01 · Experiences
A safari is not one activity. What you choose to do shapes the trip more than which park you are standing in.
Some of these are decisions about the whole trip — whether you travel privately or join a group, whether you want a photographic pace or a family one. Others are single mornings that people remember for years.
Not everything here is possible everywhere. Walking is not permitted in the Serengeti in the way it is in Nyerere; balloons fly in a handful of places; chimpanzees live in the far west and nowhere else. Each page says where.
02 · Wildlife
What you came to see
Where and when
The Big Five
Lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhino — and where each is realistic.
Year-round
The Great Migration
Where the herds are in each month, and what you can and cannot book.
Nov–Apr best
Birding Safaris
Over 1,100 species, and the months the migrants arrive.
The west
Chimpanzee Trekking
Mahale and Gombe, on foot, with no vehicles at all.
03 · How you see it
Ways of travelling
On foot
Walking Safaris
Where it is permitted, and what changes when you leave the vehicle.
At dawn
Balloon Safaris
An hour over the Serengeti, and what it actually costs.
After dark
Night Game Drives
Only in certain reserves — and a completely different cast.
Slower
Photography Safaris
Different vehicle, different hours, different pace entirely.
04 · Who you travel with
Shape of the trip
Your vehicle
Private Safaris
Your own guide and vehicle, and a schedule nobody else votes on.
Shared cost
Joining Safaris
A shared vehicle on set dates — the cheapest way into the parks.
Age by age
Family Safaris
What works at six, at eleven and at sixteen — they are not the same trip.
Single supplement
Solo Travellers
How the single supplement works, and how to avoid most of it.
05 · And after
