"Benson Safaris: Thrilling Adventures Await!"
Benson Safaris Tanzania
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- TATO, TTB & IGS
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $300 to $1,200 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
US
Email Madonna and Thomas | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Benson Safari’s provided us a wonderful experience from arrival to departure.
We are delighted that we chose Benson’s Safaris to guide our Tanzania safari experience. We thoroughly enjoyed our safari through Tanangire, Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater, and Lake Manyara, as well as our cultural experiences with the Maasai, Hadzabe, Datoga, tribes and the Gidangooga blacksmith. We liked the local Mama lunch and agricultural visits in Mto wa Mbu.
Benson was wise and flexible as we fashioned our itinerary. The accommodations he recommended all suited us well and were staffed by friendly and helpful people. We especially enjoyed our stays in the tented camps.
Our driver-guide Paul was fabulous! He knew so much about the animals and skillfully got us to them, often positioning the land cruiser to optimize our camera angle. Paul took great care of us, for examples facilitating our gluten-free eating and helping us get avocado after I injured my knee (as recommended for healing by Tanzanians). He also taught us some Kiswahili, which enriched our connections with the people we met. We enjoyed our conversations with Paul as we journeyed on safari. We also enjoyed conversations with our airport driver Zablon.
Benson Safari’s provided us a wonderful experience from arrival to departure. When you’re planning a trip from 10,000 miles away, it’s important to have local expertise. We wanted to go with a Tanzanian-owned tour operator and we’re happy we chose Benson. We’d go with them again and are already recommending them to our family and friends.
US
Email Kevin | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We whole heartedly recommend Benson Safaris! I encourage you to give them a serious look.
I don’t very often feel compelled to write a review except for when I encounter extremely exceptional or extremely horrific experiences. I don’t even take the time to write a review for businesses that mildly exceed my expectations or are a mild disappointment. I am speaking on behalf of the four of us in my family (Husband, Wife and 2 Children) when I say that Benson Safaris was beyond exceptional throughout the entire process from advising and customizing our itinerary, follow up along the way and the actual Safari experiences. I vetted about a dozen safari companies in Tanzania and took a leap of faith and booked our family of 4’s first safari with Benson because he was the most upfront with costs and provided pros and cons of each location we were thinking about experiencing with a bonus of being wildlife conservation minded. We ended up visiting the Central and North Serengeti for a few days, Tarangire NP, Lake Manyara NP, Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Eyasi to interact and experience the culture of a few tribes. Each day exceeded the previous in terms of the care and effort demonstrated by our driver and guide, and the wonderful people and sights to which we were introduced.
Part of the safari experience is sitting around a camp fire in the evening where the guests often discuss their days safari adventure. When comparing our safari experience with Benson Safaris to what others had from other companies it was clear that Benson and his team delivered a more successful safari experience. Our guide was not only extremely knowledgeable about the wildlife we encountered but more importantly he had the experience and the communication network to locate the specific animals and always found the perfect vantage point to view them. The thing we lucked out on that turned out to be the key safari ingredient, was having an experienced guide with a newer truck, which Benson Safaris delivered both. In our few days of Safari we saw the entire big 5 bucket list including Black Rhinos on two different occasions as well as having a front row seat to observe the Great Wildebeest Migration crossing the Mara River. We were the only ones around the camp fire that had experienced everything up close where many of the other guests merely attempted to witness these things and came back empty handed. I truly attribute the success of our safari to Benson’s guidance on creating our itinerary and his ability to hire experienced and exceptional guides.
One last thing to mention is that we traveled with younger children at the ages of 10 and 12 years old. If you have children, you know this can be a challenge. This was both of their first time traveling outside of the US and Benson and Amani (our guide) went above and beyond to make sure they were happy, engaged and comfortable. Amani, understood what animals our kids were most excited about seeing and made an effort to find them and get them close to them. Amani treated them with respect and spent time to educating them on the specific plants and animals that we were observing. Benson and Amani even remembered they had birthdays that month and made them feel special by singing happy birthday and sharing a slice of cake with them. Many companies will “accept” or “allow” kids but from my experience, very few will go out of their way to make kids feel special and treat them with the same respect as they would treat adults.
This was our first trip to Tanzania and our first safari which started out being an intimidating vacation planning experience. Benson earned our trust and made this experience pleasurable. On behalf of my entire family, we can whole heartedly recommend Benson Safaris and I encourage you to give them a serious look when you are planning a trip to Tanzania.
Thank You Benson Safaris! We will be back!
