20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Chobe National Park by Hennie Lacock
The Wildlife here is absolutely amazing! The narula beauty, especially by the Chobe River is excellent. Birding is just as great here. It is a popular destination though, and many tourists visit this park, but you will still experience a great bush vibe here.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Lions in camp and a blanket of stars!
Upon arrival in the early mornings at the Khutse gate, we were greeted by friendly staff that assisted us with a prompt check in, advised us on which roads to travel to camp and shared some more vital information with us. The staff also helped us to fill our offroad trailer's water tanks with water to be used for showering. Note - this water is not suitable for drink water, you need to bring your own drinking water, approximately 2.5l per person per day.
As we set off into the park from the gate, we were amazed at how green and lush the bush is, not quite typical Kalahari. The roads were sandy and require a 4x4, but even a novice would be able to traverse the terrain. We deflated our tires to about 1.6 bar to deal with the loose thick sand even better. The centre of the roads is quite high, so a high clearance vehicle is highly recommended. A normal SUV would struggle and will be scraping the under belly of the car.
Accommodation was exactly what we expected, a huge camp site all to ourselves with plenty of space to pitch at least 4 big tents. Shade for all the tents will not always be available, so my advise would be to camp here in the winter times. The closest neighboring camp site was at least 200m away - you really don't see much other people and you really feel as if you are completely alone in the bush, this made our trip very special.
The only facilities at the camp sites is a long drop toilet (pit toilet) and a bucket shower. As mentioned before, you need to bring your own water for the bucket shower; we used about 5l of water to shower every day. You also have a braai area, but you have to bring your own braai grid. In a nut shell, you need to be fully self sufficient. If you are a novice offroader / camper, I would advise not to travel alone as a few days may pass before someone passes you.
The nights were amazing; the amount of stars you see here at night is absolutely amazing! We took a few star trail photos and Milky Way photos - never have I taken photos with so many stars in them!
As we were at the park after an exceptional rainy season, there weren't many animals around. We saw a few small herds of springbok, gemsbok and hartebeest. We also only saw lion the first afternoon and never again. The lions did visit our camp the first night, so always be vigilant of what may be lurking around your camp site.
It is advisable to wash away all your dishes, pack away our rubbish, close all food containers and pack everything away completely every night as this may attract lions into your camp. As romantic as that may sound, these lions are wild and you do not want a dangerous situation on your hands. Also, DO NOT put any food with you in your tent - again you don't want to attract a lions to where you sleep... Even if you leave camp during the day, pack your rubbish and food away - jackals may just raid your camp.
Overall Khutse was a great experience and I would definitely visit this park again. For the photographer in me this wasn't the best place for doing Wildlife Photography, but to get away from it all and experience solitude - this is the place to be!!
AE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Detail
We spent 2 nights at the Masodini Lodge organised by Bubezi Safaris. We had 3 game drives during our time there. The lodge was wonderful and the food and service were excellent. The drives - 2 evenings, 1 morning - were great. Bert was a pleasure to have as the driver and we appreciated his knowledge andsense of humour. However, the overriding feeling was that every detail was taken care of expertly and our stay there was hassle free. The dinner conversations were fun and even better when the excellent wine was close at hand. Andy is one of a kind. We couldn't have asked for a better guide who looked after every detail from start to finish! We'll be back.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Excellent
The service was world class. We we booked into a loge for the night with a lake view. The tour guide was great. He took us to the park during the day and night. We had a great boat ride on the lake. Lake Basin did a great job at proving us with an itenary for each day that we could change up as needed. We visited the salt lake and saw first hand how the salt is mined. Lake Basin tours so far has the best touring experience that I have attended.
MC
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Awesome holiday!
One of the best Holiday ever had.
I miss already the place, the people, the animals, I would like to came back now.
People are incredible. The full travel was incredibly very well organized .
Thank you to Patrick, Judith, Davis, Judh, and all the rest of the staff looked after us for the period.
We are been in paradise for 8 days.
BE
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Wonderfull and very original trek guided fully professionnally by Thiery
The Trek itself was very diversified, either in civilised countries either in traditional area of Lesotho .
The services where top class and met all our expactations
The guide has promoted an excellent athmosphere in the group with plenty of Attention to every body and a lot of Humour.
If you want to have Excellent Holydays, go with Biwakwango!
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Private Tour - all was perfect!
I did a private tour with Mzanzi in Western Cape end of 2013. It was all very well organized, we visited nice places and the lodges we stayed are all beautiful and nice. On this tour we also had the possibility to do walks and game-drives in private reserves. The communication was very good - the guide knows a lot of things in the nature and told us a lot things about South Africa. I really can say: very good! I really can recommend it.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Botswana by Hennie Lacock
You'll have to search far to experience African Wildlife and the African Bush better than in Botswana. It has endless scenic beauty wherever you go, the wildlife is absolutely amazing and the bird life will not let you down either.
Heaven on Earth!
What a special place, doing special work! Wildlife was diverse, abundant and showed many natural behaviors. Not touristy nor overcrowded--a plus. Fantastic accommodations and the guides were phenomenal. Highlight--giraffe and zebra being "shooed" off dirt airstrip as we landed.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Our African Safari with Africa VIP Travel and Kambona Mollel exceeded our expectations
My spouse, brother-in-law and I traveled with Kambona on a photo safari and it was magnificent. I wanted to book directly with an African-based company and wanted to bypass the large travel companies that obviously take a percentage of the cost of a trip. It was a great feeling knowing that the entire cost of the trip went to an African entrepreneur. I have nothing against the large international travel companies but wanted to support a smaller company in Africa. Wow, the communications were amazing!!! I would send an email from my home in Canada with a question and in one case the answer came back 11 minutes later. If Kambona would be unavailable for a few days he let me know in advance in case I had any pressing questions. I thought that going on a safari with just 3 people, rather than a group, would be too expensive but the cost was well worth the trip. Whatever we wanted to do, e.g., spend more time watching lions, we did. This was excellent rather than having to be subjected to the vote of a larger group that wanted to take a photo and move on somewhere else. Kambona was very knowledgeable, carried lots of reference books and often joined us for supper at the end of day. Our days were well planned and we saw everything we hoped to see. It was always our decision to move on to our next stop. The itinerary, service and accommodations were excellent. Although we had a minor vehicle problem (as did some other very large tour companies), which is not unexpected on the rough roads, our problem was fixed very quickly. What stands out in my mind is that when our trip started we were customer and client. When we left Kambona we felt we were leaving a very close friend.