Safari Reviews & Testimonials

Discover Africa did a wonderful job in ensuring that all of our trip details were taken care of. Especially with all of the intricacies that Covid-19 placed on our trip, our vacation went extremely smoothly and every connection, pick-up, transfer and communication was well thought out and accounted for.

It is rare, in our experience, that there is not at least one “hiccough” in one’s travel plans, especially when the itinerary involves travel between multiple countries, each with their own Covid-19 protocols and requirements, but this trip went smoothly and every detail was considered and addressed.

Antoinette was extremely prompt with responses to questions and most anxious to provide options for all of our requests for tours. She communicated using telephone, email, text and What’s App, whatever was required to assure we had answers as promptly as possible. When we had to make last minute changes to tours because of flight delays, she was immediately on top of it, allowing us to see everything we originally scheduled, despite loss of a full day in Cape Town.

The guide service provided was exceptional. We had private tours for all events, allowing flexibility in timing and stops when we wanted. The Cape of Good Hope tour, the penguin colonies and Table Top Mountain gondola ride were amazing because of the knowledge of our guide.

Our Botswana Safari and Victoria Falls Elephant camps were of excellent quality with diversity between Okavango Delta and Moremi camps that allowed extraordinary wildlife sightings. The elephant encounter at Victoria Falls and our helicopter and guided tour of the falls allowed us to really see its full magnitude. There are so many wonderful things to say about Antoinette and Discover Africa.

Megan worked hard to find us a safari that met our wishes and patiently answered a million different questions over a period of a year and a half after our trip was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic lock down.

We loved our Africa vacation. Despite the airline schedule changes involved the whole itinerary went smoothly thanks to our travel consultant Matthys Van Aswegan who monitored our connections so we could fully enjoy each destination.

Our Sabi Sands Game Reserve Safari and Victoria Falls visit was breathtaking and mesmerizing. Each lodge was over the top with a wonderful staff. Hopefully, someday, we will be able to return!

A Tanzanian Safari had been a bucket list trip and Adelle at Discover Africa and Solly, our guide, made it better than we could have ever imagined! A few highlights

Flexibility: we had to adjust dates and itineraries several times given personal conflicts and Adelle flexed with us at every step, offering thoughtful recommendations to make sure we’d be able to have the best possible experience.

Overall Service: from pre-booking until we were back home, we felt genuinely cared about and like we were in great hands. Solly went out of his way to take routes and find spots off the beaten path to see the hard-to-find animals- answered our endless questions, all while doing some of the most impressive driving we’ve ever seen!

Attention to Detail: Adelle reviewed our all arrangements in detail, catching an error I had made with flights and time zones that could have resulted in missing a full day- but was avoided thanks to her. Every detail was perfect at every step. Food, bed types, custom pieces of the itinerary, etc.

Safety: it was of course a little disconcerting traveling during Covid and with my father who had only been out of the country once before- but the team was excellent and guided us through Covid requirements with ease and made us feel safe at every step, staying in constant contact and being very responsive.

Accommodations: far exceeded expectations and were beyond what we imagined, perfectly capturing the essence of a safari. We lucked out that on several of the nights we were the only guests on property- so had over the top service. A reason to book before tourism comes surging back!

Value: we knew this would be a bit of a pricy trip, but Adelle worked with us to get what we felt was a great overall value within our budget. She helped recommend where to pull back and where to spend more on hotels, activities, etc and her advice was excellent. Worth every penny. We could not say enough to compliment the team or recommend more highly – thanks again for the experience of a lifetime!!

We originally booked 4 nights in Zimbabwe and Botswana for April 2020. The original planning and booking process was simple. Megan at Discover Africa provided a variety of options for durations and locations, and we were able to select the number of nights and the hotels that worked best for our budget and what we wanted to see/do. It was easy to add excursions such as boat tours and a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls.

When Covid derailed our trip, we were able to defer all the bookings indefinitely. In Spring of 2021, we put everything back on track for May 2021, and Megan got us set up with appointments and the information we needed to get Covid PCR tests in Zimbabwe and Botswana. Everything went off without a hitch.

Victoria Falls was extraordinary. The land transit to Botswana was complicated, but handled adroitly by the Wild Horizons drivers. We would have had a real headache figuring out those specifics without an experienced guide on the ground.

