TIPS: Navigating G Adventure Tours in Africa
If you want to travel to Africa but aren’t keen on doing it on your own, G adventure provides a good option!
G adventure tours are a bit less common for Singaporeans and Asians in general (believe their audience is more from Europe, and my tour also had people from US, Canada, Australia). So it can come across as daunting - but hopefully this helps to shed some light on what to expect, and how to choose which of their many G adventure tours to do. I spent 2 days obsessing over this to decide as the sale deadline approached so hope this can help to alleviate some of the concerns that I had!
G adventure tours have been around for a long time, and are similar to Intrepid Travels. They have “18-39” trips which are meant to be more budget friendly and for a more adventurous younger crowd (in the case of Africa - you’ll largely be camping and need to bring a sleeping bag) vs “Classic” trips which although do not have an age limit typically cater to an older crowd (these stay in hotels). I debated on which to go for but eventually settled on the “18-39” trip type given that I prefered to be with a similar age group. Was concerned that the group may end up very young (think uni age) and full of party goers, but most of those who joined the tour at Windhoek with me were actually around the same age group of 28 - 32! My hypothesis is that Windhoek in Namibia is less known / hard to get to, so those who choose it are slightly older. Just a hypothesis xD You can actually chat in on their website to ask about the demographics for the specific itinerary and tour date you are interested in, if that helps in your decision.
There are many different permutations of the trip that you can choose to sign up for. The whole Africa tour (Kenya to Cape Town or Cape Town to Kenya) lasts over 40 days. The trip runs in both directions, and you can choose to sign up for the whole tour, or join segments of it. In our group, we had 2 participants who did the entire 40+ days, 8 who joined from Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and 8 of us were only doing the last segment of Namibia to Cape Town. 2 CEOs (what they call the guides) run the trip, and there was a switch once in the 40+ days (so the guides for our segment also joined in Zimbabwe). So just be prepared that there will already be people on the trip who have been travelling together, or that some of your trip companions may leave midway if you are doing multiple legs!
There is definitely a social aspect of the trip, so another thing to consider on how long of a leg you want to do as it can be quite draining especially if you are an introvert. But one of the good things about G adventures is that many solo travellers join these tours, and it is a good way to quickly meet people from all around the world. I met many individuals who had recently left their jobs and were on similar work sabbaticals as myself.
One of the things that pleasantly surprised me was how G adventures was able to work with local providers and the guides spoke of their own experiences and provided insights into the culture and history of the countries as locals themselves. There were of course more touristy parts of the experience, and parts where we wished we could have had more time to explore. But all in all I think it was still an effective way for me to explore Africa, particularly when I was hesistant about going for it solo from the start.
If this is something you are considering, hope this helps!