Travel in 2023
What a year its been. Very little of my travel this year turned out as I expected a year earlier. In fact, it far far exceeded all expectations, due to a bunch of relatively short notice destinations. Thankfully, very little went wrong with travel this year, and nothing was hugely impactful.
I visited 11 new countries, making it the best single year ever, from a country count perspective. In order, it was Portugal, Cabo Verde, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, the Netherlands, and Belgium. This brings my life time country count to 76. 2023 was the year that really pushed Africa to the forefront in every metric that I track. I've finally visited more than half (29) of all African nations (54). Africa is has surpassed Europe, with 12 entries, with Europe at 11, and Asia remaining at 21. I've visited 16 European nations, and Asia remains at 20.
I needed to mail out my passport just twice this year, for Ghana and then Nigeria. This is such an anachronistic process that needs to die. I understand that there are plenty of nations that are too challenged developmentally to invest in eVisa or visa-on-arrival processes, which is what keeps this wretched process alive.
The big unexpected additions this year were Ghana (which was originally added kinda late and supposed to be for a work conference, then wasn't), and the Netherlands & Belgium. Belgium was even more of a surprise, as it got added as a day road trip from Amsterdam just days in advance.
I flew a bizarre mixture of airlines this year. TAP Portugal got me to Portugal and Cabo Verde. Sadly, its not a good airline, with poor service, crappy food, and to make matters worse, Lisbon's airport is a hot mess of bus gates, and a very confusing layout. I got stuck with Ethiopian Air to get me to Burundi (and then to Ghana), a full 6 years after I vowed never again. This time they were somewhat better, but still not a good airline, and the airport in Addis is horrifyingly still awful, even after they built a new terminal. I was supposed to fly British Air, but didn't when they did a last minute cancellation of my flight from Accra (Ghana) to LHR, and instead ended up flying KLM all the way home. KLM was honestly the biggest pleasant surprise airline of the year. It was 13 years since I last flew KLM, and back then, they were not that great of an experience (and Schipol Airport in Amsterdam was kinda meh too back then). Yet this year I flew them on two different trips (the second was my end of year Netherlands/Belgium trip), and they were surprisingly great. Great service, good food, and AMS is now a quite solid airport. I flew Air France roundtrip on my central Africa trip, or at least that was the plan. Then they cancelled my return flight from Cameroon to CDG, and I had to fight to get rebooked with Turkish Air to avoid a 24 hour delay. But wait, there's more airlines. Inside Nigeria I flew two airlines, Dana Air and Overland Air. Neither was great by any means, but I guess I didn't crash so its ok in the end? Also, I had to fly aSky, Ethiopian's regional airline from Abuja, Nigeria to Yaounde, Cameroon. Other than the flight being delayed by over 2 hours, I guess it was ok?
Deciding on best/worst trip of the year, is surprising difficult for 2023. Best, was probably central Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon & CAR), but honestly by a very thin margin of Burundi/Rwanda/DRC/Ghana. Both were fascinating, amazing experiences, but the scenery & wildlife especially in Cameroon & CAR pushed it over the top for me. There honestly was no worst/bad trip this year. Both Portugal/Cabo Verde and Netherlands/Belgium were good trips in their own right, but not quite at the same level as central Africa.
Travel for 2024 is already mostly figured out, but there's still some wildcards. My old nemesis, Algeria continues to haunt me. Literally last year (2022), Algeria failed to work out. It was supposed to finally happen for February 2024, but has already fallen through when the tour company failed to get their minimum number of participants. I've got a solid backup trip planned fully booked in its place, so barring unexpected disasters, this should work out. For the summer, I'm working on another African trip, but its still not finalized, so much could potentially change. And for the autumn, a trip back to Europe, which has been postponed 3 times already will hopefully finally happen. The good news is that I do not anticipate needing to mail out my passport for any visas in 2024. As things currently stand, I will likely not break any new personal travel records in 2024. And that's ok, I'll continue to chip away at Africa, and go as far as I'm able to what is unfamiliar.