Sabi Sands or Phinda... please help!!
 

Me and my fiancee are going to South Africa and Botswana for our honeymoon this coming december.
We only have 20-23 days for the trip, and the more I study the countries the more places I want to visit!! I cannot decide which places to leave out. If you are experienced with southern Africa...PLEASE HELP!! =)

My dream itinerary would be something like:
1.-Victoria Falls (Tongabezi Safari Lodge or Royal Livingstone Hotel) ?
2.-Botswana Okavango Delta (Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp or Vumbura Plains)?
3.-Cape Town
4.-Rent a car and drive through the Garden Route. Maybe spend a couple of days?
5.-Phinda (Vlei Lodge, Mountain Lodge, Forest Lodge?)
6.-Drakensberg Mountains (I dont know where but at least on internet pictures the place looks amaaaaazing!!)
7.-Sabi Sand (Leadwood lodge. If I still have a budget, is Singita really worth it?)

I need to cross out parts of my itinerary...I cant decide which. I've never been to Africa before and everything looks spectacular in the internet.


PS
If I had to choose between Phinda and Sabi Sand...What would you advice me?


Thakyou in advance...=)

Tatiana

I'd go for Sabi Sands. Phinda is cool, but imho there's no comparison between Phinda and a huge open area as the Kruger.

I don't know about your choices in the 'Sands though. Leadwood is in that west-block of the 'Sands, furthest away from Kruger borders. It's not so much for the animals; you will still see plenty because of the river. Although I don't know if buffalo herds get that close to the borders. It's more about the light pollution at night etc.
Singita is better then, but soooo expensive. Some people will say it's worth it, but I guess it depends on your budget. Personally, I think there's better to be had.

In the 'Sands I'd rather go for the northern block. Plenty of affordable lodges sharing traverse there. Like Elephant Plains and Arathusa. Map here (hover over it with your mouse to see traverse); http://www.sunsafaris.com/south-afri...abi-sands-map/
There's also other reserves close to Kruger, offering similar things, but less known and therefor (on average) more affordable. Like Timbavati and Klaserie. Map here; http://www.sunsafaris.com/south-afri...uger-reserves/

Happy travels!

J.

Tatiana, Congratulations on your pending marriage, and choosing Africa for your honeymoon.

I would suggest:

My dream itinerary would be something like:

Johannesburg. 1 night

Botswana Okavango Delta Vumbura Plains. 3 nights

Cape Town. 2 nights

Rent a car and drive through wineries of Stellenbosh/Franshoek. 4 nights

Continue and drive through the Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth . 4 nights

Phinda Forest Lodge. 3 nights

Sabi Sand Leadwood lodge 3 nights

Johannesburg 1 night

For the Garden Route and Wineries, I always use www.portfoliocollection.com to get ideas for small boutique properties.

Let us know how you go.

RWA

To answer your specific question, if you have to choose, pick Sabi Sands over Phinda all day long. Suggest Mala Mala rather than Leadwood for your first Sabi experience.

Definitely Sabi Sands over Phinda. The northern block as pointed out above is good and Elephant Plains is one of the most affordable lodges in SS. Also for a honeymoon they have stunning accommodations with everything you would want except a private plung pool. My experience was the animal viewing and the guiding was top notch. However due to all this be aware EP is very popular and gets booked quickly.

On to Botswana. In my opinion it's not with going for only 3 days. Go for 6 and do two camps such as VP and Chitabe (Wilderness Safaris) and/or Little Kwara ( Kwando). Otherwise just stay in South Africa.

Thank you pixelpower! What do you mean by "pollution at night"? Why do you recommend the northern block more? Will I see more animals there?

Thankyou for your reply Road Africa Warrior.
I see you eliminated the Drakensberg Mountains, and gave a lot of time to Garden Route and Wine Lands.
Are the mountains not really worth it?

902alert!
I reaaaly hope we can afford it!! I've heard great things about it...

"Are the mountains not really worth it?"
Depends. Where are you from? If you've ever seen the Alps or Canadian Rockies or Yosemite or Durango CO, or Grand Tetons, or Rocky Mountain Nat Park, or any of the other famous world mountainous areas - no the Drakensberg Mountains are not worth going out of your way to see.

regards - tom

Hey Tatiana,

I meant; light pollution of course. But if you stay at some lodges (even very expensive ones like Ulusaba), you might also hear barking dogs or traffic at night. Not at Leadwood though. The northern block is further away from civilization, that's why I recommended it over the western block.

