Culture

  • On the puszta, men still ride standing on five horses

    On the puszta, men still ride standing on five horses

    On Hortobágy, Europe’s last great steppe, a way of life persists that exists nowhere else on the continent. The csikós riders in their deep blue shirts, the grey Hungarian cattle with horns wide enough to span five feet, and the racka sheep with their spiralling corkscrew horns — all of it is still here, not as a museum exhibit, but as ordinary work.

    Nature · Hungary

    It is half past seven on an October morning, and I am standing on the Nine-Holed Bridge in Hortobágy. In front of me the puszta stretches out, flat and infinite, until sky meets grass with not a single tree on which to rest the eye. A single rider appears in the distance — first a dark dot, then a silhouette in deep blue shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. He is moving a herd of grey cattle towards a gémeskút, one of the traditional shadoof wells still in use on the plain. It is not a performance. It is his work.

    Europe’s last real steppe

    Hortobágy National Park sits in eastern Hungary, between the Tisza river and the city of Debrecen, and covers 800 square kilometres. It is Hungary’s first national park — established in 1973 — and since 1999 a UNESCO World Heritage site, classified as a “cultural landscape”. It is Europe’s largest semi-natural grassland and the westernmost reach of the 8,000-kilometre Eurasian steppe that runs all the way to eastern China.

    That matters for how you experience the place. When you stand on the puszta, you are in the same kind of landscape that pastoral peoples have moved through for more than four thousand years. UNESCO inscribed the area not because it is untouched nature — it isn’t — but because it is a working cultural landscape, where humans and animals have lived together so long that their way of doing things is part of the land itself.

    It is a rare classification. It says: this is not wilderness, but neither is it agriculture. It is something third, older, and almost gone from Europe. Only here, on certain Spanish dehesa lands and Romanian mountain steppes, does anything similar still exist.

    The men in blue

    Csikós is the Hungarian word for horse-herders — the men who have traditionally watched over the horse herds on the puszta. Their uniform is not a tourist construction: it is working dress that took its form over centuries. The deep blue shirt and loose blue trousers, the black velvet waistcoat, the wide-brimmed hat with a crane feather in the band — all functional, all from the landscape they work in.

    The most famous riding feat is the Puszta Five. A horseman stands upright on the backs of two rear horses while driving three lead horses ahead of him — five horses, one man, no reins, only voice and whip. It was developed in the nineteenth century, but its origin is the so-called betyár tradition: the highwaymen who lay flat with their horses on the plain to evade the gendarmerie. When you lie flat in tall grass on a flat puszta, you are quite literally invisible.

    Today the Puszta Five has become a performance, but the technique is the same. And when you watch it done by a rider who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, you feel the difference between an act and an inheritance.

    Animals that almost disappeared

    Hortobágy is home to four breeds, each of which came close to extinction in the twentieth century, and each of which is preserved here by deliberate choice.

    The Hungarian Grey Cattle — szürke marha — is an ancient breed with horns spanning up to a metre and a half, and a silver-grey coat that makes them look like ghosts in the morning mist. They were near extinction in the 1960s; today the herd is over 30,000. They gave the world the word for Hungarian goulash — gulyás means cattle herder.

    Racka sheep are Hortobágy’s other emblem: small, white, with striking spiralling horns that twist upwards like corkscrews. The Nonius horse, originally bred for the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, is now primarily a working horse for the csikós. And finally: the Przewalski’s horse, the only truly wild horse species in the world, was reintroduced here in the 1990s. About 25 animals live freely in a fenced area of the park.

    It is these four animals — the cattle, the sheep, the working horse and the wild horse — that make Hortobágy more than a nature reserve. It is a living catalogue of breeds that ordinary agriculture pushed out long ago.

    The Nine-Holed Bridge and the eighteenth century

    In the middle of the park, where the road between Debrecen and Budapest crosses the small Hortobágy river, sits Kilenclyukú híd — the Nine-Holed Bridge. Built in 1827–1833, it is Hungary’s longest stone road bridge of the nineteenth century, with nine arches mirrored in the still water of the river below. It is one of the most photographed motifs in all of Hungary — and a fully functional piece of infrastructure that cattle are still driven across on market days.

