Discussion
As the PH search function doesn't work I can't find the safari thread from a year or so back.
So either this year or next I want to go on safari. I would like to combine it with a beach holiday or city break if possible 5 days beach/5 days safari??
So should I go to Cape Town + Kruger? Kenyan Beach plus Masai Mara or Tsavo? Somewhere in Tanzania?
Is it possible to book safaris yourself rather than going through travel agents? Hoping to keep costs down!
Thanks!
There's a deal on secret escapes on now but its only 2 nights in Tsavo East with a total of 4 game drives? is this enough? Will I feel I have missed out, tbh I am only going to get one chance to go as I have lots of other destinations on my must go list!!
Can I do it for £2k per person and still get reasonable hotels/camps? 4* minimum for the missus! If not it will have to be next year as I want a Cayman S!
So either this year or next I want to go on safari. I would like to combine it with a beach holiday or city break if possible 5 days beach/5 days safari??
So should I go to Cape Town + Kruger? Kenyan Beach plus Masai Mara or Tsavo? Somewhere in Tanzania?
Is it possible to book safaris yourself rather than going through travel agents? Hoping to keep costs down!
Thanks!
There's a deal on secret escapes on now but its only 2 nights in Tsavo East with a total of 4 game drives? is this enough? Will I feel I have missed out, tbh I am only going to get one chance to go as I have lots of other destinations on my must go list!!
Can I do it for £2k per person and still get reasonable hotels/camps? 4* minimum for the missus! If not it will have to be next year as I want a Cayman S!
I went to Tsavo East last year, was an amazing experience got to see lots of animals but only a few lions from afar (even got bored of seeing elephants) but some friends then went to Masai Mara and got to see leopards and lots of lions.
We stayed at Ngunti Lodge which was lovely but no swimming pool and then stayed in Watamu for the beach aspect (snorkelling is stunning there). You can easily arrange your own safari from the hotels in Watamu to Masai Mara, look on trip advisor forums for local guides.
We stayed at Ngunti Lodge which was lovely but no swimming pool and then stayed in Watamu for the beach aspect (snorkelling is stunning there). You can easily arrange your own safari from the hotels in Watamu to Masai Mara, look on trip advisor forums for local guides.
We did a 10 day trip to Tanzania in October, taking in what is known as the Northern Circuit: Tarangire NP, Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti NP. It was possibly the most incredible 10 days of my life and I cannot recommend Tanzania enough.
When we were doing our research and planning one piece of advice kept on coming back to us - drop the beach and just focus on getting the best safari you can, there are great beaches all over the world but how often do you get the chance to watch lions taking down a buffalo 10 metres away from you. Our trip cost us circa £5k for the safari plus another £1300 for the flights (2 x adults). That got us a private safari (i.e. just us and the driver/guide in the car) and some decent accomodation.
When we were doing our research and planning one piece of advice kept on coming back to us - drop the beach and just focus on getting the best safari you can, there are great beaches all over the world but how often do you get the chance to watch lions taking down a buffalo 10 metres away from you. Our trip cost us circa £5k for the safari plus another £1300 for the flights (2 x adults). That got us a private safari (i.e. just us and the driver/guide in the car) and some decent accomodation.
Rids64 said:
We did a 10 day trip to Tanzania in October, taking in what is known as the Northern Circuit: Tarangire NP, Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti NP. It was possibly the most incredible 10 days of my life and I cannot recommend Tanzania enough.
When we were doing our research and planning one piece of advice kept on coming back to us - drop the beach and just focus on getting the best safari you can, there are great beaches all over the world but how often do you get the chance to watch lions taking down a buffalo 10 metres away from you. Our trip cost us circa £5k for the safari plus another £1300 for the flights (2 x adults). That got us a private safari (i.e. just us and the driver/guide in the car) and some decent accomodation.
With which tour company?When we were doing our research and planning one piece of advice kept on coming back to us - drop the beach and just focus on getting the best safari you can, there are great beaches all over the world but how often do you get the chance to watch lions taking down a buffalo 10 metres away from you. Our trip cost us circa £5k for the safari plus another £1300 for the flights (2 x adults). That got us a private safari (i.e. just us and the driver/guide in the car) and some decent accomodation.
I would highly recommend Zambia if you want a safari that isn't saturated with tourists. We stayed at Flatdogs which is right in amongst things but still very comfortable and the food is excellent. We had elephants, giraffe, hippos and big cats wandering about and that was without leaving the camp. It's quite exciting to hear hippos walking up from the river at night and eat the grass around your tent 
We also did dawn and dusk safaris every day, including one on foot which I think is unique to Zambia.
Oh, and of course there's Victoria Falls too. There was a good thread about Zambia here a few months ago with more info if the search returns.
Sod the beach bit, you can do that anywhere
We also did dawn and dusk safaris every day, including one on foot which I think is unique to Zambia.
