Custom African Safari Itineraries Built by Your Guide
"Real routes and custom journeys across Southern and East Africa, each one planned personally, from the first email to the last morning"
Every safari on this page is one I plan myself. Some are routes other guests have already travelled and rated, kept here for people who want something sound without a long planning conversation. The rest begin as a shape rather than a schedule, and get built around the people taking them. Every country I work in has both, with a privately guided option alongside.
Which one you want depends on how much of the trip you would like settled before you land. Nights start at three and run as long as you need, though some countries ask for considerably more than others.
Browse the Full Safari Portfolio
These are the safaris themselves: the individual routes and journeys, each on its own page. Treat them as worked examples to react to rather than a fixed menu, and tell me which one sits closest to what you had in mind. The thinking behind how I shape them, and the countries I work in, is further down the page.
Zimbabwe and Zambia Safari Routes and Combinations
Three ways to build a Zimbabwe and Zambia safari around Victoria Falls: Hwange for game viewing, Mana Pools for walking and canoeing, or the remote Busanga Plains. Owner-guided, and shaped around you.
Victoria Falls, Mana Pools and Hwange Safari
Eight nights across three contrasting corners of Zimbabwe, from the upper Zambezi above Victoria Falls to the Mana Pools floodplain and Hwange's dry-season elephant. Privately guided or lodge-based.
Victoria Falls and Busanga Plains Safari
Seven nights pairing the icon and the wilderness: three at Victoria Falls, then four on the remote Busanga Plains in the far north of Kafue. En-suite tented camps, light charter flights between the two, lodge-based or privately guided. June to October.
Uganda Safari Routes: Gorillas, Chimps and Plains
An hour with a gorilla family, a morning among chimps, and the open plains after. The three Uganda routes I build most, forests first and savanna after, and how to choose between them.
Two Reserves, One Guide: A Greater Kruger Safari
A 10 night privately guided safari through Timbavati and Sabi Sands. Two reserves, one ecosystem, and time to understand how the bush really works.
South Africa Safari Combinations & Itinerary Structures
Plan your South Africa safari. Whether it is Kruger, the Cape, Phinda, Kosi Bay or Eswatini, we will help you find the right combination for your trip.
Private Safaris in South Africa, Planned Around You
How I run a private South Africa safari: your own guide and vehicle in the Greater Kruger's private reserves, private or lodge-based to suit you, and no mark-up on the lodge rates.
Private Guided Mobile Safari in Northern Botswana
A 10-night privately guided mobile safari travelling southbound from Kasane to Maun. Three areas, one unbroken journey: Chobe National Park, the Khwai Community Concession, and Moremi Game Reserve.
Namibia Safari Routes: Desert, Wildlife and Solitude
Namibia is a landscape safari before a wildlife one. Three routes I build most, from the deep desert up to the Kunene to a game-forward trip on Etosha and Ongava, and how to pair either with Botswana or South Africa.
Kruger, Cape Town & Victoria Falls in Ten Unrushed Nights
Three of southern Africa's most distinct environments, one well-paced trip. Four nights in Kruger, three in Cape Town with your own private guide, and three nights at Victoria Falls — staying at a lodge with a genuine safari component rather than a hotel in town.
Kruger & Greater Kruger Private Safari
Eight nights across Kruger National Park, the Mpumalanga Panorama Route, and a private reserve in Greater Kruger. Your choice of Klaserie, Timbavati, or Sabi Sands for the reserve nights. Privately guided throughout. Suitable for all ages.
How to Plan a Botswana Safari: Routes & Pairings
Plan your Botswana safari across the Okavango Delta, Chobe, Moremi, Khwai, Savuti and the Kalahari. We will help you find the right combination.
Botswana in the Green Season: A Seven-Night Private Journey
A seven-night privately guided safari through two of the Okavango's most rewarding areas, timed deliberately for the green season. Khwai for the flexibility and the night drives. Moremi or the private Delta for the depth. Fewer vehicles, richer light, and a Botswana that most visitors never see.
4-Day Privately Guided Kruger Lodge Safari
Three nights in a private Greater Kruger reserve with your own guide, vehicle and chef. The reserve is chosen around you, and the days are yours to shape rather than a fixed programme.
How These Journeys Differ, and Who Each One Really Suits
There are three ways I’ll shape a safari for you, and the difference between them is not where you go. It is how much of the trip is decided before you arrive, and who decides it.
Two questions open almost every planning conversation I have: which animals you are hoping to see and what your budget is. Neither is a filter. Between them, they decide which of the routes above is worth reading properly, which saves you the part of planning that is genuinely tedious.
I will also tell you when what you have asked for is not what will work. That conversation is easier before you book than after you arrive, and it is most of what a guide is for.
Tried and Tested Journeys, for Travellers Short on Time
These are routes guests have already travelled, kept on the site for people who want something sound without weeks of planning behind it. They are not fixed programmes. Any of them can be shortened, extended or rebuilt, and most of them are.
The one I run most often is the 4-Day Privately Guided Kruger Lodge Safari: three nights in a private Greater Kruger reserve with your own guide, vehicle and chef. Three nights is where I start: long enough for the reserve to settle, and long enough for myself or your guide to find you what you came to see. Short enough, too, to sit inside a working year.
After that it is Kruger, Cape Town and Victoria Falls. This one I did not design in advance. It has come together so consistently across couples, families, photographers and repeat travellers that it has earned its place as a standing route. Four nights in Kruger, three in Cape Town, three at the Falls. Ten nights, three environments, and not one of them reduced to a stopover.
