A Life of Travel: Djibouti, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and now Ghana!

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I’m in Accra, Ghana and it's time for a travel newsletter…

📆 update

After a great New Year’s in Cyprus, followed by a work-focused three weeks in Bangkok, I flew to Ethiopia at the end of January. That trip that left a strong impression and set the tone for what turned out to be a very unpredictable stretch of travel.

While in Ethiopia, I had to cancel my Wandering Earl Tours trip to Socotra Island scheduled for February when the political situation in Yemen caused flights to be suspended. A year of careful planning and excitement disappeared almost overnight. That’s part of the deal with the tour business though, so the only option is to deal with the situation and move on.

Once it was clear there was no workaround, and Socotra Island was cancelled for sure, I had to pivot, quickly.

SAUDI ARABIA
So a few days later, it was off to Saudi Arabia for the first time. (As a side note, this is quite surreal to write about my travels here with what’s going on. I was there before the current Middle East situation began.)

We started in Jeddah, easing into the country with long strolls along the corniche, wandering Al-Balad (the atmospheric old town), sipping local coffee and herbal tea, and eating very well.

From there, we headed north to AlUla.

AlUla was something else. The history tied to the Nabatean Kingdom - the same civilization behind Petra in Jordan - combined with the region’s dramatic rock formations made it feel almost unreal. The old city was quiet and beautifully atmospheric, perfect for slow evening walks. What really stood out, though, was the silence. Deep, genuine quiet. After the stress of cancelling a major tour and reshuffling plans yet again, those few days surrounded by peaceful desert landscapes reset my mind in a way that I really needed.

Next was Riyadh for a bit of city life. It’s not exactly a city designed for walking, but I love walking, so we still logged plenty of miles. Time was spent at outdoor cafes, chatting with locals, visiting the King Fahd National Library and The National Museum, and lingering inside restaurants longer than planned (we went back twice to Al Kofeia!). We even went to the cinema to see Avatar 3 because, why not? All in all, it was a solid visit.

Then came the question I ask myself more often than I probably should: Where next?

DJIBOUTI
A few days before leaving Saudi Arabia, we decided on Djibouti. The decision was made for two reasons - a quick, cheap flight from Saudi Arabia and a very quick e-Visa process. Then, two nearly empty flights later (Riyadh to Jeddah, Jeddah to Djibouti City), we landed with no real expectations or ideas. Sometimes that’s the best way to arrive somewhere and in this case, it worked out very well.

On our third day, we got a driver and guide and off we went out of the city, to Lake Abbe. This turned out to be one of those places that sticks with you forever. Reaching it required a full day of driving over rough, rocky, barely-there roads through absolute emptiness. It wasn’t easy. But when we arrived, our jaws dropped and any doubts about the excursion immediately vanished. The lake sits half in Djibouti and half in Ethiopia, surrounded by towering limestone “chimneys” created by geothermal springs, creating a mysterious environment on what felt like an unknown planet.

We visited these trippy formations at sunset and again at sunrise, and stayed overnight in the only accommodation around, consisting of very simple huts and barely usable shared bathrooms. But none of that mattered. We were riding the high of being somewhere I didn’t even know existed a week earlier - and now a place I’ll never forget.

We also visited Lake Assal, a salt lake that’s the lowest point in Africa, along with a handful of towns and villages scattered across the landscape. It was raw, fascinating, and very much worth the effort. Here’s a quick video from my surreal Djibouti experience.

From there, the post-Djibouti plan we had made while in Saudi Arabia was West Africa: Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana. But despite paying $250 for a Nigerian e-visa - supposedly issued within a few days - nothing came through. No approval, no rejection, no responses to emails. After ten days, it was clear we needed to pivot yet again.

For another $250, I found flights to Kigali, Rwanda, so again, why not? Two days later, off we went.

RWANDA AND UGANDA
We spent time in Kigali (learning the history at the Kigali Genocide Memorial is a must), crossed into Uganda to trek with chimpanzees in Kyambura Gorge, did walking safaris and night safaris, visited various national parks, and then… gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. After that, we crossed back into Rwanda and trekked with golden monkeys in the impressive Volcanoes National Park.

It was all mind-blowing.

Here’s a video I put together with footage from the chimpanzees, gorillas and golden monkeys!

The chimpanzee trek was the easiest, a short walk into a gorgeous gorge, and it was endlessly fascinating to watch the intricate interactions of the chimpanzees up close (5 feet away!).

The gorilla trek was a challenge. Two hours each way, straight down and straight up, slipping in thick mud, our guide hacking through dense rainforest with machetes, massive thorns everywhere, all kinds of bugs, people falling and tripping constantly. And then suddenly, we were there at the bottom, about six feet away from more than fifteen gorillas, including a massive silverback and several babies. Ten days later, I’m still speechless thinking about it. If you can handle this kind of trek, visiting the gorillas should be on your list without a doubt!

