Travel

Hi Lenny, I'm sorry you feel this way.  This is not in any way a dig at your character, I think it's great that you have the ambition and drive to do Killi and make your ambition become a reality.

I really am not bitter and twisted, only putting my opinion across.  I too pay for my trips by working hard and putting time and effort into raising funds for them, by doing my job as a staff nurse in the NHS.  I suppose that by Paul doing pub quizes and car washes he is working for it and giving anything left over to charity, which is truly applaudible.   Some people I have known literally go around asking for cash just to pay for the trip in the name of 'charity'.  I think because you have mentioned the charity aspect of your trip we have all jumped on the band wagon of most of our pet hates - getting us to pay for other peoples holidays.

I truly hope you have a great time and achieve your life ambition.

Mx

(Another handy tip Lenny -you put your point across well until you start ranting, relax, accept that others have a different opinion and don't get so personal.  I can tell that you so passionate about your ambtion to get to Killi that you will have the drive and enthusiasm to get to the top!)

Gift aid allows a lot of companies like Just Giving, to claim back fees from the Government so that registered charities do recieve more or less what you donate.

Of course, we fund the government.

I agree with the self funding thing though, unless you are rasing funds to get yourself to an area to directly help in aid efforts.

Forget Kili.

It's chock-a-block with hundreds of tourists thinking it's simply the most difficult thing in the world, trudging up the side of a bare-ass rock – there’s no vegetation, no trees, no animals, nothing to redeem itself (now Mt Kenya, that’s a proper mountain by comparison)  - in their brand new Gore-Tex everything having spent thousands getting there and having only a few hours walking each day.

DON’T!

I appreciate for some fat, unhealthy couch potatoes it’s the pinnacle of their physical adult lives and raising a few hundred pounds in anyone’s book is worthwhile but it’s so utterly misguided in my humble opinion; and so done-to-death as you and several hundred brightly coloured tourists will be on the mountain that day, every day all year ‘round. Would you even contemplate this on the UK’s hills?

Be original, be dynamic and not just a lemming and have a desire to do something other than follow the orange peel, up what is an uninteresting black / grey rock. The top’s fascinating and the bamboo forest at the base are both worthy of mention, but there are so many better mountains to trek.

If your imagination is stunted and you simply to have to waste your holidays, simply poll-up (as I did), ask in any of the hostels in town and within a couple of hours you’ll have the pick of several guides and cooks and bottle washers. Pick up the Lonely Planet guide to E Africa and just turn up – you’ll save a fortune and you’ll be putting your $50 a day into the local community and not into some westerner’s savings account.

I’ve done all my trekking thus and within an hour you’ll have everything arranged for the next day – it works every time. Whilst you’re in country, pop to Nairobi and there you’ll get onto a safari, again for $50 a day. You have to keep your trap shut as the others on your safari will be spending $400-500 a day (they were in my trip) and you’re not!

It’s simple when you know how.

Tim