Questions to Ask Yourself When Booking Your Dream Safari

I absolutely adore safaris, and I know it is an absolute dream to go on one (or two or three). But I also know that it can be such a nightmare to try to choose one and book it. Africa is a massive continent, and there are incredible national parks in tons of different countries. So many that it can feel impossible to choose one. Plus the info online is just terrible haha the websites are bad and it is really stressful to try to differentiate the choices that you have.

I am going to start by listing ones I have done, so you can choose if you trust me as a guide. Hopefully I will also have written more in depth guides about each country’s safaris by the time you read this. And then I will give you some questions you will need to ask yourself so that you know how to move forward. 

Questions to Ask Yourself: 

Are there any animals or landscapes you are the most determined to see?

Animals: If you are determined to see the big cats (which most of us are), then there are some smaller parks you will need to eliminate. If you want to see all of the Big 5, then you need to make sure the parks you’re considering actually have them all. Rhinos are rare and protected, so you need to select a park with a solid population. If you’re a big bird watcher, then the seasons are even more important to you than anyone else.

Landscapes: I personally was 100% determined to see Victoria Falls, specifically during the dry season so that I could do the #1 thing on my bucket list – Devil’s Pool. So that really helped me narrow down. If you want open savannah vs jungles vs delta, some parks are far better than others. 

Brand Name Parks: Serengeti, Masai Mara, Kruger, Kilimanjaro, Okavango Delta; all of these and a couple others are more famous than the rest. Is it important to you to hit one of two of these so you can really feel you’ve done it? Or are more off the beaten trail ones more your vibe?

Events: Are you determined to see the Great Migration of the wildebeests in Masai Mara and the Serengeti? Do you want to also do an ocean safari with whale sharks like you can in Mozambique? Do you want to be there when all the baby impalas are being born? Is there a nearby music festival that you want your trip to overlap with?

How much time can you spend on safari? Do you need to go at a specific time of year?

I’ve done something as simple as 1 game drive when on a road trip near a smaller national park, all the way up to a 2 week overlanding safari. I know people that did an entire 2 months overlanding from Nairobi to Cape Town. How much vacation time do you have, and perhaps more importantly, how hardcore are you?

If you’re a teacher and only get summers off, then you need to check the seasons for everything you want only in that month. But also remember that below the equator, the seasons are flipped. Does your company give you all a week off, and thus you need to overlap with that? If you’re restricted like that up front, then it will limit your options (which can actually be very useful lol)

Do you want to combine this trip with anything else?

Say you have to fly really far and have 2 whole weeks of vacation days to use, but only really want to be out in the bush for 5 days bc safaris are honestly tiring. You have tons of non safari options to combo a trip with. If you love the beach, then go to Tanzania, where you can spend a couple days in the Serengeti and then hop over to Zanzibar, a nice tropical island vacation spot in the same country. Do you love road trips, beautiful coastlines, and wine? Go to South Africa and Kruger for a couple days, then pop over to Port Elizabeth to start the Garden Route road trip over to Cape Town. You’ve got lots of options, so make your long flight count! 

How easy or hard are you ok with the destination being?

Every destination is rated at different levels of ‘travel difficulty’ for different reasons. For a few examples: If you’re an American, you don’t need a visa for South Africa whereas you do for Kenya and Tanzania. If you’re concerned about language, some countries speak way more English and/or French than other places do. Are you going to go with a luxury experience that will smooth everything out for you no matter the difficulty of the place, or are you budgeting and will need to solve problems for yourself? Either way, take that into account mainly if you’re totally new to traveling. I’ve found most places in Africa are way easier to travel than people make it out to be, but also isn’t a total noob destination necessarily. 

What is your budget? And does your budget align with your expectations?

You can really spend an insane amount of money if you so choose, but most people will have some limit lol. I was budgeting super hard and I still made it work, and I stretched my money sooooo hard, so don’t be too discouraged. 

A quick thing to note is that, because of the remote nature of safaris, pretty much any price package is going to be all inclusive. If you book a room at a lodge, that price will be per person, and it will include all of your food and all of the game drives. Once you book the room, you don’t need to worry, because everything is very well organized. 

If you do an overland trip, you can choose the camping option and you can spend much less than you’re imagining. But it also will not be the luxury safari you are imagining. When I did this, we had a great truck driving us around, amazing guides, all the food we could eat, and comfy mats for our tents. But we also helped with dishes, brought our own sleeping bags, and had to set the tents up ourselves every day. For me, this was great, because what mattered was that I was on safari. But also I did have a breakdown about the camping and had to upgrade to a lodge room more than once bc I am a wimp lol. Gotta do what you gotta do.

I find that every tiny increase in comfort and fanciness results in a massive price jump. On the total far opposite side of overlanding, you’ll have the flying safaris. You’re gonna pay a couple grand per day to have a tiny plane flying you to all the best lodges and you’re gonna see a massive amount of stuff, and there will be almost nobody there with you bc the spots are impossible to get to. If you can afford that, then knock yourselves out. You know the moment that I can afford to go to the famous giraffe hotel outside Nairobi, I’m gonna do it. But until then, tradeoffs will be made. 

Those tradeoffs will be different depending on what you want. Seeing the wildebeest migration is gonna cost you (hundreds or even thousands more per night), and you might get a worse place than you could afford elsewhere. If you do the less famous parks, you can get incredible deals (for mine in Tsavo, Kenya it was $400 for 3 days in good lodges and I saw all the Big 5 in a single day). Maybe you want to splurge at a fancy romantic private tented lodge for one or two nights, and then go cheap the rest of the time. Idk. But just decide based on the above questions what is most important to you. 

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I know these questions maybe made you more stressed out, because I might have shown you of even more options than you knew there were. But in the end, this will provide a good amount of clarity, and hopefully help you narrow down the things that truly matter to you. Nothing is perfect, but tons of things are awesome, and I know you’ll have a mindblowingly great time if you give these things some thought.