Reviews (5)

Very complete and helpful guide
Whether you plan on doing a safari, or relaxing in the beaches of Zanzibar, or visiting the less traveled regions of Tanzania, this book provides all the useful information that you need to plan your trip or to have a more complete experience once you are there, whether you are planning to travel with a limited budget or not.The book covers Tanzania's wildlife attractions, historical sites, seldom visited places, culture, political history, food, health, maps, local traditions, etc.I didn't find any flaw worth mentioning with the book.So if you plan on going to Tanzania or are just thinking about it, this book will convince you that it is a place worth visiting, with more possibilities than you can imagine.
safari operator through L.P. suggestion
Roy Safaris is a very reliable safari operator in Arusha.
An excellent travel companion
The Lonely Planet produces excellent travel guides, and their Tanzania/Zanzibar edition is no exception. I have used this book on four different trips, and found it indispensible. The guide does an admirable job describing the popular tourist stops (the game parks, Zanzibar's Stone Town, etc.), but its real strength lies in giving the details necessary to take the roads less travelled. Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Tanzania    5. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (1)

Beautiful & Massive Documentation of Life on the Savannah.
Anup and Manoj Shah have distinguished themselves in the populous field of wildlife photography by producing expressive and beautiful portraits of wild animals thatdocument the individuals' lives while achieving impressive aesthetic grace. Many of the brothers' photographs are simply unforgettable works of art that I never tire of looking at. "The Circle of Life" is a massive book that contains 235 photographs of wildlife on the African Savannah. About 40 species of mammal are represented, as well as some birds and reptiles. In the most comprehensive photographic essay of wildlife that I have ever seen, the Shah brothers document the lives of the many animals who live and die in this vast African ecosystem that spans much of Kenya and Tanzania. The authors have organized this photographic odyssey by dividing the book into 20 chapters, each showcasing one aspect of life on the Savannah. The early chapters show us the basic elements that create and sustain life. Some example chapters are: "Driven by Wet andDry", "Light and Energy", and "Shaped by Fire and Elephants". The book then moves on to the subjects of birth and growing up on the Savannah. "Natural Selection", "Adaptation and Diversity", "Peaceful Coexistence", and "Mother and Offspring", for example. Then we see the lives of adult animals. Some examples are: "Herds and Social Groups", "Grazers and Browsers", and "The Hunters". And finally these animals die, returning to the earth, and the "circle of life" begins again: "Scavengers and Decomposers", "Land and Life". Each chapter begins with an essay written by Anup Shah that explains what that particular facet of life on the Savannah entails and how it fits into the greater life cycle.Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Grassland animals    3. Grassland ecology    4. Life Sciences - Zoology - General    5. Nature    6. Nature/Ecology    7. Photography    8. Pictorial works    9. Subjects & Themes - Plants & Animals    10. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Africa    11. Wildlife    12. Kenya    13. Nature / Wildlife    14. Photographs: collections    15. Places & peoples: general interest    16. Tanzania    17. Wild animals   

Features

• Folded Map

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Maps    3. Maps & Road Atlases    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Tanzania    7. Travel / Africa    8. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Reviews (5)

Hilarious and many travelers can relate!
Having taken tour group trips within Africa and other places, I could relate to many of Balows' accounts of fellow travelers, ailments, inital (if not exaggerated) excitement at sighting wildlife, local peddlers, malaria drugs, etc.The book had me laughing out loud many times!If you have traveled in such a way, you will love this book!

a fresh take on the fresh hell of travelling with other people
Balows' keen ear for dialogue and wry perspective make Tales From Tanzania a must read for anyone who's ever (or, for that matter, never) travelled with a group of strangers. A highly entertaining account of the comic human safari.

Traveling for the Immature
Humor about vomit or bathroom issues gives this book a big stink. So does the ceasless scapegoating directed to the most inept fellow traveler. Better text is found in the author's interactions with wildlife and natives. Overall this book is like the primitive latrines it aptly describes - it stinks! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Essays & Travelogues    3. Travel    4. Travel - General    5. Travel writing   

Reviews (1)

Northern Tanzania: The Bradt Safari Guide
This was an excellent book for anyone going to Tanzania.It included customs, what to wear, weather information, safari guide, etc.Very informative. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Tanzania    5. Travel & holiday guides    6. Travel / Africa   

Reviews (8)

Very informative
Having gone through the preparation to climb Kili, I found this book to be very informative ... especially the sections on traveling through Tanzania and Kenya.Much thanks to the other reviewers for warnings on the use of Diamox and the need for conditioning.