    Right beside it stands Hortobágyi Csárda, an inn from 1781 where salt caravans paused on their way from Transylvania to Vienna. Today it is still a working tavern serving Hungarian goulash, slambuc (a shepherd’s dish of potatoes and bacon cooked in a single pot) and pörkölt. It is not a gourmet experience. It is an experience of what the puszta has eaten for two hundred years.

    The quiet of the morning, the birds of autumn

    Hortobágy is one of Europe’s most important areas for migratory birds. More than 340 bird species are recorded here, and every autumn — particularly from September to November — up to 100,000 cranes gather in the park’s shallow lakes on their way south. It is a sound so distinctive that locals still rise in the dark to witness the arrival. Trumpet-like calls from thousands of birds settling on the water at dusk.

    The bird season is one of three real reasons to plan a journey to Hortobágy. The other two are spring’s birthing season, when the grey calves are released onto the plain, and the annual Hídi vásár — the bridge market — in August, when the puszta’s herders bring their animals to town in a tradition unbroken since the Middle Ages.

    Where to stay

    Hortobágy is not a place of large hotels, and that is part of the point. Hortobágyi Pásztormúzeum Vendégház in Hortobágy village itself is a small guesthouse run by a family with csikós ancestry, where you can be shown around by people whose grandfather rode horses on these fields. Epona Lovas Hotel in Máta, next to the main stud farm, is built specifically for horse-minded guests — rooms overlook the paddock, and riding programmes cater to both beginners and experienced riders.

    For those who want a little more comfort and a working city next door, Aquaticum Hotel in Debrecen, forty minutes away, is a good choice. Debrecen is Hungary’s second city, has one of the country’s best university atmospheres, and combines well with day trips into the puszta.

    Avoid

    The short bus excursion from Budapest with fifty other passengers and ninety minutes on the puszta before being driven back. The puszta only works when you give it a full day — preferably two. The light at dawn and dusk is what makes the place extraordinary; midday in July is just a flat landscape in 35-degree heat.

    Skip high summer in general if you can. May–June and September–October are the right seasons. Spring for new animals and flowers, autumn for the migratory birds and the deep golden light.

    And finally: don’t treat the csikós shows at the Máta stud farm as the main event of the trip. They are good, but the real life of the puszta happens outside the performances. Book a private carriage ride or an outing with a local csikós, and you’ll come much closer to what you came for.

    Arrivals from the Nordic capitals

    TravelTalk is a Nordic publication. Here is how Nordic readers reach Hortobágy.

    From Copenhagen: Direct to Budapest with Wizz Air, Ryanair and LOT, around 2 hours. From Budapest it is a two-hour drive to Hortobágy along the motorway towards Debrecen. Train from Budapest Keleti to Hortobágy via Füzesabony takes about three hours.

    From Oslo: Direct to Budapest with Norwegian and Wizz Air, around 2 hours 30 minutes. Norwegian travellers may notice that Hortobágy’s flat landscape is the absolute opposite of Norwegian nature — and precisely for that reason, an experience that lingers.

    From Stockholm: Direct to Budapest with SAS, Wizz Air and Ryanair, around 2 hours 15 minutes. Sweden has a long tradition of horse breeding and equestrian culture, and Hortobágy gives Swedish travellers a rare chance to encounter a European horse tradition fundamentally different from the Nordic one.

    From Helsinki: Direct to Budapest with Wizz Air and Finnair, around 2 hours 30 minutes. For Finnish travellers there is a linguistic curiosity worth noting: Hungarian and Finnish are distant relatives in the Finno-Ugric language family. Many Hungarian words sound oddly familiar to Finnish ears — not enough to understand, but enough to notice.

    Local transport: A rental car is the best solution. The puszta is large, and distances matter. Hertz and Sixt have desks at Debrecen airport (DEB), which has seasonal flights from several European cities.

