Transport options are a particular feature, including long-distance connections to neighbouring countries, river trips on the River Niger, and camel trekking in the Massif de lAïr and Tènèrè desert regions, home to the nomadic Tuareg people. This guide covers both ends of the developing travel market for Niger: upmarket travellers looking for background information as a supplement to a tour, and budget explorers with a need to know all the practicalities. 288pp, 25 maps, UK. BRADT PUBLICATIONS.

In the summer of 1795 a 24-year-old Scot began one of the most extraordinary journeys of exploration in West Africa. Tackling fever, starvation, wild beasts and curious indigenes, Mungo Park soldiered on to his prize, the Niger, finally proving that the great river flowed to the east. The young explorer returned home a hero, his journal an instant bestseller. Over 200 years after this ground-breaking trip, Tom Fremantle, long been inspired by Park, decided to follow in his doughty hero's wake. And so with a dugout canoe, a slothful ox, a donkey called Che and various motorised jalopies, began his own haphazard trail down the Niger. En route he visits Timbuktu and Dogon country. His journey ends in the heart of Nigeria where Mungo Park lost his life on an ill-fated return expedition to Africa. B/w photos, 313pp, UK. ROBINSON.