Africa: Reviews from our travellers

"Amazing thank you" Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"We are seasoned safari aficionados, this being our 11th trip but first to Rwanda and then on to the Northern Tanzanian circuit. We enjoyed the whole trip immensely and had many memorable sightings and generally excellent lodges and camps.

Rwanda. Words cannot describe the gorilla treks- we looked forward to them, read as much as we could before going and still the experience was overwhelming. This was a birthday treat for my wife and on her birthday we watched a large family of gorillas going about their business and interacting with us in an absolutely magical way. Expensive but worth every penny- just save and do it.

Rwanda practically. The lodge was great and Primate safaris were efficient, our driver friendly and efficient. The country was fascinating- a modern city in Kigali and so clean but subsistence agriculture elsewhere with not a tractor in sight. Very friendly people.


Northern Tanzania. We saw the migration, half of a Mara river crossing and an abundance of game in the Serengeti. I was dubious about going to such a popular destination but did not feel that there were too many vehicles in the area. A great lodge in Lemai.


Asilia were superb in looking after us from Manyara onwards. Manyara was fine but beware, the open part of the park is only a half day's game drive and although we did meet someone who had seen a lion, the famous tree climbing lions are not often seen nowadays - good bird life though.

Ngorongoro crater. Cold when we were there - heed the warnings and ensure you take something to ward off the morning cold. A magical place though with abundant game. The Lemala camp seemed like a disappointment but we felt that it might not have been if the weather had been better.

Tarangire; an excellent camp in Oliver's and good game in particularly birds

The general organisation of the trip was pretty faultless (until we returned to Heathrow to find the Stansted express we use for the last leg home was not running) Camps and Lodges and all the interconnecting bits and pieces all worked together really well. Each driver who met us had printed name boards to find us with and named folders of permits etc and it all worked really well. They were friendly, bright, witty and informative, full marks to Primate safaris and to Asilia safaris

Elizabeth at Expert Africa made helpful suggestions before we decided on where to go and organised it all quietly in the background, sending their final ticket pack and useful information booklets a week or two before we left. We will undoubtedly use them again" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 10 on a Tanzania safari

"Thanks to Ellie for making us a really nice trip that we would not forget." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 6 on a Tanzania safari

"EA did a great job of making all part of our trip work smoothly and integrate well.

The only wrinkle was that we were doing Namibia and Botswana, so we worked with two different team members at EA who had experience in each country in the earlier phases of trip planning (good), but neither of them seemed to take responsibility for the overall trip (the wrinkle) until we asked them to figure it out and put one person in charge of pushing things forward." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 7 on a Namibia trip

"We had an excellent time. No stress. Recreational value was high.
The sequence of the travel has been very well planned. The information was good.
All lodges were very nice. Each had a different attraction.
The staff and the guides were very friendly and patient.
We saw a lot of animals in different interactions.
The food was great (lots of home made cakes and desserts).

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We saw very little insects (also due to the season). Nevertheless I would recommend a white screen to attract them. So you could watch them in the evening." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 13 on a Zambia safari

"One of our best family holidays - loved Namibia! Amazing landscape, lovely people, animals, food and more. An adventure every day. Thank you for organising it for us!" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"Zambia is a fantastic country for a safari and offers good value for money. We were delighted with our overall itinerary as the 3 camps in different National Parks worked extremely well together.

All of the organisational aspects ran perfectly. We were particularly happy with you advice to take a direct charter from Mwaleshi to Old Mondoro as this saved us so much time – we were in a game vehicle at Old Mondoro by 9.30am. We also had the most remote room in each camp, not sure if this was a coincidence, but we were very happy about this nevertheless.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep doing what you are doing." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 11 on a Zambia safari

"This was an excellent holiday and very expertly arranged by Expert Africa! Megan was very helpful and efficient throughout.

The safari experience was unforgettable and the Seychelles a lovely relaxing set of islands to visit. Generally everything was of a very high quality and ran like clockwork. The minor glitches were all sorted efficiently and promptly.

We would (and indeed already have) recommend Botswana and the Seychelles to anyone and would especially praise and recommend Expert Africa. Thanks for helping us have a great trip and celebrating a special birthday in style!" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"A magical trip combining the wonder of Victoria Falls with the splendour of the Okavango Delta.

Beautiful countries, friendly and welcoming people, amazing wildlife and superb service. What more could anyone want!

Thank you Megan for all your time spent advising, sharing, deliberating and finally, once all of our many questions had been addressed, organising such a smoothly run trip. Thank you also to Expert Africa for the copy of Bradt Botswana - essential reading before the journey, and to Nick and the team for rearranging our flights when our itinerary had to be changed due to illness.

We will certainly be recommending Expert Africa to all of our friends.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

I cannot think of anything to improve your service but here's a few pieces of information that could be useful :-

At the Waterberry Lodge it's Weaver that has the bath not Swallow.

Tipping is always a difficult and personal issue but we followed and appreciated your advice . However Wilderness Safaris suggest up to three times the amount per person per day for general staff - Chitabe/Chitabe Lediba's guidelines were $10 - $15 per guest per day and Xigera recommended $10 per guest per day. This left us in a quandary! Whilst their service is indeed excellent we found their suggested amount excessive given the already high cost of the stay.

I'd asked about availability of robes in camps prior to our trip and can now happily report back that the above three Wilderness camps all supplied cosy fleece dressing gowns for those chilly winter mornings!

The price of a private vehicle with Kwando does not include a private boat whereas with Wilderness it does." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 14 on a Botswana safari

"The walking really put even the excellent drives of day one in the shade, absolutely made by the quality of Brent's guiding - incredibly knowledgable, great communicating style, and sensitive handling of group dynamics.

Only real reservations were the following.

The lack of a direct flight made the journey far more onerous than it need have been.

The advice re the need of warm clothing missed the mark for us. The temperatures were very comfortable at all times of day (and apparently typical for the time of year). I never needed more than a shirt from 5.30am until going to bed at 10pm! What this meant was that my luggage ( we were determined to take no more than hand luggage) was quite unnecessarily bulked, and weighted up with the warm clothing recommended.

However, this was a relatively minor annoyance when set against the superb overall experience. Your recommendation absolutely reflected what we had been looking for.

An afterthought. It might be helpful for you to know that I suffered no insect bites at all (and Nigel just one)' whereas others passing through from other camps elsewhere had been badly bitten by Tsetse flys." Read full review: 7 nights in Africa; 6 on a Zambia safari