Oh, and of course there's Victoria Falls too. There was a good thread about Zambia here a few months ago with more info if the search returns.
Sod the beach bit, you can do that anywhere
obob said:
With which tour company?
We used Africa Travel Resource. They have a good website that goes into great detail about the lodges/camps. Tell them what you want and they will tailor a trip for you which you can then amend as much or as little as you like, we made a dozen or so changes to itineries before settling on the one that seemed right for us. Use the ATR site in conjunction with the Tanzania forum on TripAdvisor and you will get a lot of useful information.We've done Kenya for 2 weeks...
We set up camp at an all inclusive 4* in Mombasa (package). We then booked (privately) a 1x3 day safari to the Maasai Mara and 1x2 Day in Tsavo east. Effectively 'wasting' 5 days of our all inclusive, but even doing this saved us a fair bit of money and gave us somewhere to leave the majority of our clothes and stuff.
On the flip side, I booked completely independently a trip to Tanzania.
We flew to Nairobi, got a mini-bus over the border to arusha. then had another private safari through Tarangire, Serengeti, NG Crater and Lake Manyara, we then flew from Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar! and had a week there, before flying back (via Mombasa and Nairobi!!) to the UK.
Logistically it was a frickin nightmare, with each leg of the journey hanging on a fine thread to the previous leg... if 'anything' had gone wrong we'd have been stuffed! luckily though it all worked out (and we saved about a grand (out of 6).
What would I do? well, the first option was least hassle and worked well... but we're in the process of heading to do a tiger safari and I am weighing up the book it yourself option again (purely to save money).
I will say though, don't discount a nice beach break at the end, safari's are pretty heavy going and you'll certainly appreciate a rest at the end. Our Tanzania trip was pretty much 2 weeks of safari'ing and I would have been dead to the world if we didn't have our Zanzibar break afterwards.
Kenya was more relaxed as we did one safari in week 1, and the second in the other, with beach time in between.
Final advice, is I would book your safari's with companies locally rather than let your tour operator do it, their margins are incredible and often use the same guys. and when I say locally, I mean get some names and emails from Trip advisor forums and email the locals from here sort everything out before you go.
We set up camp at an all inclusive 4* in Mombasa (package). We then booked (privately) a 1x3 day safari to the Maasai Mara and 1x2 Day in Tsavo east. Effectively 'wasting' 5 days of our all inclusive, but even doing this saved us a fair bit of money and gave us somewhere to leave the majority of our clothes and stuff.
On the flip side, I booked completely independently a trip to Tanzania.
We flew to Nairobi, got a mini-bus over the border to arusha. then had another private safari through Tarangire, Serengeti, NG Crater and Lake Manyara, we then flew from Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar! and had a week there, before flying back (via Mombasa and Nairobi!!) to the UK.
Logistically it was a frickin nightmare, with each leg of the journey hanging on a fine thread to the previous leg... if 'anything' had gone wrong we'd have been stuffed! luckily though it all worked out (and we saved about a grand (out of 6).
What would I do? well, the first option was least hassle and worked well... but we're in the process of heading to do a tiger safari and I am weighing up the book it yourself option again (purely to save money).
I will say though, don't discount a nice beach break at the end, safari's are pretty heavy going and you'll certainly appreciate a rest at the end. Our Tanzania trip was pretty much 2 weeks of safari'ing and I would have been dead to the world if we didn't have our Zanzibar break afterwards.
Kenya was more relaxed as we did one safari in week 1, and the second in the other, with beach time in between.
Final advice, is I would book your safari's with companies locally rather than let your tour operator do it, their margins are incredible and often use the same guys. and when I say locally, I mean get some names and emails from Trip advisor forums and email the locals from here sort everything out before you go.
I'd do a beach break at somewhere like Diani, south of Mombassa and book a safari to the Mara locally. We have some friends of friends who live over there and own Ali Baba's cave restaurant & the 40 Thieves bar on Diani beach, so have stayed in one of their rental houses before.
On our safari, we stayed at Mara Intrepids, which was excellent. We also booked a dawn balloon ride across the Mara which was, quite simply, stunning. Especially as the pilot landed the balloon on the back of the support vehicle and we then transferred to another Land Rover where we were taken for a champagne breakfast at a table laid out in the middle of nowhere. Booked locally, the whole balloon / breakfast thing was something like $200 all in for the 2 of us.
On our safari, we stayed at Mara Intrepids, which was excellent. We also booked a dawn balloon ride across the Mara which was, quite simply, stunning. Especially as the pilot landed the balloon on the back of the support vehicle and we then transferred to another Land Rover where we were taken for a champagne breakfast at a table laid out in the middle of nowhere. Booked locally, the whole balloon / breakfast thing was something like $200 all in for the 2 of us.
