Tanzania Safari w/tented camps?
 

I would like to book a 2 week safari for about 4 people for next summer, 2007. We really want to do something with the tented camps, like Thomson has. I wanted to know if there was anything cheaper out there than Thomson. Their safari with air will be almost $7000 pp! We would like to keep it to less than that. Any suggestions? We would like to do Tanzania and Zanzibar.

I feel certain that some of the local Tanzania operators (listed numerous times here, including Roys, Sunny, Good Earth, others) and even U.S. based agents (e.g., African Serendipity) can undoubtedly do a nice, private, 2-week, customized safari, for four people, for ground costs under $5,000, especially with some of that time being in Zanzibar.

I also suspect that some of the experts (of which I am not one) may recommend Kenya over Tanzania for a summer trip.

As noted above, any of the regularly mentioned safari outfitters (like Roys, Good Earth, etc...) can do a luxury mobile camping trip for you. You can even decide for yourself what level of luxury you want for yourself. The outfitter will secure a camping site in the various parks, and truck in all the supplies and set everything up. This sort of operation can get pricey given how much equipment and labor it takes to do this sort of thing.

Alternatively, you can book into various seasonal tented camps located in the various parks. You can have the tented camp experience without having to set everything up and break it down again.

We stayed at Exclusive Mobile Camping's tented camp in the Serengeti this past June, and it was a great experience. They had the large, luxury tents that Thomson uses, as well as, a dining tent. The bathrooms had flush toilets and bucket showers. The tents also had regular beds (not cots), rugs on the floor, night stands, solar powered lights, etc... But, it was definitely tent camping.

Check out go-safari.com for options in each park for seasonal tented camps and their rack rates. You should be able to put together a tented camp safari for less than Thomson is charging.

You can also take a look at Africa Adventure Company (in Florida) they have a trip that I was going to do in Tanz and Zanzibar that included some tented camping. It was called the North and South I think. I wanted to go this November- but due to health reasons, I had to wait till next year- :-(((