Book a Luxury Safari on a Budget

If you’re like many travelers, you prefer luxury vacations where you can enjoy one-of-a-kind experiences, which is exactly what you’ll get on an African safari. One of the great things about choosing a safari for your next vacation is that, with the right tips, you can easily book a luxury trips — even if you’re dealing with a tight travel budget. Find out how you can book a luxury safari on a budget so that you can enjoy a high-quality vacation at an affordable price.

Plan for the Off-Season

As with any popular travel destination, the best way to save money on your trip is traveling during the off-season. If you’re interested in a luxury trip to Africa but don’t want to break the bank, booking your holiday for the low season is the best idea.

When we talk about low and high seasons in Africa, what we’re discussing is the amount of rain. The high season is the highest time of year, which means there will be less vegetation and easier game viewing.

The low season is the greener, wetter season, and because of the increased rain, this time of year doesn’t draw as many travelers. Because there will be fewer tourists, prices will be a lot more affordable, making it easier to book luxury experiences for an excellent price. Also, while there will be thicker vegetation, you should still be able to see exotic animals on your vacation.

Choose a Self-Drive Safari

If you’re interested in going on a luxury safari on a budget, one of the most effective ways to save money is by booking a self-drive safari. Instead of booking a guided safari tour, which can get expensive, you can find an affordable rental car and drive yourself around Africa.

Before you book your self-drive safari, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. For example, the ease with which you’re able to drive yourself around depends on the country that you visit. In some countries, such as South Africa, driving yourself around should be very easy, as there are major roads that are well-maintained. In other countries, you’ll need to navigate remote, bumpy trails, which can be difficult, especially if you’ve never visited Africa before.

Work With the Right Company

Although there are several ways you can save money while booking a luxury experience for your safari, your best option is working with the right safari travel company. If you’ve never been on a safari before, booking a trip on your own can be tricky, and you may end up paying a lot more than you should.

Working with an experienced safari company means you’ll have access to the best safari activities, and you should also be able to find great deals on your trip. You can even get advice about what activities you should book and which aren’t worth the time or money.

If you’re looking for a high-end holiday, booking a luxury safari is an excellent idea. With a little preparation and the right advice, you should be able to book a trip filled with exciting experiences while staying within your budget.

 

Plan a Safari with Your Older Parents

One of the best things about being an adult is becoming friends with your parents and being able to go on vacation with them as equals. If you’ve been wanting to thank your parents for a lifetime of love and support by treating them to a vacation, then you should consider booking a once in a lifetime trip such as an African safari.
Going on a safari with your parents is an experience than none of you will ever forget, especially if you’re careful about booking your vacation. If your parents are a little older, for example, you want to make sure that you’re reserving a safari that they can enjoy safely. Here is some advice for booking a senior’s African safari where you and your older parents can create memories that will last for a lifetime.

Think About Health

Everyone needs to consider their health before booking an African safari, but this issue is especially important for older individuals. Before you book your next safari, you need to think about your parent’s health and how comfortable they are with physical activity.

For example, many older people have trouble walking for long distances, and if your parents have mobility issues, then you may want to avoid a walking safari. Avoiding safari areas with a high risk for malaria may also be a good idea, as older people can have trouble dealing with this disease.

Talk About Everyone’s Interests

Your goal when booking a senior’s African safari is to plan a vacation that both you and your parents will enjoy. Before you start making reservations, you should sit down with your parents to talk about what they’re looking for out of their vacation.

What type of vacations do your parents normally prefer? Are they the type of people who are always up for adventure, or is relaxation more their goal? Not every safari is perfect for every traveler, so you want to make sure that your trip includes a mixture of activities that will be enjoyed by both your parents and yourself.

Be Prepared for an Emergency

While everyone hopes that their vacation will go off smoothly, unexpected emergencies are a fact of life. Before you leave for your safari with your parents, you need to make sure that you have a plan in place for dealing with an emergency if one occurs.

