Why Malindi?

Why we chose Malindi as the first stop on our 7 t-shirts each journey

We gave a lot of consideration to where we wanted to go on this journey and we have been asked many times how and why we chose to go to Malindi on the Kenyan coast first.

We have been to Kenya several times for business and pleasure. We love Kenya, the people, atmosphere, landscape, cities and towns.

But, why did we hone in on Malindi?

We’ve been to Nairobi, it's lovely but too far from the sea.

We’ve seen Mombasa and it's a little busy for our first stop.

There is a beautiful little town ½ hour south of Malindi, called Watamu, it is gorgeous and we’re fortunate to have been there too.

What were we looking for?

1. We wanted a place where we could settle relatively easily.

2. Land somewhere not too hectic. Malindi has a population of 120 000 and the other option, Ho Chi Minh, has 9 million people. No comparison really.

3. Kenya is relatively inexpensive in comparison to South Africa, which we’ll be using as the point of comparison for cost of living while we’re travelling.

4. Personal safety was an important part of our initial planning and we have experienced Kenya before and knew what to expect.

5. Because …. we love Africa.

6. We’re also interested in scuba diving wherever possible and this stretch of the coast, from the Watamu Marine Park to the Malindi Marine National Park and Reserve, has some amazing sea life.

7. We’re also scouting locations to film our documentary-in-progress - Around the World in 80 Dives - so Malindi is a good place to start.

8. And, one of the important aspects of our decision was that we found accommodation that looked really good, online, and we thought staying there would be a great way to start the journey. The place ticked all of our boxes and the photos looked incredible.

We’ll talk more about the minimum requirements we have set out for the places we’re choosing to stay in during a later episode.

Malindi turned out to be the right choice for so many reasons.

AND the reality of our choice of accommodation didn’t turn out quite the way we thought it would. We arrived and within short order found 32 things that we were not happy with. Some were small and others were significant like the shower not working, more than half of the lights throughout the place not working or without bulbs, the entrance door lock was broken and more than half of the plug points didn’t work.

The biggest issue was that the WiFi was not up to scratch - despite us checking speeds with the owner and emphasising that we’re not tourists, we’re travelling workers. Fortunately we had planned for just such an eventuality and we’re equipped with two small portable WiFi devices, into which we popped Kenyan SIM cards. The data was cheap, less than half the price we’re used to in South Africa and the speeds were pretty reasonable too. Although the consistency of the speed was a different story.

Many of the larger issues were addressed. Other little inconveniences remained. For example, there was only one decent sized glass and so mugs became the holders of all drinking liquids and with no mixing bowls, pots doubled up for that purpose. A faulty door lock meant that we got rained on to get to our work space, and it rained relatively frequently.

However we decided that this journey was going to be all about our state of mind, because we knew in advance that there would be many challenges to face.

So, we decided to call this place - quirky - instead of focusing on the things it did not have and the things that do not work.

So Malindi was a wonderful starting point on the international leg of 7 t-shirts each, reaffirming that some of the words that we are using to guide our approach to our travels are: adaptability, resilience, tolerance, collaboration and communication.