An essential guide!
Cameron Burns has filled a void with the publication of this climbing and trekking guide for Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. While much is probably written about Kili, there is very little practical literature about Mount Kenya. The introductory pages are full of useful hints for traveling in Kenya that, from my recent experience there, all ring true. The route descriptions on Mount Kenya, while lacking in some detail, certainly convey the necessary information for a successful climb. It is already time for a new edition, however, since some of the features have changed. Kami Camp, for instance, no longer exists.

Agree with Keith Kendall - Caution advised
As others have noted Mr. Burn's book is well written, and informative. But as Keith D. Kendall correctly observes in a review elsewhere on this page, the notion that a trek to the summit of a 19,000 foot peak may be accomplished without achieving a high level of cardiovascular fitness is not only misleading and potentially dangerous, but frankly absurd. Ditto for Mr. Burn's comments on the use of Diamox, which he either doesn't understand(his comments in the book indicate little experience with its correct use), or again, dismisses out of hand as he has never had to use it. You may. The information in the book is valuable, but as with everything else, it is only a single point of view. I liked the book a great deal, but take some pause when obvious misinformation is attributed to an `expert' source. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Guidebooks    3. Hiking    4. Kenya    5. Kenya, Mount    6. Kilimanjaro, Mount    7. Mountaineering    8. Sports    9. Sports & Recreation    10. Tanzania    11. Travel    12. Climbing & mountaineering   

Reviews (1)

A poignant excursion into one of earth's last wild places
Peter Mattheissen ("The Tree Where Man was born," "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," "The Snow Leopard") takes the reader on a safari into the Selous, the grandest piece of truly wild realestate left in Africa. Along for the ride in western Tanzania is the lastgreat warden of this famous park, a direct descendant, in a way, ofFrederick Cortenay Selous himself, for whom the park is named. Matthiessenis low key, unpretentious, straightforward and fresh in his descriptions.Yet, as the safari moves deeper and deeper into the bush, one wonders, asone found in Matthiessen's classic "The Snow Leopard", whetherwe're really going to see any big animals after all. And whether or notMatthiessen and the crusty old game warden are going to resolve theirapprehensions about each other. Suffice it to say that at no level is thisfine book a disappointment, including the excellent photography of Hugo VanLawick, who accompanied the private safari, driving his own Land Rover downfrom the Serengeti. If you ever thought you might like to take a walk inAfrica, the old Africa, this is your book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Selous Game Reserve    3. Selous Game Reserve (Tanzania)    4. Tanzania    5. Zoology   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel Guides    5. Kenya    6. Tanzania    7. Travel & holiday guides    8. Travel / Africa   

Reviews (19)

Amateur effort - not recommended
Wouldn't recommend it except to fill out your background reading of a fairly obsessive couple preparing to and then climbing. Much better books available such as "Kilimanjaro: A Guide to Climbing Africa's Highest Mountain, Includes City Guides to Arusha, Moshi, Marangu, Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam" by Henry Stedman.

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
The book provides an exceptional insight into climbing the mountain. Lots of information, practical tips and experiences. Written in an easy to read style. Invaluable to anyone like me who is intending to climb the mountain.

