The two main locations I'd like to visit are South Africa and Tanzania, but Namibia, Zambia and Botswana also look interesting. I want to visit South Africa, just to see it, and to see the wineries, and Tanzania for the wildlife, especially the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater. I'd like to see Lake Victoria and the falls.
There are a large number of safari and other African tour guides and it's a lot of work to dig through what each provides and to look into the quality of each. A few I looked into below got negative reviews.
GAdventures of Toronto looks good; around since 1990 and has won a few awards and partners with National Geographic.
Using a travel designer like My Escapades of Toronto or Safari Consultants in the UK may be the better way to go.
I'd like to try some rail journeys, but Rovos Rail, though one of the most prestigious, is quite expensive. The Blue Train is more affordable because the trip is shorter. The Cape Town to Pretoria run is a 31 hour journey covering 994 miles (1,600km) that costs R48,655 (~$3,692) low season, R60,040 (~$4,555) high season, including single supplement, one way.* This trip can be taken in either direction.
There is also the Pretoria to Kruger National Park with return to Pretoria with one day in Kruger. Cost is R88,810 (~$6,738), including single supplement, return with one day at Kruger. They only do this trip once per year at the end of June.
(* - High Season: 01 September – 15 November. Low Season: 01 January – 31 August & 16 November – 31 December)
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| Blue Train route |
One of the Rovos Rail trips is quite extensive: the 16-day African Trilogy tour covers South Africa, Eswatini (Swaziland) and Namibia, and costs R295,000 ($22,383) with the single supplement.
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| African Trilogy Express 15-day tour |
Rovos also has two other 12 day excursions: Namibia Safari and Southern Cross.
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| Namibia Safari | Southern Cross |
Approach Tours provides various excursions directed toward Canadian customers. Their 20 day "South Africa and Victoria Falls Tour" looks interesting but because of its small tour sizes (30 max) they fill up quickly. Some of the travel is by internal flights: Cape Town to Durban and Johannesburg to Victoria Falls (and back). Warning that many reviews on TripAdvisor stated that Approach Tours refused to refund any portion of the payment for the tour when they were cancelled because of COVID.
Itinerary
- Table Mountain & captivating Cape Town
- Robben Island
- Cape Peninsula, sea lions, penguins & the Kirstenbosch Garden
- The Dutch, the French & the Cape’s wine region
- Saint Lucia Estuary & Hluhluwe Lodge
- Dumazulu & Hluhluwe game reserve safari
- Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)
- Kruger National Park safari
- Private game reserve safari
- Blyde River Canyon & road to Pretoria
- Johannesburg, past & present
- Victoria Falls Village
- Chobe National Park, boat & land safari
- Victoria Falls
Safari Companies highly rated on Tour Radar:
- Cameleon Safaris Namibia - very reasonable prices, 3-7 day tours (4.8/5 on 71 reviews)
- Acacia Adventure Holidays - London based. 4-58 day tours (4.7/5 on 240 reviews)
- Absolute Africa - England based. 4 day to 11 week safaris (4.6/5 on 124 reviews) I am impressed with extreme detail they provide on ALL aspects of the trip: currency, visas, tipping, extra expenses, etc. Best I've seen so far.
- G Adventures - Toronto based. 1-55 days (4.8/5 on 5673 reviews)
Also check out UK travel companies Brilliant Africa and Tailor Made Africa.
Here are couple of tour companies I have seen online that need investigating. I so far have seen mixed reviews on their quality.
EF Go Ahead Tours has a number of African destination tours though almost all are country-specific. They have tours of South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana, and a Botswana-Zimbabwe tour. (And they have over 175 tours world-wide.)
CostSaverTours has tours of South Africa and a few other southern Africa countries.
The time to visit the great migrations vary throughout the seasons in the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater.
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