enlehman76

I am looking to book either private or group day tours for my 4 day stay in Capetown and 2 day stay in Livingstone-Vic Falls? Any recommendations on which tour operators to use vs just booking through the hotel/TA?

ShayTay

Selwyn at www.ilovecapetown.com is a regular contributor here. He's gotten high marks by travelers who have used his services for the Cape Town area. Recently, he won an international award for being one of the top guides in the world.

I've not stayed on the Zambian side of Vic Falls, but I would imagine your hotel could set up any tours you'd want.

enlehman76

My husband and I have four full days in Capetown and one of them is being reserved for shark diving. What do you all recommend that we cna squeeze into the other 3 days? We are 31 and move fast, even though we want to fully enjoy ourselves, and do not want to miss anything. We are not renting a car and are staying at the VA waterfront. Should we wing this on our own or do planned tours? We are not the "group toursy" type (is that even a word?) so not sure if we can do on our own. Thank You for the suggestions!

ekscrunchy

During 6 days in Cape Town, we had a private guide, Charlie Ratcliffe. He has his own vehicle. I recommend him very highly:

[email protected]

tacos10

I'm not sure if Shearwater operates on the Zambia side, but I used them for a few activities on the Zim side and they were great.

Poppins

Yes, congratulations Selwyn, heard you on the radio! Awesome.

For day tours in Cape Town you can either join a package type tour, which is the cheaper option but less personal. A good company for that is Ilios Travel who you can contact on [email protected]

But a much better way to see the city is with a personal guide who takes you to the best places and who gives you personalised attention. This is what Selwyn does.
And Charlie Ratcliffe who is also a superb guide. With either of these two you can't go wrong.

In Zambia I use Bushtracks for transfers and tours. You can contact them on [email protected]

enlehman76

I would prefer to do private tours but am concerned about the cost (will only 2 of us) and safety---please do not misconstrue this word---my husband has concerns about going to SA/Zambia in general so it seems like a group tour would feel more "safe" but obviously less personal. I on the other hand am not concerned--- but I have only traveled out of the US to the UK and France which are very safe places.

Thembi

I cannot give a reccomendation about a potential tour operator - but I can provide some information about Shearwater that tacos10 mentioned.

Their animal handling practices and care is appaling - elephants captured from the wild in the most barbaric way, death of captured elephants, lion program that will not provide straight answers on where their "human habituated" young lions go when they are too old and dangerous to stay with the walk out with the lions tourist activity.... this is a company with very questionable ethics and care. It is up to us not to support them while these practices are in place.

In a news update here from The Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce News - December 10 2007: Johnny Rodriguez talks about Shearwater's capture of wild elephants earlier this year for use in their Elphant encounters of tourism.

"In November last year, Shearwater Adventures shocked elephant lovers all over the world when they captured 12 juvenile elephants from their herds in Hwange National Park, traumatizing not only the juveniles, but their families as well. Since then, we have had several reports of cruelty towards the young elephants and we now believe that one of the elephants escaped and 4 have died in captivity."


The entire Zimbabwe Taskforce News can be read here.
http://safaritalk.net/index.php?showtopic=1630#

luangwablondes

Look in Google the size of Livingstone. Its really more of a town. Wherever you plan on staying, they will have an agent normally to sign up for the things you want to do. You can actually just visit a few sites and see that everyone uses just about all the same companies. And if you want arrange what you like to do now, white water rafting, skeet, bungi jump, horse back riding, heliocopter or plane or microlite over the falls, visit Mikumi village, to name a bunch.

hills27

I'm close to your age and toured Cape Town with Selwyn for almost four days in August, and I can't recommend him highly enough. It would have taken us three times as long on our own to learn and see what we did with Selwyn.

I also felt completely, 100% safe with Selwyn. He's very safety conscious. But I always feel less of a target traveling incognito in a small group with a highly experienced guide than with a big group in a flashy van or bus.

I'd email Selwyn and talk to him about tour options and costs. I think you'll find that his pricing is very reasonable (about 30% less than the rates our TA gave us). And a good portion of his fee gets invested in his charitable project, so you'll feel good too.