Not worth your time
I've often thought about writing a book about a trip as a way to deduct the expense from my taxes, but I've refrained for fear that the result would end up like this book.Poorly written with very limited content, this book is of little interest and very limited use to anyone actually planning to climb Kilimanjaro.It's chief value is as personal account of the authors' climb, but you can find many similar accounts for free on personal websites everywhere. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Guidebooks    2. Kilimanjaro, Mount    3. Kilimanjaro, Mount (Tanzania)    4. Mountaineering    5. Sports    6. Sports & Recreation    7. Tanzania   

Reviews (1)

Interesting book, good to read for safari prep...
This was a very interesting book that I just finished reading in preparation for my safari to Tanzania.I would recommend it to anyone going on a safari or thinking about going on a safari.It is short for fast reading, but gives just enough description that I can't wait to be out on the Serengeti or riding in a jeep down into the Ngorongoro Crater to experience Tanzania myself. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Africa - General    3. Travel   

Reviews (7)

This is the Kili book to buy.
I climbed Kili in January 2006. In the months preceding the trip, I pored over numerous books on the mountain, including this book by Henry Stedman. This book was head and shoulders above the rest. Stedman's excellent descriptions of the day-to-day trekking are complemented by what I feel is genuine respect for the mountain and the people who live near it. After reading this book, you'll feel that you actually know what to expect; you'll stop worrying about whether you'll make it to the top and start looking forward to all the amazing details of this truly wonderful part of the world.

Excellent
My first time in Africa and trekking up Kili!! And everything I needed to know was in this great book. If you are planning to climb Kili, do not hesitate and get this book.

kilimanjaro Guide
An awesome book. There is a lot of information that answered a lot of my questions I had. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Mountaineering    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Tanzania    6. Travel & holiday guides    7. Travel / Africa    8. Walking, hiking, trekking   

Reviews (3)

Wonderful Journey
This book was more than I had hoped for.The moments captured are extrordinary, some of the best photos of African Wildlife I have ever seen.I haven't read the text yet, but the captions by the photos are very informative and contain little interesting tidbits I didn't know.I have a lot of coffee table books and this is definitely a favorite.

The most beautiful book ever published
Having been to this area of Africa three times, twice in the Masi Mara and once to the Serengeti this book brings me back over and over again to this heaven on earth. The combination of drawings, photographs, and writing of Jonathan and Angela Scott are outstanding. This is my all time favorite book. The love these authors feel for this area and the animals and people who live there comes through on every page. For anyone who has the slightest interest in wild animals, ecology, photography, art, travel or Africa this book is a must have. Awesome!

Beyond the Photo Safari!
Mara-Serengeti captures the essence of living in the Mara-Serengeti region in a way that you would not experience in a dozen safaris to Africa.The images of predators, prey, wildlife migrations, and the Masai bring you close up during moments of blazing color in the sky and dramatic action in the grasslands.The images are improved by thoughtful essays that draw on the photographers' many years of experience with these subjects.Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa - Central    2. Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya)    3. Photo Techniques    4. Photoessays & Documentaries    5. Photography    6. Pictorial works    7. Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)    8. Subjects & Themes - Travel - General    9. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Africa    10. Africa    11. Photographs: collections    12. Wild animals   

Reviews (2)

Horrible
Whatever you do- DONT buy this worthless book. Unless you just want to stay in 5 star lodges and do and see NOTHING ELSE. I had the Lonely Planet Kenya that I dragged with me backpacking in Kenya- It was wonderful. The East Africa Lonely Planet is great too. Save your money!

Not for Tanzania
The coverage of Tanzania in this book is quite sparse. I did not find it to be useful at all, and a great disappointment. I then went out and bought Lonely Planet's book on Tanzania, and was very pleased with the depth of information it offered, including such things as maps of towns with locations of ATM's, hotels, etc and color photographs. This is a much more useful book if you are going to Tanzania. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel Guides    5. Kenya    6. Tanzania    7. Travel & holiday guides    8. Travel / Africa   

Subjects:  1. Travel / Africa   

Reviews (1)

Well worth the effort
The book is a detailed chronological account of nearly three years of difficult travel between Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika, circa the late 1850's. Nothing escapes Burton's observation. He writes of everything from the local hairstyles to the price of pombe (African beer). He gives detailed descriptions of the landscape, geography, flora, and fauna. He writes of Arabs and the Eastern slave trade. He depicts safari life in the days of human porters and mules. He tells of the people he encounters, though his descriptions of Africans may be offensive to some. There is a wealth of information here, something for everyone with an interest in Eastern Africa, or exploration, or imperialism. The place names have sometimes changed from Burton's time to ours, as have the English spelling conventions of Swahili words. Anyone with any interest in Eastern Africa, especially the precolonial period, should arm themselves with a good atlas and reference book and read Burton. Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. Essays & Travelogues    4. Social Scientists & Psychologists    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Africa    7. Hydrology (freshwater)   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel Guides    5. Tanzania    6. Travel & holiday guides    7. Travel / Africa   

