How to Choose a Safari Company in 10 Easy Steps

Choosing a Safari company is one of the biggest decisions you have to make when planning an African Safari. The quality of the services provided by safari company you use will make or break your safari. It’s for this reason that you need to know what to look for in choosing a good Safari company and the steps you will take to help you get the very best company for your trip.

Below are the 10 Easy Steps to choosing a good Safari Company for your African Safari. Click on any of them to jump to the detailed explanation of each.

1. Determine how much you are willing to spend 
2. Identify your preferred travel style and any special needs needs
3. Decide where you want to go and what you want to see and when you want to go
4. Find a list of safari companies for the countries you want to see 
5. Sortlist them to a handful that you can contact
6. Find reviews of each of these companies to get an idea of what kind of experience you will get with them.
7. Send emails to request for quotations (View Email Template)
8. Shortlist based on the responses provided to 3 companies
9. Call them and & do extra research on them to help you decide which company to go with 
10. Make the payment and  get confirmations

Let’s get into the details as I walk you through the step by step process of choosing a safari company. In  each step, I will give you the tips and tricks of revealing unreliable safari companies and maximize the possibility that you are going to have a great time on Safari

Step 1. Determine how much you are willing to spend 

The first thing you need to do when planning for a Safari is determining the total amount of money you are willing to spend throughout your entire Safari. To help you with this, you might want to read the article I wrote on how much a Safari in Kenya costs and how much money you need for a Safari for you to get an idea of how much it actually costs to go on safari. 

All you need at this point is your estimated budget which will help you have a proper frame of reference as you engage with the safari companies.

A few things you will want to consider when determining your budget will be:

1. How many people you will be on your Safari: the higher the number, the higher your entire budget but the cost per person will continue reducing as the number of people going on the safari continue increasing.
2. Any special needs: If the safari company is going to be making special accommodations for you on your safari, your general cost of travel will go up. 

Step 2: Identify your preferred travel style and any special needs needs

Next, you will need to clearly identify what your travel preference will be for your Safari. This will greatly affect the type of company you will choose so I advise you to spend some time here. Some of the questions you should ask yourself should be in the following areas:

What are your Preferred activities of  the safari: 

You will need to determine what is most important to you on this particular safari. You can choose between the following options of activities possible on an African Safari

• Normal Wildlife Viewing:  Everyone coming for an African safari is coming to see the animals and this will be the main activity in any safari. The question you should ask yourself is what proportion of the time should be allocated to the safari vs other possible activities? If your answer to this is “I want a high proportion”, you will need to communicate this to the Safari company.
• Cultural safari: Some safaris offer cultural experiences with the indigenous people near the national parks. Eg. You may have a chance to interact with the Maasai people when you visit the Serengeti in Tanzania or the Masai Mara in Kenya.
• Bird Watching: If birdwatching is the main activity you want to have on your safari, the options you will be offered by the Safari companies will be vastly different than if you were just interested in regular game drives. 
• Beach time: If beach time after your safari is done is something important for you, you will need to be very clear with the safari company you approach.
• Any specific animals you must see on the Safari: if seeing a white rhino is a must-do item, communicating it to your Safari company will be crucial for them to provide you with the most suitable itinerary for you.

Preferred comfort levels in the hotels and transport

You will need to determine if you will be comfortable staying in budget accommodation or if not, what type of accommodation is more suited to your liking. In addition to this, the decision of whether you want to fly or drive to the safari destinations will also be determined by your preference or budget. 

The accommodation and transport make up for a large proportion of the budget and clearly understanding your preferences will help you pick a company that is used to providing levels of service near your preferred levels.

Interaction with other tourists

Shared safaris will have you interact with other tourists that are strangers to you and if this is something you would not want on your safari, it’s important to make a note of it.

Any special activities that you would want to have in the Safari

You may be going on safari with very specific activities in mind. Mentioning this to the safari companies you are vetting will be crucial for an accurate quotation.  Special activities that you may be focused on for your safari may include:

1. Photography
2. Vlogging or reviews
3. Taking a hot air balloon ride

Special Needs

You will also need to articulate clearly any special needs you have that will need to be catered to by the Safari Company. These can include: 

• Any disabilities or impairments that can affect the success of your trip.
• Any dietary restrictions you may have
• Special accommodations that regular travelers would not normally have.

