Need help with first time SAFARI trip
 

greetings travelers!

we are fairly new to this message board and have been reading posts to get information on our upcoming trip. we're still a bit unsure of what to do, so we're hoping that those of you who have had experience with travel in africa can help.

my husband and i have some time this april (4/5-15/07) and we wanted to go on a safari. preferrably 10-12 days in either Tanzania or Kenya. but after some research, we found that april is the high rain season.

so our questions are:

1. would it be possible to see great wildlife during the 2-3nd week of april? we are especially interested in seeing rhinos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, leopards, zebras (not that interested in the birds or monkeys).

2. keeping in mind that we want to see the above animals, what would be the best area to go to see them in april? if Tanzania or Kenya is not a good area during april to see wildlife, what other areas would be good (if any during april)?

3. if there are no areas that is good to see the animals we want to see, what is a good/ideal time to go? and where? we might push this trip back if april is not ideal.

4. we were thinking that if africa is not a good time to go see wildlife in april, we might visit egypt instead. if so, can anyone recommend a tour or cruise?

5. and lastly, if april is ok for a safari, can you recommend a tour/company to go with?

thank you so much for your help!
jnk

Jnk,

Here’s a link for best times to see wildlife.
http://www.go-safari.com/Serengeti/serengeti.htm

That should assist with #1-#3

Sorry, no help on Egypt.

#5
Some Africa specialists that have been used with success by Fodorites:

Africa Adventure-US
Africa Serendipty-US
Africa Travel Resource-UK
Eastern & Southern Safaris-Kenya
Good Earth-US
Green Footprints-Tanzania
Micato-US
Roys-Tanzania

These companies do custom private safaris. Micato is mostly groups. Africa Adventue does both private and group departures.

Overseas Adventure Travel, and Globus do group trips all over the world. There have been good reports on them.

Check out this index of East Africa trip reports put together by Lynda
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34860283

We just came back from Tanzania and used Green Footprints. I highly recommend them. They can answer all of your questions if you email them directly. We have travelled all over the world and used various agencies/operators and were extremeley impressed with the service offered by this company.

This is an old post... jnk, did you get to go to Africa or Egypt?

bump

To add to the above list
The Eriksen Adventure.
Some of my friends and I have used them for Kenya Safari,Its a small company based in Nairobi think the owner is either a Norwegian or a swede.