Email Jurjees | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceptional
Fabulous experience. Ben and team were excellent and attentive. Our guide Sudy was absolutely magnificent. Thank you all.
IT
Email Abramo | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great Safari experience. Wonderful Zanzibar relax
All tour has been very well organized. Claude, our ranger, drove us into Tanzanian parks as an amazing guide hitting Big5 target. I will advice the tour mostly in terms of value for money.
AE
Email Sonia | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fantastic hassle free company with great drivers giving amazing safari experiences!
Bensons made our first time safari experience absolutely easy and great. We had great communication before the trip regarding all aspects from itineraries and wishlist to preferred accommodations and day plans. We had our itinerary exactly as we had asked for and they are great at organizing everything for you.
Our driver Amani was absolutely fantastic and massively enhanced our experience - he was a great driver with great knowledge and also so friendly and entertaining, which is very welcome during the long stints of driving! He was a lovely chap who made sure we had everything we needed for the duration of the safari and did his best to make sure we saw all of the animals on our wishlist - he was very experienced and I think this is so important when out on Safari.
Overall we would 100% use this company again - they are brilliant! highly recommend for first time safari goers, as they really help organise it all and ensure that you have a great time!
CZ
Email Jaroslav | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Benson Safaris Tanzania can be described in 3 words - friendly, helpful and professional ;)
Professional, willing and helpful staff. We´ ve enjoyed every moment ;)
Thank you!
CA
Email Stephanie | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing wildlife and culture experience
As soon as we got picked up at the airport, our trip kept getting better. Amazing doesn’t begin to describe the outstanding wildlife viewings we had when on our 10 day trip with Benson Safari. Our excellent tour guide Amani took us up close to the animals and we had amazing experiences we never dreamed of. Elephants, lions, zebras, (even a leopard!) we saw it all. The cultural experiences were a great alternative to the safari that we definitely enjoyed and will cherish forever. We’d like to especially recommend our tour guide Amani who is not only a great, hard-working man but is patient, knowledgeable and fun to be around for an extended amount of time. I’d recommend Benson Safaris to anyone as they provided us with an experience we will never forget.
Highly experienced tour operator - we are so happy to have booked with Benson!
The best guides we could ask for in our first trip to beautiful Tanzania! We hired Benson Safaris for (1) a 5-day safari and (2) a 3-day Mt. Meru trek. From the moment we arrived in Arusha to our airport drop off for Zanzibar, we were taken care of by Benson’s team the whole way through.
We were picked up on arrival into Arusha by Zablo and transported to the Ilboru lodge…where Benson was there in person to go over the details of our trip. The very next day we were picked up by our Guide – Peter – for the next five days to the Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorogoro and Lake Manyara parks. Peter was extremely knowledgeable and friendly.
After our safari we were then picked up (again from Ilboru lodge) by Shaban and his team of ~4-5 porters to climb Mt. Meru over the next three days. This entire team again was very friendly – and patient! – with us throughout the entire climb. We felt very safe and in good hands for the duration of the trek.
In summary, Benson Safari is an excellent tour operator with some of the best guides that we’ve ever travelled with!
NL
Email Jan Beekwilder sr | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Benson organized a great tour for us!
Benson did a very good job. Everything was well organized and Benson worked very hard to make sure we had a great tour. He even changed guides for us. The first guide was not to our satisfaction so Benson arranged another guide. This new guide (Richard) was really great. He provided a lot of background information what made our tour really fantastic. We were also very happy with Richards personality and his great manners. If you want to do a Tanzania safari tour I recommend Benson Safaris!
FR
Email Hubert Jobbé-Duval | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Flawless experience for our honeymoon
When I started to look for a Safari, I contacted many agencies based in Arusha. Of all the offers I received, the one from Benson Safaris caught my attention because of how compliant it was with my initial request. Pendo, the manager I spoke with, was able to give me valuable advices on how to improve my safari and still stay on my budget.
The safari itself was amazing. They took care of everything, including getting in touch with an orphanage where we wanted to make a donation.
Thanks to our french-speaking guide, Frank, we saw more wildlife than we could ever have dreamed of. The big five of course, but also dramatic scenes of hunting along the Mara River and deep inside the Serengeti. We might had some luck, but the experience of our guide and his ability to spot animals was impressive.
About the comfort you have nothing to worry about, the vehicle was equipped with many power plugs, we had more drinks than needed, and breaks were organized on request.
I would strongly recommend Benson Safaris to any person willing to discover all the wonders Tanzania has to offer. Everything was perfect !
