Zebras silhouetted against a golden sunset on the floodplain in Botswana

Safari

Your first African safari, planned properly

Costs, countries, packing and lodges, from someone who has been.

Start here

A first safari has more moving parts than a city break: the country, the season, the kind of camp, and a budget that behaves differently from anywhere else you have travelled. One guide walks through all of it in order. Read that first; everything else on this page goes deeper on one part.

How to plan your first African safari →

Planning

How a first safari fits together: when, where, how long, how much.

How to Plan Your First African Safari

Get the 10-minute printable checklist

The area check and the hotel check, on one printable sheet you can reuse on every trip.