Buying traveler’s insurance, for example, is a good idea. With the right insurance plan, you can avoid losing money if you miss your flight and will be covered if you or your parents need medical attention on your vacation.

While we’re on the subject of medical attention, you should think about going on safari near a major city if your parents have any ongoing medical issues. Traveling near a large city means you’ll have quick access to a medical facility if there is a situation that needs immediate attention. Taking the time to plan for emergencies means you’ll have a much safer, more enjoyable safari with your parents.

If you’re thinking about going on a senior’s African safari with your parents, keep this information in mind so that everyone has a great trip.

Some Simple Tips for Booking a Safari

If it’s finally time for you to go on your next vacation, you want to make sure your trip is as filled with fun as possible, which is why you should consider booking an African safari. Choosing a safari means having a truly unique vacation experience where you’re able to enjoy word-class activities and unforgettable sights.

However, if you’ve never booked a safari before, there are several factors that you need to keep in mind so that you can have the exciting holiday that you deserve. Take a look at these tips for booking a safari that will help you choose a trip that’s filled with thrilling activities you won’t find anywhere else.

Think About Your Expectations

Almost everyone has their idea of a perfect vacation, and keeping these expectations in mind is the best way to book a safari that meets your precise needs.

For example, if your primary goal on safari is seeing interesting animals, then you need to make sure that your trip includes a destination here you can see the Big Five up close and in person. On the other hand, if you prefer vacations that include physicals activities such as hiking or bungee jumping, then you need a safari that will take you to some of the best hiking spots in Africa.

Before booking a safari, you should sit down and make a list of your expectations for your trip. Once your list as finish, you can use it as a map for booking the vacation of a lifetime.

Budgeting is Key

While there are many issues that you need to factor in when you’re booking your safari, your budget is the most important. Although you want to be sure that your safari includes your most desired activities and destinations, you also want to control your costs as much as possible.

Spend a little bit of time thinking about how much money you’re willing to spend on your safari. Once you have a rock-solid budget in place, you should talk with a safari expert to decide which activities are within your spending limit. Even if you’re working on a tight budget, you should be able to go on a safari that’s filled with outstanding activities and locations.

Choosing Travel Time and Partners

Another important factor to consider before you book your trip is what time of year you’ll travel. The time of year you go on safari will impact your prices, your activities, and the crowds you’ll encounter. The weather is great throughout the year in Africa, but if you want lower prices and thinner crowds, you should pick your trip for the low season.

You also need to decide if you’re going to travel by yourself or with a companion. Traveling with someone else can guarantee you have someone to share your safari experience and that you’ll be able to reminisce after the trip is over. On the other hand, traveling by yourself means you’ll never have to debate what activities to choose.

If you make sure to consider these important factors, booking a safari should be quick and easy, and will guarantee you a fantastic vacation.

What to Expect on a Game Drive During Your African Safari Tour

When people think of an “African safari tour,” they are typically thinking of game drives. Parks like Kruger and the Maasai Mara are enormous, so riding in a vehicle is one of the best ways to cover a lot of ground without getting exhausted. You can also make sure to see some of the best viewing experiences all in short time.

You are definitely encouraged to try other sorts of activities during your stay, such as a “bush walk” walking safari or a canoeing safari upon a river, but game drives will likely comprise a large portion of your wildlife viewings and give you a chance to become more familiar with a park.

So what can first-timers expect on a game drive? Even though every experience is unique and every lodge will do drives differently, there are plenty of common threads. You can learn about a typical game drive by reading on.

Open Air Vehicles

Most game drive vehicles have an open top for maximum viewing. There are three rows of seats that can accommodate 2-3 people each. These are raised like theatre seats so that each row is taller than the one in front, with the rear row as the tallest. One person may have the option to sit next to the ranger in the front, which will be the lowest seat but one with unobstructed front views.

Usually Two Guides: A Ranger and a Spotter

You will be most likely accompanied by two people on your drive. A ranger drives the vehicle and is responsible for serving as your direct guide, telling you stories and information while answering questions. The second person is a “spotter,” who stays focused on helping you locate wildlife while keeping an eye out for possible threats.

