Safari Reviews & Testimonials

Discover Africa , and Matthys van Aswegen in particular, was a pleasure to work with. Firstly, his patience and understanding is a true fine attributive of his. We started talking about a safari to South Africa in mid-2019. We had both phone calls and email exchanges, and he was always responsive with concrete intelligent answers.

In fact, he sent me many options/packages that were only in Kruger, and others that included Botswana, whatever combination I asked him for, he put together happily. However, by the end of 2019, not knowing about Covid yet, we simply weren’t ready to go on Safari yet. He never put any pressure and was quite understanding.

We then spent most of 2020 emailing back and forth again during the pandemic, with many more questions and options. In Dec 2020, I finally booked a Safari with him to Mala Mala camp in Sabi Sands(one camp , 4 nights, seven game drives), as well as visits to Johannesburg and Cape Town.

We continued to exchange emails during 2021, updating and tweaking the itinerary, when suddenly the Omicron variant hit during Thanksgiving. Since there was MUCH uncertainty with Omicron and our trip was a few weeks away, I couldn’t take chance with my family’s well-being and potentially getting stuck in South Africa.

So I postponed the entire trip for a year to Dec 2022. Matthys, once Again, was only understanding and flexible! He helped me re-book everything to Dec 2022 AND I even rearranged the itinerary completely, and he was accommodating and cooperative. He was also able to transfer all of my pre-payments for Mala Mala, other hotels, flights, to Dec 2022 so that not one penny was lost!

In short, he was amazing ! We just returned a few days ago and the safari at Mala Mala was something me and family will always treasure. We also very much enjoyed Cape Town and the winelands! Discover Africa gets an A+ !

Experiencing a South African safari with Discover Africa was the best trip I have ever taken. The trip was well organized and all of my questions were answered. I was traveling alone and every detail of the trip was taken care of by Alice. I would highly recommend Discover Africa it was reliable and affordable.

I’m a last-minute kind of guy… I had an idea to go on a safari on a Wednesday night; I contacted Adelle the following day and flew with my daughter on a trip of a lifetime the following Sunday! Adelle took care of every small detail to ensure we had the best experience, staying at the most amazing places in Kruger! Highly recommended!!

Planning our first self-driving tour of Namibia involved a considerable amount of back and forth with our travel advisor, over email and video chats. Susan provided us with a good itinerary that we were able to adjust to suite our desires and our travel dates. She provided timely answers to all of our questions. The vehicle from the local leasing agent was in excellent shape. All the equipment worked well and our mix of bed & breakfast and campsites were fantastic. I would certainly book through Discover Africa again and recommend them without reservation.

Megan from Discover Africa was unbelievably professional, helpful, and responsive. She provided the best experience, and everything went according to plan. We are so so happy with our experience using Discover Africa to stay at the Simbavati Lounge in Kruger park. When we go back to Africa, we will absolutely be using their services again!

Wanting to add additional experiences to an underlying South Africa trip for a friend’s wedding, we worked with Adelle initially to review options. Her experience and knowledge was evident from the beginning as she provided several different options based on the price range we provided. As we settled on an initial itinerary, the pandemic arrived and we had to delay everything. Adelle adeptly handled all adjustments, delays, cancellations, and rebookings over the next 2 years.

Finally able to travel, we were provided well in advance very useful, detailed, and pertinent information about our accommodations, locations, preparatory considerations (e.g., vaccines, in-country customs, tipping, etc.), and itinerary. Our trip included personally-arranged stops within agent-arranged trip and Adelle expertly arranged for all pick-up and shuttle services so we only needed to take care of getting on and off the planes for each leg of our trip.

Our all-inclusive safari lodges were described as “luxury,” but we had no idea…until we arrived. One of them has become our favorite, though both are easily classified as luxury. Each lodge had its own approach and atmosphere, but both provided great meals and services. Our favorite had more-than-welcoming staff, continually-customized meals to meet dietary needs, special touches for meal locations and room service, a air of romance hidden through many small and large acts by the staff, and game drives and bush walks, which all combined to give us experiences over the several days we were there that we couldn’t even have imagined–even after reading all the information ahead of time.

Simply put, we have found our travel agent for southern Africa, will be coming back in the future, and will not hesitate to trust Adelle’s thoughts and planning on any future trip.

Discover Africa helped to arranged the perfect start to our honeymoon with a fantastic 3-night safari in Madikwe Game Reserve. It was simply perfect – from the flight out, the friendly staff, delicious food, and of course the animals! Thank you.

Our first trip to South Africa was an amazing experience, we had the holiday of a lifetime and it all went without a hitch. Adelle Bell was tireless, and gave us several options that might suit our timeline and our circumstances.

