How to go on an African safari on any budget (2024)

Depending on what you’re looking for, safari can easily become the mostexpensive part of your trip to South Africa. So how much exactly does a SouthAfrica safari cost? Well, it depends on a number of factors. The options andconsiderations for choosing an African safari are many: duration, groupsize, time of day, the guide, and the liklihood of seeing animals.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to go on a South African safari, but youshould also be aware of what you get when you’re willing to hand out the cash.Here are three different ways to do safari in South Africa, including the prosand cons to help you pick which way works best for you – and for your budget.

How to choose a safari

TIP – In South Africa, safari is referred to as “game drive”.

Self-drive ($)

Cost: Entry to the park (R272 for Addo, R372 for Kruger) + cost of the rental car

Self-drive safari essentially means that you take your own car and drivealong paved or dirt paths in the park. When you enter a park, you’ll geta map and you can drive around to different areas of the park to try andfind animals. In our experience, we have had pretty good luck on self-drivesafari for seeing animals – both driving around Addo Elephant Parkand driving into Kruger National Park en route to ourprivate safari lodge.

TIP – You can also do a ride along self-drive where you essentiallyrent a park ranger to drive along with you.

Reasons you should do a self-drive safari in South Africa

Self-drive safari can be a great option when you’re on a tight budget. Youonly need to pay the conservation fee and can drive around for the entire dayif you want to.

Take as long as you want at a sighting. If you find an animal or herdof animals you want to stay and watch, you can stay as long as you want to.Sometimes in a group there may be people who want to move on before you’velanded the photo you wanted, so a self-drive gives you the freedom to goat your own page.

You can drive as long as you want to. Most guided safaris last between 2-4hours, and you’ll quickly learn when you’re out in the bush that there’sno such thing as a too-long safari. It takes time to spot animals, and you candrive around for a while without seeing anything. So being able to stay aslong as you’d like is great.

Air conditioning in the car. If you’re trying to keep out of the hot sun,it can be really nice that you can do safari in air conditioning!

TIP – Be sure to bring water and snacks with you when you self-drive,as there are not many facilities inside the park and you want to be sureyou can cover enough ground without going hungry or thirsty.

Downsides of doing a self-drive safari in South Africa

That said, there is a reason why guided safaris are offered, and it’s mostlygot to do with the fact that self-drive has some limitations and that peoplelike you and me aren’t exactly wildlife experts so we don’t get the fullpotential out of a self-led experience.

You’re limited to the park’s public hours. If you’re staying outside the parkyou can only stay in the park during the permitted hours. Depending on the season,that might mean that you miss sunrise and sunset, which are some of the besthours for viewing animals – both in terms of photos but also in terms ofanimal activity. It is possible to stay inside the grounds, but then yourcosts can really increase for the trip.

You’ll miss the smaller animals. One thing I love about guided safariis that you get a chance to learn about smaller animals! Not only the Big Fiveare worth learning about, and the South African national parks have manyinteresting creatures big and small.

No chance to learn about the animals you’re seeing. That said, as a wholeit can be hard to identify animals that you’re seeing without a guide. A feware obvious, but it’s always interesting to learn more about what you’reobserving.

You aren’t trained to spot animals, and will likely miss some. There’s areason why private game drives usually have both a guide and a tracker.Some people’s entire jobs is to track and spot animals which are otherwiseinvisible to people like you and me.

Which animals you do see is mostly left to chance. When you think about it,the parks are huge and there is only a limited space which is even visiblefrom the road. On private reserves, rangers can share sightings with each other.

It can get very crowded with many self-drivers at popular sightnings. Wedid not self-drive in Kruger, but there are plenty of stories of waiting inqueues for 30+ minutes for an exciting sighting, e.g. a lion or leopard.

As opposed to self-drive, private reserves limit how many cars can join asighting at once. This means the animals are less disturbed and you get toenjoy seeing the animal in peace!

For more information on what it’s like to do a self-drive safari, checkout this post on doing a self-drive safari in Kruger National Park and what pros and cons exist specifically for that park!

Public guided game drive ($$)

Cost: 25-37 EUR per person

The national parks like Kruger and Addo also offer group game drives you canjoin, which are guided by one of their park rangers. This is a good middleground between self-drive and doing a private safari for a few reasons:it’s not too expensive, it’s educational, and the park ranger is probablybetter at spotting animals than you are.

Why you should join a public guided game drive

Interesting commentary by your guide. I’m pretty sure these guides areused to being entertainers. We really enjoyed our guide at Addo Elephant Park,who delivered information with a sense of humor and also helped you learn a lot.

Stay at the park earlier/later than self-drivers. Parks will often offersunrise, sunset, or night time safari rides, which are sometimes at timesthat regular self-drivers are not permitted to drive in the park. For instance,at our sunset drive in Addo, we were able to stay long enough at the parkafter it closed to see the sunset which made for gorgeous photos!

Learn about smaller animals besides only the big ones. As I said, I likelearning about all the animals, not just the big ones. So the park rangerknows when it’s worth stopping and showing you an animal you would’ve otherwiseoverlooked.

