Africa Budget and Regrets

[Tater]

I’m never going to Africa, but if I did it would 100% be to a place that had a monkey infestation. I would be perfectly content to spend the entire week killing monkeys. Nothing but monkeys. The only limitation to the number of monkeys I would kill would be bullet availability.

Had to get that off my chest. Now I’m going back to finish reading.

[Sportin' Woodies]

Just borrow bullets from a child soldier

[Tater]

I was planning on using them for bait, so that would work out well.

[lil 2 sleepy]

This is a very well written and thoughtful post. Africa can be done for less than $10k, or for $150k. You have to prioritize what you want out of the experience.

Research, research, research and you'll find what you want.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that shipping,import, storage fee is not gonna be pretty. My shipment and everything imported was $4k and I didn’t have mounted trophies.

[Tater]

This is a very well written and thoughtful post. Africa can be done for less than $10k, or for $150k. You have to prioritize what you want out of the experience.

Research, research, research and you'll find what you want.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that shipping,import, storage fee is not gonna be pretty. My shipment and everything imported was $4k and I didn’t have mounted trophies.

If I got home from Africa and some sumbitch had shipped a monkey to my house I would be making a return trip.

[PharmHunter]

Great info, thanks.

[Rubberhead*]

I wouldn't have pegged you for someone bucket listing for an Africa trip, but after seeing your breakdown, logistics, and reflection, it makes perfect sense. Sounds like a good trip.

It's odd but I've read about Africa since I was a kid. In the real world, I was pretty much only interested in birds and fish and deer in South Carolina. I can hardly stomach to read about someone else deer hunting or duck hunting and someone else fishing is even more uninteresting. It seems a waste and a bother to digest something someone else wrote about living a life that was available just outside my own door. But Africa...it was like pure science fiction - glorious and wonderful and unattainable. Africa was safe because it didn't have to compete with my own notions of what it was actually like. I could read about Africa without feeling like I was wasting my own life by not enjoying what I had. Then work forced me to get a passport and I thought what the heck...

The big risk was being disappointed. Let's face it, most of Africa hunting now is pretty canned. It's an industry. I ran the risk of damaging my own highly held perceptions of what Africa was like. But, that didn't happen. These companies are good enough at replicating the "Hemingway" experience that nothing was disappointing and I mean nothing. White hunter with the African accent. Native trackers and skinners quick to laugh while enjoying a real life that an urban Starbucks Sucker can't comprehend. A fire pit nestled in a boma. If it was a facade, please don't tell me because it was, literally, perfected. I've just about talked myself into booking another trip.

[wskinner]

You’ve talked me into it.