My wife and I are finalizing plans for a trip to Kenya and Tanzania in September/October of this year with Odysseys Unlimited. Anyone else have a recent experience with them on this tour or similar tour in Africa who is willing to share their experience, tips, and any lessons learned? Thanks.
We considered both Kenya and Tanzania as well, and wound up deciding to just visit Tanzania (including Zanzibar at the end of the trip), primarily because of areas we could visit and what we read about both options.
Here's a recap of our trip on our Smugmug page, which also has links to a ton of photos and videos including places we visited (Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater, Central and North Serengeti [to see the Wildebeast Crossing - truly spectacular] & Arusha National Park). Our favorites were probably Tarangire (simply due to the huge number and variety of animals), Northern Serengeti (the Wildebeast crossing was AMAZING - thundering herds of thousands of Wildebeasts crossing the rivers) and even Arusha National Park). ANP was neat because it is one of the few places you can do a walking tour vs driving as there are no large predators there, being somewhat "close" to civilization. No big predators also makes the animals a lot more relaxed, and we were able to get within 10-15 feet of a couple of giraffes at one point, which was a great way to start our trip as that's the wife's favorite animal. Then, I saw a baby Elephant (my favorite animal) and it's mom on Day 2 at the entrance to Tarangire. The trip as you'll see from the pics was simply spectacular and we cannot wait to go back.
https://jimandjeansafricansafari.smugmug.com/Trip-Overview
You can use the "Browse" button at the top at that page or any other page on the site to see the picture and video albums, which are organized by area we visited.
As a general tip, we found the info on TripAdvisor invaluable. You may have already perused that, but if you haven't - great resource.
We did one of out trips with
Access2Tanzania years ago:
1) Both Kenya and Tanzania are amazing. If I had to go with one it would be Tanzania simply for the bigger access to Serengeti vs smaller Masai Mara in Kenya.
2) Hands down the highlight of the trip was the Ngorogoro crater in Tanzana. Maybe just because it was unexpected, but seeing the animals on the prowl in the depths of a crater was awesome.
3) If you are also doing a beach there, Zanzibar is unreal. The sand is like white cooking flour. Not just the color, but the texture. Other than the resorts (big and small), Zanzibar is pretty much a dump.
4) Safari drives are grueling.
We also chose Access2Tanzania as our Tour Operator. They (like many TO's) assign a guide just for you, and that guide drives you wherever you want to go in your own Land Cruiser. So, it was just me, my wife and our guide (Alex) for the entire trip, except for the time we spent sleeping and eating at the camps we chose. Alex was unbelievable and had encyclopedic knowledge of every animal, bird, plant, bush, you name it..he knew it inside out and backwards. We spent a good 12-16 hours a day with him, and have memories that will last a lifetime. So to that point - your guide will be one of THE most important things in whether you have a good trip, a great trip, or an amazing, beyond words trip. We had the latter, all because of Alex. Unfortunately, we got word earlier this year that he became ill, and died. So tragic. Young guy (30s). Few kids and a wife. Sole breadwinner. We got so close to him on our trip that this seriously affected us emotionally when we heard the news from A2T.
Probably the most important advice I can offer - if you're going on a similar (dedicated guide) trip vs a group tour with a lot of other people and haven't already done this - check out TripAdvisor and other similar sources for the inside scoop on who the good, "gotta have them as my guide" guides are. And request that person by name. We did that, and had heard that Alex was "the" guide at A2T to have. We were so blessed that A2T was able to assign him to us, and can't imagine we would have had near the experience we had with a different guide..
And to the comment about "grueling" drives - 100%. The roads (if you can call them that) are in many cases beyond awful. Our drive from Central to Northern Serengeti was pure hell (rocky, rutted, etc that the guides drive at a good clip over. We literally had pieces of the Landrover come loose and fall off). Other places, there WAS NO road - just an impression in the grass. The camp we eventually got to in the N. Serengeti and where we left to see the Wildebeast crossing was mobile, so was not off any road. Amazingly (but perhaps not surprisingly), Alex knew exactly how to find it
..
Lastly, if you can
stay in tents vs lodges (we did some of both), there's no experience in the world like being out in the middle of the African plains with no lights other than the stars and animals all around you. One night, we had a group of Cape Buffalo (VERY dangerous animal) surround our tent. Wife heard them munching the grass. The guides are even reasonably fearful of Cape Buffalo as they have a pretty mean disposition. Not as dangerous as Hippos which kill more people in Africa than any other animal, but not something to mess with. Fortunately, we were told that the animals see your tent as basically a big rock and 'typically' won't mess with them (whew)
. That was probably the most danger we were ever in aside from one night when a leopard decided to stroll down the path from our "hut" (at Tarangire Safari Lodge) to the eating area a little before we walked the exact same path..same lodge that Elephants would regularly stroll up from the valley below to visit and walk through. Nothing like being that close to the animals..as long as they aren't too hungry.
PS: the advice about changing camera lenses up-thread is spot on. You'll probably never experience as much dust as you will on an African safari. We would try to change our lenses INSIDE of cloth bags that wife sewed that had a flexible plastic lining to keep the dust out. Wife even wound up with a pretty severe eye infection from all the dust, which as we came to find out is a fairly common thing. She was absolutely miserable for a couple of days until we could get some RX meds at a pharmacy in Zanzibar. But we almost stayed back at camp instead of doing the Wildebeast crossing. SO glad we were able to see it as it's a truly spectacular event (check out videos of it on our page)..
