Most of our guests tend to deploy 8 to 14 nights in Africa, of which anything from 3 to 13 nights are spent actually on safari. Combining with other locations like tropical beaches, rural areas, Victoria Falls and Cape Town can add variety into a trip and help to keep a lid on costs.

8 to 14 nights

Longer trips of 15 to 21 nights tend to include 
9-20 nights on safari, usually split across two to five different areas, sometimes in two or more countries. Longer explorations of non-
safari areas such as the Western Cape (Cape Town, Whale Coast, Cape Winelands) also become possible and are incredibly good value.

15 to 21 nights

We absolutely love putting together trips of 22 to 50 nights, or even longer. Sometimes we are lucky enough to work with guests who are taking a sabbatical from work or who are retired and just love to travel. In these trips, the possibilities become almost infinite and can include a half dozen or more countries.

22 to 50 nights

Tanzania

Set on the East Coast of Africa, Tanzania is a truly remarkable place, the richest and most diverse safari country, with far more than its fair share of Africa’s crown jewels, including Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar.

This is the place to head if you are looking for a truly diverse African experience, usually an overland journey, with equal parts of epic wildlife, majestic volcanic scenery, authentic tribespeople, farms, villages and towns.

It’s also top of the list if you want to combine safari and tropical beaches.

In all honesty, Tanzania alone is worth several trips.

Trips from USD 4500

Kenya

Also on the East Coast of Africa, Kenya is the second most visited safari country on the continent, a place of great diversity, with popular reserves including the Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo and Samburu, as well as some much more remote wilderness areas and an extensive tropical coastline.

Unfortunately, the better known reserves in Kenya can get very busy in core areas, so we need to tread carefully to deliver a quality safari.

If you are looking towards the upper end of the budget range, then trips can be remote and fabulous. But if you are looking for value, you may be better off looking at Tanzania or countries further south. 

Trips from USD 5000

Botswana

Moving to the south of the continent, Botswana is widely considered to offer the highest quality safari in Africa.

The experience is not as diverse as Tanzania, but the remoteness and purity of the bush experience is unsurpassed.

If you are looking for either an easy vacation or a deeply immersive wilderness experience, this is the place. We just need to be careful about the very high prices during the Jun-Oct dry season.

Botswana is great in combination with Victoria Falls, the Cape or the tropical beaches of Mozambique.

Trips from USD 6000

Our safari experts have incredible 
first-hand knowledge and an average
of 12 years experience building great 
trips.

Expertise and experience

Since 1999, we have created over a million sample  trips and helped over 120,000 guests fall in love with  safari Africa.

A proud history

Over the years we have polished our operation to be super-reliable. Arranging your trip should be almost as much fun  as going on safari. 

Seamless and fun

Your trip should cost no more than if 
you had booked all the components directly. You effectively get our services for free.

Delivering value

Every single trip that we build is unique. Your trip will be precisely tailored to meet the exact requirements of everyone in your group.

Supremely tailor-made

The first safari company on the internet, we helped to shape the modern safari and we continue to be the prime innovators in our field.

Original innovators

Tell us your whatever you know about your ideal trip. Whether you're drawn to specific wildlife, particular regions, or have preferences about the style of accommodation, the more we understand, the better we can help you to craft the perfect experience.

Share your ideas

South Africa

South Africa is by far the most popular location for safari. It is a vast and incredibly diverse country, with far more highlights than could ever be included in a single trip.

The primary trip shape is a combination of safari in Kruger, with time in Cape Town, the Whale Coast and the Cape Winelands.

There is a huge choice of safari accommodation, right across the price spectrum, including some of the best lower cost options in Africa, so this is often the place to head on a lower budget.

However, South Africa is a much more developed country than those further north and the safari experience can feel significantly less pure and wild.

Trips from USD 3500

Zimbabwe

Also in the southern part of Africa, Zimbabwe is best known for the Victoria Falls, but also offers some of the most earthy, authentic, heart-pumping safari on the continent.

If you are looking for a short safari of 3-5 nights, then Hwange has some great value options.

Otherwise, Zimbabwe is a relatively high-priced location, which appeals most to experienced Africa travellers, who appreciate the extremely high levels of safari guiding.

The walking safari here can be truly extraordinary, with deliberate approaches onto elephants and lions. 

Trips from USD 4500

Zambia

Set in southcentral Africa, Zambia is a delightful backwater, also best known for the Victoria Falls, but with a handful of superb safari reserves.

The camps here have a reputation for intimacy, authenticity and a pleasantly homespun feel, many with a marked leaning towards walking safari, which is always a good sign.

Zambia is a mid-to-high price safari environment, which tends to appeal most to experienced safari travellers in search of new frontiers and first timers who are specifically looking for somewhere unusual for their safari. 

Trips from USD 5000

May to September is the main dry season in most safari locations, with dry and sunny conditions, prolific wildlife viewing, high season prices and relatively high visitor traffic.

May to Sep

October to November is a transition period in most areas, with mixed weather conditions, slightly reduced wildlife sightings, reduced prices and relatively low visitor traffic.

