just about set to reserve our trip and except 500 deposit we must pay balance of trip in cash or wire transfer with good earth. Is this normal and does anyone have a reason why we should not do this. One member of our private trip is very nervous about this.

Pretty much expected practice.

Ask to use a credit card and if willing to pay the % then do that.

We choose Roy because we could send a personal check in the US.

Are you in the US? If so, you should be able to mail Good Earth a personal check. They have an office in Tampa.

But it's very normal to wire transfer $$ for safaris. I did it for my gorilla trek in Rwanda and everything worked out fine.

Just about every company I looked at had the same policy - they don't want to pay the credit card company charges. Many tour companies are similar. I miss the protection of a credit card and the frequent flyer miles, but have gotten used to this. The key is to buy cancellation insurance that covers bankruptcy of the company. A great web site to compare policies and get quotes is www.insuremytrip.com

Giblum is absolutely right...that's one of the reasons you should buy insurance for this type of trip.

Yup. It's scary to send so much money based on nothing but a bunch of e-mails, but it's the way things are done. Travel insurance is your best defense.

Do check the rates at your bank for wire transfers - it can be rather expensive ($40). I found my brokerage firm to be quite a bit cheaper ($15) to do wire transfers.

Standard procedure. Washington Mutual offers free wire transfers with their free checking account but you must go into a branch to initiate it.

Just FYI, Premier Tours in Philly didn't charge us to use a charge card for the final balance, plus we got miles. Seems like a nickle-and-dime-ing to stick you with a %age when you're spending that much money with a company. Agree trip insurance a must, but that price goes down with a hard swallow too.
Leslie