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If you are surfing the web researching safari information, you might be overwhelmed to see how many different gameparks, safari camps, and tour operators there are in Africa . Fact: Africa is three and a half times larger than the United States and offers hundreds of different types of safaris for all budgets, activities, and ages. Planning your safari and booking all the required arrangements is not something that can be done overnight; considerable communication has to be shared between us in order to plan and create your adventure. If you book your vacation with a travel agent who doesn't know all your options, you might experience Africa the way you weren't expecting . Not all ground operators and safari companies are the same and all companies offer different levels of accommodations . Additionally , there are many kinds of safari vehicles from safari mini - busses to 4WD Landrovers, authentic culture to staged culture, and food, such as, stale fruit cocktail to bush cuisine by resident chefs.
What are my interests?
 Do I want to see big cats? Am I a huge elephant fan? Am I interested in birds?
Would you like your safari to be based on hiking and walking? How much local culture are you interested in seeing? Are you interested in water activities like canoeing down the Zambezi River and Lake Kariba or gameviewing by boat (makoro) on the Okavango Delta? Have you always dreamed of witnessing the great Wildebeest Migrationin the Serengeti, or seeing Victoria Falls as Livingston once did, or ballooning over the Masai Mara, or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro?
How long should I visit Africa ?
The perfect safari can be done anywhere from 8 days to 20 days depending on your budget. However, first consider including 4-5 days of travel in getting to Africa and returning home.
Should I travel with a group or have my own private guide/vehicle?
 Being accommodating to others is essential if you travel with a group. Mixing travelers in the same vehicle could result in birders accommodating "cat" people and vise versa. It's impossible to pair groups of people together with the same interests, should you choose to go in a group setting. Most safari companies that sell standard "canned" tours with set departure dates mix people of all ages and interests. Can you imagine spending $6,000 pp to share a vehicle with others that have the exact opposite interests as you? Bird watching while a lion in the distance is about to hunt a cape buffalo is frustrating. What if you wanted to leave at sunrise and the others in the group drank to much Safari Lager the night before and wanted to leave at 9AM? The solution to this problem is a private safari with your own vehicle/guide or a semi-private safari sharing vehicles/guides with other guests from camp to camp. The camp managers at camps that accommodate semi-private guests do a wonderful job at pairing you with guests whom have same interests. Depending on occupancy levels, it's common to have your own vehicle and guides at the semi-private camps.
What is my budget?
Your safari cost is based upon many factors, the most being how long you spend in the bush, the level of your accommodations, how remote your camp is, the quality of your vehicle, the qualifications of your guide, and what is/isn't included. A cheap safari could travel you to the best places, but expenses like gamepark fees, meals, bottled water, alcohol, airport transfers, and inter-Africa flights can all be extra. These costs can add up to $1000-$3000 per person. What a surprise that could be!
Luxury vs. Roughing It
 These two terms can be easily confused and can't be compared equally to trips elsewhere in the world. Luxury in Africa means fresh meats and vegetables for your meals, 4-10 rooms per camp, camps built in the most scenic areas with the highest concentration of game, combinations of driving/flying from camp to camp, authentic culture, and exceptionally knowledgeable guides that drive maintained vehicles. Roughing it means doing all your own cooking with very basic food, very limited fresh water supply, seeing a lot other travelers in the area, generic culture very accustomed to tourists, many hours of driving to different destinations, staying on main roads, guides who are simply "drivers", and paying for park fees and extras along the way.
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