Interacting with your ranger is highly encouraged, but try not to distract the spotter.

Game Lodges Working as a Team

Game drive operators understand that the best way for everyone to enjoy their trip and see as many animals as possible is to work together. They will usually communicate over radio when a significant find is spotted, like a family of elephants, an elusive leopard with a kill or lions sunbathing near the road.

No one wants ten cars crowded around a single lion, though, so guides refer to an implied set of etiquette rules, giving the reporting vehicle the best position while other vehicles try to hang slightly back until the first vehicle departs. You may even find yourself in a sort of “queue” as each vehicle pauses to give everyone a satisfactory photo op.

Stay patient and be respectful of other groups since this system provides the best benefits for everyone!

A Rigid Schedule

Wildlife have certain patterns throughout the day, and one of the times they are most active is in the very early morning. That means for morning drives you will be waking up anywhere from 4:30 to 6:00 a.m.

Even if you are not a morning person, it is still important to drag yourself into the 4×4 to ensure that everyone gets to leave on time and can get the most out of their drive. You can choose to sleep in at your camp instead, but you will likely feel envious if everyone comes back with stories to tell!

Evening drives are also common, usually departing around 4:00 p.m. or so. These drives usually see less action at first because the animals are still shrugging off the heat of the afternoon sun, but nocturnal animals begin to stir and get active as the sun goes down. Some lodges offer special night drives, which can come at an added cost but often see active predators and sometimes even a kill.

Plenty of Time for Snacks and Natural Business

Just because you are getting up early does not mean you will have an empty stomach! Game lodges usually provide a light “morning tea” before your drive and a heavy breakfast when you return. You can then enjoy lunch and sleep off the afternoon heat. Evening drives also have “high tea” or “sundowner meals,” which are enjoyed right in the bush.

Drivers also understand that nature calls to us all, so they will take breaks for everyone to relieve themselves in the “bush loo.” Bring your own toilet paper and a sealable, disposable bag so that you can take everything back with you. You may not want it, but the bush definitely doesn’t, either!

Book Your Perfect Lodge for Thrilling Game Drives on Your African Safari Tour

Each lodge and park offers its own set of activities and style of game drives. You can take a look at what options you may have by exploring our available safari vacation packages and then booking your exciting trip today!

Jill Liphart for Roho Ya Chui

Magic Masai Mara, Kenya

The Maasai Mara in the south-west of Kenya is contiguous plain with the Serengeti in Tanzania and is part of the greater Mara ecosystem.  The Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) is a small fraction of this ecosystem, but fraction is kind of relative as the MMNR still measures 1500 square kilometres. The landscape is dominated by open grasslands with numerous seasonal creeks and the famous acacia trees in some areas.

If you can remember the 1980’s movie “Out of Africa” with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford that plays in the Masai Mara for the most part, this is exactly the landscape you will find when visiting today. And yes, it is even much more impressive when you are there in person as compared to the film.

The Mara is mainly at an altitude of 1600 meters where you have the rain season from November till May and the dry season from June till November. This climate change is also responsible for what is known as the great migration, where over 1.5 million wildebeest arrive in July and leave again in November, one of the most impressive spectacles repeating itself on earth annually and the perfect background for stunning wildlife photography and cinematography.

This makes the Mara to one of the finest wildlife destinations where you almost have the guarantee to see the big five but also cheetah, hyena, jackal, hippo, crocodile and for sure vulture whenever there was a kill.

Vultures are one of the easiest and safest ways to find kills with sometimes even some lions around still eating, as the birds are waiting in the trees till the lions or other predators have finished their meal and leave the rest of the kill for them.

If you are lucky you can even see some rhinos that are slowly coming back to this part of Africa.

