Botswana with 2 children
 

We are just back from a fabulous 18 days trip to Namibia, including 4 days in Etosha Park. Saw tons of wildlife including lions and black rhinos but we missed the leopard and cheetah. We definitely want to go back to southern Africa focusing on these cats as first priority, then hippos crocs and the rest....
Our 2 children will be 12 and 6 years next August 2007 and we are wondering where/to which camp/safaris/game drives/boat tours to go for such game viewing considering that most of the camps/lodges have an age limit of 12 years !!!
Any info and suggestion from you experts would be highly appreciated !!!

Hi. Sorry I don't have any advice, but I would love some advice from you since you just got back with kids. We are scheduled to go on our first Safari in Sept. when our kids will be 5 years old. How did your younger child do on the game drives, etc.? Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks, Heather

Fabio,

Unfortunately, the lodges/tented camps in Botswana are not very children friendly. I'm sure your 12 yr old would be okay to go, but, not the 6 yr old.

But then, i don't know the answer to your question, so will allow other fodorites to answer this.......

Good luck

Hari

Hello,

Kwando safaris has special guides (Charels Sebaka/Lisa Reed) for family safaris (also with children less than 12 years old).(www.kwando.co.za)

Even at some wilderness camps (f.e. Chitabe trails) you can bring your children with but you have to book a private vehicle. They have family rooms over there. (www.wilderness-safaris.com).

Greetings,

Johan

thanks to all of you !

It seems wherever children are accepted they have to pay adult rates !

I will do a deeper research on the web. Just to make it easier I would kindly ask you to list your favourite camps/lodges according to the higher chance to see cats like cheetah and leopard. Then I will focus on them to find out whether or not they accept children under 12 !!

HLester3

Will your first safari with your kids be in Botswana or Namibia or somewhere else ?? You might give me some nice idea where to go !!

By the way, Etosha Park in Namibia is a very easy self-driving park so we did it entirely with our sedan 2x4 car.

While our 11 years old son was always 100% excited and alerted to spot wildlife from the car, our younger 5 years old daughter was at the beginning just partially interested. After all we had to stay several hours a day in the car without getting out of it except within the camps !
You have kids of the same age, 5 !
What we did during our game drives was to implement a kind of game and competition, who of us was able to spot unusual wildlife or birds first, having a small prize like little namibian coins, or something like that ! Somebody was looking at the right side, some other at the left and our daughter was much more enthusiastic and motivated to see wildlife and to beat her brother ! Of course zebras springboks, giraffes and other very common wildlife did not count, as they were anywere !!

At the end of the day time had passed so fast and everybody had fun !
We were just ourselves with no guide !

We had 2 other game drives with our rented car at the beautiful Daan Viljoen Park, near Windhoek and at Hardap Damm, near Mariental.
There are no predators there so we could also get out of the car sometimes to stretch our legs.

We then had 3 scenic/game drives with a guide and a 4x4, open deck with 9 seats, for 2 and half hours from the lodge in Kalahari Anib Lodge, at Namib Desert Lodge and also at Waterberg Plateau. We never had any problem with her and she did not let wildlife run by speaking loud or something like that. She asked a lot of questions and gave her comments. She had her own binocular !

However we had to explain her very carefully that nature also consists of kills among animals just to feed themselves and their cubs. This was when we saw a springbok be killed by a lioness at Okaukuejo waterhole just a few yards in front of us. Then also the lion came and they shared the meal for about 1 hour still very close to us. She was impressed but not shocked !

The last day at the airport she started crying and we did not know why !! She said she was so sorry to go back home and that she wanted to stay and see again all those animals !

We were also touched and promised her we would have come back again some day !

Hope to see your trip report in Sep !!

Have a wonderful trip !!

Fabi0

Does anyone else have any experience with children on safari?

We took our 14yr old son to Cape Town, Botswana, and VF back in 03. He really enjoyed the trip(other than the wineries) and if your children have a sibling or friend along, it will be even better.