurrent volunteering programme paying a tiny amount. As a tropical and poor country, Africa is bogged with multidimensional problems including diseases, viral fever, AIDS, contagious infections, animal and wildlife protection and so many more. Thus, life-lesson-making campaigns always remain active across the continents from all corners. By enrolling with any of such campaigns you can ease out your travelling not just budget-effective but would have a better enclosure to scrutiny indigenous lives from the ground. The sign-up fee costs around $200 on average.  

Know Tricks To Trim Extra Budget For Essential Medicines & Vaccines

Before leaving the airport, travellers are thoroughly put into medications and vaccines against the most infamous diseases of Africa namely Yellow fever, Typhoid, Hepatitis A, Rabies, Cholera, and Meningitis. The cost of vaccinations encircles around $150- $200 to $20-$30. Since this category falls in the undeniable sections you can either pre-determine a specific medical budget or carry relevant medicines to combat the disease. However, being acquainted with a medical expert is mandatory to avoid any kind of side effects. Popular medicines that conceal the spread of these diseases are Malarone (Atovaquone/Proguanil) costs $5/day, Doxycycline costs $0.5/day, Lariam (Mefloquine) cost $0.75/day.

Make Holistic Uses of Public Transports

Make holistic use of public transport such as buses, shared trucks, taxis and so on. Albeit, Africa is well-connected with budget airlines still the total cost is more than buses or road transport. While budget airlines cost around $200 per head the same can be accomplished just by paying $20 or $40 per head. However, this does not mean detaining air flies all the time. Use air routes to well-connected and big African cities like Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Dakar, and Cairo.

Adopt Yourself With Local Food or Self-Cooked Meals

Africa is not a continent with an expensive food budget. In fact, you can truly rely on local foods. These are not just cheap but quite healthy as well. Despite this fact, if you don’t feel fine with outside food keeping count of innumerable factors, excel in personal cooking skills. However, just to be extra alert on dietary charts, the list of popular foods included in African cuisine are rice, beans, ugali, chapati, fish, various stews, chicken, and eggs. Cassava and Potatoes. The reasonable rate of a plate of standard meals costs $80- $200 per month of stay. 

Excel Negotiation Skills

Lastly, learn negotiation skills and make it vigorous. A significant part of the African GDP comes from the tourism industry. So it is quite obvious that there would be high-value VATs applied to every embedded category. In order to save you from all tricky loopholes, you have to up-kick your slagging skills otherwise you forget about being a budget traveller. 

**Recommended Reading

• South Africa Trip Cost Planner| How Much Does It Cost For A 10-Day Trip
• 10 Days in Europe on a budget

This was a brief of what and how you can set a plan for travelling to Africa on a budget. Make sure to practise these tips aesthetically instead of whirling in the ebb of confusion that is how to plan a budget trip to Africa. I’m sure these tricks would yield relevant output to your needs. So, never mind to exploit these properly whenever needed and save extra smartly. Enjoy and happy roaming.