There are many lodges and camps to be found and you have a rich choice from very luxurious places to ones where you stay as close as possible to the animals and the nature, the tented camps, that do actually not lack too much luxury as well. We were staying in the Sand River Camp as well as the Elephant Pepper Camp and I can recommend both as being extremely friendly, authentic and as close to nature as possible, while offering all you need to feel perfect and rest between the numerous game drives.

There is nothing like the Mara morning sky before sunrise, these are colours that cannot be described, you have to see and feel them yourself.

This scenery evolves during the early morning hours, when you can find all kind of animals out on the grasslands like these zebras that enjoyed the green and did not seem to be scared about predators.

But this can fool you as predators are always around, like this young male lion we found nearby sleeping in the morning sun. This male was approximately 4 to 5 years old and you can see this by the colour of the nose that is still pink but starts already getting black around the corners.

He will be grown up with 5 to 6 years, but he is already a perfect killing machine at this age. He was roaring during the previous night in our camp close to our tent and I can tell you this sound goes through and through – you will never forget that!

But now he sometimes is still playful at least if he is no longer hungry as he showed when welcoming his brother a few minutes later.

You want to have adventures like this in magnificent landscape and stunning places? You want to photograph all this or take videos and want to get guidance for how to do this best and in an optimal way? Well then join me on one of the many safaris organized by Roho Ya Chui and you will have the adventure of your lifetime that you will never forget!

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa

 

 

Peter’s African Safari Travel Diary

Some who have read my previous travel diary blog posts may ask why this continues with the 7^th day of our adventure trip to Tanzania and Kenia and one day is missing. Well easy answer I unfortunately got sick on day 6 and was pretty much out of order and definitely not up to photograph, but the good news is that on our 7^th day I had already recovered and so this post is from our last, but also one of the most beautiful days.

We meanwhile had arrived at the Sand River Mara camp that takes its name from the Sand River Masai Mara. This camp replicates very nicely the heydays of exclusive permanent tented camps that were so popular in the 1920s.

On our morning game drive we immediately found a group of vultures, that is always a sign of some kill around and then very likely to still see some lions there. This time we were not so lucky, as the lions were already gone, but this could not minimize our enthusiasm to find some great sights.

Soon we were lucky to see a rhino that was grazing in the morning sun and started to move away as it recognized our approach. Nevertheless we got some stunning shots.

On that same location we found a group of zebras peacefully taking their breakfast from the juicy greens of the Masai Mara.

But then we were lucky as our guide spotted a young male lion resting in the upcoming sun and obviously cleaning his claws from his last kill. We had heard this lion roaring close at the camp last night and this sound will be unforgettable to me as it was pretty intense, just like he would stand besides me.

Our guide gave us some brief update on how to read the age of lions and this one he estimated to be around 4 years as he still had a pink nose but already starting to get black. Male lions are fully grown up with 5 to 6 years and then they in most cases start looking for their own territory. But this one was still playful and after a while he started walking in order to find his brother that was away only a few hundred meters.  The two immediately started rubbing their heads together, that means a very warm welcome.

These are just touching scenes, especially if you are lucky to be as close as we were. The lions were completely quiet and did feel save in our presence. Driving on we found another group of vultures around a left over kill from last night.

A herd of wildebeest was crossing our road and this was already kind of a little migration. What I learned that there is not just one migration, but migration is an on-going thing as the animals try to follow the greens and water all the year in the Serengeti and the Masai Mara (the northern part of the Serengeti).

We headed to our last camp later this afternoon, the Elephant Pepper Camp located in the Mara North Conservancy. The speciality about this camp is that it is designed in a way that it can be completely removed to leave a virgin site once this is desired. We had a very restful night and next morning was our day of departure via Nairobi that is a 50min flight away from this camp.

A last sunrise, well I think you can tell I love to photograph sunrises and the light is always very special in Africa!

And a farewell photo of our small group Peter, Ute and Joel from left to right. We have had a stunning and beautiful week and were all looking forward to another experience like this as soon as possible.

If you would like more information on planning your African safari vacation, visit our safari tours page or contact a representative with Roho Ya Chui today.

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa