Browsing: Safari Vacations

The engine goes quiet a little after six, and for a moment nobody in the vehicle says anything.  Thirty yards off are four female lions and a scatter of cubs. None are doing anything you would call dramatic. One lifts her head, considers the vehicle with an expression that isn’t quite boredom and isn’t quite contempt, and puts her head back down. Other than the antics of the cubs, that’s the whole encounter,  it’s the …

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For decades, luxury safari sold access: dawn game drives, leopard sightings in marula trees, sundowners against a burning horizon. Now, for a certain kind of traveler, access means something else entirely. It means paying not simply to see wildlife — but to help keep it alive.

Across parts of South Africa, a new form of ultra-premium conservation tourism is emerging in which guests contribute substantial sums — often around US$15,000 on top of the cost …

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This year, South African Tourism is celebrating 100 years since the establishment of Kruger National Park. Kruger is one of the world’s great treasures, helping to preserve and protect some of Africa’s incomparable wildlife. Kruger makes the wildlife experience accessible to all.

I tend to agree with Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan’s assertion in their film and book on the National Parks that they were “America’s Best Idea”. One of the best, anyway.…

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Set within the dramatic sandstone folds of the Waterberg, Marataba Game Lodges—part of the MORE Collection—offer a compelling case study in conservation-led hospitality. Located within a privately managed concession of Marakele National Park, this 23,000-hectare partnership model has become one of South Africa’s most successful examples of ecological restoration driven by tourism.

A Wilderness Restored

Two decades ago, this corner of the Waterberg was ecologically fragile. Today, through a long-term collaboration between Marataba Game Lodges, …

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My son and I arrived at the Tarangire Treetops Safari Camp in the late afternoon. A day of safari through the Tarangire National Park had put us face to face with lions, elephants, baboons and a number of gazellelike creatures of varying types. It had been a terrific first day of exploring Tanzania’s Northern Circuit, and we were eager to see firsthand the camp we had heard so much about. As the Range Rover stopped, …

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