The golden monkeys were the perfect end - over 50 monkeys being playful, energetic, leaping all around us throughout the bamboo forest as if we barely existed. The path to reach them took an hour and was very muddy, but quite easy compared to the gorilla trek.

Every trek was 100% worth it. I’d do them all again without hesitation.

BURUNDI
We then returned to Kigali for a night and did what felt oddly logical at that point - we booked a flight to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

Burundi isn’t exactly high on most travel lists but the flight was only 25 minutes which was hard to ignore. It’s one of the poorest countries in the world, with plenty of official government warnings about visiting, for a variety of reasons related to violence and disease.

But given how close we were - and my potential goal of visiting every country - we went. And it was completely fine.

I’ve been doing this for long enough to know taking precautions is absolutely necessary, but the reality in most places doesn’t fully match the travel warnings. Burundi was another example of this.

The people were incredibly kind and shy. We spent four days there, visiting Bujumbura, the quiet Rusizi National Park (needed to see more hippos and crocs), taking a boat out onto Lake Tanganyika, and then driving three hours into the hills to see the incredible Gishora drummers near the city of Gitega. Watching these guardians of sacred drums perform just for the two of us was unforgettable. Even if you’ll never travel to Burundi, check out the video above.

Soon enough we were back at the airport, flying back to Kigali.

GHANA
After one more night in Rwanda’s capital, we took a direct flight to Accra, Ghana the next morning.

So now I’m in Ghana, sitting by the beach, trying to figure out what comes next.

On Friday, I was supposed to fly to Baghdad to lead my next Wandering Earl Tours trip to Iraq. Of course, as of yesterday, I had to cancel the trip unfortunately. So that was again a major disappointment as I had 16 travelers ready to experience the country.

UNKNOWN
At this point, I genuinely don’t know where I’m going next. I hope to figure it out over the next 24 hours.

That’s the reality of constant travel without a permanent base. Sometimes you honestly have nowhere to go. Or everywhere to go, depending on how you look at it.

It’s been such a wild start to the year. Incredible moments, several once-in-a-lifetime experiences, a couple of disappointments, significant concern over the situation in the Middle East and way more last-minute changes than even I’m used to.

Let’s see where I write the next newsletter from.

At this point, almost every country feels like a possibility.

Not Just Small Group Tours

While most of you know Wandering Earl Tours for our scheduled small group trips, that’s actually just part of what we do.

We also create fully-customized private tours in over 50 countries. Each trip is built from scratch, using all of my experience, trusted local friends and long-standing contacts. And we can handle any group size from 1 to 20 people.

As always, these trips feel personal, immersive and genuinely different from standard tours. They’re also very fun and great value.

Need a few solid recommendations? Want us to handle everything so you just need to show up and enjoy it all?

If you’ve got a trip in mind, simply reply and see what we can do!

🌐 around the globe

🎳 Bowling in Somalia
In Mogadishu, a new bowling center reflects warming social life and private investment after decades of conflict, with young locals and diaspora returnees gathering for recreation and community.

🪁 Return of the Kite Festival
Pakistan’s Basant kite festival returns after a nearly 20 year ban. Colorful kites once again fill Lahore’s skies, reviving a beloved tradition.

🗣️ One Language
This fascinating website traces the history of the proposed Proto-Indo-European language family, showing how half of the world’s languages could have realistically come from one place. I love to geek out on this kind of stuff :)

🇨🇬 Congolese Dandies
Stylish men and women in the Republic of the Congo display bold fashion and elegance, transforming the streets of Brazzaville into living runways. (Lots of cool photos in this one!)

📸 World Photography Awards
Stunning images from around the globe showcase the power of travel photography to capture culture, landscape and the human moments that make travel so memorable.

🇨🇭 Medieval Library
Step into the 1300 year old Abbey Library of St Gallen, a UNESCO-listed treasure in Switzerland where soaring woodwork and ancient manuscripts remind you how powerful and beautiful the written world can be.

🗺️ where in the world?

A big congratulations to those readers who guessed the location of the photo in the previous newsletter! Here’s who guessed correctly:

Diver Girl, Hassan, Steve and Aleta

The location is the banks of the Ganges River in Varanasi, India!

This week’s image:

It’s time to guess…where was the below photo taken?

If you have a guess (the more specific the better), click reply and let me know. Anyone who guesses correctly will be mentioned in next week's newsletter 😄 

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Thank you so much for reading!

Derek
(my middle name is Earl)

WanderingEarl.com

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