We did a safari last summer. Kruga, SA. Absolutely fantastic. Cold, but that's the best time to go to see the animals and not get tormented by mosis and snakes. Not the best time to combine with the beach though - it was snowing when we landed in J'Burg.
We would all do it again in a heartbeat.
Cost more than our first house did!
We would all do it again in a heartbeat.
Cost more than our first house did!
OK, gratuitous pic time 
We were in the Serengeti (Tanzania) for the tail-end of the migration... it was pretty amazing, the noise more than anything!
With regards to the tourists, we weren't at the height, so there may be more, but I did note gatherings of tourists (of which we were usually part of
)
However, more often than not we could ask our driver to find us a quiet spot and were usually rewarded with something or other... we found a watering hole which we just sat watching for well over an hour...
Usually you have to drive 'through' the animals to continue, which is also pretty amazing, certainly the zebra's were not phased and you could easily reach out and touch them (but don't!).
If you have the opportunity to time it with the migration (or part of it), then I would.
We were in the Serengeti (Tanzania) for the tail-end of the migration... it was pretty amazing, the noise more than anything!
With regards to the tourists, we weren't at the height, so there may be more, but I did note gatherings of tourists (of which we were usually part of
)However, more often than not we could ask our driver to find us a quiet spot and were usually rewarded with something or other... we found a watering hole which we just sat watching for well over an hour...
Usually you have to drive 'through' the animals to continue, which is also pretty amazing, certainly the zebra's were not phased and you could easily reach out and touch them (but don't!).
If you have the opportunity to time it with the migration (or part of it), then I would.
"OBOB" now that you have plenty of time do lots of research.Africa is a massive and wonderful place,with so many locations to choose from.It will be expensive,so get it right!a recommendation from someone is the best advert.Some of the places are so commercialised with fleets of vehicles full of
tourists.
Avoid this sort of thing!its not up close and personal with beautiful animals is it?
We have been to Masai Mara but the place we love and recommend is www.sablelodge.co.za which is a private lodge on the Mabula Reserve South Africa.We have been twice,its about 1.5hr drive from J/Burg airport.You have the place to your self,your own personal driver,so it will be just you and the bush.Sable Lodge guests have full use of all the facilities at Mabula Resort which is a few minutes drive down a bush road (more fun).Check it out,and good luck.
tourists.
Avoid this sort of thing!its not up close and personal with beautiful animals is it?
We have been to Masai Mara but the place we love and recommend is www.sablelodge.co.za which is a private lodge on the Mabula Reserve South Africa.We have been twice,its about 1.5hr drive from J/Burg airport.You have the place to your self,your own personal driver,so it will be just you and the bush.Sable Lodge guests have full use of all the facilities at Mabula Resort which is a few minutes drive down a bush road (more fun).Check it out,and good luck.
^^^ Agree with steering clear of the madding crowds. We stayed at Mara Intrepids and had our own Landy 110 and dedicated driver (who was pretty handy behind the wheel - even when he got it totally wrong cutting across the middle of a waterlogged plain to see a Cheetah stalk and kill a Gazelle, he did a beautifully executed 360 degree spin and got us there in the prime location, downwind of the animals, to watch the entire hunt). During the 5 days we were on Safari, we only ever saw 1 other vehicle, yet were often within feet of the wildlife.
obob said:
Would you go for the Migration or is it too toursity?
We decided against going for the migration, the problem is the animals don't follow a timetable so you can never be 100% certain of where they will be and when. We didn't want to then feel that we had missed out if we timed it wrong. Don't go with a list of things to tick off, just go with an open mind and marvel at the wonders that nature throws at you, whatever they may be.Regarding tourists, the Serengeti is a pretty big place - just tell your driver you want to avoid the crowds and he will take you on game drives where you feel like you have the place to yourself.
Rids64 said:
We used Africa Travel Resource.
That's who we used. The staff are very knowledgeable, helpful and know their stuff.We went in July and on their recommendation went to Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. It's a lesser know Reserve but we liked the fact it was quieter and less touristy. We were able to do the usual jeep safari (where you very rarely bump into any other jeeps), river safari and walking tours too. Out of the big 5 we saw lions, elephants, buffalo, heard leopard but unfortunately didn't see them, plus loads of other wildlife too.
High points were watching the elephants swim across the river in the evening, having a hippo go directly past our tent one night (little scary that one!), watch a hyena steal a pot from the camp kitchen, have giraffes pop up around around camp camouflaging themselves amongst the trees, seeing a pack of hyenas scrapping over the remains of a lion kill, being within 10' of lions lazing in the sun, getting taken to a special location for "sundowners", have a bull elephant stamp and bellow in protest when we got a little too close to him while in a boat. In fact the whole trip was one big highlight tbh, I'd go back tomorrow if I could!
After Selous we went to Zanzibar for a few nights then onto the island of Pemba for some diving. In hindsight although Pemba was beautiful and decadent I think we should have spent more time on safari. A truely amazing experience!
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