Animals; due to the proximity of the Sand river there shouldn't be much difference, although... well I know that animals like elephants and buffalo are seen a bit less near the edges of the reserve.

Another tip; if you really want to go for Singita Boulders, book it through a local (South African) TA like Sun Safaris. It will cost less that way.

Ciao,

J.

Pixel Power,
That was a great explanation. I got the idea perfectly!! Thankyou for the advice. I will stick to the northern block, and if I can afford it, I´ll try Singita with Sun Safaris.

One more question...if I choose one of the expensive ones...would you recomend Singita or Londolozi?

Tatiana

cary999 -Tom
I'm from Mexico but I do go a lot to Colorado.
Thankyou for the advice!!! I am going to leave the Drakensberg mountains for a second trip.

Tatiana

902 Thanks!! I´ll get in touch with them tonight!!

Hey Tatiana,

Honestly, I'd go for Lonodolozi then. But that's a personal thing. Londolozi was the first property in that area to go the ecotourism way, if I recall correctly. You may want to read Dave Varty's "Full Circle". Amazon's got it for sure.

Ciao,

J.

pixelpower

Mala Mala were the first to go the ecotourism way followed by Londolozi and Sabi Sabi. Singita fell into the fold when CC Africa was formed. I know this as when I started Taga Safaris way back in 1994 I personally visited all these lodges.

I think when choosing a lodge one must look at the level of luxury they want as the safari experience (IE Game Drives) are really all the same and truly does come down to luck. The Western Sector can and often does become crowded with 7 lodges sharing traversing rights, however I have had amazing sightings there.

Londolozi is not a Northern Lodge, it is a central Lodge shared in that respect with Singita, Utah and Mala Mala although traversing rights are limited.

IMO it really boils down to a persons budget and there are a few lodges that do offer extremely good value for money like Elephant Plains and Arathusa although 3 in a seat is not to my liking.

In ending off I would recommend Mala Mala Main Camp as the best average priced and certainly best game viewing lodge in the Sabi Sands.

Yours on Safari
Mark
Taga Safaris Africa

We've stayed at Singita Boulders, Singita Castleton Camp, Mala Mala Main Camp,Lion Sands, and Phinda. Of those, Phinda was our favorite,Lion Sands second and Mala Mala and Singita about even. Personally, after our 2nd visit to Singita we decided that it's not worth the extra money to us. The animals in the Sabi Sands region are going to be the same everywhere. So pick a place that has the atmosphere and accomodations you like. Singita was a little stuffy for us. Phinda was a blast!We loved all the people there.

agswimmer

Extremely well said. This is exactly what I have been trying to convey to my guests over the past 18 years. One man's meat is another man's poison. We all know that saying, yet so many people flock to the travel forums for advise not knowing the taste the poster has and get extremely confused. I have always said and even posted it here that if all of us here went to a restaurant we would definately not all order the same food.

I think I have said it plainly and what makes a good operator is understanding the needs of your guest first and foremost.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone

Yours on Safari
Mark
Taga Safaris Africa

As others have suggested, I would choose Sabi Sands. I stayed at Exeter River Lodge in the Sabi Sands and at Phinda Mountain Lodge back in 2008. Phinda was great, and I had some good sightings of Cheetah which are rare in the Sabi Sands, but I found that the Mountain Lodge was a bit too large for my tastes. With 25 rooms, there were quite a number of large tour groups cycling through the lodge during my stay. I'm finding that I prefer the smaller camps, like Exeter River Lodge where there were only 8 rooms and the experience is more personal.

Now there you go, that's exactly what I am talking about.

The forums are great to read others experiences but when it comes down to planning your safari you need an experienced and reputable tour operator of which there are quite a few.

Yours on Safari
Mark

Agree with Mark. A good agent has a lot of first hand experience with what they are talking about. And they will ask you questions to determine what you want/expect, and compare many variables for you. Like camp size, as lifelist says above. You mention around 9 places to visit, the agent will arrange the many many details required for transfers/transportation. And give you a single point of contact for any difficulties that may arise.

regards - tom

>> Mala Mala were the first to go the ecotourism way followed by Londolozi and Sabi Sabi.