Our time in Chobe National Park was wonderful; we saw so many animals from pretty close-up! Again, the guides here were great. All of our covid results came in very quickly, and we had no worries about making our next transit to another country. Can’t recommend Discover Africa enough for getting you to and around Southern Africa.

Even in these uncertain Covid times, it’s very doable (check local conditions frequently though, as things seem to change rapidly).

I’m not quite sure where to begin when describing my trip to South Africa. It started with impeccable service with our guide/operator Antoinette. She made the process easy and understood that our trip was truly in her hands (we’ve never had a safari holiday).

To begin, everywhere we stayed was impeccably clean, safe, but also just truly enjoyable and fun. The animals we saw we’re incredible. Our guides were not only knowledgeable, but extremely kind. I can’t emphasize the service and generosity we felt at every spot. It was exactly what we dreamed of. Animals at every turn. Delicious food and drink.

An experience of a lifetime that I can’t wait to repeat. This was worth every penny and more.

I chose Discover Africa for a tented camp Safari to accommodate my family of 5. We wanted the trip to the Serengeti to coincide with the Great Migration.

Matthys offered several options and his itinerary was perfect. All five of our Tanzanian Safari accommodations were unique and exceptional. The Safari guides were family friendly and informative. The Safari vehicle was comfortable and easily accommodated our family and all the seats offered exceptional views. Our guides traveled well off the beaten path to provide unique opportunities.

On our 9 day Safari, we were even able to to spot an elusive leopard and a wayward rhino. The Discover Africa guides were very experienced and could answer any question asked. Both guides were friendly, polite and fluent in English. The experience in the luxury mobile Safari camps was unique. You could hear the noises of the lion, wildebeest and hyena at night. The food was excellent at all of our five accommodations.

I had a great experience working with Megan to book our Botswana 5-day safari. She was always quick to respond and even helped us add on an additional guest last minute.

Everything ran super smooth from start to finish. Absolutely loved the lodges chosen….we stayed at Kadizora in the Okavango Delta and Elephant Valley in Chobe. All the guides were great – super knowledgeable and great at finding animals.

We saw two different leopards, male lions with a kill, lion cubs, hyena pups, and much more! We were the only guests at the lodges due to a slow pickup from COVID but we had so much fun with the staff—they took such great care of us!

Megan, We just returned from our family trip to your country on June 4, 2021. We had a GREAT TIME! Thank you for changing things as required over 2 years (as our trip had to be postponed from May 2020 to May 2021 due to COVID-19).

Now our thoughts on the two lodges and our trip overall: Ngala tented camp: Personalized attention, food was a notch up from the safari lodge. The accommodations were a notch below the safari lodge, given that it is tented. The accommodations were fine (as in decent) but did not really like the outdoor showers.

Saw the white lions at Ngala on our first and second days there. Was one of the highlights of our trip. Would we stay at the tented camp again?? … Possibly. All the transfers everywhere were seamless. The Fairlawns stay on both occasions was very nice! They really do a very nice job at this hotel.

The PCR test to return to the US at Jo berg airport was pretty painless (took the PCR test to avoid the hassle of whether the antigen test would work). Got the results via email in four hours and got the certificates printed out at the airport PCR facility the next day.

Tengile River Lodge; This lodge was truly stunning. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The food was divine. The snacks on the game drives were a notch better than Ngala. The drinks were top of the line and the four of us had our own safari vehicle. We had Warren as our ranger and Jophet as our tracker. They were both very, very good and really friendly. On day two we saw four of the big five on the morning game drive (lion, black rhino, buffalo, and elephants). On the evening game drive on day two we saw lion, buffalo, elephants and the leopard. Also saw lions with cubs on day 6 and also saw leopard with her cub on day 5. Finally saw the honey badger, which as our ranger at Tengile pointed out is extremely rare to spot. Once again thank you for everything.

One final point the game viewing in the Sabi Sands was very good… as good or better than 2017. The game viewing we thought at Ngala this time was not as good as what we saw in 2017. Paucity of animals… though we were very, very happy to see the white lions of Ngala.

We have never been to Namibia and were totally in the hands of Discover Africa. They planned an amazing trip for us and made sure that we were booked into beautiful lodges. We got an excellent overview of the country in 2 weeks. There were no hassles and everything was seamless. We are going again in October with Discover Africa and can’t wait for our second trip.

Fantastic tour operator who pulled together a wonderful holiday for us at very short notice.