By sitting higher up you have better visibility. It’s really a differentexperience to be up high in a land rover, compared to being low down in a sedan.You have better visibility and can see over the first row of bushes that mightotherwise obstruct your view.

Downsides of doing a public guided game drive

Groups are big. Depending on how the land rover is structured (size, numberof seats) you may end up without a good view because there are simply toomany people for everyone to sit with a “window seat” so to speak. Dealing withmore people in the public comes with what you expect – some people are loud,some don’t follow the rules, or some obstruct your view.

They can be rather short (2 hours). As I said before, there’s no suchthing as a too-long safari. The public guided game drives we saw were aroundthe two hour mark, which is really not much time to see animals. On ourfour-hour self-drive in Addo we already felt we were running out of time.In private game drives, you usually have a longer duration of 3-4 hours whichis much appreciated.

It’s still 100% chance what you’ll see. Rangers are not allowed tocommunicate with each other which animals they see. I’m not sure if it’s forsafety reasons or other reasons, but it means that, as with self-driving,the actual animals you end up seeing is mostly left to chance.

Private safari lodge ($$$)

Cost: 250-350 EUR per person per night (includes lodging, all food and drinks,two game drives and a bush walk per day)

Staying at a private safari lodge is expensive, and for a reason. Not onlydoes staying at a private safari lodge include between 6-7 hours of game drivesper day, but it also includes all meals, drinks, and luxury accomodation.We left our safari lodge feeling that the cost was completely justified, butit really depends on if you can find the money for such an experience.

Our intimate safari range rover with Motswari

Why you should join a private game drive

Private game drives have an advantage for a number of reasons, and it was reallyhelpful that we did self-drive and a public guided game drive in orderto appreciate the value we got from the private game drive.

Guides share sightings with each other over radio. I can say that bothof the times we saw lions, it was because the guides shared a tip on the locationover the radio with one another. Without this fact, it could’ve been that wedidn’t spot lions at all on our drive, despite the fact that the areawe were in is famous for lions! Taking a private guided game drive is oneof my top safari photography tips.

Guides and trackers can focus on finding animals you’re interested in seeing.Since guides share information over the radio, they can follow up on leadsfor the animals you tell them you’re most interested in seeing. This meansyou have a better than “pure chance” of seeing the animals you’re interestedin. Plus, the tracker and guide can actually get out of the car to trackanimals, which you simply won’t find on a public game drive owing to thetight time constraints.

Smaller group of people. Being in a smaller group has a ton of benefits:the drive is less noisy, you’re more likely to get a good view, and youdon’t need to fight for a “window seat”.

Easier to ask (many) questions. Plus, since the group is smaller, it’smuch easier to communicate with the guide and tracker to ask questions. In ourgame drive group I’m sure they answered a hundred questions during the threedays of safari we had together. We learned not only about the animals, butthe politics around poaching, survival skills, and how guides and trackersreceive training.

Longer time spent at sightings. Since the group is smaller, they willstay at a sighting as long as you want. It’s also easier for the guide tomake sure everyone is finished taking photos before you move on, which isreally nice if you’re on a mission to grab great wildlife photos!

Able to go off-road. Sometimes you just need to get closer, and in aprivate game drive, there are areas where the guides can drive off-road.

Longer duration usually means more animal sightings. In our experience,the game drives were usually between 3 to 3 1/2 hours. The guides will puteffort into planning the drive so you get to see a variety of things,and may extend the drive to fit in something that will really make the drivespecial. They also remember what animals you’ve seen over the last days toensure the whole group gets to see as many new animals as possible.

TIP – Do check off-season, because every private safari lodge hasmassive discounts during the South African winter. Besides, winter canbe one of the best times for animal visibility.

Downsides of private game drives

There are some restrictions on where the guides can drive. Although we didnot perceive that this affected what we saw, it is true that some areas areeither off-limits for the guides to drive, or that there is a limit for howmany people can be on a piece of land at once.

It’s expensive. In terms of having the best all-round experience, thereis no doubt to me that the private game drive is the pinnacle. However,it seems that about 300 EUR per person per night seems to be a pretty standardrate and we had a pretty hard time swallowing the price.

One way to think about it is how much a public game drive costs per hour (37EUR / 2 = 18.50 EUR) and multiply it by how many hours of game drives you getat a private reserve (18.50 EUR x 6 = 111 EUR, or x 7 = 130 EUR). Thisapproaches half of the cost, but with a much better experience. 170 EUR forluxury lodging and all inclusive meals is not outrageous but it would’ve probablybeen beyond my means a few years ago.

You see how I justified the cost? 😉

Which kind of safari is right for you?

Ultimately, you can do African safari on a budget no matter what budgetyou have. Whether you can only really afford to self-drive, that doesn’t meanyou won’t see any animals. You can still have an amazing and exciting timeon safari by self-driving. For a little more money, you can also join a guidedtour which will give you a different perspective (literally and metaphorically)on the animals that live in the African bush. And finally, if you are lookingfor a once-in-a-lifetime experience and want to pull out all the stops andopt for a private safari lodge. I can tell you that for us it was totally worththe money.

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