HOW TO BOOK A SAFARI

Thinking about booking a safari?

If this is your first time going on a safari to Tanzania, then you are in for a real treat. A proper safari should deliver a truly life-punctuating set of experiences. But beware, it can become seriously addictive!

If you have been before, then welcome back; we very much look forward to helping you get back out in the bush!

What makes a good safari?

Booking a safari is so much more than driving around looking at animals. Beyond the mainstream, there lies an intimate world of remote and remarkable places, of special and exciting experiences, of wonderful and dedicated people.

What is a safari?

Some people think that going on a safari means riding around in vehicles looking at animals, but really it is so much more. A proper safari is a unique range of remarkable experiences which should truly have an impact on your life. A safari involves staying in the bush for usually 3 to 12 nights in places as diverse as simple tented camps to super-luxury lodges... all whilst undertaking a wide range of superb outdoor activities in vehicles, boats, aircraft, and on foot.

Safaris range from easy and comfortable trips to hardcore expeditions into remote and inhospitable country. A safari is a combination of a thousand little things: the smell of a campfire, the tracks around your tent, the music of the bush. It truly is a way of life.

But perhaps, most importantly, going on a safari is about spending time with the most dedicated people in the tourism industry: you will meet the local communities, the guides and staff at the camps, discovering that it is the people of Tanzania who make the experience so magical. Whoever you are, there should be a perfect Tanzania Safari Tour, one which will enrich your life. We are here to help you find or create that trip.

Booking a great safari in Tanzania should be easy and fun.

We are here to help you to access the wonderful world of safari. There’s no hard sell or hassle, just safari people chatting about what we love.

A Little Bit About Sababu Safaris:

We are a small team and we are absolutely passionate about safari and the people that call Tanzania home. We are very proud that our little company has managed to make a difference in so many people's lives. We believe that genuine hands-on expertise and experience are critical when building a quality safari with a purpose.

We have lived and worked in Tanzania, guiding safaris, driving safari vehicles and running operations. All of us have had our lives transformed by the country's remarkable animals, landscapes and cultures.... and we love to share these things with our families, our friends and our guests.

We are here to help you create an immersive, authentic, and better value safari, and we aim to deliver that with levels of service, expertise and ethics far beyond the usual expectations of a regular travel company. We very much hope that you will want to have us on your team and will give us a chance to show you all that Tanzania has to offer! If you like, you can read more about us.

How a safari works.

All our safari trips are carefully customized and tailor-made so at some point we'll need to learn a little bit about you and your ambitions for your trip. This is much easier and simpler than it sounds. Once you have had a quick chat with us, we will be able to efficiently guide you through the various safari types helping you identify the perfect trip.

A few notes on how the whole process works:

Our aim is, quite simply, to help you discover and create the perfect safari trip. We will help you get beyond the mainstream tourist trails, to experience a real Tanzania safari. You can choose to make it more authentic, more adventurous, more luxurious, better value... whatever you want it to be. When you get in touch with Sababu Safaris, you'll be able to have a relaxed chat with someone with serious first-hand knowledge of the places you want to visit.

From there, we should be able to quickly narrow down the enormous range of options into a more digestible selection of tailor-made sample trips. Since our company is completely independent, we are able to offer you unbiased advice on all the safari lodges and camps in Tanzania. We regularly inspect all these lodges, so that we can help you make properly informed choices when booking your safari. We will make sure you get to the best and most suitable properties, connected in the most efficient and enjoyable fashion.

It usually takes a few rounds of fine-tuning until we have arrived at the best possible solution for you. You can rely on us for a completely open and honest dialogue throughout. There's no hard sell, just safari people chatting about what we love.

And there is no obligation on your part. You only need to commit to paying a deposit if and when you are completely happy with your safari itinerary and you would like to move forward. The vast majority of our guests find this process fun and easy; it’s an integral part of the great experience of going on safari.

We're your local safari experts.

Your choice of safari company will be absolutely critical to the success of your trip. There are many safari operators and agencies out there and it is not easy to find one that works best for you.

Sababu Safaris is a local operator, meaning that we do not outsource and instead handle all our safari operations ourselves to provide a personal experience and to fully have control over the quality of the safari experience we offer.

We have all lived, worked and/or traveled extensively in Tanzania. Our co-founder Robert has guided top safaris across the country for almost 20 years! All of us know the world of safaris inside out. We are passionate, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and efficient, and we genuinely want you to have the time of your life when you book your safari with us!

Traveling With Purpose.

It’s crucial to understand that conservation in Tanzania is utterly dependent on sustainable tourism. Your visit will inherently make a positive contribution to the protection of the wonderful places and animals that you visit as well as the communities you will get to know along the way.

WHY WE DO IT

We are ruled by a burning desire to help protect the magical places and support the communities that we love.

In Tanzania, environmental tourism is a significant source of income for conservation. It is sustainable tourism that will provide vast, permanent and sustainable habitats for the future for the country's lions, elephants, and giraffes. But conservation can only happen if local communities are involved and taken into consideration. We want you to get to know the animal world as well as the beautiful people that make the country what it is... And to give back at the same time.

We are very much focused on the authenticity and sustainability benefits of your trip. Our mission is to deliver breathtaking and remarkable safari experiences in Tanzania that you cannot wait to broadcast to your family, friends, and colleagues. In this way, you inadvertently become an ambassador, spreading the word about conservation and community work in Tanzania.

And a word about prices.

Good safari trips can range from USD 3,000 to USD 50,000 per person, depending on the ingredients you choose.

So we at Sababu Safaris have enormous flexibility when personalizing a trip to meet your target budget. We really do know the ropes and will do everything we can to make sure you get the best possible safari for the price. Costs vary year round, as the safari conditions and guest demand vary. Clearly, the most cost-effective thing to do is take advantage of periods when the experience remains strong but lower demand causes prices to dip. Another key to getting the most for your budget is to be as flexible as possible on locations and timing in order to have the best chance of finding great value.

The most expensive part of your trip will almost certainly be the core safari nights. A safari can be costly for many reasons — it is a rare and over-demanded commodity but it is very small scale and logistically expensive to operate. Perhaps, most importantly, in most safari countries taxes on travel are extraordinarily high. The money that you spend pays for the conservation of these amazing places and contributes in a major way to wider infrastructure and welfare projects. Safaris can be a massive force for good in Africa.

More expensive safaris tend to offer more remote and wild areas, lower visitor densities, smaller and more intimate lodges/camps, higher levels of service and reliability, and higher levels of comfort and luxury. However, it is not always the case that a more expensive safari is a better safari. There are plenty of higher cost locations which surf on their reputation without delivering and there's a fair few middle and lower cost locations which over-deliver on expectations.

Once we have some kind of handle on your budget, we will be sure to get you to the best and most appropriate Tanzania safari experiences and accommodation.