Further planning for trip to Zambia…

Louise, our dear friend, property manager, and travel and event planner, is busy getting us the best possible price for our exciting upcoming event once we arrive in Zambia on October 21st. By the end of today, we will have booked a three-night cruise on a fantastic upscale houseboat on the beautiful, wildlife-rich Chobe River.

We’ll stay in the familiar-to-us hotel on the first night, the Protea Hotel in Livingstone, and again on the last night on October 25th. We’ll return to South Africa the following day after our 5-night trip for our visa stamps.  The Chobe River is located in Botswana, a short distance from the hotel.

Today, we’re awaiting a quote from Chris, the same driver/tour company operator we used on our previous two trips to Zambia, to provide transportation to and from the Livingstone Airport and back and forth from the boat landing. Once again, we’ll embark on a small boat to get across the Zambezi River to our houseboat.

While making this crossing, we’ll be at what is called a quadripoint as indicated below:

A quadripoint is a point that touches the border of four distinct territories. Also known as the “four corners of Africa,” these four countries meet at the eastern end of the Caprivi Strip – Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. There are more than 150 tripoints in the world but only ONE international quadripoint.

I should mention the Chobe River runs into the Zambezi River, the largest river in Africa. However, based on where we can fly from Nelspruit, it makes sense for us to sail on the Chobe hundreds of miles (km) further upstream. Thus, we’ll experience this interesting scenario that fascinated us the last two times we visited this unique point on the river for the third time.

We are trying to keep our costs down and accomplish this goal of getting our visa stamps. Why not have a great adventure in the process?

This morning Tom booked our hotel reservations on either end, two nights at the Protea Hotel in Livingstone, where we’d stayed previously. It is a lovely property, and the price includes a king-sized bed, free WiFi, and a lovely breakfast. We had two remaining free nights to use from Hotels.com (the link on our site) that covered most of the cost. We only had the pay the shortfall of about US $70, ZAR 1052 for both nights combined.

While we were in lockdown in India for ten months, we continued to use our free nights toward the bill, leaving us with a handful of free nights for the upscale hotel in Henderson, Nevada, in July when we used in part we visited the US. With only these two free nights left, we decided to use these now.

With this plan, we’re excited to travel for our visa stamps. There was no way either of us was willing to sit in a hotel room in Livingstone for five days and nights. Going on the water, which we always love to do, seemed to be the most exciting and adventurous for us when we’ll see plenty of many unique sites and take fascinating side trips on a smaller boat.

That’s all on that trip for now. We’re also busy planning our trip to Florida at the end of January. We both are very busy with all these plans. By the end of this month, after we return from Zambia, we’ve decided to prepare and post our new itinerary for the first time in a few years on the day of our ninth world travel anniversary on October 31, 2021.

Many of our readers have inquired about our itinerary, and as we’ve begun to book more and more into the future, we realize the time has come to put together this essential part of our world travels. Please stay tuned for more.

Be healthy. Be safe. Be content.

Photo from one year ago today, October 5, 2020:

We posted this photo one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #196. This appeared to be some horse far as we made our way to the Maasai Mara in Kenya in 2013. Look at the reflection of our plane on the ground! What a sight! I couldn’t believe we were inside that tiny thing! For more photos, please click here.