Prince Harry, Meghan confirm trip to Africa this fall, and prepare to bring Archie too
Prince Harry and Meghan have confirmed their long-rumored plan to visit Africa this fall, and seemed to confirm they will bring their son, Archie, with them too.
Harry and Meghan's Instagram account @SussexRoyal shared details of the trip for the first time with a post Thursday.
The post's last line, "This will be their first official tour as a family!," caught royal watchers' eyes as it implies they will be traveling with Archie, who was born on May 6.
Archie will be one of the youngest royals to travel on an official trip overseas. Harry and Meghan's first child could be anywhere from four to six months old on the trip, which the royals only said would take place "this autumn."
Both Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will visit South Africa on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, according to Buckingham Palace.
The palace confirmed that Harry will also visit Malawi and Angola at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and will also undertake a "working visit" to Botswana.
"The Duke and Duchess are really looking forward to meeting so many of you on the ground and continuing to raise awareness of the high impact work local communities are doing across the commonwealth and beyond," the palace stated on Instagram.
The palace's announcement of Harry and Meghan's tour was preempted somewhat Wednesday when an official in South Africa confirmed they would visit while delivering remarks at a reception in Pretoria, South Africa, for Queen Elizabeth II's birthday.
"That's great news for us," said Nigel Casey, the British High Commissioner to South Africa. "I predict it's also good news for the South African economy because I predict a hat and frock-buying frenzy ... which could well restore economic growth all on its own."
Meghan, 37, was named in March as vice president of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust, an organization that supports and connects young leaders in the Commonwealth, which includes countries in Africa. Harry, 34, was named Commonwealth Youth Ambassador last year by Queen Elizabeth.
Africa is also close to both Harry and Meghan's hearts.
It's where Harry whisked Meghan away a few weeks after the couple's first date in 2017.
"I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana and we camped out with each other under the stars," Harry said in a post-engagement interview last year. "She came and joined me for five days out there, which was absolutely fantastic, so then we were really by ourselves, which I think was crucial to me to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other."
Harry, who established his charity, Sentebale, in the African country of Lesotho in 2006, also included a piece of Botswana in Meghan's engagement ring. The main stone in Meghan's ring is sourced from Botswana, while the diamonds surrounding it are from the jewelry collection of Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana.
Harry has also said in previous interviews that Botswana will always have sentimental value to him because Africa is where he and Prince Charles and Prince William went to "get away from it all" after Diana's death in 1997.
The tour of Africa this fall will be Harry and Meghan's first major overseas tour since shortly after their wedding, when they completed a 16-day tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. It was at the start of that tour that Kensington Palace announced Meghan was pregnant with their first child.