Reviews (9)

Naipaul's glance at post-Colonial Africa
Shiva Naipaul's _North of South: An African Journey_ is the most cynical book I've ever read.It is a travelogue of the author's visit to three postcolonial African countries in the 1970s: Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.Naipaul is a Hindu, born in Trinidad, and he pays attention to the role (and plight) of South Asians (Hindus, Pakistanis, Sikhs, Parsees, etc) in East Africa.He also focuses on the black-white relations in Africa as well.Naipaul gives Africa and everyone involved in its affairs (whites, blacks and Asians) no credit whatsoever.Declining European colonial powers gave their African colonies political independence in the 1960s and a variety of demagogues like and Julius Nyerre in Tanzania who took power spouting third world varieties of socialism and Marxism.Despite claims of social and economic progress, Africa remains as backward as ever. Naipaul freely writes of his disgust with the countries and its deceived leadership from the first page of the book until the last.This book, like another reviewer noted below, certainly is not going to make it into a black studies program anytime soon.It is a relief from portraits of Africa that classify it as a tropical paradise, a land of innocents exploited by evil Europeans, or conversely an AIDS infested human disaster.Naipaul's cynicism shows Africa the way it really is-struggling, corrupt, deceived, but at the same time Afroca is chugging along optimistically in some areas, with idealism and occasional realism, and attempting to do as well as it can to develop itself.No dry textbook prose here; the book is short, easy to read, engaging and very well written.

Sadly neglected and misunderstood masterpiece
This is a wonderfully written book; Naipaul's proses flows effortlessly across the page, the connexion between thought and word is seemless.The comparatively small body of work Naipaul produced before his tragic early death has been neglected in favour of that of his less talented, but longer lived, brother (a Nobel Prizewinner).However in this one work, Naipaul's prosody surpasses anything produced either by his brother, or by other twentieth century travel writers like Thoreau.That said, some of the other reviews here are ludicrously jaundiced and do a disservice to the book itself.This is no crude work of 'anti-pc' nonsense (an American political term that the archly European Naipaul would have shuddered at).The prose is not illiberal (in the American sense of the term) but rather aristocratic, in the best tradition of Evelyn Waugh (the writer Naipaul most resembles).Like Waugh, Naipaul's caustic observations rip into the heart of human weakness and frailty, exposing the hypocrisy and cant from all sides.The pretensions of ghastly businessmen disgust him as much as the crudity of the black 'socialists'.Those who seek to defend either Marxism or any form of business enterprise system face Naipaul's perfectly expressed derision.I personally found Naipaul's lack of human feeling at the extent of Africa's poverty a little shocking but it is a rapturous pleasure to be so shocked.

Tragic, funny account of the Way We Were ....
North of South describes Shiva Naipaul's journey through Eastern Africa as it emerged from colonialism several decades ago. Optimism and energy prevailed alongside a blind faith in imported philosophies which pundits failed to translate meaningfully to the impoverished, illiterate masses around them.
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Subjects:  1. 20th Century Description And Travel    2. Africa    3. Description and travel    4. Essays & Travelogues    5. Kenya    6. Naipaul, Shiva,    7. Social Situations And Conditions    8. Tanzania    9. Travel    10. Travel - General    11. Zambia    12. Development studies    13. Journeys    14. Mozambique    15. Naipaul, Shiva    16. POLITICS & GOVERNMENT    17. Travel / Essays & Travelogues    18. Travel writing    19. Uganda   

Reviews (1)

superb guidebook
Without a doubt the only guide that i have read which deals with the mid to top end of the travel market - a market that sadly none of the other travel guides seem to deal with.
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Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel & holiday guides    5. Travel / Africa   

Subjects:  1. Africa    2. Hiking    3. Mountaineering    4. Sports    5. Sports & Recreation    6. Travel - Foreign    7. Tanzania    8. Travel & holiday guides    9. Walking, hiking, trekking