Listing all of these things down will help you articulate your needs clearly to the safari companies you approach and will reduce a lot of back and forth between you and them in the initial stages of shortlisting.

In addition to helping enhance the communication between you and the safari company, having clearly articulated needs will help you stay focused.

The safari companies will offer you different alternatives and options that fit into their already established itineraries and knowing what you want will help you avoid being deviated from your original preferences.

Step 3. Decide where you want to go and what you want to see and when you want to go

After you have identified your preferences and any special need you have, you probably already have an idea of the places you would like to see but the timeline may still be something you are thinking about.

You will need to consider a few factors when determining when your safari should be

• Weather at the time:  A very rainy season will make it difficult for you to spot animals but will also give you better rates
• Any special attractions at a specific time: You may want to travel when there is a special attraction like the great migration 
• Any events that introduce risks to you traveling: Events like general elections or any political events may introduce risks to you traveling during certain times.
• Your own schedule: You may have a flexible timeline or have a very strict schedule
• Your Budget: If you are looking to save on your Safari, you may decide to have your safari in the low season.

List these timelines and destinations down. You can provide these details to the safari operator in the initial contact email.

If you are still not sure where you want to go, you can read the following articles to get guidance

1. 40 Reasons Why Kenya is A Great Place To Visit
2. The Rainy Season in Kenya – Detailed Guide for Tourists
3. Number of Days Needed for African Safari – A Detailed Guide
4. Top 3 Kenya Safari Beach Holiday Destinations & Pros and Cons of Each
5. Is the Serengeti Worth it? Why You Shouldn’t Go to the Serengeti
6. How Many Days do You Need in Serengeti?
7. Number of Days to Spend at the Mara – A Complete Guide

By the end of this exercise, you want to have a clear picture of the country or countries that you would be interested in visiting for the Safari and a good idea of what time of year it will be.

Step 4. Find a list of safari companies for the countries you want to see 

With your needs, timelines, and destinations in mind, its time to start the search for the Safari Company that will fit your requirements. .

A good way of establishing whether our company is experienced in doing safaris is checking whether they are registered with their associations of tour operators in the country. 

Most associations of tour operators have websites that have a detailed lists of their members. You can view their websites to establish whether the company you are intending to use for your safari is one of their members.  

Tour Operator Association websites are the best places to find lists of established and legitimate tour operators that have been doing business for a while and that have a stake in ensuring that you have a good safari.

To make your work easier, here is a list of the official websites of the Association of Tour Operator the countries that are popular with safaris.

• Kenya: Kenya Association of Tour Operators’ Members List
• Tanzania: Tanzania Association of Tour Operators’ Member List
• Botswana: Hospitality and tour Operators Association of Botswana’s Members List
• South Africa: The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association’s Members List
• Rwanda: Rwanda Tours and Travel Association Members List
• Namibia: Tour and Safari Association of Namibia Members List

Visit the websites of as many tour operators as you can. The goal here is to get a large number of operators who seem like good operators. You don’t have to be right about whether they are good operators or not, you will do research on the companies that you shortlist.

Some of the indicators you can use to establish if a tour company is a good one to work with may include:

1. Quality and up-to-dateness of their website: An up to date website indicates that they care about their image and this kind of investment points to better service delivery.
2. Level of detail on their Itineraries: More details point to a company that is in direct control of their tours and not hiring out sections of their services to unknown third party suppliers.
3. Clearly set dates for Safaris: Clear and hard deadlines usually would mean that they have a large enough flow of clients to assure them of slots being filled consistently.

Step 5. Sortlist them to a handful that you can contact

Once you have come up with a substantial list of possible safari companies, you will need to reduce them to a number that you can contact and manage communications without getting confused. I think narrowing it down to a list of 5 may be a good idea.