Oct to Nov

December to January is usually good in most of East Africa, but hot and rainy in much of Southern Africa, with high season prices and high visitor traffic over the holiday season.

Dec to Jan

February to April is generally rainy and adverse, but with major exceptions including the migration calving season in the Serengeti area of Tanzania and great low season prices in Botswana. 

Feb to Apr

Your dedicated safari specialist will work with you to build a selection of sample trips. We'll discuss seasonality, wildlife movements, logistics, lodge options, activity levels, whatever is necessary. And we will keep on refining until we are all confident that we have reached the perfect trip.

Crafting your trip

Everything is arranged. All you need to do is turn up. You probably won’t even need to show your paperwork, you will simply glide from one group of friendly and efficient local hosts to the next. And our support team remains on hand throughout, leaving you free to focus entirely on the extraordinary experiences ahead.

Travel with confidence

It is impossible to overstate how important seasonality is to a savanna safari trip.

The month that you choose to travel will greatly affect where you should go, what you will see, how much traffic you will encounter and how much you will spend.

In the linked article, we divide the year into five periods. The first two, the Jun-Oct dry season and the Nov-Dec early green season, cover probably 95% of all trips. The other three periods cover the more complicated Jan-May period, when conditions change fast, but which contain some real hidden gems.

We will always take full responsibility for your trip being perfectly constructed around the seasonality.

Seasonality

For most people, the length of their core safari in Africa is limited by budget, as this is almost always the most expensive part of a trip.

Ideally, you would spend maybe six to ten nights in the bush, split between multiple camps, but that can be reduced to as little as 3-4 nights if necessary.

On top of that, you can combine with some fabulously diverse, but thankfully lower cost locations, like Victoria Falls, Cape Town or the tropical beaches of the Indian Ocean.

Most Africa trips end up in the range 12 to 28 nights.

Duration

Tailor-made safari trips most commonly fall in the range USD 5000-20,000 per person, excluding your international flights.

There are cool trip options across the price range and we are more than happy to work with all the different budget levels.

If you are hoping to spend towards the lower end, you should perhaps start by looking at safari options in South Africa, the Hwange area of Zimbabwe and Botswana during the Jan-Mar late green season.

At the middle and upper end of the range, there are great options in all countries, mostly getting progressively more remote, more luxurious and more reliable as you head upwards.

Budget

Many of us here at ATR have travelled extensively with our own kids, so we know for a fact that safari is great for families.

This is the kind of trip that guarantees to generate memories that you will share for the rest of your lives.

However, there are significant health issues to consider in most safari areas, so we need to proceed with caution.

Most dry season safari is ideal for kids of 12 years and older, eminently feasible for kids 8-11 years and potentially viable from 6-7 years old. If your kids are 0-5 years, then it’s probably best to stick to the non-malarial areas of the Cape, then progressing up into Namibia as they get older.

Family safari 

Safari is an inherently romantic experience that can be endlessly tailored to suit you.

We have been helping guests to build awesome honeymoons for many years. We have intimate knowledge of some of the wildest and most romantic places in the world.

Perhaps the most important piece of advice is to be yourselves. Please don’t feel it is necessary to fit into the usual romantic tropes if they’re not for you. Just focus on having a great trip.

We very much understand the importance of these trips, we know that your honeymoon needs to really hit the heights and be a truly life-punctuating experience.

Honeymoon safari 

On safari, luxury means different things to different people.

The most conventional meaning is that the accommodations are extremely comfortable, with elevated levels of hospitality. This is relatively easy to deliver, there are lots of luxury lodges.

However, simply inserting more luxurious lodges into your trip is no guarantee of a better safari. In fact, the opposite can be true.

For us, the hallmarks of a truly high quality safari are a suitably slow pace, wonderful remote locations, superb safari guiding, exclusive and intense wildlife interaction, precisely tailored experiences and considered attention to detail. We can do that.

Luxury safari 

African safari trips vary from relatively pricey to eye-wateringly expensive. For the core safari nights in a trip, you can expect to spend anywhere in the range USD 500 to 3500 per person per night. Twelve night trips can range from USD 3500 to 26000 per person.

We are more than happy to work across this range of prices. The only important thing is that we help you find the very best safari to suit your budget.

The two dominant price factors are the specific lodges that you choose to include in your trip and how many people you are bringing (solo safari can be impractically expensive, economies of scale cut in from around 4-6 guests).

If you have a higher budget, we will help you determine which camps do actually deliver elevated levels of service and experience. We will also highlight other subtle ways in which your trip can be raised to another level, including the use of whole camp bookings, private guides and vehicles, helicopter explorations of remote areas etc.

If you have a medium budget, the best ways to keep a lid on costs are to travel out of the Jul-Oct dry season and to carefully choose lower-priced lodges.  You can also reduce the number of core safari nights and deploy time in more cost-effective beach, town and rural locations. We will help you understand where to trim and where to splash, in order to achieve the best overall experience.

