Hello, are you still going??? wouldnt have thought so!!!

I was thinking of going fishing in the country later this year but luckily have not booked yet, John.

More info available in THIS topic.

David

I will tell you whats Going on.

Kenya now is in a reconciliation phase because of the last elections held in 2007.

There are two main contenders/parties in argument where one party states that the other rigged the election process to win while the other states otherwise.

Anyway, all in all, measures have and are been taken at this moment to solve and contain this problem and only a few affected areas are raising concern which are the Western and Rift Valley areas of the country.

So if your travel plan was to visit the Mara, then you might as well as cancel your trip, for this month only, but after January ends, everything will be back to Normal. Also travel advisories just scare people into going somewhere while the real truth is that they should be capable of stating which areas are not safe.

Nairobi area, Eastern, Southern and North areas are as safe as ever.

I hope that your optimism proves correct and I would wish for the sake of the Kenyan people that everything does get back to normal by the end of the month. However, I don't share your view, which sounds as if you suspect some sort of conspiracy, that the FCO is trying to scare visitors into going elsewhere - they have a duty of care to UK citizens and will always err on the side of caution because I doubt that they can ever categorically state that somewhere will be safe, especially a month in advance. After all, who would have predicted a month ago that things would turn out the way they have?

Tour operators are also bound to take a cautious view - they would fear the risk of litigation if there is a chance of it being proved that they knowingly sent tourists to a dangerous destination. The discussion on another thread in this forum suggests that they are taking a fairly pragmatic approach and regularly reviewing the situation as departure dates approach. At the moment they seem to be leaving the decision as to whether to cancel holidays as late as three days prior to departure. But understandably not all visitors want to have to live with this level of uncertainty and so are making alternative arrangements now. I know that this is not good news for the Kenyan tourist industry and it will take it a long time for it to recover from this setback but in the current situation I think that we all need to be very cautious about encouraging people to continue with any plans to visit Kenya in the short term until there is clear and unambiguous evidence that the situation is not longer as volatile as it has been recently.

SM

Thanks Sma.

As you say the FCO have a duty to care for UK citiziens and we recommend that everyone travelling seek advice from them.

You will find more information HERE

Kath HT Admin