Jan Suhr

Jan has lived in four countries, travelled across a good chunk of Africa and come to one fairly firm conclusion: you probably don’t need to see all of it in one trip. In fact, he’d rather you didn’t. His advice is to spend longer in fewer places, skip the frantic checklist, and leave some space for Africa to throw something unexpected your way. That instinct comes from plenty of firsthand experience. Jan first came to Cape Town from Germany in 2000 to study at UCT, then stayed long enough to make South Africa home. These days he’s based in London, but keeps travelling back to the Mother City (any chance he gets!) and exploring further afield across Southern and East Africa. Add journeys through North and South America, Australia and a stint living in South Korea, and Jan can now quite happily say he’s travelled across five continents – experience that’s given him a naturally curious eye for the differences between places, cultures and ways of travelling. He’s also rather good at spotting wildlife, although he has admitted to nearly missing a group of pangolins in Hwange National Park – an important reminder, perhaps, that on safari it pays to look twice.