Safari Tips -- Things to Consider

As you start making your safari plans, there are a few things you'll want to think about as you narrow down your various options.

Type of accommodations -- you can stay in everything from a sleeping bag on the ground of a small tent with shared bathroom facilities to a large, luxurious lodge with all the creature comforts of home and many options in between.  Know that not all accommodations rhave electricity, wifi and cell signal, running water and heat.  Some do, but many do not.  Many camps are not fenced, which  means the animals can and do come through camp.  Do not take anything you're used to in your usual accommodations as a given on safari and if you're in doubt, you should ask the operator or your safari planner to confirm.  Mobile tented camps, which is where I prefer to stay, are situated out in the bush and have a small footprint on the land.  Nothing is permanent; it can all be packed up and moved.  The toilets have a ceramic bowl but flush into the ground.  Showers are a bucket of water lifted overhead and fed through a sometimes leaky showerhead; when your 20 gallons are gone, your shower is done.  Electricity is normally turned on just around dinner time and wifi is spotty at best.  In exchange, you lie amongst the lions and can listen to them and all their savannah friends throughout the night.  Sometimes the tents can be too hot, sometimes you'll find bugs or a tiny lizard or frog inside your tent, but sleeping outdoors is pretty amazing, especially when you know your game drive starts each day the minute you set foot outside your tent.  And yes, I've seen plenty of wildlife right in camp, often from my tent!

Accommodation amenities -- much like the lodging itself, what each camp offers can vary greatly.  Some have only bucket showers, some have soaker tubs or outdoor tubs.  Some have swimming pools and fire pits, others offer spa services like massages and hot stone therapy.  If you have something special in mind, always inquire ahead of time.

Types of game drives -- most camps I've stayed at are pretty flexible with their game drive schedule.  Normally, they are either one all-day drive (going out before sunrise and coming back for dinner, taking a packed breakfast and lunch with you) or a morning and evening drive, coming back for lunch and going out for a few hours before dinner, with a delightful siesta in between.  The rules aren't usually hard and fast but you should make sure the camp manager and your guides know your preference.  I will never miss an early morning game drive.  The best sightings I've had usually come just as the sun comes up and everything is lit in that gorgeous golden light.  If, however, you're sharing a vehicle with other guests, which is common in many camps, it may be hard to accommodate everyone's wishes.  Some may not want to go out early or out for the entire day.  The camps usually work hard to satisfy everyone but sometimes compromises must be made.  Some camps also have permission to do night game drives, which happen long after the sun goes down and are aided by a spotlight of some sort.  This allows you to see what happens when the sun goes down and everything becomes active.  The sky and stars as well as the sounds of the night are pretty impressive on their own.  When in doubt on how any camp conducts their drives, you should confirm before you book so as to avoid disappointment.  (I've heard how some people expected a pre-dawn game drive only to find out that the drives don't start until after breakfast!)

More than just game drives -- some safari destinations offer more than just traditional game drives.  There are opportunities for gorilla trekking, chimpanzee trekking, golden monkey hikes, big cat tracking.

Driving vs. Fly-in safaris -- depending on the routing of your itinerary, you may be offered the option to drive it or fly it.  Each comes with a cost.  Driving is by far cheaper, although in some cases it can be a hot, dusty, boring drive over very bumpy roads.  Flying in between camps is obviously much faster with pretty spectacular views over the land you pass, but flying can be costly.  Some itineraries don't allow for flying so driving may be your only option, but it's worth asking.  Prepare yourself though as most airstrips in the bush accommodate only small planes able to land and take off on grass airstrips.  I fly when I can only to maximize the time that I have available for game driving.  In some countries you can even rent a car and drive yourself, with no need for a guide at all.

Adding beach to the itinerary -- many African nations have extensive coastline and beaches available that many safarigoers like to tack on to their itineraries.  If that's something of interest, you should ask your operator or safari planner to factor that in.

Additional activities -- beyond the game drives, there are other activities that may be available, like walking safari, tribal village visits, games and activities for kids, canoeing, river safari, horseback riding, mountain climbing, jungle hikes, hot air balloon rides.

There's a lot of decisions to navigate as you plan for your safari.  It can be overwhelming and confusing but a good safari planner will help prevent analysis paralysis.

Safari Tips -- Trip Insurance

You're all excited now, your deposit has been sent and you have your finalized itinerary.  The safari planner has probably sent your confirmation for all your chosen accommodations and activities.  You think you can rest easy until it's time to book airfare.  But hold one for one second.  There's one more thing to consider:  trip insurance.