    Factbox: practical Hortobágy

    Season: May–June for green plains and births. September–November for migratory birds and the golden autumn light. August for the Hídi vásár market at the Nine-Holed Bridge. Avoid July and the first half of August — the heat is too hard, and the light is flat.

    Language: English at the better hotels and tourist facilities. Hungarian is not easy to pick up on the fly, but even a “köszönöm” (thank you) is met with warmth.

    Currency: Hungarian forint (HUF). Check current rates when planning — it has been volatile in recent years.

    Hotels mentioned: Hortobágyi Pásztormúzeum Vendégház (Hortobágy village). Epona Lovas Hotel (Máta). Aquaticum Hotel (Debrecen).

    Máta Stud Farm: Tours daily from spring to autumn. Horse shows at 10am and 2pm. Book at the entrance or online.

    Hortobágy National Park visitor centre: Petőfi tér 9, Hortobágy. The best overview of the entire area, and the place to arrange private tours with csikós guides.

    More good ideas for the best time of all — your free time

    This article is for: Nature · Culture · Hungary · Central Europe · UNESCO · Horses · Pastoral heritage · Slow travel

    © 2026 TravelTalk.travel / Leisure Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved.

  • The Africa Myth: Why One Continent is Fifty-Four Distinct Journeys

    The Africa Myth: Why One Continent is Fifty-Four Distinct Journeys

    Most travel writing falls into a familiar trap: it treats Africa as a monolith. But to look at the map and see a single destination is to miss the point entirely. Africa is fifty-four sovereign nations, each defined by its own culinary syntax, ancient languages, and distinct travel logic. A morning in a Moroccan riad bears no more resemblance to a trek through Mozambique than a winter in Norway does to a summer in Greece.

    In northern Botswana, the nuances are even finer. Out on the sun-baked tracks of the dry season, my guide, Mokgweetsi, points to a depression in the sand. “Lion, female, two days old,” he says, with the casual certainty of a Copenhagener noting the morning post. Above us, a trio of giraffes grazes on the acacia canopy, indifferent to our presence. Here, the silence is enormous, and the horizon hides the Okavango—the world’s only inland delta that never finds the sea. To understand this complex destination, you must first understand that it is not a place you visit, but a collection of worlds you discover one by one.

    Three thousand kilometres north, in the medina of Fez, a man named Driss teaches me how to distinguish genuine vegetable-tanned leather from the chemical version by smell. Five thousand kilometres east, in Lalibela, Ethiopia, families descend into churches carved directly from solid rock in the twelfth century. None of these places feels remotely similar. They are Botswana, Morocco and Ethiopia — countries that share a continent in much the same way Sweden, Spain and Russia share Europe: geographically connected, but culturally, historically and linguistically very different.

    The number that matters

    There are fifty-four sovereign countries here, all recognized by the United Nations. Counting Western Sahara and Somaliland — both functioning as states without full international recognition — you can stretch the figure to fifty-six. Add the eight inhabited islands and territories administered by non-African countries (Réunion is French, the Canaries are Spanish, and so on) and you reach roughly sixty distinct travel jurisdictions on a single continent.

    This matters because most people, including most travel writers, default to thinking of Africa as a few well-known places: Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco. Those four countries do receive most of the international tourism, and we will write extensively about each of them. But the more interesting story for the next decade is the rest of the continent — the Senegal, the Namibia, the Rwanda, the Mozambique, the São Tomé. Countries that have built or are building genuinely world-class travel offerings while the popular imagination still hasn’t caught up.

    Five regions, five travel logics

    The continent divides geographically into five regions, and for travel planning purposes the divisions are useful even if they’re imperfect. North Africa — Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt — is Mediterranean, Arabic-speaking, with strong colonial-era European tourism infrastructure and the closest connection to Nordic capitals (under five hours’ flight, often direct). West Africa — Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde and others — is the cultural and musical heart of the continent, increasingly visited but still underwritten about, with a coastline that produced both the Atlantic slave trade’s worst chapters and some of the world’s most distinctive contemporary art and music.