Custom Itineraries Built Around What You Actually Need
Every country I guide in has a custom option, and it is what most guests end up taking. A custom itinerary starts from whatever will not move, whether that is a date, a budget, a group that travels at different speeds, or one animal you have come a long way to see.
Before anything is drafted, I talk it through with you. That conversation is where the shape of the trip actually gets decided, and where I will say so if something you have asked for is not going to work on the ground. It is a great deal easier to raise before you book than after you arrive.
Nights are the part travellers most often get wrong. Three works in Greater Kruger because the reserves are compact and the camp sits inside the wildlife area. Botswana does not work that way: ten nights is a sensible minimum for two destinations, and twelve to fourteen lets each one settle. How the Botswana regions pair sets out why the distances there change the arithmetic. Underestimate them and a travel day becomes a day with no wildlife on it, which on a short trip is a day you do not get back.
Privately Guided Journeys, One Guide From Start to Finish
Every country I guide in also has a privately guided option: one guide and one vehicle for the full duration, rather than a fresh introduction at every camp. What it buys is continuity. What you learn in the first area carries into how you read the second, and no ground is lost settling in.
Private guiding is not a better safari than lodge-based guiding, and I do not sell it as one. Resident lodge teams know a single valley in a way no travelling guide can match, and on a single-reserve stay that usually wins. Private guiding earns its place when an itinerary crosses regions, and you want one informed voice reading the changes.
The furthest version of it is the privately guided mobile safari through northern Botswana, where the camp moves with you instead of you moving between camps.
The scrum of vehicles that gathers around one sighting, an animal edged into position for a photograph, is one of the real failings in this business, and it is not how I work. Part of what a trip with me is worth is that I favour the quieter reserves, Timbavati and Klaserie among them, and hold vehicle numbers down wherever the decision is mine. That matters more than any amount of polish: it is what lets an animal get on with its day as though you had never arrived.
The Countries I Guide In, and What Each One Asks of You
Each country asks something different, and the difference is usually pace rather than difficulty. Two of the five do not have pages of their own yet, so treat those as a conversation starter rather than a finished route.
South Africa: Kruger, the Cape and the Reserves
The easiest place to begin · year-round
The most straightforward country to start in, and the easiest to combine with a city. Greater Kruger anchors most first itineraries, and the choice between Sabi Sands, Timbavati and Klaserie changes the safari more than a shared ecosystem suggests. Phinda adds reliable cheetah and a considerably lower malaria risk. Three nights works here. Nine to fourteen if Cape Town is in the trip.
Botswana: Water, Desert and Very Few Vehicles
Asks for time · fly-in or overland
Botswana is not built for convenience and does not pretend to be. Distances are real, most transfers are by light aircraft, and what you get back is so few other vehicles that you will often see none at all. Ten nights is the working minimum for two areas.
Zimbabwe and Zambia: Walking, Canoeing and the Falls
Victoria Falls is the hinge · partly seasonal
Almost every route here begins or ends at Victoria Falls, and what you attach to it decides the trip. Hwange for its elephants and predators in a private concession. Mana Pools for walking and canoeing on the Zambezi floodplain. The Busanga Plains for a short season in country very few travellers reach. Mana and Busanga both close for part of the year, which shapes the planning more than most people expect.
Uganda: Forest Trekking Rather Than Open Savannah
Guided, not yet published
I guide in Uganda too, and it is the one place on this page where the draw is primates on foot rather than plains game from a vehicle. Gorilla permits are capped daily and need securing well ahead. Nothing is published yet, so ask, and I will send it directly.
What Happens Between Your First Enquiry and a Confirmed Trip
You send me a wish list. I draft an itinerary against it and send it back to you.
Between those two steps is the part you do not see: checking what is actually available for your dates, choosing the lodges and experiences that suit how you travel, and building the itinerary from scratch rather than pulling a template off a shelf. A first draft is rarely the last. Most go through a round or two of small changes that make them yours, and I would rather spend that time before you commit than rearrange things afterwards.
If you already know roughly what you want, tell me and I will draft against it. If you do not, the two questions earlier on this page are where I start.
What My Guests Say About Travelling With Me on Safari
Most of what I’ve said on this page is my own account of how I work, so here is the other side of it. These are guests I’ve guided personally, in their own words. Read them for the specifics rather than the stars: the sighting that came off, the day that got rearranged and turned out better for it, the call made on the ground that they still remember.
The Questions People Ask Before They Choose a Journey
Three questions come up before almost anyone settles on a direction here: whether a set route can flex, whether I guide beyond the countries listed, and how short a safari can be and still be worth the trip. Here is where I land on each.
Three nights, and only in the right place. Greater Kruger works at that length because the reserves are compact and the camp sits inside the wildlife area, so you are not spending a day reaching it. Botswana and Zambia do not: the transfers alone would consume most of a short trip.
You can change any of it. The routes here are starting points that guests have already travelled, kept because they work rather than because they are fixed, and most guests move something: a night added, a reserve swapped, a city dropped. Tell me what does not fit, and I will rebuild around it.
Yes. I guide in Namibia and Uganda and hold itineraries for both, though neither has a page on the site yet. If either is in your thinking, ask, and I will send what I have, which is more useful at this stage than a published page would be.
Start Planning Your Custom African Safari Itinerary
Planning a custom African safari starts with a short note on who is travelling, roughly when, and what you most want to see. Tell me that, and I will come back to you directly, usually within a business day, with a first shape to react to.
Occasional notes from the field. Thoughts on planning, places I’m spending time in, and changes that actually matter when you’re thinking about a safari. I send it when there’s something worth saying.