35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
3 day Gorilla Treking
The team from Katona Tours and Travel were very professional and helpful throughout, ensuring that I had the best experience, tailor-making the tour to my requirements and organising everything. The accommodation was superb and I had never imagined that I would get so close to a family of Mountain Gorillas. This was amazing experience and something that I will never forget - thank you so much.
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
it was totally awesome full of adventure our guide was very skilled and knew places for sightings
Our guide Karisa made us feel comfortable having 15 years experience with the company he was very knowledgeable knowing spots to get the best viewing. He worked well with the other team liaising with them while we were out in the bush and answered every questions.
I would not hesitate to recommend Gametrackers for any Safari and when reading this we need to save Masai Mara game park from farming.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable experience!
I was on a 12 night safari with Ulinda Safari Trails in September 2016. The adventure started in Kasane, from where we drove to the Chobe Riverfront (3 nights camping), Savuti (3 nights), Khwai (4 nights) and Moremi (2 nights). On the last day I was dropped off at my hotel in Maun.
This was my first safari and camping is not something I do often either, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. And surely enough the trip exceeded my expectations in all aspects! The wildlife was amazing – so many elephants!, lions with cubs and hunting buffalo, zebras, and eventually feeding on an elephant, wild dogs, leopards feeding on impala, hippos, crocodiles and so much more! Nature at its best! In total I had 8 leopard sightings which is something exceptional! The sunsets and sunrises in Botswana are breath-taking and you never miss one as the days start early, with 5:15am wakeup. We also had a boat trip on a Chobe river and mokoro trip in Khwai. Both very relaxing.
The camping was comfortable, and camp moves very efficient. Food was delicious thanks to Gassie – a great vegetarian choice. We had various visitors in our camping sites, including honey badger, elephants, leopard and a civet, and in the evenings sitting by the fire place you could hear lions roaring and leopards grunting. Unforgettable experience!
And something to highlight – the closed vehicle (with opening roof) – is really the way to go. I was protected from the morning cold, and the wind and dust, yet had no issues taking great pictures through the open roof. I didn’t see many vehicles of this type around, and I really felt bad for people in the open cars at times!
Jane, Gassie and Alex were super friendly and professional. They made the trip an unforgettable experience for me, and I can wholeheartedly recommend safaris with Ulinda Safari Trails!
AT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very serious company with a clear tour programm wtch is the same as it is in real
Great thanks to Ute Sonnenberg for the good communication
All lodges were real nice ( Ilala Lodge, Bakwena Lodge and Kadizora Camp)
great thanks to KB from Bakwena Lodge and OC from Kadizora Camp they were excellent guides.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Lovely first safari
I had a great safari with face of Africa adventures. I had arranged it quite last minute but everything was organized very well. The program was not exactly the same as in the itinerary but in my case it made my safari even better. Compared to other safari companies this one had a really good price.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
I had a wonderful safari.
The safari definitely lived up to my expectations. Ruaha National Park is an outstanding park, easily rivaling any of it's more famous northern counterparts. The accommodation was great - I couldn't recommend Tandala more highly. Paul and Hannah at Paul Tickner Safaris are lovely people, who are passionate about what they do and have fantastic local knowledge. Communication was a little slow at times, and they are probably not the cheapest company, but they are extremely trustworthy, know what they are doing, and will make sure you are well looked after.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Dusty Roads gave us the most beautiful experience we could imagine !!!!
Our Tanzanian safari was the trip of a lifetime for us and Dusty Roads Safaris and Tours made our dreams come true. From their efficient help with the planning, competitive rates to accommodating our special medical needs, to applying their expertise to the scheduling, they bent over backwards to meet our needs and make this the best trip ever. Mr. Lodaru Mollel was great at responding to our questions and working to get our itinerary just right for what we wanted to do and see. Our itinerary took us to Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara parks. Our driver, Geoff, made each day special for us by being punctual, knowledgeable, safe, fun and he has the best eye sight in the world for spotting animals! The two major things we wanted to see were leopards in trees and the wildebeest crossing the Mara River. Both happened, and in addition we saw so much more spectacular wildlife that made this an extra special trip to remember.
Would we use Dusty Roads for another safari? Absolutely! Out of a 5 star rating, we give them 10!!!! Thank you Mollel, Geoff and Dusty Roads for an awesome safari! You guys are the best of the best.
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
It was wonderful to travel with my sister, she planned everything & it all went so smoothly.
As Jamela Africa Safaris is very reliable, having travelled with them before on two separate holidays, I had no hesitation in just leaving everything in Sheilagh Dewil's hands as she knows what I appreciate and organises really well. A trip to Kruger National Park was the absolute highlight, Sheilagh knowing which camps to visit and which tours to use. I can highly recommend the services of Jamela Africa Safaris.
