Africa: Unplugged

As an associate editor of South Africa's Getaway magazine, Robyn Keene-Young landed a dream assignment: a journey through six distinctive African ecosystems to document each environment and its inhabitants. She began where many first time visitors to Africa begin, in a safari vehicle in the grasslands of the Serengeti. But she knew almost immediately that this was not the way to see the rest of this extraordinary continent. She needed to get out of the car and stretch her legs, to feel the earth underfoot and the sun on her back, to pack Band-Aids and anti-inflammatories and experience the African wilderness unplugged, in 3D.


And so, Africa: Unplugged chronicles Keene-Young’s adventures on the continent under her own steam. Written in her inimitable, honest – often humorous, always insightful – style, Keene-Young traipses Uganda’s Bwindi rainforest in search of gorillas; snorkels Botswana’s Okavango Delta and canoes Zimbabwe’s Zambezi River at the mercy of hippos and crocodiles. She gets on her belly with the beetles and lizards of Namibia’s Namib Desert, before hiking up Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain to bend down and smell the fynbos.


Each chapter showcases both the delights and trials of her travels to her destination, as well as her sojourn in each unique ecosystem. The pages of Africa: Unplugged are a journey like no other.