FEATURED TRAVELERS

#FeaturedTraveler: Christine Ooko

Meet Christine, a sassy, classy and fit girl  from Kenya  who’s about to attain her phD. She’s in the academic field, mostly teaching, writing and doing research work which she absolutely loves. She spends a good amount of time building on her scholarly work and is trying to balance this with her top favourite thing; traveling.

 Here’s a little bit of her travel journey and the photos she’s taken along the way!

Livingstone Zambia
Livingstone Zambia

 

How often do you travel?

It depends on so many things. Cash, time and the destination. Sometimes I plan a trip for a whole year, if it’s a long trip or at times I make random decisions to go anywhere never been before. Hence for the long trips, I’ll stay a whole year without going anywhere just to save as much as possible so I can make the long trip. Usually the long trips would involve more than 4 countries.

How do you balance work and travelling?

I work online and most of the time, if it’s a long trip, then I will communicate in advance to my supervisors, especially in destinations where I know getting good network would be a big problem. With short
trips, I leave my to-do list clean.

fourteen falls, Kenya
fourteen falls, Kenya

Dream destination in Africa?

I don’t have a specific country that I would deem as a dream destination but I would like to visit Madagascar and see the lemurs! I would also like to explore more of the Zulu land, i.e. Swaziland and Lesotho.

Where did you travel to last?

I did a long trip to the Southern African Countries in December 2017. Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia.

Victoria falls, Zambia
Victoria falls, Zambia

Where are you hoping to go next?

I want to explore Malawi more, probably go to Lilongwe. Then head to Mozambique, Swaziland and Madagascar. I also want to visit the western part of Africa. Ghana, Togo, Gabon, Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

Is travelling expensive?

Travelling can be both cheap and expensive. It all depends on one’s itinerary and discipline. With a budget of Ksh. 90K-100K, one can traverse more than four countries by road. Of course by flight it’s
impossible.

Longonot, Kenya
Longonot, Kenya

How do you fund your travels?

For the long trips that are anything beyond Ksh. 50K, I simply save up. For the short trips that costs under Ksh. 10K, I simply wake up and go.

Do you travel alone or in a group?

I mostly travel alone.

Zanzibar, Tanzania
Zanzibar, Tanzania

What would you tell a young African aspiring to start traveling?

Go ahead and explore and create your own stories.

The most Challenging thing about travelling?

Aaaah, not being open minded about destinations, racism, sexual profiling, and security Sometimes travelers experience racism on the road. I recall two racist encounters in Zanzibar and India.

This time I was touring stone town and I really needed to use the cloak-room and our hotel was quite a distance so I walked up-to a restaurant we had lunch the previous day. This lady told me upfront
that I couldn’t use the facilities and If I had to, then I was to pay Tzs 1,000.00 (Ksh. 50.00). Long story short, she eventually allowed me in. After finishing my business, I stepped outside to join my travel partner. I witnessed to my shock and disbelief how she blissfully directed white tourists to the same facilities who like me, just wanted to have a well relief in a clean facility. It was even more alarming to see her almost take them inside as some gentlemen couldn’t figure out which one’s were marked gents and which ones were ladies. This was perhaps the lowest moment of my stay in Zanzibar. I felt really bad. Probably worse off because I was being discriminated by a
fellow African.

Oooh India was special. I was often stopped at the train stations and asked how much I was offering for a quickie or one night of action.  Any guy who seemed concerned to show me around when I looked a tad bit confused always asked for sex in the end. While in the train stations, I would always bump into small gatherings of ladies who at my sight, would all look at me at once and look away and murmur something. There were just so many instances where I felt extremely uncomfortable. I was in India for a month. On day 12, I was fed up with the country and the constant stares from the people.

Malawi
Malawi

Want to catch up with Christine’s travels for inspiration?

READ HER BLOG: christineookoblog.wordpress.com

 

 

Facebook Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: