Algeria - A Guide for Adventurous Travellers

By Peter Lockyer

This guide to Algeria is one of the only up to date guides in English to the largest country in Africa. This country is largely unknown by English speaking people. However, it has wonderful cities and countryside to explore. Since the bloody civil unrest in the 1990s the country is largely safe to visit. The guide contains basic information you need to visit the north of the country, and concentrates on the key cities of Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Tlemcen. There are descriptions of what to see and when to go. There are also guides to the three great Roman cities at Timgad, Djemila and Tipasa. The guide covers essential travel information about security, visas, food, and how to get around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244627782

Book preview

Algeria - A Guide for Adventurous Travellers

ALGERIA

A TRAVEL GUIDE FOR ADVENTUROUS TRAVELLERS

Peter Lockyer

Copyright © 2017 Peter Lockyer

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017

ISBN 978-0-244-62778-2

https://differenthistoryblog.wordpress.com/

Introduction

Why on earth do you want to visit Algeria? Isn’t it a bit of a dodgy place to go to? This was the typical question I was asked when I told friends where I was going.

But did you know that it’s the largest country in Africa, that it’s much less in debt than either the UK or America, and has some of the best-preserved Roman cities in the world? Or that Algerian chefs have just been voted the best pastry cooks in Africa in the prestigious French Patisserie World Cup competition for 2017?

Algeria had a deservedly bad reputation for danger and violence during the years of the terrible ‘décennie noire’ (black decade) of civil unrest in the 1990s. It really was not a country that was safe to visit then. However, things are very different today and around 3 million tourists visit the country each year, mainly from French speaking countries.

If you visit Algeria as an English-speaking person, you will be coming to a country that very few of your friends or colleagues have ever visited. You will often have wonderful places to visit all to yourself. You will also have some great stories to tell when you get home, quite different from the same old stories you can hear about more familiar holiday destinations.

So here are some of the benefits of getting to know about Algeria and its history and culture.

Algeria in numbers

So who am I and why am I writing this book? I have a degree in History from Oxford University, and have been interested in both French and Islamic History for years. So hopefully you will find this book well written and researched.

Why am I writing this book needs a bit more explanation. There are a couple of good French language guidebooks on Algeria to assist the three million or so French-speaking visitors who come to Algeria each year. However, there is currently no up to date guidebook on Algeria in English. The last major one (Lonely Planet) was published in 2007 and is now out of print. Yet English-speaking people are beginning to visit Algeria in growing numbers. An up to date book is needed to help the potential visitors to Algeria who I believe will really enjoy visiting this exciting country.

What I’m trying to achieve with this book is to give a short and inexpensive guide to visiting Algeria for adventurous people who are interested in going there, aren’t afraid of a bit of discomfort, but don’t want to take crazy risks. It’s aimed at people who are already seriously interested in visiting the country, and aims to be more of a practical guide than a coffee-table type book. It should contain pretty much everything you need to plan and enjoy a visit to the north of the country. I’ve based it on my own reading and research, along with material I gathered on a visit to Algeria in April and May 2017. The book is entirely self-funded, and I don’t have a big team of researchers or authors to help me. That means it doesn’t contain the long list of hotels and other details that you would find in a Lonely Planet type guidebook costing four times as much. In any case, if luxury hotels are what you are after, most of us are quite used to finding out all about them on the Internet.

What I have written is a very personal account of a country I have grown to love, and that is the ‘conscious bias’ of my book. Much of what I saw and experienced thrilled me. However, there were inevitably annoyances and frustrations as with visiting any country, and you will see this reflected there.

My plan is to write an updated and longer version of this book with more background content, pictures, and maps that will be more expensive. So thank you for buying this book. It will help finance my further writing on Algeria, and help lots of other people to visit this wonderful country.

Chapter 1: Basic Travel Information

Getting to Algeria

Getting to Algeria is very easy and belies its unjustified reputation for being a tricky and dangerous destination. You can get direct flights with British Airways from Gatwick Airport for around £250. There are plenty of other routes and prices available. Just check out Skyscanner or one of the many other price comparison websites.

Most people start their visit to Algeria in Algiers. This is a good choice as the airport in Algiers is well run, and offers a gentle introduction to this huge country if you have never been there before. An alternative is to fly to Oran.

A more romantic though more expensive way to travel out there would be by land and sea. It’s perfectly possible to take a train to Marseille and then get one of the comfortable ferries that sail regularly to Algeria. The ferry will cost you at least £200 including a cabin, though flights to Marseille can be had for as little as £35 return on Ryanair, which is much cheaper than the train. The advantage of building in a sea crossing is that you will see beautiful Algiers from the sea, something that still fills elderly French people who lived there with nostalgia. You can check out the best deals at one of the ferry price comparison sites e.g. www.directferries.co.uk

When to go

Algeria is a year-round destination. However, many foreigners will find the climate from July to mid-September very hot. Also, this is the peak season for expatriate Algerians to visit their relatives and enjoy a seaside holiday. Hotels in the height of summer are often completely booked out.

I found that visiting Algeria in April and May was perfect. The climate was balmy making sight-seeing very comfortable.

The months of November through to February are not the best time to visit the north, as the weather in the north can be very cold and snowy in the interior.  It’s also the time for heavy rain.

I don’t cover the Sahara in this edition, but locals told me that December and January are good months to go there.

How long should you visit for?

Algeria is quick to travel to from the UK, but the cost of the flight and the visa means that only those in a hurry or on business will want to stay for less than a week, which makes the trip worthwhile.

So here are some suggested timeframes and tours for the areas covered in this guide:

1-Week Visit

One week is perfect for exploring what the capital Algiers has to offer, along with a visit to the Roman remains at Tipasa.

2-Week Visit

In two weeks, you can do all the above. You could also visit the west of Algeria, especially Oran and Tlemcen.

3-Week Visit

In three weeks you can visit everything listed in this guide.

Visas

Getting visas to visit Algeria is not always easy, and is expensive. There are plenty of stories around of people who decided to download the application form from the Algerian consulate in London and who have had visa applications rejected. I invested in the services of one of the many visa agencies in London. It was money well spent. The agency I used (just around the corner from Warren Street Tube station in London) is Scott’s Visas, 141 Whitfield Street, London, W1T 5EW, www.scottsvisas.co.uk. They got my visa without any problem in two weeks. Please note that I am not receiving commission for this recommendation and it’s