Our trip was centered on a family wedding in East London, and Adelle was able to organise our trip around that. Our holiday to South Africa of course included a safari, wow !! Adelle organised seamless travel throughout, the hotels were well-located and excellent. I would definitely recommend Discover Africa and Adell Bell.

Diane couldn’t have been more helpful when planning our trip, coming up with different ideas and itineraries to fit my budget and expectations. Communication was excellent. The transfers, flights and accommodation suited our needs.

This is an amazing safari tour service that will craft the perfect vacation specific to your needs! I traveled with my family of 5 (kids ages 12, 13, 15) to South Africa this past month and we felt like every detail of our trip was very organized and planned out.

We told them upfront some very specific things we wanted to see, as well as the type of accommodations we would like and they gave us a short list of venues to choose from. From there we selected the perfect trip.

Leading up to the trip we were contacted often about updates in the planning and all my many questions were answered.

With our kids with us, we wanted to make sure we were guaranteed the family-style accommodations and adjoining rooms, etc and they made sure this happened which really made a difference! The trip turned out to be so magical and amazing!

We felt safe with our transfer drivers and they always showed up early and gave us a great experience. The service at the resorts that were recommended to us was top-notch!

This is an amazing travel company to work with that you can trust will provide the perfect vacation for your family!!

Our trip included 3 siblings and our partners; we visited four camps in Kenya and Tanzania – Elewana Tortilis Camp near Amboseli NP, Elewana Sand River Maasai Mara Camp, Aurari Camp North Serengeti, Acacia Farm Lodge in Karatu near Ngorongoro Crater.

Discover Africa’s Megan Warrington created an outstanding itinerary! Megan was very quick to respond to our emails and texts; every moment of our travels was perfectly arranged and professionally handled.

I can’t imagine any operator providing a better, bespoke experience.

Each camp selected by Megan was unique and wonderful. Graham and Candy Smith, the managers at Tortilis, were a fountain of information and fascinating stories. We were fortunate to have spectacular views of Kilimanjaro for 2 of our 3 days.

Sand River was magical in its own way with animals wandering past mornings and evenings across the river and elephants enjoying the camp’s lush greenery at night (until the staff chased them away!).

Aurari, with only 4 tents and our group the only occupants, was simply amazing with our own chef, hostess and 3 additional staff to take care of us. Every night a fire with sundowners was ready when we returned from our game drive. The view over the Serengeti and the Mara Triangle was spectacular.

Acacia is a town lodge with a country feel – beautiful, comfortable cabins and outstanding staff. Every location had superb food with offerings ranging from a single meal to menu selection or buffet – we could have stayed a month at any of the camps.

Safaris were led by outstanding, highly experienced guides – all had at least 15 years’ experience and, judging from the conversations with other guides we passed on game drives, highly regarded by their peers. We had outstanding luck with our animal sightings and we credit our guides for many of them – Juma in Ambroseli, Charles in Masai Mara, Joe in Serengeti, and Charmy in Ngorongoro area. Since we were traveling late October, we were successful seeing the many baby animals we hoped for – a few hours’ old baby elephant still learning to suckle, 16 lion cubs in one pride and 6 in another, giraffe calves, warthog piglets, jackal pups, ostrich chicks – the list goes on.

In Amboseli a herd of elephant passed within a yard of our perfectly positioned Land Cruiser; in Maasai Mara the Sand River pride walked up from their sleeping place on the river sand at dusk right past our Cruiser – kudos to our guide Charles for putting us in the perfect position. The Serengeti offered up a wildebeest crossing – our guide Joe had us perfectly positioned – with the added excitement of a croc grabbing one unfortunate animal (it got away!). Our animal sightings also included many lions (including a couple on ‘honeymoon’!), cheetahs, leopards, crocodiles, hippopotamus, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest to name a few and many different birds.

The Serengeti balloon safari was one of the highlights of our trip; Serengeti Balloon Safaris provided a fabulous dawn safari across the Mara River and the Serengeti. Our pilot, Jason Adams, learned the trade from his father and was superb as was the support team. There were 3 people in the basket that were afraid of heights, but on the balloon there wasn’t even a hint of discomfort. Yes, it’s expensive…but it’s worth it!

Hopefully we’ll have a chance to visit Africa again – such a magical place – and our first call will be to Discover Africa.

– Communication: Always available, friendly, and responsive (10/10)
– Service: flexibly adjusting the itinerary to our needs and including all requested components (9/10)
– Value for money: 9/10
– Reliability: We were absolutely amazed by the organization and reliability of all parties involved (hotels, transfers, camps, domestic flights) (10/10)

We would definitely recommend Discover Africa for planning your Safari Tour in Botswana!