Safety in Africa

Forgot to answer your question G - my wife and I are planning to do the trip together in our 110 defender.

Benz I agere with G and understand u'r perception on risk have changed sitting in Cairo lately. I do however think that as soon as your out of Cairo and that sooner rather than later then you have pretty much same security situation on the eastern route down well into Kenya compared to same time last year and even further back.

However the situation in Kenya have significantly changed in the eastern part of the country bordering Somalia with very high risk of kidnappings and banditry. The have been several smaller terror attacks in border town such as Mandera, Wajir and Garissa targeting local authorities - so stay away from eastern part down which normally isn't the overlander route anyway. Just worth mentioning

Also samburu/Shaba area in northern have lately faced few incidents of banditry targeting tourists. Best advise is to use escorts where advised by local authorities and basically keep the your ear close to the ground during your trip down.

The rest of the trip south should not constitute any major security concerns apart from the normal risk of theft etc.

Enjoy the trip and keep us posted

Benz - you are very welcome to drop me a line once in Kenya before getting to Nairobi as I live there. Would be interesting to hear a few travel tales and I could serve a cold beer - [email protected]

Thank you very much for the advise. It's good to hear other people's understanding of the current situation. Our time in Egypt has actually increased our confidence for various security issues. We're certainly more experienced in "negotiating" with people carrying guns! Not sure if that is necessarily a good skill!?!
Thank you also for your offer. We'll keep you posted once we have a idea of timing.

Im going in a couple of years so if anyone is planning a trip then let us know.