There's plenty of room to move on a safari budget. But there are also a few places where saving money quietly ruins the very thing you came for.
Worth cutting
- The season. The same route in February instead of August is noticeably cheaper, quieter, and arguably better for game viewing on the southern plains. This is the biggest single saving you can make.
- The camps. This has the widest range of any cost. Simple, comfortable camps in the right places beat expensive camps in the wrong ones, every time.
- Group size. The vehicle and guide are a fixed cost. Four people pay much less each than two do, for exactly the same trip.
- Internal flights. These are optional on a longer trip. Drive instead, and you get to see the landscape in between.
Not worth cutting
- Nights inside the park. A cheaper lodge outside the gate costs you an hour of driving at each end of every single day, and those are the two best hours of light. It's the most expensive saving on this list.
- The guide. We talk about this a lot on this site, and for good reason. It's the difference between really seeing and just looking.
- Days. Squeezing a nine-day route into six doesn't save you a third. It just turns a safari into a string of drives.
The quote that looks too cheap
Check the park fees line, the vehicle line, and whether the camps are inside or outside the gates. Those three explain almost every mysterious gap between two quotes for the same route.