Mark,

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. If you read Varty's book it's as if he was the first to try "a form of safari without hunting". Been a while since I read it, but I still remember that their first customers were soaked because of heavy rains and barely saw anything.

Anyway, it's not that important. Much more important is the information about differences between north, east, central and south Sabi Sands. Good input in this thread! The animals may be the same, but the time you can spend with them, the number of jeeps at any sighting, the number of rooms in a camp etc etc ...that all is very different when you start comparing lodges.

And also true; a TA can help a lot narrowing the choices down. However, I would like to add that regular customers (such as people on this very board) can also give good input in terms of what you can expect at a certain lodge.

To follow a TA blindly is not the smartest thing to do. The best thing to do is to get as many sources of info as possible, and then decide. We should not forget a TA often pushes towards an accommodation a bit higher than was initially required. One technique is to "create" problems and then solve them.

"are you sure you want to sit in a vehicle with 9 other people?"
"Why? Is that bad?"
"Well it can be annoying for photography, etc etc... There's lodges where the maximum is 6"
"Oh, get me one of those then"

...while I'm often thinking; "it's their first safari, and straight away these people are going for one of the best formulas (*), so the number of people per vehicle shouldn't be of much concern, they don't even know the difference."

Ciao,

J.

(* a private reserve, with off road driving, FGASA lvl 3 guides, quite luxurious rooms, etc... compared to going to a National Park, with standard rooms in a restcamp, no off roading, less experienced guides.)

pixelpower

Nice post, although I disagree with what a TA pushes for monetary value. That does not make a good TA. Thats a greedy idiotic TA who has no idea of what value their reputation is.

Yours on Safari
Mark

Well let's agree to disagree then :-)

In my view, I see that most customers are one-timers (as opposed to safari-nuts like myself), and that these people interpret TA messages quite differently. A message like "you may not like X or Y and have a bit of bad luck with Z, but you could opt for a better camp which is a bit more expensive" is more often than not interpreted as "this TA is making sure I get the best of the best". And as they don't go to Africa a 2nd time (let alone choose a different TA), they will never know whether the things the TA said on X Y and Z are actually true. IOW the TA's reputation goes up, not down, because of the way he "helped" his customer.

Things like this should happen less on this board, as you'd expect more safari-nuts here, helping other people out. But as I see that the threads on this board are not a reflection on the total African safari offering (not even by a long shot), I can only conclude that TA's are still doing a good job. Sometimes it's as if only high-end camps exist.

Ciao,

J.

Here is something our family did a few years back. Take a lookj for ideas. We did not spend much as we self-drove the entire thing, but it can give you ideas of what to expect and perhaps aid in some planning:

http://www.cokesmithphototravel.com/...rica_2009.html

pixelpower

You are confusing. I implied that a TA who pushes expensive camps to clients instead of taking their budget or needs into account are not good TAs

Yours on Safari
Mark

cokesmith

Just checked out your blog and had goose pimples as I recognised all the places. That must certainly have been a Trip of a Lifetime. FANTASTIC!

Yours on Safari
Mark

Sabi Sands is such a reliable game-viewing location that we try to include it on any trip that we make to Africa. So I agree with people who are saying to go to Sabi Sands over Phinda. (I also agree with leaving the Drakensbergs til another time).

We had one trip in Sabi Sands where there were 10 people in a game viewing vehicle - 3 across 3 seats and one beside the ranger. The person on the left couldn't see what was going on to the right of the vehicle and vice versa. People in the middle, bummer either way. We hated it.

On that trip, we decided that we would never again spend all the money to get to Africa and then nickle and dime (relatively speaking) on accommodation to end up with 3 people across a seat. So, for us now, the biggest factor in our choice of game lodge is only 2 people across a seat (and the second factor is which lodge has what deal going at the time). In terms of 2 across a seat, some lodges will guarantee it, some can't guarantee it but you'd be unlucky to get more than 2 across and some budget on 3 across a seat, I guess.

