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The East Africa Tourist Visa covers Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda together as one visa bloc — it does not include Tanzania, a very common assumption error. Once you leave that visa bloc to cross into Tanzania, the permit doesn't cover re-entry. The practical routing is Uganda first, then Tanzania and Zanzibar — not back-and-forth between the two. Sequencing this correctly is the single biggest cost-saving decision on this combo, on top of everything already covered on the visa-costs page.
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Had a flight delayed, cancelled, or denied boarding on this trip — even in the past? Under EU261, an EU-departing flight delayed 3+ hours, cancelled, or overbooked can be worth €250–600 in compensation, and most member states let you claim for years afterward. Compensair checks your flight for free and files the claim for you — they take 30% of whatever you're awarded, plus a further 10% if the airline forces it to court, so you only pay out of the compensation itself.
On this combo, the claimable leg is often Ethiopian (the main gateway carrier for both Entebbe and Kilimanjaro) — outside Compensair's higher-paying tiers. AirHelp is worth trying instead for that specific flight; they only take a cut if they win.
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The self-drive circuit runs one way too: Sesriem/Sossusvlei → Swakopmund → Spitzkoppe → Etosha, then the Caprivi Strip border crossing into Chobe → Savuti → Moremi, looping back to Windhoek. It's a loop rather than a strict one-way like the East Africa combo, but the route is built around that one crossing point — worth mapping out before you book accommodation night-by-night.
By contrast, this is a genuinely simple add-on: direct flights connect Johannesburg or Cape Town to Livingstone (Zambia) or Victoria Falls town (Zimbabwe), so there's no visa-bloc or routing trap to plan around — book it before or after the South Africa leg, whichever fits your itinerary.
Zimbabwe currently carries a US State Department Level 2 ("Exercise Increased Caution") advisory, driven mainly by opportunistic crime (pickpocketing, car break-ins) and, separately, a real pattern of official harassment of foreign visitors, journalists, and NGO workers — normal precautions and discretion around authorities apply, not a reason to avoid the Victoria Falls side of a trip. Tanzania currently sits a level higher, at Level 3 ("Reconsider Travel"), driven by violent crime and unpredictable civil unrest concentrated in Tanzania's cities (Dar es Salaam, Arusha) and a terrorism concern specifically in the Mtwara region near the Mozambique border — hundreds of kilometers from Kilimanjaro, the northern safari circuit, and Zanzibar, which sit outside the flagged area.
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Still worth a direct check against the current advisory before booking, since this is exactly the kind of rating that can shift.
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Multi-country tours covering these routes: browse and compare Southern and East Africa multi-country trips
Travel insurance covering the full route (confirm your policy's dates and coverage span every country on your itinerary, not just the first leg) —
Germany: HanseMerkur, no altitude or activity exclusion;
Spain: IATI for standard-risk legs, including gorilla trekking — its adventure-activity cover reaches 5,400m for trekking, comfortably clearing Bwindi's 1,200–2,600m. Kilimanjaro's summit is the one exception: at 5,895m it exceeds IATI's cap entirely, so that leg specifically needs EKTA's Extreme tier — IATI doesn't reach it, and no tier upgrade changes that;
United Kingdom: EKTA, Extreme tier for gorilla trekking/Kilimanjaro, otherwise Gold or Max+. EKTA's underwriter is a smaller, offshore-licensed name than HanseMerkur or IATI, so it's worth reading the policy wording yourself.
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