A few of the things you can use to shortlist the list of possible companies you will use for your safari are: 

1. Registration: Check to see if the safari company is registered with its respective ministry of tourism. Most government agencies in charge of tourism have rigorous application standards that have to be kept consistently for businesses to keep their licenses. An up-to-date would usually registration points to the keeping of high standards.
2. Bonded Providers: I Initially was not familiar with this term as I was doing research for this article. However, I found out that bonding protects the safari company’s clients in case their safaris are not completed as planned. A tour operator that is bonded indicates a commitment to ensuring their clients get a good experience whether without fail.
3. Age of the Safari Company: Generally speaking, older safari companies have a wider range of experience in the tourism industry than other newer players.
4. Number of reviews online: The existence of reviews about the business in independent sources is an indicator that the company is popular and trusted.

Step 6. Find reviews of each of these companies to get an idea of what kind of experience you will get with them.

Find reviews about the kinds of experiences that the clients of the shortlisted safari companies have had with his company in the past. 

Look for reviews that are published on third-party sites like Trustpilot or TripAdvisor since they are more trustworthy and authentic than any that the safari company would give themselves. 

Look for a detailed description of how people felt about the services provided by each of the company

Try to get dirt on the companies by filtering by the worst rating provided. Read through the bad reviews and check for how the safari company has responded to them. No company is perfect and will have a few negative reviews.

The thing that will differentiate a good company from a mediocre one is how they handle genuine complaints from people who have used their services.

By the end of this exercise, you will have filtered the shortlist of safari companies to about 4-5 and you by this point, you know enough about your own needs and what is available out there that you will be able to carry out a conversation with a safari operator from a position of knowledge.

Step 7. Send emails to request for quotations

Now that you have a list that you have confidence in since you’ve done a lot of research,  it’s time to contact them by requesting them to provide you with pricing details and itineraries for the kind of trip you are interested in. 

As I have mentioned earlier,  when making a request for a quotation for your Safari,  you will need to be as specific as possible for the company to provide you with clear and concise information on the first try. 

Since you’ve already taken the time to identify your needs,  preferences, and timelines in the previous steps, ensure that you communicate them clearly to the Safari company. 

Having your requirements in an ordered, a bulleted list will make it easy for the tour operator to understand all of your needs and answer each of them systematically. T 

Conversely, having your needs all lumped into one paragraph will lead to frustrations since the tour organizer may miss an important requirement.

Some of the information you should ask them to provide with your quotation can include:

1. Group size: How large will the group you will be traveling with be? This will help you get a picture of how many strangers you will be having in the car with you.
2. Age limits: Are there any age limits for the safari? This is is important to ask even if you will not be coming with a child to your safari because someone else in your group may come with a child.If that’s something you particularly don’t like, you would need to know ahead of time to help you make your decision.
3. Game Drives:  How many game drives (going out to see the animals in the park)  will you be having per day and how long will each game drive last. You should also ask if the company has any restrictions on things like mileage or time spent per game drive.
4. Accommodation: Is accommodation within the park? Some companies use lodges that are located outside of the national parks. This means that you will miss the early dawn and late dusk wildlife viewing opportunities that have some of the best sightings and photos.
5. Exclusions: You will need to ask what exclusions are applied to the safari. Eg. hotels may cater for meals but would require you to pay for drinks out of pocket.
6. Full board or half board: will the safari company cover the cost of the lunch or will this need to be an out-of-pocket expense?
7. Pictures of their vehicles: You can ask them to send you pictures of their safari vehicles to check if they have new and well-maintained vehicles. The vehicles should be branded with the company’s logo on the side so make sure that they send pictures of the sides of the tour vans.
8. Independent reviews: You can ask them to provide you with links to independent review sites of their safaris. A link to TripAdvisor with reviews would be sufficient here

African Safari Request for quotation template

To save you time, I have prepared a template to help you request your quotation for your African Safari. Fill in the gaps and delete the parts that don’t apply to you.

Things you should NOT include in your quotation request

While it’s important to list your requirements in detail, it’s important to leave some details out for you to get an unbiased quote.

