Six Spectacular Ways to Encounter Africa's Wildlife

A few hours walking through the African bush with an armed guide is an experience that you will never forget! As you look down and examine an elephant footprint your heart beats a little faster, your senses are on high alert, yet your safety is the first priority of your guide. On foot you can reach out and touch a plant and feel the heat rising from the chimney of a termite mound. Your guide will reveal the fascinating secrets of bushcraft and tracking.

We can arrange all kinds of adventures to enjoy on foot. In Rwanda you might trek through the rainforest to meet a family of gorillas. In the Kalahari a San bushman guide will enthrall all ages, as he explains ancestral secrets of survival in the desert. In the Tanzanian Selous, you can walk through elephant country and along river banks to your very own fly camp where you’ll stay the night.

Rivers are always exciting places to be on safari. Their life sustaining waters attract all wildlife, especially first thing in the morning and in the hours before sunset. They also offer a unique vantage point, where by boat you can watch animals drinking, playing and swimming. Some of our favourite safari lodges are located on the banks of Africa’s great rivers and allow you to see wildlife from your bedroom or private viewing deck.

At Chiawa Lodge beside the Zambezi River elephants often wander through the lodge on their way to the water. The lodge has been there more than thirty years so it has blended into the landscape. Your family may enjoy a tiger fishing competition or an afternoon canoe safari paddling gently past antelope and buffalo drinking at the water’s edge. Next morning why not try breakfast puttering past hippo on the motorised pontoon. We can arrange other amazing waterborne safaris in the Okavango Delta, Tanzania, Zambia and Uganda.

Virtually every safari lodge we select has open vehicles. Vehicles are the best way to see the most wildlife and to explore the varied landscapes, so they are a mainstay of any safari. Amazingly, animals are not bothered by the presence of a sensitively driven safari vehicle, provided that you remain fairly still and don’t make loud noises. The profile of a vehicle is non-threatening, unlike the two-legged profile of a human being.

We often use private reserves where the regulations allow the vehicles to travel off track, which gives you the chance to investigate further and to sensitively follow a big cat or pack of wild dog. We do use enclosed vehicles where these are more practical, for example on a family safari with younger children to Northern Tanzania, where you would have a private vehicle taking you from place to place, as well as on game drives.

If you ride, we encourage you to consider a riding safari as part of your trip. On horseback you can venture into places that are inaccessible to vehicles and the wildlife regards horse and rider as a non-threatening member of the animal community. Imagine cantering across the plains of the Masai Mara or beside the waterways of the Okavango Delta! A riding safari enables you to approach quite close to zebra, antelope and most plains game.

Kenya’s private reserves are an excellent choice if you want to include riding on your menu of safari activities. The horses are well-schooled and sure-footed and many of the lodge owners are themselves avid riders. You do need to be confident on horseback and care is taken to team up an appropriate mount for each rider. For a longer “full on” riding experience, we can arrange multi-day horseback safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and the Okavango Delta.

If your family loves the idea of a desert safari you could find yourselves motoring across the incredible other-worldly landscapes of the Makgadigadi Pans. These vast expanses were lakes in prehistoric times. Tyre tracks of conventional vehicles would take centuries to disappear, so quadbikes are the ideal means of transport.

Look out for meerkats and if you visit early in the year, the sparse rains may bring the landscape spectacularly to life with carpets of flowers and migrant herds. For similar reasons, quadbikes are increasingly used to traverse the fragile and extraordinary dunescapes of neighbouring Namibia. Your family can enter a world of fascinating desert-adapted wildlife and plants which somehow thrive amid the dazzlingly beautiful desert scenery.

We love seeking out new ways to explore Africa and encounter its wildlife. In Zambia’s Luangwa valley you might have the chance to take a safari by microlite. Or we can fly you across the Great Rift Valley in a historic biplane. Remaining with the aerial theme, a hot air balloon ride above the rolling Mara plains followed by a bush breakfast is a great way to start the day. Then there is mountain biking, white-water rafting, zip lining, elephant back safaris and more!

Don’t forget, we also arrange amazing stays beside the Indian Ocean. From a remote Mozambican island or the exotic Zanzibari shoreline, you can dive, snorkel, sail, paddle board and go sport fishing. Our smaller ocean hideaways are selected for their privacy, location and quality. If you’re a family with younger children, you may prefer a hotel with more substantial facilities. Just tell us what you are ideally seeking and we will draw on our thirty years of experience to find the ideal place for you.

People often ask us, "What's the best time of year to visit Africa?”. Actually, every part of Africa is spectacular, always, for different reasons. Do you want a time when you can see the most animals? Or a time when the landscapes are clothed in glorious colour? A time when it’s great value for money? Or a time when it’s especially good for photography? This is why you need specialist advice, and where we can really help. As we’ve posed the question though, here are a few really spectacular times to visit Africa.