    Central Africa — Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic — is the rainforest belt, home to mountain gorillas, forest elephants and the second-largest tropical forest in the world. It is the hardest region to travel for non-specialists and also the most ecologically important. East Africa — Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia — is what most international travellers picture when they hear “Africa”: the Great Rift Valley, the savannas, the migration of two million wildebeest, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the highland coffee culture of Ethiopia. Southern Africa — South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique — is the contemporary luxury-travel heartland, where the new generation of conservation-led lodges has rewritten what an African safari can be.

    Each region works on different logic. North is a long-weekend destination if you want it to be. East is a structured journey, usually two weeks minimum. Southern rewards slow travel and high investment. Central is for people who already know what they’re doing. West is for cultural travellers who don’t need wildlife as the centrepiece. Knowing which region matches your own appetite is the first decision. Choosing the country comes second.

    A different kind of luxury travel

    Over the past fifteen years, luxury travel across parts of Africa has evolved significantly. Countries such as Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda now offer some of the world’s most refined safari and conservation-focused travel experiences.

    Operators such as Wilderness, Singita, andBeyond, Asilia Africa and Great Plains Conservation have helped shape a safari model where wildlife experiences, conservation work and high-end hospitality are closely connected.

    The price level reflects that development. A premium safari in Botswana can now rival the cost of luxury island destinations such as the Maldives, but many travellers are increasingly drawn to the depth of the experience itself — from expert guiding to close contact with landscapes and wildlife that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.

    The questions everyone asks first

    Is it safe? The honest answer: it depends entirely on which country and which region within that country, and the variation is enormous. Senegal is safer than parts of Paris. Northern Mali is not safe. Most travellers’ actual statistical risk in tourist-frequented areas of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia is comparable to or lower than risk in many European cities. The Nordic foreign ministries (Udenrigsministeriet, Utenriksdepartementet, UD, UM) maintain country-by-country travel advisories that are genuinely useful — check them before booking, not after.

    Is it ethical to fly there? The honest answer: long-haul travel has a real carbon cost, and that is true whether the destination is Cape Town or Sydney or Tokyo. What’s distinctive about African luxury travel is that the conservation funding model means a meaningful share of your spend goes back into landscape protection — in some lodge networks, more than 50 per cent. If you fly anywhere long-haul, Africa is one of the more defensible places to fly. If you fly nowhere long-haul, that’s a different and equally defensible position.

    Do I need a tour operator? For Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and parts of South Africa: no. Self-organised travel is well-supported. For Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia: usually yes — not because you couldn’t manage it alone, but because the cost differential is small and the access is meaningfully better through a serious specialist. For West and Central: a specialist operator is generally required for first-time visitors.

    When to go where

    Africa’s vastness means there is always somewhere with the right season. North Africa is at its best from October to April. The East African safari season runs roughly June to October (dry, easier game viewing) with a secondary green season in February and March. Southern Africa’s safari prime time is May to October. The Indian Ocean islands — Mauritius, Seychelles, Zanzibar, Madagascar — have year-round travel weather but avoid the cyclone risk window of January–March. Mediterranean Africa avoids July and August (too hot, too crowded). The Sahel and West African coast are most pleasant from November to February.

    If you want one rule of thumb: when Europe is grim, somewhere in Africa is at its best. When Europe is glorious, somewhere in here is also at its best. The continent doesn’t really have an off-season; it has fifty-four parallel calendars.

    What to avoid

    One of the most common mistakes is trying to cover too much ground in a single trip. The distances are enormous, and the experience changes dramatically from one region to another. It often makes far more sense to focus on one country — or perhaps two neighboring destinations that naturally connect, such as Kenya and Tanzania or Zambia and Zimbabwe.

    Travellers who slow down usually come away with a far deeper understanding of the places they visit, rather than simply collecting airports, lodges and photographs.