There are people who never buy trip insurance because they feel like it's money out the window.  Ordinarily I might agree with them, but the cash outlay in advance of your arrival is significant; almost everything has to be paid up front before you go (ordinarily).  This can be in the thousands of dollars (or currency of your choice).  And things can go wrong, and sometimes do.  Do you really want to lose all that money?

Things trip insurance can cover:

• Your illness or a death that prevents you from being able to travel (or that of your travel companion or close family member)
• Work-related reasons for being unable to travel
• Trip delays or cancellations due to other parties
• Financial default of any of the providers of your trip
• Medical evacuation insurance
• Accident insurance

What I'd suggest is visiting InsureMyTrip and inputting your details. The site will comb through many commonly provided policies that you can compare.  Read the fine details.  All of them.  Some things you think should be covered may not be, or you may need to jump through certain hoops to document them.  Call the insurance companies if you have any questions.  Get all the information you need to make the decision.

Here's the thing, you want to do this as soon as you put your deposit down, because most of the time pre-existing conditions (for you, your traveling companion and anyone you may have to cancel a trip for if they need you to stay home) are only covered if you get insurance within the first 10-14 days of your deposit.  It depends on the plan and the insurance company, but this is what I usually experience.  What this will allow you is if a family member has a flare-up of a chronic condition that requires hospitalization and you being at home with them, that chronic condition could be covered as a pre-existing condition.  If you wait to insure your trip beyond that initial time period, this may not be covered.

One tip:  check with whomever you booked your safari.  Some safari planners have arrangements with certain insurance companies and will give you their provider code to book the insurance.  I have done this twice and had "gold-level" insurance coverage for the price of what "bronze-level" would have cost me on my own.  Sure, I didn't need it but....  The other benefit to booking the insurance through your planner is if something goes wrong with your safari, they can intervene on your behalf and rebook things according to your coverage limits.  A friend of mine missed a connecting flight, let her safari planner know, and he rebooked everything while she was finally en route to the safari destination.  When she landed, all was fixed for her and covered by the trip insurance.  There's something to be said for that level of convenience.

One last tip:  you don't need to include airfare in your initially insured amount.  If you just want to insure the itinerary price excluding airfare now, you can amend your policy whenever you get around to booking the airfare with a quick call to the insurance company.

Buying insurance or not is certainly a personal choice.  It's all a matter of how risk averse you are.  I feel that safari is different from just about any other travel that I do, in that I've invested so much more up front so I have more to lose if I can't go for a covered reason.  It's not like flying to Paris, where I may have only booked and paid for airfare but all my other costs would be out of pocket once I'm there.

Safari Tips -- Reviewing Itineraries

So now you have an inbox full of itineraries for your safari.  You've reached out to 2 or 3 or maybe 4 different safari planners and they've come back with some proposals.  What next?

If you can, print them out.  You'll want to lay these out on a table and make notes all over them.  Step through them day by day and literally tick through each item:  where you're staying (is it accommodations you want with the creature comforts you're hoping for?), what the plan for the day is (one full-day or two half-day game drives, what's the activity during downtime).  If anything at this point isn't what you want, point it out and get it changed.  However, bear in mind that with numerous back and forth discussions over fine-tuning an itinerary, you're indicating that you'll continue to work with a particular safari planner.  They don't (usually) charge you for these preliminary itineraries so they're used to some recalibration, but if an initial itinerary is way out of the ball park on scope, price or otherwise, just abandon it with a polite thank you and move on.  If one strikes your fancy right off the top, your gut is usually good as long as you've been totally honest about your resources: time, budget and interests.  It doesn't hurt at this point to read lots and lots of reviews about the proposed camps/lodges and make sure they're in line with what you're thinking.  Other visitors' photographs are helpful in envisioning your stay.

As a tip, I don't stay in any accommodation less than 2 nights.  What that really translates to is an afternoon on your arrival day and one full day before you leave for your next location.  Three nights gives you enough chance to relax and become familiar with the camp, its staff and the location where you're game driving.  There's a lot to be said for that.

