Planning Your First Safari

Most first-time planning goes wrong because people pick a lodge before deciding the bigger things. Do it in this order instead:

1. When. Your travel dates decide almost everything else — see the Weather & Seasons lesson before booking anything.
2. How long. Four to five days is enough to see two parks properly without feeling rushed. Fewer than three days means a lot of driving relative to game viewing.
3. Budget level. Decide roughly what you want to spend per day before browsing lodges — it narrows hundreds of options to a handful in minutes.
4. Private or shared. Private costs more but the schedule is entirely yours; shared is cheaper with a fixed group pace.
5. Lodges last. Once the above is set, picking where to sleep each night is the easy part.

Everything else — which parks, which route, which lodges — falls out naturally once these five are answered.