If you're like most Americans, your perceptions of traveling the African continent might be somewhat limited.
Sure, photographing the Big Five-lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino-on a game safari is probably on your travel to do list. Wine tasting in South Africa must surely appear on that list as would visiting the pyramids in Egypt and a trip to the Victoria Falls.
Beyond that, however, Africa is a vast and often misunderstood land.
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My own conversations with Ethiopian tour operators and the newly minted tourism board at a recent meeting in Los Angeles cemented exactly how much I did not know. And that's just for one country in a continent that's big enough to hold the United States, China, India and most of Europe with room to spare. (If you haven't seen the famed map designed by Kai Krause, be sure to check it out now.)
With the advent of social media, however, there's really no longer an excuse for the veil of ignorance where Africa is concerned. Plenty of influencers are opening the world's eyes to Africa's diverse history and rich cultural offerings.
Not sure who to follow? An article in Quartz Africa, a news outlet built primarily for mobile consumers, has introduced several social media influencers who are striving to shine a light on Africa as a home to many worthy tourism destinations. Among Quartz' favorites:
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Visiter L'Afrique
For Diane Audrey Ngako, the founder of Visiter L'Afrique, social media was a way to counter Western perceptions of Africa as a place of "famine and wars." Ngako, who holds a coveted position on Forbes Africa's 30 under 30 list now has an Instagram following of more than 103,000 consumers eager to see and participate in a conversation about travel throughout the continent.
Tastemakers Africa
Tastemakers Africa founder, Cheraé Robinson is an American who spent a lot of time traveling through Africa for her career in international development. She founded her site as a response to the lack of information about the dynamic cultures in the regions she was visiting. Tastemakers Africa, which organizes trips to Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Morocco and Zanzibar, gets most of its business through the company's 38,000 Instagram followers. Robinson estimates about 70 percent of its bookings are from Americans but she is also seeing a growing number of people from Africa interested in exploring their own region.
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Hip Africa
As a travel journalist, Ruby Audi, founder of Hip Africa found that there was limited information on how to travel within and between African nations. Audi, who was born in Ghana but raised in London, hired writers in cities around the continent to cover tourism information relevant to their destination. Currently, Hip Africa, which has 3,600 Instagram followers, offers tips and practical advice for travel around the region, but Audi says she hopes to expand to offer bookings as well.
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