US
A once in a lifetime experience
We assembled a 14 day trip to Tanzania through a wildlife photographer and Essential Africa as the tour operator. Our group was 6 photographers plus our local guide Ally and Karine Aigner (photographer) for the entire trip. Given their experience they set up 4 days in the southern Serengeti and then 8 more in the northern Serengeti at a total of 3 different camps. The flat plains of the south was very different from rolling hills of the north and the Mara River. Generally there is more wildlife in the south during February than in the north but we certainly did not lack in sighting in the north and in one area near the Kenya border we witnessed a herd of several thousand animals. The limitations of the Serengeti National Park are that you must stay on the trail with your vehicle so we spent much of our time in the Ngorongoro Preserve to permit off road adventures. The advantage to this was also minimizing contacts with other vehicles and the disruption multiple vehicles have to the wildlife. In the northern camps we saw no more than 3-4 other vehicles each day in comparison to the south where you can have a dozen vehicles around a leopard sighting. We always left at 6 am and stayed out until the park closing at 6:30pm with a short stop back at the camp near lunch unless we were traveling a good distance and then we brought along lunch with us. Our first camp was a tent camp and once you get used to the bucket showers it was really quite comfortable. The northern camps were permanent camps, had superb accommodations and all three had excellent service and food. Weather was generally excellent with rain only as a short part of two days. The bush plane flights between camps were an added adventure that was a blast but a little tight on space if you are large. All members of our party totally enjoyed the adventure and other than short bouts with tse tse flies there were really no complaints at all. In terms of wildlife we had a huge number of sightings and saw most major species with the exception of rhinos (OK we saw one about a mile away) and many opportunities to photogragh all of the large cats from very close up. Hard to ask for more than that. Simply put it was a fabulous trip that was superbly planned and run.
The most outstanding safari destination in the world.
We travelled to South Luangwa National Park in August. We'd only been on safari once before - at a private reserve in South Africa. We'd asked our travel agency for the best safari experience and they said South Luangwa was it... and we can't disagree.
We stayed in two bush camps: Nsolo, a Norman Carr camp, and Lion Camp. Both were great! Staff couldn't do enough for us, the game drives were amazing and the guides' knowledge was encyclopaedic! Nsolo was smaller, more personal and more luxurious; Lion Camp was bigger but in a more rich area of the national park. However, if you're going for 5 star luxury - don't go to South Luangwa - this place is all abut the game, which is wonderful!
Let's face it, if you;re looking at South Luangwa, you're after great game sightings. It will not disappoint. A co-traveller has safaried across Africa for the last 20 years and said he'd never, ever experienced anything like South Luangwa; at a later stop, Sindebezi Island near Livingstone, we were speaking to a traveller who'd just been on a two week walking and river safari in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia (south) who, on hearing what we'd seen, said "Well, that's it - you can't go on safari again as nothing will compare to that". That's how great South Luangwa is.
I can't tell you everything we saw - the list would be far too long - but here's heavily edited highlights:
On our first night (Nsolo), we were sitting around the campfire after a delicious dinner when a staff member noticed some lions. Immediately, the truck was started up and we piled in. Barely two minutes later, we were sat watching a lion and lioness enjoying the moonlight... literally 3 metres from our bed! Suddenly, the armed guard who escorts you to and from your accommodation during the dark didn't seem overly cautious.
During the night, we had the best worst-night's-sleep ever. The sounds of the bush woke us delightfully often, including the resident hippo pod which lives right next to the camp and come out at night to graze around the edge of the camp.
My wife is a sucker for animal babies, so seeing hyena cubs, only a few weeks old, was amazing.
At Lion Camp, we saw, obviously, many sightings of the two prides which live nearby, including finding them lazing on the road just waking up after a night's feed. We sat in the middle of the pride, feeling like we were a little part of it rather than just observers. My lion highlight was seeing the full pride in a stand off with some painted dogs. Another was seeing a lioness move her 5 day old cubs from one nest to another: they were so young, their eyes were not open yet, and the tenderness with which she moved them in those huge, powerful jaws was stunning.
If you love elephants, you'll love South Luangwa. It seems like they're around every corner - and they're not afraid to let you know when you;re too close. We were mock-charged three times... but we never felt unsafe.
One thing we'd hoped for was seeing a leopard. We were not to be disappointed! Over 5 days at Lion Camp, we had 7 - seven - sightings, from glimpses in the night to sitting watching two different leopards in trees during the day. At one point, we were so close I asked the guide if it was purring - it wasn't: it was growling at us! We moved of sharpish. Another night sighting was wonderful - we'd seen the leopard at a distance and our guide swung the car round, went through undergrowth trying to second guess where it would head, and we were rewarded with it coming out of the undergrowth just to our side and making its way across the front of the car so close that, when in front, you couldn't see it over the bonnet.
For birders, which we are not, South Luangwa is wonderful. Some fellow travellers were birders and we caught a bit of the bug from their enthusiasm. Bee eaters and violet breasted rollers were my favourites, but the various eagles and vultures are spectacular in their size. We were even treated to a long, uninterrupted sight of Pel's fishing owl - something we appreciated but not fully until it was explained to us that this rarity is similar to seeing to a leopard.
Overall, if you love wildlife, if you love safari and if you want the greatest experience you've ever had, book for South Luangwa today.