Mauritania / Senegal / Gambia (and Mali?) 1 month Dec / Jan

[ilesmark]

Hi all

I am casting around for ideas for a month's backpack-style travel roughly from mid-Dec to mid-Jan, as I like to do around this time - last Christmas /New Year it was Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

I was considering Madagascar but mid-Dec to mid-Jan is getting a bit close to the cyclone season. Then yesterday I met by chance an English woman who is / was married to a Mauritanian and this set me thinking.

Would a month in Mauritania / Senegal / Gambia (and possibly Mali briefly?) be doable?

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Cheers

Mark

[markharf]

Sure. I once spent a fun month (backpacking) in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, and Mali. But Mali’s problematic these days, so adjust accordingly.

Hard to say anything more specific without more information about what you like to do, see, learn, etc.

[ilesmark]

Originally Posted by markharf

Hard to say anything more specific without more information about what you like to do, see, learn, etc.

OK - my style of travelling: backpacker / spend a night not a fortune. Prefer buses to taxis and hostels to hotels. I don’t mind joining organised tours for short periods of time eg my last significant trip was a month last Christmas /New Year around Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and out of this time I spent 3 nights on a tour of Murchison Falls NP in Uganda with 4-5 other people as that was the only way to do it without spending an absolute fortune on a private tour; otherwise I was travelling solo on buses / trains and arranging my own cheap hotels through Booking.com and similar.
If there are important sites in a place, I will visit those but overall not hugely one for ticking stuff off lists and like as much as anything to soak up the ambience of a place, people-watch etc.
I’m very into photography (landscape / street). Trekking, galleries, cinema.
Not hugely into things like hot-air balloons or bungee-jumping.
Favourite scenery is mountains & deserts.

Mark