If you have a lower budget, we can focus on fundamentally less pricey safari countries and think about last-minute booking options, which can deliver some extraordinary discounts.

Tanzania

Set on the East Coast of Africa, Tanzania is a truly remarkable place, the richest and most diverse safari country, with far more than its fair share of Africa’s crown jewels, including Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar.

This is the place to head if you are looking for a truly diverse African experience, usually an overland journey, with equal parts of epic wildlife, majestic volcanic scenery, authentic tribespeople, farms, villages and towns.

It’s also top of the list if you want to combine safari and tropical beaches.

In all honesty, Tanzania alone is worth several trips.

Trips from USD 4500

Kenya

Also on the East Coast of Africa, Kenya is the second most visited safari country on the continent, a place of great diversity, with popular reserves including the Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo and Samburu, as well as some much more remote wilderness areas and an extensive tropical coastline.

Unfortunately, the better known reserves in Kenya can get very busy in core areas, so we need to tread carefully to deliver a quality safari.

If you are looking towards the upper end of the budget range, then trips can be remote and fabulous. But if you are looking for value, you may be better off looking at Tanzania or countries further south. 

Trips from USD 5000

Botswana

Moving to the south of the continent, Botswana is widely considered to offer the highest quality safari in Africa.

The experience is not as diverse as Tanzania, but the remoteness and purity of the bush experience is unsurpassed.

If you are looking for either an easy vacation or a deeply immersive wilderness experience, this is the place. We just need to be careful about the very high prices during the Jun-Oct dry season.

Botswana is great in combination with Victoria Falls, the Cape or the tropical beaches of Mozambique.

Trips from USD 6000

South Africa

South Africa is by far the most popular location for safari. It is a vast and incredibly diverse country, with far more highlights than could ever be included in a single trip.

The primary trip shape is a combination of safari in Kruger, with time in Cape Town, the Whale Coast and the Cape Winelands.

There is a huge choice of safari accommodation, right across the price spectrum, including some of the best lower cost options in Africa, so this is often the place to head on a lower budget.

However, South Africa is a much more developed country than those further north and the safari experience can feel significantly less pure and wild.

Trips from USD 3500

Zimbabwe

Also in the southern part of Africa, Zimbabwe is best known for the Victoria Falls, but also offers some of the most earthy, authentic, heart-pumping safari on the continent.

If you are looking for a short safari of 3-5 nights, then Hwange has some great value options.

Otherwise, Zimbabwe is a relatively high-priced location, which appeals most to experienced Africa travellers, who appreciate the extremely high levels of safari guiding.

The walking safari here can be truly extraordinary, with deliberate approaches onto elephants and lions. 

Trips from USD 4500

Zambia

Set in southcentral Africa, Zambia is a delightful backwater, also best known for the Victoria Falls, but with a handful of superb safari reserves.

The camps here have a reputation for intimacy, authenticity and a pleasantly homespun feel, many with a marked leaning towards walking safari, which is always a good sign.

Zambia is a mid-to-high price safari environment, which tends to appeal most to experienced safari travellers in search of new frontiers and first timers who are specifically looking for somewhere unusual for their safari. 

Trips from USD 5000

For younger children and older relatives, health considerations have to be the starting point for trip planning. Can we travel into malarial areas? Should we avoid extremes of temperature? How close are we to medical facilities? We need to be on top of this.

Health 

Safari in Africa is generally very safe, but we do need to take special care when selecting options, especially for younger children or people with restricted movement. We already know every single lodge, what we need to learn about is your kids.

Safety

Practicalities aside, the most important thing about a family safari is that it is a real shared adventure. We can easily tune the levels from easy to extreme, to match your needs. The more we know about everyone’s characters and interests, the better we can help you fine tune.

Adventure

When travelling with the family, it is important to include a wide range of activities. We need to find plenty for everyone. We can arrange it so some of the activities are optional, meaning that people can opt in or out, rather than hold others back.

Variety

A few lodges in Africa have two or three room annexes, where your family can enjoy your safari in complete privacy, usually with your own guide, vehicle, dining area and pool. Although, we do find that even shy kids become animated when meeting other guests.

Privacy

For most people, it is the creation of epic shared memories that is the primary purpose of a great safari. We craft every day of every trip with this specific purpose in mind. We guarantee that you'll create great life-long memories to share with your kids.

Memories

For younger children, 2-6 years old, we need to take certain health issues into serious consideration. We can stick to non-malarial areas and focus on the dry season, when health risks are minimal, but even then it can all be a bit of a worry at times.

2 to 6 years 

The golden age for a family safari is probably 7-15 years old. These trips are amongst the great highlights of being a parent. The key at these ages is to tailor the trip to the kids’ interests and to keep them busy and engaged.  

7 to 15 years 

From about 16 years old and up, most kids start to drift and may be less keen to join a family vacation. A safari trip can be a big drawcard and can tempt most kids well into their twenties. We often arrange safaris for grandparents bringing two generations along for the ride!

16+ years