    The same applies when choosing tour operators. The strongest specialists tend to focus deeply on a handful of destinations rather than trying to sell every possible itinerary across the continent. Local knowledge, guiding quality and regional expertise often make the biggest difference to the experience.

    And perhaps most importantly, travel here rewards curiosity and openness. Every country, city and region has its own rhythm, history and ambitions — and the best journeys usually begin by leaving broad assumptions behind.

    Arrivals from the Nordic capitals

    TravelTalk is a Nordic publication. Here is how Nordic readers reach Africa’s main hubs.

    From Copenhagen: Direct flights to Cairo (CAI) with EgyptAir, around 4 hours 45 minutes. Direct to Casablanca (CMN) with Royal Air Maroc seasonally, around 4 hours 30 minutes. Most other African destinations route via Doha (Qatar Airways), Dubai (Emirates), Istanbul (Turkish Airlines), Frankfurt (Lufthansa), Amsterdam (KLM) or Paris (Air France). Total journey time to East and South: 12–15 hours including connection.

    From Oslo: Similar routing structure, with Norwegian carriers connecting via European hubs. Direct charter flights to Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt operate seasonally. SAS and Norwegian connect to most major European hubs daily.

    From Stockholm: Air Cairo runs seasonal direct flights to Cairo. SAS and the major European carriers connect Stockholm to all African hubs via European hubs. Sweden has an unusually strong specialist tour operator scene for Africa — Halal Resor, Albatros Resor, Globetrotter and several others.

    From Helsinki: Finnair has reduced its African network in recent years. Most journeys route via Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Doha. Despite the longer total journey, Finnish travellers have a particular affinity for the African landscape — the relationship between vast open space and silence translates with surprisingly little adjustment from the Finnish wilderness.

    The four hub airports: Cairo (CAI) for North; Casablanca (CMN) for Morocco and West; Nairobi (NBO) for East Africa; Johannesburg (JNB) for Southern Africa. Addis Ababa (ADD) is the rising fifth hub, with Ethiopian Airlines now flying to more African destinations than any other carrier on the continent.

    Where to start

    If this is your first time visiting, the country that consistently rewards first-timers most is South Africa. The infrastructure is world-class, the language barrier is minimal (English is one of eleven official languages), the experiences range from urban culture to wine country to safari to coastline, and the cost spectrum is wide enough to suit most budgets.

    If you’re after the iconic safari image — the savannas, the migration, the predator density — choose Kenya or Tanzania. If you want luxury wilderness with the lowest visitor numbers, Botswana is unmatched. If you want cultural immersion before wildlife, Morocco or Ethiopia. If you want an island that happens to be African, Mauritius or Zanzibar. If you want the unknown story, Namibia or Senegal.

    Each of these countries deserves its own deep treatment, and over the next year TravelTalk will be publishing detailed country-by-country guides. Bookmark this page, and let us write the rest.

    Factbox: practical Africa

    Sovereign countries: 54 (UN-recognised). 56 if Western Sahara and Somaliland are counted.

    Population: Approximately 1.55 billion (2026), making Africa the second most populous continent after Asia.

    Largest country by area: Algeria. Largest by population: Nigeria. Smallest: Seychelles (115 islands).

    Most-visited countries: Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya, Tanzania.

    UNESCO World Heritage sites in Africa: Over 100, ranging from the Pyramids of Giza to Hortobágy-equivalent cultural landscapes like Ethiopia’s Lalibela rock-hewn churches and the Hortobágy-equivalent steppe ecosystems of Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

    Visa requirements: Vary widely by country. Many North African and East African countries offer e-visa or visa-on-arrival for Nordic passport holders. Always confirm with the destination country’s official source before booking.

    Vaccinations: Yellow fever certification is required for entry to or transit through several African countries. Consult a travel medicine clinic at least 6–8 weeks before departure.

    More good ideas for the best time of all — your free time

    This article is for: Africa · Travel guide · Safari · Culture

    © 2026 TravelTalk.travel / Leisure Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved.