For those who love hiking, Africa is the a must. You don’t need to be a professional to hike in Africa, you just need to love nature, and be willing to put on your best hiking shoes, and go on a wonderful discovery of this nature that is almost intact and as it was thousands of years ago. There are several countries in Africa, especially around the Indian Ocean, that are extremely well known for their amazing trails and tours.

Of course, if you are a novice at hiking, there are a few pieces of advice that are pretty important. Whether it is about the season, about what the best foods are when you are hiking 5 or more hours a day, but also techniques on how to ascent and descent properly without hurting your body.

I suggest you do not wear jewelry on your hike, even the smallest items can cause problems. I have a friend who insists on wearing her cubic zirconia rings and ignores my advice on this. Granted her personal cz rings are lovely and impressive to look at, but on one hike where we had to squeeze between some rock formations, one of her cz rings got caught on a gnarl and pulled off her finger, falling into a crevasse, lost forever. She has stopped wearing her rings, even as she still claims to love her cz rings.

The preparation is different if you are planning a trail. But there are similarities on the time of the year when you are planning your trip. If it is not the first trip in Africa for hiking or a trail, you might want to be adventurous and plan to go whether the weather is good at this time of the year of not.

But Africa has many different types of climates, from the hottest and driest in the world all the way to near-tundra spots that will require snow boots and other cold-weather gear. For somebody who’s just planning to hike for a few days, you might want to chose periods when the weather will allow you to walk or run peacefully, without having and additional problem about an extreme temperature that your body is not used to. September to February is the rainy season, and March to August is the dry and warm season, but a warm jacket is necessary as temperatures can get quite cold at night.

It is also important to give enough water and food to your body to be able to handle the daily efforts. A minimum of 400 to 800 ml of water per hour is a minimum, in order to compensate your transpiration. Also, your body will need energy, such as barres, gels, dried fruit and bananas every 30 to 40 minutes. It is not an easy thing to accomplish. There are many people who try it only to realize they had not properly trained to overcome such obstacles. If you wish to complete such a monumental task you must put your body in peak performance shape as well as prepare for the logistics of something so huge.

If you are lucky enough to complete such a task you will have successfully accomplished a near impossible feat that few have been able to match.