About the map

Two, usually, plus a coast if there is one nearby. Three is comfortable in fourteen nights. Each additional region costs most of a day, a flight, a packing, and the guide relationship you were just building.

The one to resist is a third region added because it is famous rather than because it is different.

The test is contrast. A Mara conservancy with Laikipia or Samburu works because the landscape and the activities genuinely differ. An Okavango water camp with a Linyanti concession is the strongest two-stop in Southern Africa.

The Mara with the northern Serengeti does not work — it is one ecosystem with a border through it.

It depends what you are buying. Botswana costs more because the concession model fixes a small number of beds across very large areas — you are paying for other people not being there, and the premium is honest rather than fashionable.

If solitude is the point, nowhere does it better. If you want the highest density of big cats, Kenya gives you more for less.

Deliberately not. A directory of three hundred properties, all excellent by definition, leaves you no further forward — and a collection that is really an affiliate index is worth nothing.

We publish the level above: the land, the rules that come with it, and the months. Then a specialist names camps for your actual dates, which is the only point at which naming camps is useful, because availability is what decides it.

For July to October — the migration months in the Masai Mara — six to twelve months is normal, and the best small camps sell out first. Christmas and New Year book up just as early.

For the shoulder months, three to four months is usually comfortable. Inside eight weeks we can still put a very good trip together, but you are choosing from what is left rather than from everything.

A Africa safari is usually quoted fully inclusive: accommodation, all meals, park and conservancy fees, your guide and vehicle, and transport between parks. Most camps include soft drinks, house wine, beer and laundry.

Not included: international flights, visas or travel authorisation, travel insurance, tips, premium drinks, and extras like balloon flights and spa treatments.

This site is a planning guide. When you send an enquiry it goes to Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Kenya, who prepare your itinerary and quote and handle the booking, the payments and you on the ground.

You deal with one team from the first email to the airport transfer home.

No. Sending your dates, getting an itinerary and getting a costed quote is free and carries no obligation. Money only changes hands when you decide to hold space at a camp.