Then start to ask the little detailed questions:  can you leave before sunrise for game drives (that's the best part of the day in my experience!), can you do night drives, are there village visits (if you're interested), how are vehicles shared if at all and if not, is there an expense for a private vehicle?  If you're concerned about such things, ask about the bush flights and planes, inquire if you want a hot air balloon ride (not available everywhere).  If you want a later check-out before heading back to civilization or a day room before you board an overnight flight home, now would be time to work that in.  If you want a city tour before you leave for the bush or visits to any animal orphanages, local schools or shopping that may require a driver, this would be the time to request that.  Anything that may add expense to your overall cost and require planning by your safari planner, now's the time to throw that in there.

If you have dietary requirements, ask now.  If you have any questions about whether a camp has electricity during certain hours or things like how good the cellular signal or wifi access is, you don't have to ask them now unless they are a deal breaker for a particular accommodation.  Your safari planner is available to you up until you leave and return from your safari.  They can answer questions for you about your specific camps, itinerary and other miscellaneous stuff, and they're quite good at it.

Once you've settled on an itinerary that works for you, it's time to put down a deposit and start your countdown!  You're going on safari!

Safari Tips -- So you want to go on safari

Even for seasoned travelers to other parts of the world, that first safari (and even subsequent safaris) is hard to plan and even hard to narrow down a particular destination.

Before you reach out to any safari planner to help you craft an itinerary, you either need to know where you want to go or what you want to see.  The "what you want to see" sometimes informs the "where you want to go" because not all wildlife is endemic to all areas.  So take a deep breath and start to list out what you're hoping to see:  big cats (lions, leopards, cheetah), elephants, gorillas, chimps, birds, reptiles, rhino, hippos.  Think too about how much of a blend of safari vs. city vs. beach vs. mountain trekking and other landscape you're hoping for too.  Not every country offers beach or wineries or garden roads.

Now that you have a list of what you're hoping to see, reach out to a safari planner.  At this point I strongly discourage folks from walking into any old travel agent.  First, they're not specialists and second, they're likely to put you on a canned package group tour from Some Chain Travel Provider.  This isn't what you want.  Going on a canned itinerary with a group means that there's going to be a lot of compromise on your trip of a lifetime.  You want to do what you want to do.  If that means getting up and being out by dawn or sleeping in, sitting and waiting for a hunt to play out or going back to camp early for lunch and a nap.  You don't want those decisions made by the group-think of 20 other people.

For the same price, or even cheaper, you can likely get a custom bespoke safari doing exactly what you want to do, in exactly the accommodation you want for exactly  your budget.  Reputable safari planners I can speak for:  The Wild Source, Africa Travel Resource, Access2Tanzania, Treks2Rwanda, Expert Africa.  There are others, but none that I've personally worked with.  These folks deal only with Africa all day every day and their long standing relationships with camps and agencies on the ground will stand you in good stead.

A few decisions you'll have to make:

1) Your budget (excluding international flights) -- know that this is all inclusive usually, but for the tips. I take very little spending money with me as it's just tipping local staff. Sticker shock usually hits until you realize this is all meals, all entertainment, all room and board for the entire trip.

2) Days on the ground available and the time of year you can go (excluding travel time to/from Africa) -- migrations, rainy seasons, high seasons, all factor into overall costs and when it's best to go to certain areas.

3) Your interests -- Big cats? Elephants? Reptiles? Gorillas? Birds? Beach time? Mountain treks? Village visits? Some areas/countries are better than others for certain wildlife.

4) Lodging types -- do you need soaker tubs and swimming pools? Do you want to stay in tents in the bush (with beds and full bathrooms)? Do you need electricity/wifi/ solid walls? Are you comfortable with bucket showers and gravity toilets (porcelain bowls that flush into the ground)?  Do you want to be right out in the bush with the possibility of animals being in camp day and night?

5) Transport -- know that to get to some safari locations far from larger cities, it is necessary to take small (10-20 seater) bush planes.  Driving is sometimes possible, but can take days on unpaved and rough roads.  To maximize your time out watching animals, it's expeditious to fly, although that does add expense.

These are a lot of considerations, but the more information you can share with your safari planner, the better.  This is the fun part of the planning experience; once you're all booked it's all done but the waiting!

Safari Tips -- a new series

In order to bide my time until the next safari, I've decided that I have a lot of practical information to share and the perfect forum to do it, so in the coming days I will start a series of posts on how to plan a safari, with lots of insight, things you may not have thought of, tips and tricks and assorted practical details.

Maybe this will make me miss safari a little less....

And the countdown continues

Finally, I am under 200 days until Zambia.  I know this is quite literally wishing an entire spring and summer away, but I so want to be back on safari.  #desperate