Hi,
I'm in the process of planning a year-long round-the-world trip, in which we would be spending a significant amount of time (e.g., 60 days) in Africa. With respect to the rest of the trip, some pieces don't require much handholding (e.g., Tahiti, Australia), while others do (e.g., Morocco, the Pantanal, etc.). I'm trying to figure out whether to have one TA from a major agency handle the entire trip (for a fairly significant consulting fee, say, 1% - 2% of the cost of the trip), or to farm out pieces to TAs who specialize in particular areas, or at specialize in Africa. Any thoughts?
To put it differently, do you think it's okay to have a TA from a major U.S. travel agency handling the booking of our African safaris, our time in Madagscar, etc., or would it be better to have a specialist agency (e.g., ACC) handle that piece. The TA has apparently done a lot of work with African safaris in the past. Thanks very much.
jgold
General or specialist TA for African piece of RTW trip
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For 60 days, I would seek an Africa specialist. If Africa were a small part of your RTW trip, then I would consider the TA because they have Africa experience. For 2 months, I'd use a specialist.
That's kind of what I thought some might say, although I assume that the TA who would be handling the rest of the trip will not be excited about it. Presumably though he could work with another TA who handles the Africa piece, in terms of integrating it into the rest of the trip. Since we're interested in doing an individual (non-group) safari covering Bots/Tanz/Kenya/Uganda, are there any TAs that specialize in that sort of thing? Or is it just the usual suspects who are always mentioned on this board? I'm familiar with those names at this point, so I'm just asking if there's any subset I should be focusing on. Thanks again.
Adding cross-reference to related thread: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=4&tid=35094606.