“How do you travel so much?” is one of the most frequently asked question ever since I started this blog slightly over five years ago. And I somehow tried to exhaustively answer it in this post here. But a couple days back, I posted to my Instagram feed a cheap ticket deal for Nairobi to London at less than KES 50,000 (about US$ 457). And suddenly my DM blew out of proportion.
So that’s why I’ve decided to address the issue again in this post of ‘how I somehow manage to travel sooo much’ as some of those inquiring put it.
What's Covered in This Article
My Yearly Travel Planning
Usually, I do most of my travel planning in December because unlike most people, I don’t celebrate Christmas. Hence Christmas season to me is just another period in the year when every thing slows down. And I suddenly find myself with lots of time in my hands coupled with very little disturbance.
I also AVOID travel during this period as much as is reasonable possible so yea…
Unless of course I am not the one paying for that trip. But I just hate the inconvenience so many are the times I turn down the offers :). Lakini si ni life.
My travel planning starts with a Google search of ‘the Kenya school calendar’ for a record of all of that year’s term dates, half term dates and school holiday dates for Kenya.
The reason I start with the school calendar is because I have a 16 year old son whose school calendar I have to work around to keep my sanity.
Once I identify these dates, I head over to my office outlook calendar and mark them off as ‘out of office’ and also to my Google calendar.
Once that is done, I do another Google search of ‘Kenya national public holidays 2024’ or whatever year it is. Recently, I discovered www.PublicHolidays.co.ke which has so far been my go to site and proven very accurate. These too I mark off of both my office Outlook and personal Google calendars.
My main reason for marking off public holidays is to make sure I don’t mistakenly book a local domestic trip over any of the longer public holidays such Easter weekend or those public holidays that fall on a Friday or Monday.
For some reason, this is when the whole of Kenya literally decides to get out of their homes and go on vacation. And it gets c.h.a.o.t.i.c to put it mildly. I tried it once with an Easter weekend getaway to Naivasha and I said NEVER. AGAIN!
Traveling with a Full time Job
I get 40 off days (excluding weekends) in total per year. That is 30 annual leave days +10 public holidays.
The dates I’m most keen of is the half term breaks which are usually one full week each in first term and second term – Somebody please thank Matian’gi for me – which as I’ve already mentioned above, I usually mark off my office outlook calendar first thing before the year begins.
This is to avoid potential scheduling conflicts with my other colleagues and project partners.
Half term breaks translate to 9 days per term (counting the 2 weekends on either side). This then leaves me with 30 days once the half term breaks take the 10 days away.
In essence therefore, two of my international trips – almost guaranteed – will take place during this period: i.e. mid February, and mid June. Mostly because it works around my son’s school calendar, its off peak in Kenya, and shoulder season around most of the world. And I use my annual leave days to facilitate that.
The remaining 30 days are equally split between short local getaways and taking advantage of international error fares and ticket sales.
Visa Planning
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, international travel on a Kenyan passport or any other ‘shithole‘ country for that matter is as complex as it sounds. Thanks Trump….
Therefore, except for the about 74 countries that Kenyans can travel to visa free or get a visa on arrival, you will need a visa to get pretty much anywhere else.
But I found a work around to getting a visa for each of the remaining 125 countries for which Kenyans need a visa to enter and I talk about in detail in this post here.
Something else that I do during my travel planning in December, is to assess the strength of my passport in preparation for my travels in the coming year.
Basically, what I mean is increasing the ‘power’ of my Kenyan passport to grant me access to more countries beyond the 74 visa free/on arrival ones aka more visas.
At any time therefore, I make sure to have a multiple-entry Schengen visa, Canadian visa, US visa, and UK visa; and all valid for at least two years.
So with my current 5-year multiple entry US B1/B2 tourist visa expiring in 2027, my Kenyan passport’s power automatically strengthens from a ranking of 72 to 86 making it as strong as a Botswana passport.
That is travel to the US, obviously, and also 39 additional countries for which I would ordinarily require a separate visa each to enter. Click on this link here for a full list of the countries that Kenyan passport holders can travel to with a valid US visa.
With my 6 year multiple-entry Canadian visa expiring in 2029, I can legally travel to Canada +11 additional countries that I ordinarily would have need a separate visa each, to travel to.
My 2-year multiple-entry Schengen visa expiring in 2024 on the other hand grants me visa-free access for a maximum of 90 days (unless otherwise noted) to a whooping 26 countries in the Schengen territory + to an additional 15 countries that would ordinarily require me to get a visa before travelling to these countries.
I list all of these countries in this post.
If you’ve been counting, so far, with all the above visas, I can pretty much travel all around the world except to Asian countries where I would need to get individual visas.
Which leads me to the next step.
Flight Bookings
So now that I have all my off days and leave days mapped out and probably marked off my office Outlook calendar and personal Google calendar, I starting stalking OTA sites such as Skyscanner.net, Kayak.com, expedia.com, etc for flight deals.
Skycanner for instant has this awesome feature where one sets a departure point, and then it displays all the destinations one can fly to and the cheapest dates/months to fly to those destinations.
I also subscribe for Google alerts on terms such as “error fares” and to deal websites such as Secret Flying to just make sure I don’t miss out on any travel deals.
Like this flight from Nairobi, Kenya to London, UK I got for only $453 USD (i.e. KES 46,000) round trip.
Once I find an agreeable deal, I head over to my calendar and try to match the deal with my leave day. And voila!
But there’s a catch.
I am always ready to sacrifice conveniences such as direct flights, long layovers, red-eye flights, etc. This is where the multiple multiple-entry visas come handy. I usually take advantage of the long layovers to sample the cities – at no extra cost – most time.
Plus the savings are worth it!
