Climbing Mount Meru Mount Meru, which overlooks the city of Arusha from the north, about 60km from Kilimanjaro, is used by many trekkers as a warm-up trek to Kilimanjaro. In other words, it acts as an hors d’oeuvre to the main course of Kili. And a perfect starter it is too: though smaller, it’s also [...]
Looking to climb Kilimanjaro next year, but having trouble settling on a date. One of the best ways to choose when to climb is to see what astronomical events are happening over the next 12 months and see if you can time your trek to coincide with one. After all, there are few things more [...]
Has Kilimanjaro's most popular route become too popular? For over a decade now the Machame Route has been Kilimanjaro’s most popular trail. According to the most recent figures given to us by KINAPA, 20,339 trekkers used the Machame Route in their attempt to reach the summit in one year. That figure represents a massive [...]
We have had reports recently that KINAPA, the Kilimanjaro National Park Authorities, have started to enforce certain rules that had previously been, if not exactly ignored, then certainly regularly flouted. One of these rules states that children under 10 are not allowed to go to the summit, but only to 3100m. Although this rule has [...]
It’s important to prepare properly when it comes to taking a camera on Kilimanjaro. After all, it’s likely that your camera will not have spent seven days in constant use before and almost certainly not in the dusty and/or humid conditions one finds on Kili, with its extremes of temperature and weather. The first thing [...]
Marathon-running, horse-riding and getting married on Kilimanjaro: There are plenty of other things you can do with Kilimanjaro apart from climbing it. How about entering the Kilimanjaro Marathon, for example? Taking place in late February or early March, the race is run over the standard 26 miles/42.2km and starts by heading out along the [...]
When the latest set of statistics were given out by the park authorities recently, one figure in particular stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. With 47,232 people climbing the mountain every year these days, it seems incredible that only 589 of them - around 1% - chose to do so on the Umbwe Route. [...]
There's no doubt about it: getting to the top of Kilimanjaro is largely a matter of luck. After all, the main reason why people fail to get to the top is due to altitude sickness, and whether you get this or not is largely down to chance. Nevertheless, if you're going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, [...]
Have recently had a spate of emails from people complaining about a trekking company that seems to be artificially manipulating the reviews of their service that are put up online on the popular review websites such as TripAdvisor etc. I reprint just a couple of these emails here (with the name of the company redacted, [...]
The brief answer to this is... maybe. If you're travelling from England, returning to England, and any stops you make on the way are either in a country where yellow fever isn't present (eg the Netherlands, with KLM) or is a country where it is present (eg Kenya) but where you're staying for less than [...]