Nyange Adventures offers many tours in Tanzania concentrating on trekking tours. This seems to be a small family operation that has been in business about 10 years. They provide tours to the popular Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park, and some other parks. They have a Kilimanjaro climb and a tour of Zanzibar. Beyond Tanzania they have tours of Kenya and of Uganda for Gorilla trekking.
Ubuntu Travel is a luxury tour operator in Africa covering Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They list a few suggested itineraries but tours are completely customizable, so they are quite expensive. They give a rough estimate of $700-800USD per person per night.
South Africa: their 16-day tour covers Cape Town, the Cape wine district, the Timbavati Private Game Reserve, the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, and the Bazaruto Archipelago.
Tanzania: their 9-day tour covers Arusha, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, and Masai Mara.
They also have an 18-day South Africa & Tanzania tour covering Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, Okavango Delta, Johannesburg, Kruger National Park, and Cape Town.
Rwanda: their 11-day tour covers Kigali, Nyungwe Forest, Akagera National Park, and Volcanoes National Park.
 |
| Tanzania |
 |
| Zambia |
 |
| Namibia |
 |
| South Africa |
 |
| Seychelles |
Uncovering Namibia’s best kept secret: The South
Wanderlust Magazine October 2023
Namibia’s northern wonders often hog the limelight, but the country’s lesser-known southern reaches have plenty of natural drama. Here are five of its secret gems that are well worth exploring.
1: Sossusvlei
The cloud-baiting dunes of Sossusvlei reach 325m high and are perhaps the Namib Desert at its most dramatic. These dunes have had plenty of time to grow – around 55 million years – and to truly appreciate their colossal nature you need to clamber up one.
2: Lüderitz and the Kolmanskop ghost town
Pinned between the Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, the isolation that the formerly German colonial town of Lüderitz enjoys means its Art Nouveau architecture has been left alone by the 21st century. Its village-like atmosphere and historic buildings are a joy to wander. Nearby is Kolmanskop. This ghost town was built on the area’s diamond mining fortunes since the early 1900’s but was completely abandoned by the 1950s. To see this once-thriving village, which had its own theatre and bowling alley, now totally engulfed by sand is starkly surreal.
3: Tsau / Khaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park
For over 100 years, since the first gemstone was unearthed here, the area of Tsau //Khaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park was a hive of diamond-mining activity in specific areas. It was also off-limits to visitors – sperrgebiet means ‘prohibited area’ in German – and through tight security restrictions the area was left as wilderness for the most part. But that’s slowly changing. Tourism concessions are now granting long-awaited access to this pristine wilderness’ swirling rock formations and meteor craters.
4: Oranjemund
For nearly 80 years the old mining town of Oranjemund was closed off to outsiders and managed by Namdeb, a diamond mining company. It was something of an enigma until 2017, when its secrets were spilled and its doors opened to the world. What lies within has been worth the wait.
5: Fish River Canyon
Namibia’s south still has one more surprise up its sleeve: Fish River Canyon. This gargantuan landscape is the world’s second-largest canyon and often feels like it might be more at home on Mars. At 160km long, 27km wide and up to 550m deep, you can get a sense of its rugged expanse just by peering over its edge, but this is a phenomenon that deserves the whole hog. For that, embark on a five-day hike where you descend into the canyon’s belly and trek the riverbed to its conclusion (there’s no other way out). It’s the ultimate finale for any adventure through southern Namibia.
©2019 Wanderlust Publications Ltd., All rights reserved.
I found the tours below on Tourhub but noticed that Intrepid Travel is the actual tour operator (so, TourHub seems to be just a Canadian consolidator). Intrepid Travel is headquartered in Melbourne with offices in London, Toronto, and Columbo, Sri Lanka.
They have an extensive 64 day tour of southern Africa beginning in Cape Town and ending in Nairobi with multiple stops in between. The tour covers South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya. The actual tour is run by Lonely Planet and Intrepid tours.
Accommodations range from camping to hotels, broken down as follows: Camping (with facilities) (48 nights), Camping (with basic facilities) (3 nights), Camping (without facilities) (1 night), Bungalow (2 nights), Cabin (3 nights), Dormitory (2 nights), Hotel (3 nights), Hotel with shared facilities (1 night).
Travel is by Overland Vehicle, 4x4 Safari Vehicle, Ferry, Minibus, and Mokoro (a type of African canoe)
The tours start typically around the middle of the month and for every month of the year. Cost is roughly $15,000-$17,000 USD depending on the season.
They also have a 49 day tour, Cape Town to Kenya.
 |
| 64 day Tour |
 |
| 49 day tour |
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 far too expensive. The Blue Train is more affordable. The Cape Town to Pretoria run is a 31 hour journey covering 994 miles (1,600km) that costs R48,655 (~$3,524CDN) low season, R60,040 (~$4349CDN) 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 (~$6,432CDN), including single supplement, return with one day at Kruger. They only do this trip once per year at the end of June.
 |
| Blue Train route |
Less luxurious than the Blue Train but more extensive is the Shongololo Express (a Rovos subsidiary) whose 15-day tour ("African Trilogy") covers South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland. US$19,650 with single supplement.
 |
| Shongololo Trilogy Express 15-day tour |
Shongololo also has two other 12 day excursions: Dune Express and Southern Cross.
 |
 |
| Dune Express | 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
Safari Companies highly rated on Tour Radar:
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.