Our current favourite lodge if they have a deal going is Exeter Dulini. They have 6 cabins and 2 vehicles so the math works out to no more than 2 across a seat. Leadwood I think have 4 cabins and 1 vehicle so the math works out to more than 2 across a seat though I heard that they were going to start only renting 3 cabins unless a group booked out the whole lodge - so if they do that Leadwood would also be good - and we'd probably look at staying there next time. If not, I'd pick Exeter Dulini ahead of Leadwood for that reason alone.

Exeter River Lodge is large and you run the risk of 3 across a seat there too.

We've been to lots of Sabi Sands lodges where there were no more than 2 across a seat: Londolozi Tree Camp a few times (lovely accommodation and great game viewing). As for the Main Camp (or whatever it's called now) at Londolozi , the accommodation seemed to be a bit jammed up for our taste so we've never wanted to stay there.

Mala Mala (stayed once) has in my view average accommodation, and great game viewing, but I felt smothered by the ranger as he was always present, including at most, if not all, meals - too much interaction for me and I felt obliged to buy him pre-dinner drinks, which was a bit irritating.

Singita Boulders (stayed twice) has fabulous accommodation, lovely luxuries and surprises, and great game viewing but I've decided now it's not worth the extra money. We went to Singita Ebony for lunch and looked at the rooms which weren't as nice as the Singita Boulders ones - a bit too inward looking for our taste.

We like to be able to look out from the room and see a nice view (preferably with animals too), which Exeter Dulini, Londolozi and Singita Boulders provide. Mala Mala doesn't really. I wouldn't go back to Mala Mala, unless it was a lot cheaper than Exeter Dulini. If you choose to splurge at Singita, Boulders is terrific but ask for a cabin overlooking the river.

I've also enjoyed Kirkman's Kamp when it had a deal though its accommodation is a number of notches down from Exeter Dulini, Londolozi Tree Camp and Singita. Wouldn't stay at Djuma again because of the numbers in the vehicles. Leopard Hills has lovely accommodation but again the maths of the number of rooms and vehicles means a risk of more than 2 across a seat. We haven't stayed at Ulusaba but have heard that there are issues about noise from a nearby town, as a previous comment noted. We've stayed at Notten's Bush Camp, which has nice accommodation (candles rather than electric lights), great food, great game viewing, a nice spa and is a lovely family-run camp with quite reasonable rates (well, reasonable in the Sabi Sands context), but it's hard to get in and there is a risk of more than 2 across a seat.

In terms of travel agents, we've had good deals in South Africa with go2africa (a South African travel agent) and for Botswana with Expert Africa (based in the UK), who have a great website. (We live in New Zealand). For &beyond lodges, you'll get a better deal from go2africa than from &beyond direct, which has always struck me as rather odd, but what do I know!

One thing to watch for is stay for x nights but pay for y deals (eg stay 4 nights pay for 3). Or stay at 2 lodges and get a night free. &beyond often has this sort of deal and other lodges may too. As I said, we look for the best deal, the numbers across a seat and choose which lodge has the best offering at the time.

In December, it will probably be wet. The lodges give you ponchos that provide good cover but often my bottom ends up wet. I recommend taking some rain pants to wear over your shorts to keep your bottom dry.

The game viewing at Sabi Sands is truly wonderful. Have a great trip.

Hey Mark,

Oh OK, sorry, I somehow thought you said that this didn't happen here.

pixelpower - Cool, no problem

Tapata1 - Very nice post. Experience certainly does count.

Yours on Safari
Mark

Thanks Taga_Safaris. It was my first post!! :-)

Tapata1

Only a pleasure.

Yours on Safari
Mark

ttt

There are so many good posts here about differences between Sabi Sands and Phinda. However I have failed to see any one comment on the differences of what you might see. If you want to see cheetah and black rhino, go to Phinda. If you want to see leopard, go to Sabi Sands. Phinda has excellent accommodations and it is worth seeing.

In Sabi Sands, I have been to Djuma, Londolozi, Exeter Leadwood and Lion Sands, and Tinga in Kruger. Of those, I highly recommend Lion Sands and Londolozi with Tinga a close third.

You can expect excellent leopard and lion viewing anywhere in Sabi Sands, but seeing cheetah is a big hit and mostly miss.

There are lodges in Sabi Sands I have not visited either because they are too expensive or I have issues with management style. Since you have plenty of choices, you will not be disappointed with Sabi Sands.

Mike