1. Your Budget: You need to keep this information private, especially at the beginning. This is because it works against you if the tour company already knows how much you are willing to spend before they give you how much they will charge you.
2. Too many contact details: You probably just want to provide your email address for them to get back to you using that. Providing a phone number may introduce the possibility of getting unsolicited calls even when you don’t want to hear back from them.
3. Too many contact details: While you want to prove to the people that you are a real person, you want to avoid giving too much about yourself away. If you will end up not using the company, you may feel uncomfortable about your details being with people you do not have any relationship with. These include things like your age, address, etc.

Step 8. Shortlist the companies Again based on the responses provided to 3 companies

The goal of this step is to help you get the top 3 safari companies that suite your needs and comfort level.

If you use the template above, you should get comprehensive quotations without the companies having to ask a lot of follow up questions. 

The quotations you have been given may be out of your price range and you can contact them back with requests for adjustments and discounts that will bring the cost down to your intended budget.

At this point, you can disclose how much you had intended to spend and see if they can match this with your expectations. Sometimes, you may be expecting way more than your budget allows and you will need to adjust either your budget or expectations to match this.

Wait for a couple of days before starting your shortlisting process to provide time for most of the companies to respond.

Questions to help you shortlist

A few of the things you should use to shortlist the companies are:

1. How fast did they respond to your request? ( Please note: The people who respond the fastest may not be the very best since they may not have taken time to examine your request)
2. The quality of their communication: Was it clear and detailed?
3. Did they answer your questions specifically or did they just send a default response?
4. Did they send the reviews? If they didn’t, it’s either that they don’t have them or that they are uncomfortable sharing them.

Step 9. Call them and & do extra research on them to help you decide which company to go with 

One of the final steps to choosing the company you will go with is to conduct research on each of the companies you selected on your second shortlist. Check forums like TripAdvisor for any reviews and comments about the company you want to use and read discussion threads & look for any bad experiences people have had with the companies. 

Also, check for reviews of the hotels you will be staying to see what people feel about them. 

It would also be a good idea to give the companies a phone call to address any particular concerns you have about the quotations they sent. It will also give you a good opportunity to see what kind of customer service they have and how efficient they respond to inquiries. 

It may also be a good idea to ask for personal references of people who have traveled with them recently to see what kind of experience they had with the company. This may not be possible due to privacy concerns and you should not panic if they don’t provide these details.

Step 10. Choose your Safari Company & Make the payment and  get confirmations

Once you have done your research on these companies three companies, you have a rough idea of the company that will give you the best safari experience at your budget level. 

The first thing you need to check before you make the payment with your safari company is their refund policy. It should be detailed and provide clear information on what can be refunded, how it’s done and how long it takes.

Contact them to provide you with the payment terms and the payment methods they accept.

A few points to consider when making your payment:

1. You will probably make your payment through bank transfer. Most Safari operators are reluctant to accept credit cards for large transactions
2. I did a bit of research online and found that most companies will require you to pay 100% in advance. I didn’t like it but it seems to be the standard.

I wish you all the best as you plan your Safari and I hope I have helped answer many of the questions you have about choosing a safari company.

A Final Word

As you prepare for your trip to Africa, I would like to recommend a few products that would help make your life easier. 

1. Information About Africa: I have created a YouTube channel that focuses on things about traveling to Africa that only Africans can tell you about. Check out the channel for insights about African culture and things you can do as a traveler to optimize your trip. You should also visit TripAdvisor forum posts (Here is the Kenya Forum) and ask questions about your particular situation. There are a lot of people who are happy to help you out. 
2. Choosing a Safari Company: I have written an extensive article on how to choose a safari Company. You can. Check it out before starting the process of searching for a safari company.
3. Safari Planning Services: If you’d rather leave the planning to an expert, I offer personalized safari planning services. I handle everything from helping you choose the right safari company, creating your custom itinerary, managing bookings, and even providing a packing list and reminders for important trip details. It’s like having a personal assistant dedicated to your trip, ensuring that everything runs smoothly, so you can focus on enjoying the adventure. Learn More in this article